Just beyond Dolenja Vas, there is fork in the road toward Kočevje (Gottschee) City. The branch-off to the right leads to the “Hinterland” a narrow valley nestled between mountain ranges but at an altitude higher than the plain of the “Mainland”. It is not altogether unlikely that a part of the group of settlers coming from Franconia/Thuringia or a part of another such group coming from elsewhere took this fork toward Grčarice, which was to become Masern, their village for the next 600 years.
 
Others went beyond Grčarice toward the neighboring Gotenica which became Göttenitz. Still others went beyond Göttenitz, ever deeper into what was then a prime forest.
 
In 1363, the village of Göttenitz became a parish. This is indicated in a letter dated May 1, 1363 from Ludwig della Torre, the Patriarch of Aquileia, to Otto VI of Ortenburg, the aristocrat of Lower Carniola. The letter directed the Count to appoint a resident chaplain to Göttenitz and thereby raise the village to the status of a parish.

The elevation to parish status implies that Gotenica (Göttenitz) was a village for some time before 1363 and that the population there and in its surrounding settlements such as Grčarice (Masern) had grown to a point where spiritual care could no longer be effectively provided out of parish of Ribnica (Reiffnitz), the Archdiocese of Lower Carniola since 1082.
 
Masern, only 4.5 km from Göttenitz and until then under the parish of Reiffnitz, was transferred to the new parish. And from then on, the priest in Göttenitz took care of the spiritual needs of Masern. This priest, being closer and more easily accessible spoke their language, whereas the priests in Reiffnitz could, beyond saying their Latin Mass, communicate with them only in a limited way.

Masern remained under the Göttenitz parish until 1741 when it was returned to Reiffnitz, which in turn placed it under the Slovene parish of Dolenja Vas as a sub-parish in 1767, where it remains until now.

- - - -

The early history of Grčarice (Masern) comes from the pages of the Kočevski Zbornik (Gottschee Anthology) compiled by the Slovene Association of St. Ciril and Metod in Ljubljana in 1939. It is a scholarly study of the area and its inhabitants and meticulously lists its sources, many of them recognized authorities such as Valvasor, Grothe, Hauffen, Schroer , etc.

The Zbornik states that in 1498, 135 years after the village of Göttenitz was raised to parish status, Masern appears for the first time as a village in a Register called  Das Vrbar des ambts Riegkh.  (The Land Record of the Community Rieg). The Zbornik describes the Vrbar on page 71.

“The Vrbar is bound in reddish colored parchment stuck to paper. At the top of the binding is written: Rieck vnd Sichelberg. /… /. The writing is on hand produced paper.  It has 48 written pages, with one additional being smaller and one added later /... /. It is located in file 12 under inscription Sichelburger Lehensbriefe. 1644 - 1706.”
 
The Vrbar was kept by the tax collector for the “Hinterland” who resided in “Riegkh”, the present day Kočevska Reka (Rieg), another village in the forest, six km beyond Göttenitz. Now, it is in the vaults of the National Archives in Ljubljana. This Vrbar mentions Masern as a tax-paying village and lists twelve owners of one-half “Hube” each.  It also shows how they were taxed.
 
The initial land awarded by the Ortenburg Count to a settler was a unit called a “Hube” or Hide in English. According to the Zbornik, the size of a Hide was not uniform; it was different in various parts of the settlement area.  In Göttenitz, it was 90 hectares.  In Masern a Hide consisted of 55.16 hectares or 136 Acres.  The initial Hide did not include the common lands such as pastures, watering holes, or village centers. Nor did it include the forest, which remained the domain of the Count, but could be used by the settlers for needed construction lumber and firewood.
 
The listing of twelve owners of a half Hide in 1498 implies that the population of Masern had grown substantially after 1363, forcing the settlers to split the original Hide in half. The split in turn implies that there were six families who received a full Hide when they settled in Grčarice sometime before 1363 when Göttenitz became a parish. With 4.5 generations covering the span of 135 years (1363 to 1498) at 30 years per generation, the conclusion that Grčarice was settled by the new arrivals before 1363 can be justly defended.

That Grčarice existed in 1363 or even before is further supported by the fact that the settlement was a meeting hub of several roads out of the deeper forest, one of the main sources of lumber for the region of Lower Carniola. Due to this strategic location, all transporters of lumber had to pass, until today, through Grčarice. This strategic hub of roads may also be the reason why this small village had, even in 1941, three taverns serving as a rest and watering stop for the drivers and horses of long columns hauling lumber out of the forest.

- - - -

In 1563, Archduke Carl Habsburg ordered a land survey of Lower Carniola, one of his dominions, which he mortgaged to local aristocrats.  The Archduke ordered the survey to verify the reported growth in the region from which he could re-assess his taxation.  This also included the Kočevje (Gottschee) enclave.

This extensive land survey produced a register named the Urbar Register der Stadtt Gotsche, Anno 1564. As a result of the survey, the Archduke raised the enclave taxes by 26,160 Florins, an increase that was strongly protested by the Count von Blagay, the mortgage holder since 1547, causing a reduction to 15,000 Florin. 36  This Register, also in the State Archives, shows that even in 1564 there were still only twelve owners of one half-Hide each in Masern. Its land status had not changed in the 66 years since 1498. But it appears that the population of the village had increased substantially.
 
Sometime after 1564, the Blagays made their own assessment to verify the findings of the Archduke and determine in which of their villages the population had increased and through such growth was capable of clearing more of the forest.  The Urbar Gottschee, Ao 1568  shows this. (Ownership of the enclave mortgage had been split among three Blagays, with Countess Elisabeth getting the Masern part).

The assessment found that the population of the village had indeed increased and consequently, five and one half additional Hides were leased to Masern residents in 1613, thereby increasing the taxation by the Blagays. The increase brought the total land in the village to eleven and one half Hides, a number that remained constant for the next 264 years.

The survey also showed that property splits elsewhere in the enclave had lowered the taxable productivity of the land. As a result, further splits of land could be made only with the approval of the Count.

- - - -

More information on Masern is provided by the Therezijanski Kataster of 1752.

This Register now shows seven and five eighths Hides owned by twenty three owners and three and seven eighths Hides leased to twelve renters. Together this again adds up to eleven and one half Hides.  It shows that ownership increased from the original six Hides to seven and five eighths, indicating that one and five eighths released for rental had already been converted to ownership.

In 1770 Empress Maria Theresa ordered a recruiting census of all males and a count of all urban and rural dwellings. This census shows that at that time there were thirty eight houses in Masern. Unfortunately, the number of males living in the village is not listed.

The next important milestone was written by Father Johann Posnik in 1877.  (Father Posnik was the resident village priest in the years between 1867 – 1884).

In his tabulation, Father Posnik lists every house in the village, including the number of the house, the formal and village name of its owner, his age and the size of the land he owned. Unfortunately, he does not list the number of residents living in each of the houses.

But Father Posnik’s tabulation shows that further splits had occurred since 1752.  While in 1877 total ownership is still eleven and one half Hides, the land is now split into small fractions of a Hide. There are sixty three houses in the village with thirty one of them owning the eleven and one half Hides. The other thirty two  houses own no land other than the space surrounding the house and a small adjacent garden.

The heavy emigration to America that started in the second half of the 19th century and reduced the ethnic German population of the enclave from 22,920 to 10,983 also reduced the total population of Masern. 37

Already in 1877, Father Posnik lists some houses as empty. The people who left were mostly the young who never returned after leaving their parents behind. And when these parents eventually died, the house, most of them centuries old, became vacant and started to fall into ruin.  In the 1930s there were at least seven that were vacant and in yet others lived only an elderly parent or relative, the owner or caretaker of the house and the property belonging to it.

And in the winter of 1941, all except five of 63 houses became vacant as 206 residents, on December 7, 9 and 11 left, leaving behind an empty village in which they and their ancestors had lived for over 600 years.
 
- - - -

But back to the beginning.

As already mentioned the initial Hide did not include the forest, which remained the domain of the Ortenburg Counts, but could be used by the settlers for needed construction lumber and firewood.

This arrangement, however, soon produced friction among the settlers in the later part of the 14th century and led Count Friderik of Ortenburg, the leaseholder at that time, to enact the “Forest Law of 1406”.  (Zbornik, pg 63)

This law divided the common pastures among the settlers, thereby enlarging their ownership. They were also allocated parcels of the forest, albeit conditionally at first.  This loosely defined right to the forest eventually evolved into full ownership, which together with the divided pastures increased the size of a Hide from the initial 55.16 hectares to 84 hectares. (In 1941, my father was the owner of one quarter of a Hide, or 21 hectares. Of these 21 hectares, two and a half were arable land, seven were meadows and 11.5 were forest parcels).
 
The right to permanent ownership of the forest parcels was, however, linked to several conditions:

a)   “The right is lost if a parcel is not tended for nine years and one day”.
 
The intent of this requirement was to prevent the underbrush from invading the arable land. While the law assigned and defined the conditions of ownership of the individual parcels of the forest surrounding the village, it also allowed the villagers continued access to the remainder of the vast forest still the sole property of the Count. All could take from this domain, but for personal use only, the lumber needed for construction, firewood or any other purpose related to the tending of their land.  The hunting rights, however, remained the exclusive right of the Count.

b)  “The right is jeopardized if the obligation to report to the owner of the dominion the number of falcon nests in the parcel is missed for two consecutive years and the annual yield of falcons is not offered for sale to the lordship”. 
His lordship paid 60 shilling for an adult sparrow hawk, 32 shilling for a female and 12 shilling for a young male hawk. He trained the hawks for use during the hunt.
 
c)  “The law requires from each settler the annual delivery of five Pilich”.
 
The “Pilich” (dormouse), a squirrel-like creature living in the forests of Carniola, including those surrounding Masern, was prized by the lordships of Friedrichstein for its soft smooth fur, stitched into warm coats and blankets needed during the bitter cold winter months of the region.

The Forest Law was propagated through the centuries by word of mouth from generation to generation. Some parts of it were still resonating in Masern during my time there, some 530 years later.

- - - -

Part “a” of the Forest Law had two sub-parts.  The first, tending the forest, was no longer an imposed requirement but it was still taken seriously even in the 20th century. When there were no other more pressing chores, our entire family would make for the edges of our forests that needed to be cleared of underbrush infringing on our arable lands.  The need for this had become obvious long ago.  For me it was a welcome event since it always included a large fire, which Mitzi and I were tasked to feed with the cut brush.
 
And when the fire reduced the wood to glowing embers, we were allowed to roast in the ashes our potatoes for a hand and tongue searing accompaniment to the midday lunch or a snack before leaving for home.

The second sub-part of this law allowed the use of the Count’s forest for personal needs of the settlers but it was limited to firewood only. A forest/game warden enforced this limitation for the Count and his successors up to our days.  But since these forests were beyond those owned by the settlers and in many cases a long distance from their homes, those without their own forests helped themselves to firewood in nearer places. This led to many a row including one, which I remember vividly.
 
In the fall of 1937, a “Keuschler” named Albert Tschinkel, living in Masern No 65, asked Father if he could borrow Yiorgo and the wagon to get firewood for the winter from the forest of the Auerspergs, the successors to the Count. A Keuschler was a landless villager, one who lived mostly off the ‘landed’ in exchange for tending their arable lands. In exchange for such labors, the ‘landed’ let them use unused acreage on which they could grow their own crops. Father, a handicapped landowner, used this method extensively to farm his lands. Even though Albert was not one of his leasers, nor a close relative in spite of the similar family name, Father granted the request and at the end of the agreed upon day, both horse and wagon were brought back by a seemingly grateful Albert.

Some days later, Johann Krisch, the good friend of Father, reported that Albert was telling the villagers how he took advantage of my father by not only borrowing his horse and wagon but also using both to get firewood from his forests.
 
Father confronted the scoundrel with the deed. His straight-faced reply was that he knew of no boundaries and besides, the Forest Law allowed use of the forests for personal needs.

I was present when Father confronted this man and noticed his sneering reaction, which implied “So, what are you going to do about it …”?  Of course, there was not much he could, nor wanted, to do.
 
- - - -

Part “b” was still enforced by the Forest/Game Warden.

Franz Jaklitsch, the tavern keeper had mentioned to Father that Josef Eppich of Masereben (the annex to Masern) had caught a pair of young hawks and was keeping them in the mostly empty barn of Father’s older sister Johanna Krisch who now lived in Brooklyn. Johanna had left Masern for New York in 1906 at age nineteen where she soon married Johann Krisch and after Johann died a few years later, married his brother Paul. Both brothers had left for America after their parents died, abandoning their half-Hide property in Masereben, leaving the ancestral homestead empty to slowly crumble into decay. However, Johanna and Paul had put Father in charge of administrating the estate and he in turn leased out the acreage to other villagers in return for upkeep of the land. He granted use of the barn to Josef Eppich, a neighbor of the empty house.
 
Father asked Jaklitsch if the hawks were captured with the permission of Anton Tscherne, the game warden of Prince Auersperg who now owned the gaming rights in all the forests including those owned by the villagers.  Jaklitsch had asked the same question of Josef Eppich who replied that he had captured the hawks according to the Forest Law and would turn them over to the Prince on his next hunting visit to Masern. But Jaklitsch checked with the warden who said the hawks were now a protected bird and catching them was a punishable offense.  Besides, the prince was not coming to Masern this year for his annual hunt.
 
All this got back to Josef Eppich and he quickly released the hawks. But Father had doubts and sent me, his eight year old son to Johanna’s barn to see if the hawks were still there. Since the barn was padlocked, I went to the Eppich house and asked for the keys. Josef Eppich was most indignant and denied that he ever caught hawks, but after my persisting, he took me to the barn and unlocked the door. There were no hawks in the barn, but there were unmistakable signs of their former presence. Eppich insisted the droppings were those of chickens, not hawks.  I, however, knew better and Father was satisfied with my report.
 
- - - -

Part “c” had long ago ceased to be enforced. The capture of the “Piliche”, however, continued through the centuries.  The dormouse, known in German as a “Siebenschläfer”, was a delicacy enjoyed by all residents of Slovenia and long before that by the ancient Romans who caught them alive and fattened them on walnuts. These nocturnal animals live in trees except when hibernating in underground nests during winter. When fully matured they grow to around twelve inches not including the bushy tail. They live on berries, nuts, pollen, and insects. In our forests, the Pilich prepared for the long winter by getting fat on nuts of beech and oak trees.
 
The capture of the “Piliche” became a major event in the fall when the beech trees were brimming with nuts. This is when the traps, a small box with a hooked end, were readied to be hung on a branch high-up in the tree by using long poles. The creatures liked nuts but had a weakness for the slice of an apple whose aroma lured them inside past the trap which snapped and clamped tight the animal trying to dislodge the lure.

The event that lasted through the night started in late afternoon by selecting an area of nut-filled trees most likely to be visited by the night feeding creatures. Nearby, but some distance away so as not alarm the creatures, a camping site was set up by a group of three or so men and a fire was lit.  After setting and hanging the traps, the men took turns to stay awake to listen for the snap of the trap while the others slept off the picnic meal and the slivovitz which, in addition to the fire was meant to keep them warm. Or, if neither listening nor sleeping, carefully scouting about to empty the animals caught in traps of other groups who, including the guard, had fallen asleep. Great ingenuity was used by each group to outsmart the others, but all were on the lookout for the non-trappers who stole from all.  Woe to those who were caught.

All this led to a lot of laughs or embarrassment afterwards, when the success or failure of the night, including the success or failure of the various attempts at deception, was made public over wine at the Jaklitsch tavern. Sometimes tempers flared, but Franz Jaklitsch managed, most of the time, to calm the sore and heated with another quarter liter on the house.
  
- - - -

The Urbar of 1498 lists the taxes of each of the twelve owners of the half hide in Masern. It was: “A ten measure of millet and the sum of 82 Shilling or its equivalent in chicken or eggs. (two Shilling for one chicken, one Shilling for seven and one half eggs)”. 38

According to the Urbar, the tithe was collected by “Gregor”, the village elder known as “Supann”, one of the property owners in the village. He was appointed to that position by the caretaker of the dominion residing in the fortress of Fridrichstein. This was a difficult assignment, since it required to perform both the role of enforcer and trustee of the village.
 
The collected tithe was delivered to ”Riegkh”, (later Rieg) which was the intermediate collection point for the Hinterland. Rieg, (now Kočevska Reka) is a village another ten km beyond Gotenica (Göttenitz). From there it was taken to the fortress of Fridrichstein, the administrative center of the Gottschee dominion on top of the hills that separate the two valleys. Delivered there were also the tithes from other collection points in the dominion. After 1641, the collection point was moved to the Town of Kočevje (Gottschee) when the new administrative seat was established there.
  
The tithing for the enclave, according to the 1498 Register, was enforced by the “Caretaker” who lived in Fridrichstein, a fortress on top of the hills that separate the “Hinterland” from the “Mainland”. This mighty fortress, never conquered by the Turks, was the place where the “Supann’s”, (župan’s in Slovene) of the Hinterland assembled to hold court over their subjects, including those in Masern.  It remained the administrative and legal center of the dominion until it was moved to the new Auersperg castle built in the town of Gottschee in the middle of the 17th Century.  In 1650 the only resident left in Fridrichstein was the gatekeeper.

The “Caretaker’ had been appointed by the lease holder of the dominion, at that time Frederik III, Duke of Carniola, King of Austria and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. (Reign 1440-1493). The dominion had reverted to the Emperor when the last count of Cilli died in 1456. The Cilli Counts had been given the leasehold by Emperor Sigismund in 1420 after the Ortenburg leaseholder era had come to an end with the murder of Friderik III, the last Count of Ortenburg. According to the historian Michael Gotthard Christalnik, Friderik died in 1418 from a poisoned apple given him by his wife, Countess Margarethe during some festivities at castle Waldenberg in Radovljica (Radkersburg), Krain.
 
The new leaseholder, Friderik II of Cilli had the fortress built during 1422-1425. Friderik was married to Elisabeth but he fell in love with Veronika, one of his wife's ladies in waiting. After he had Elisabeth murdered in 1422, Friderik moved with Veronika into the fortress to the fury of his father Hermann II and the great displeasure of his subjects. Hermann eventually arrested his son, but Veronika escaped. She was found by Hermann's bailiffs and was condemned by the judges of Hermann's court to die and was executed in October 18, 1428. Two knights carried out the verdict by drowning.
 
Friderik II of Cilli died in 1454. But in the interim he had become reconciled with his father who forgave him his transgression with Veronika.

Friderik had one son Ulrich II.  But Ulrich had no legal children and when he died in 1456, the Cilli line came to an end and the leasehold of the enclave reverted back to Frederick III, Emperor and Duke of Carniola.
 
- - - -

After the administrative center was moved from Fridrichstein, the fortress was allowed to decay into a ruin. In the 20th century, the ruin became a favorite destination for a day’s outing by the residents of Kočevje (Gottschee) city. The two hour uphill walk promised great views in many directions and a pleasant place to have a picnic. I took part in such an outing without knowing that the former hideout of Frederick and Veronika had brought such tragedy to the lovers and even after so many centuries was a place for amorous adventures.
  
In the summer of 1937 my father took me to the city and the large house of my father’s cousin Franz for a summer holiday before I started school in Grčarice (Masern) that fall. Franz was the son of my grandfather’s brother, also Franz, who left Masern for the town in 1891 to make a name for himself. In Kočevje he soon became a wealthy merchant as a trader of bicycles and sewing machines. His son Franz took over when he died in 1935. His second younger son Herbert died in 1939 when he slipped in the bathtub and hit his head against a faucet.

Grandfather’s brother Franz had, apart from the two sons, four daughters, Herta, Irene, Ridi and Selma. Of the four, only Selma was still at home taking care of the house and her brother. But that summer, Herta had come to stay for a few weeks with her two sons Donald and Peter, my second cousins one year older and younger, respectively. Herta had married a Slovene merchant named Logar and was living in Ljubljana. We three had a grand time together, especially in the water of the nearby river Rinse, carefully supervised by Tante Grete, also there for the summer. She made certain we remained in shallow water. She was my grandfather’s sister, a well preserved 72 year old spinster who owned a stationery store in Austria. She nearly killed me when she vacationed in Grčarice with my father in the summer of 1931 and fed me, an infant, milk straight from the cow.

Herta's younger sister Selma, then 20, had an admirer named Horst who was not welcomed by her brother Franz but they met secretly whenever they could. Horst was already one of the fanatical young Nazis, but that was not the reason why Franz did not like him.

One day, Herta, Selma and the three boys were to make an outing to the ruins of Fridrichstein. We kids knew that Horst was coming with us, but were forbidden to tell Franz. We left early in the morning and met Horst on the way.

It was a beautiful walk up to the ruins. The early sun painted, through the foliage of summer, yellow spots on the ground and we drank the clear cool waters of the brook bubbling over rocks on its way to the Rinse river. We were anxiously anticipating lunch from the rucksack of Horst, promised us when we got to the picnic place at the ruin. And a beautiful lunch it was, laid out by Horst in the clearing inside the wall of the former fortress. Afterwards, we three were ordered to go and explore the grounds outside the wall since the adults wanted to rest without disturbance. As we reluctantly went outside, Horst closed the high and heavy wooden gate in the wall surrounding the ruin behind us while reminding us not to go far.
 
We explored the vicinity but soon got bored and curious. Over the objection of the two brothers, I climbed a tree near the wall which gave me a view of the picnic grounds and the two sisters and Horst sunning themselves on blankets, dressed in nothing but emperor’s clothing. I became frightened and came down quickly saying that I saw nothing in spite of the urgings of my playmates. We explored some more until Horst called us from the opened gate.

I begged the two boys not to tell that I had climbed the tree but they did tell their mother that evening after we got back. Herta became very angry and questioned me at length to find out how much I had seen. I lied, saying that the tree I climbed was far from the wall and I had seen nothing. She made me promise not to say anything to her brother Franz, a promise that would be hard to keep.  But fortunately, he did not ask.

- - - -

Decades later I met Selma in the lobby of the Stamford Court Hotel in San Francisco. In the telephone directory, I had found among several Tschinkels, the name Selma. I phoned and sure enough, it was she. And yes, she remembered me and we agreed to meet in the lobby of the hotel. She would wear a light colored rain coat to help me recognize her.

It was apparent that the once sparkling, pretty and self assured girl, now in 1978 a somewhat tentative older woman, had aged beyond her 61 years and over dinner it became clear why this was so. She talked about Horst, moving out of the comfort of her father’s house during the resettlement, her times in refugee camps after the war. Horst, whom she agreed to marry in 1941, had died on the Russian front. Later she married a man with whom she had two children but a separation left her with only one son, the other having been awarded to the father. After that, she left for America. There she was ill prepared, given her privileged background, to take roots as a newly arrived immigrant and start at the bottom. At 61, she seemed very unhappy with her lot in life.
 
Herta Logar whom I met years later in Austria fared worse yet.  Her husband, a well to do Slovene merchant, had also been persuaded to accept the resettlement option and become a citizen of the Third Reich. After the end of the war and with Slovenia cleared of the Nazi occupier, he and his family were not allowed by the new State of Yugoslavia to return to Ljubljana. After staying in refugee camps, they also went to America as immigrants. Also unable to assimilate, they returned to Austria after a few years where it was even more difficult to make a fresh start. Herta’s fate as a victim of the war was particularly tragic since her husband was a Slovene national and they all could have survived the war with their livelihood intact, had they stayed in Ljubljana.
  
- - - -

In addition to natural disasters and the exploitation of the enclave through heavy taxation especially after the death of the last Ortenburg count, Lower Carniola including Gottschee, was ravaged by the westward moving Ottoman Turks. In 1469 they burned the district town of Gottschee and the market town of Reiffnitz. During the 22 years between 1469 and 1491 they came into Carniola 22 times, severely affecting the livelihood of the population. 39  To assist the inhabitants, Emperor Frederik III, in 1492, granted the citizens of Lower Carniola (Gottschee and Ribnica) the privilege to peddle their wares throughout his Empire. This brought much relief to the region but also exposed (for the first time) the residents of Lower Carniola to the larger world outside.
  
In May 1522 the Turks again swept through the valleys of Lower Carniola toward Trieste and Venice. On their return through Postojna, Cerknica, Ribnica and Kočevje (Gottschee) toward Croatia and Bosnia, they caused great damage.  Between Ribnica and Kočevje they passed through Dolenja Vas and very likely went the short distance to Masern to plunder and search for booty. They came again in 1528 and nine more times after that until 1598. But after the turn of the century, they preferred the more profitable route through Hungary toward Western Europe and once again to Vienna where they were overwhelmingly defeated in September 1683.

The repeated forays of the Turks into Lower Carniola produced an organized reporting system to announce their approach. Small, easily portable cannons were cast to produce loud explosive sounds that could be heard over long distances.  One explosive sound announced that the Turks were on the move; three successive explosions announced their arrival in the domain. Three blasts were also the signal for designated able men to assemble at defined places while others were to hide with women and children in the forests or caves. To the cannon blasts was added the lighting of huge bonfires on successive hills, which in combination with the cannons allowed the population to make for their hiding places. One such bonfire was at fortress Fridrichstein. Others in the vicinity of Masern were in Rieg, in Göttenitz and Dolenja Vas.

- - - -

The people of Masern came to rely more on the noise from cannons than on the bonfires which could not be seen on rainy and cloudy days or nights. These cannons, known as “Böller” were still in the villages in the 1930s. There were several of them in Masern and they were kept at the firehouse, unloaded. They were used by the firemen during special occasions such as religious processions or weddings as extra loud equivalents of firecrackers which startled the praying women, scared the young and frightened the horses.
 
The “Böller” was a tapered cast iron cylinder about 12 inches in height. One end, flat and measuring about 14 inches across, was meant to rest on soft ground.  The other end, also flat and tapered to about ten inches across, had a handle on each side so it could be carried by two strong men.  From the center of this surface, three quarters into the cylinder, was a two inch hole which, at the bottom, was met by a small horizontal bore from the outside, the hole for the fuse.  Most of the big hole was stuffed with powder and plugged off with clay or mortar that was allowed to harden. And after the fuse was lit, the recoil of the explosion would drive the cylinder inches into the soft flat ground on which it sat.
 
It made a cannon-like sound, clearly heard even in Masern when they were setting them off in Göttenitz or Rieg. “So that we would hear it when the Turks were coming”, was the answer given when I asked for the reason why.

Still known were the places where the villagers hid after the fires, or blasts, or both told them the Turks were on their way. And there is no doubt that they were ready to run and hide, as was my family in the fall of 1940, when blasts from several “Böller” woke us one night announcing that hostile armed Slovene were approaching from the direction of Dolenja Vas to do us in. This was the time when the racial tension between the Gottscheer and the surrounding Slovene had reached its most hostile peak.

The Slovene never intended such violence. It was, however, a purposefully false alarm to test the response of the already frightened villagers. The test was part of an effort to further inflame the deteriorating relationship between the villagers and the neighboring Slovene. The fear of such violent action from the Slovene had been instilled over many meetings conducted by Franz Jaklitsch, our new village chief. Fanning this hostility was a part of the effort to convert the residents to Nazi ideology and its objectives.
 
Father took the alarm seriously in spite of his doubts. He knew most of the people in Dolenja Vas and could hardly believe them capable of what Jaklitsch was predicting.  When the blast from the “Böller” woke us up, Yiorgo was quickly engaged and all five of us were on the wagon being trotted by the equally sleepy Yiorgo toward our “safe place” on our property known as the “Unterbinkl”.  But halfway there, the church bell began to ring, telling us the signal that the danger had passed and we could all return home.
 
Very likely, this “safe place” was also one used by my ancestors when they hastened to hide from the Turks.

The “Unterbinkl” (Low Corner) was the lowest part of the Masern bowl where the slightly downward sloping fields ended in grazing meadows and beyond that in brush and scraggy trees that covered the now flat ground. All this soon gave way to steeply rising hills on which stood magnificent pines. In this flat part, among the brush and trees were the deep fissures into which disappeared the waters that emerged every spring from the lowest point in the village - the bowl-like depression behind the parsonage and our house. These waters from the melting snow on the surrounding hills found their way through underground connections to the bottom of the depression where they emerged, filled and overflowed the bowl, and seeking lower ground through fields and meadows were swallowed by the fissures of the “Unterbinkl”.
  
Our “safe place” was in a cavern, a short distance down the side wall of a crevasse hidden among rocks, brush and trees. The cavern, the size of a small arched room, could easily accommodate our entire family, including blankets and supplies, on its reasonably flat stone floor.  It was accessible via a ladder resting on the ledge of the cavern while the other end was leaning on the opposite edge of the crevasse at ground level above.  Once inside, the ladder was to be pulled down into the cavern.

Needless to say, climbing down the ladder was going to be dangerous, but Father was convinced that all of us could get down safely, even in the dark. Fortunately this never became necessary. I do not remember what Father had in mind for Yiorgo and the wagon; maybe hide both in bushes nearby. Surely those who hid from the Turks centuries ago would have done the same.

There were many crevasses in the Unterbinkl, several on our land. I got to know the location of all of them, even those partly hidden by brush. Father made it a point to show them to me believing that if I knew where they were I would stay clear of them. Most of them were quite deep, the depth tested by listening for the echo of a dropped stone as it bounced off walls on the way down to the bottom or perhaps to a ledge on the way there. Of course, the stone was dropped while lying flat on the stomach; legs pointing away from the abyss, the awesome depth too frightening for standing upright.
 
This posture of self preservation was helped along by Father’s tale about a dog belonging to his father that fell into such a crevasse while chasing a deer. His whereabouts were discovered when whines and barks were heard emerging from the deep when grandfather was calling the dog while searching the area. Fortunately, the dog had landed on a protruding rock shelf, but too far down to be reached with ladders.

Grandfather tied a wicker basket to the end of a long rope.  In it was placed a piece of juicy meat and the basket lowered on to the shelf. The now very hungry dog climbed into the basket and while chewing on the meat, the basket was pulled up by the rope to safety.

“It was lucky he landed on the ledge. Had he not, he would have fallen deeper and died.  So stay far away from the crevasses, you may not be so lucky”.

This cautionary tale, often told, had its effect not only on me but on the other youngsters as well.

- - - -

In 1547, King Ferdinand, later Emperor Ferdinand I, (1556-1564) gave the leasehold of the Gottschee dominion to Stefan I, Count von Blagay, a Croatian lord. The King, (also Archduke of the Austrian duchies owned by the Habsburgs), gave Stefan the leasehold as a reward for bravery in fighting the Turks. In these battles, the Blagay clan suffered heavy losses and most of their castles were destroyed. As a result, the enclave adjacent to their property in Croatia became the Blagays’ most important holding.

The Blagays held the lease until 1618. That year, the Habsburgs sold the leasehold of the Gottschee dominion to Baron Von Kysel who in turn held it until 1641 when it was assumed by Count Wolf Auersperg.  The Auersperg family held the lease until 1918, when the Empire of the Habsburgs, rulers over a large part of Europe since 1273, came to an end.

During the 71 years of Blagay rule, the Gottschee dominion experienced its largest influx of settlers as part of the “Second Wave”. The bulk of these came from the Croatian part of the Habsburg lands.

The Croatian Counts brought with them many of their Slavic subjects. This is apparent to this day in the clearly Slavic names of the many who assimilated into the enclave population and became Gottscheer i.e. “ethnic Germans” 40  An ironic but typical example of such a name is Jaklitsch, the name of Franz Jaklitsch, the tavern owner in Masern who, as a “racially pure” German became the Nazi leader of the village in the 1930’s.

Due to this heavy influx and expansion of settlements, Archduke Carl, also lord of Lower Carniola, appointed a commission to verify the reported growth and increase in value of his mortgaged dominions which included the enclave. The commission was tasked to assess its value, set its boundaries, re-establish the tax levy for property owners and settle outstanding disputes.

The result of the survey is the previously mentioned document, the:  "Urbar Register der Stadt Gottschee, Anno 1564”. This Register is the first official document defining the value of the enclave, its boundary, the number of settlements as well as the number and size of the land parcels therein.

The survey of 1564 shows there were no land splits in Masern since 1498. But a later and more detailed assessment of the population was made by the Blagays which showed the population had grown to a size capable of clearing more of the forest. As a result, an additional five and a half hides was offered to the villagers for sale or lease by Countess Elisabeth Blagay in 1613, bringing the total recorded land in Masern to 11.5 Hides. Elisabeth was the widow of Stefan II, Count of Blagay, the great grandson of Stefan I who had been given the leasehold over the Gottschee estates by King Ferdinand, also Archduke of Carniola, in 1547.  Elisabeth had received one third of the leasehold that included Masern, by Ferdinand when her husband Stefan II died in 1598. The second third went to Stefan’s brother Nicholas and the third to George of Blagay, the eldest of Stefan’s nephews.
 
The survey also showed that property splits in the Count’s dominions had been lowering the productivity of the new owners. Until then the land awarded at the time of settling could, at the discretion of the owner of a Hide, be sub-divided as the village grew in population. As a result of the survey, further splits of land in the domain of the Archduke could be made only with the approval of the local administrator of the Count. This was done mainly to prevent further erosion of the tax paying ability of the owner of the parcel, mainly in the form of farm produce.
 
- - - -

Count Wolf Engelbert of Auersperg took over the leasehold of the enclave from the Blagays in 1641. As a Countship, the enclave became his personal domain, with all taxes collected there to be delivered to his treasury exclusively for his benefit. And by 1650 he had built a castle in the town of Gottschee into which he moved all administrative functions from Friedrichstein which he abandoned.

The reign of the Auerspergs, while largely benevolent, was not altogether free of problems produced by excessive taxation. As owners of the domain, the Auerspergs, like all other similar owners in the Empire were obligated to pay their taxes into the Imperial Treasury, taxes which they in turn had to collect from their subjects. In 1653, some Gottscheer subjects resisted what they deemed to be overbearing taxation and servitude and in 1654, a delegation of leaders took their complaint directly to the Emperor who promised an inquiry which was completed in 1661. Emperor Leopold dismissed the complaint as lies and ordered the protesters to adhere to the decrees of the Auerspergs, his intimate friends.  But the petitioners were not satisfied and in 1662 they rebelled, an uprising that was forcibly put down by Engelbert Auersperg. He had the ringleaders killed and expelled the others from the domain.
    
The Auersperg assumption, however, brought a period of relative stability which lasted until 1918 when the Austrian Empire came to an end and Slovenia became part of Yugoslavia.  After WW1, their former political role in the enclave   ended, but they kept their castles and a large part of their properties. In 1945 they lost even that.

The name Auersperg has a long association with Lower Carniola. The roots of this family go back to the 11th century and they were looked upon as one of the important noble families in the region. Their seat was castle Turjak, just north of Ribnica (Reiffnitz) in which the “Bela Garda” (Slovene Catholic nationalists opposing Communism), was defeated by the National Liberation Front in 1943.  As owners of the leasehold of Reiffnitz (1220-1263), the Auerspergs competed for dominance over Lower Carniola with the more powerful counts of Ortenburg, who had one of their many castles only fifteen miles to the west. But the Ortenburg succession came to an end with the death of Friderik III, the last Count of Ortenburg in 1418, and with it came the expansion of the Auersperg fortunes in Lower Carniola.
 
In 1641, the Auersperg clans already had extensive holdings in other parts of the Habsburg monarchy and were well connected to the Emperor. The most notable of these centuries-spanning connections was Count Wolf’s younger brother Johann Weikard who became Private Secretary to Emperor Ferdinand III, Conference Minister and Knight of the Golden Fleece. In 1653 he was elevated to rank of Prince. And when Wolf died in 1673, Johann inherited the leasehold and with this inheritance, the Gottschee enclave became a princely estate.

- - - -

The name Auersperg had a special meaning to the inhabitants of Masern since the princely line owned the gaming rights for the forests surrounding our village.  Most autumns after the onset of frost, the current Prince came to the village to hunt for bear or stag, either of which was on its last minute search for food to get ready for the severe winter.

I particularly remember one such visit in the fall of 1938, his last. The Prince arrived in a large, gleaming chauffeur driven limousine and stayed for a week in his large house on the hill across the cistern depression, diagonally opposite ours. In addition to the chauffeur, the Prince came with his gun carrier and his cook.

For weeks the village was getting ready for the arrival. The empty house, its shutters closed for most of the year, received a thorough cleaning under the careful supervision of Anton Tscherne, the local game warden of the Prince. Tscherne lived in the warden house at the western end of the village close to the forest. As warden he had an eminent position in the village, helped along by his rather standoffish demeanor and his immaculate dress; gray hunter’s jacket, embroidered with green at the collar, sleeves, and elbows and button holes for buttons made of antler bone. The gray breeches, gathered and buttoned just below the knee, gave way to elaborately knit woolen stockings which ended in ankle high boots, always polished to a gloss.
 
He wore a gray soft felt hat, tapered and ending in a rounded off top. The band was a thick green cord into which was tucked a carefully arranged set of feathers.  And always on one shoulder, the highly polished double barreled shotgun, its wooden stock matching the shine of the brown boots.

After the Prince arrived that afternoon, teacher Dežman struggled to keep our attention and so he let us out early. We all raced to the bottom of the hill, reluctant to go near the house and particularly the garage in front of which stood the shiny Mercedes with its canvas top rolled back. And when after a noisy while, shifting from one leg to the other, we were shooed off by the game warden, we reluctantly dispersed for home.
 
In the weeks before the arrival, Tscherne had been making preparations in different parts of the forest where the Prince could get to shoot a bear or a stag. In either case, small fenced-in platforms with benches seating two or three were built some distance up a sturdy beech or oak that could be reached by climbing a ladder which would be pulled up after the hunters settled in for the wait. The lumber for these platforms came from the village sawmill on Father’s wagon drawn by Yiorgo. Mother led the horse by the bridle along the narrow and sometimes steep paths as near as possible to the site while Father sat on the wagon and held the reins. The warden led the way while, in the back, Mitzi cranked the brake when necessary. I tagged along in the rear.

That week, the Prince shot a large stag with huge antlers counting five points. He did this while sitting on a platform in the “Unterbinkl” not very far from the crevasse that had swallowed Grandfather’s dog. He also sat for several nights on a platform in the deeper forest where the warden suspected the presence of bears. But in spite of the lure of fresh horsemeat, no bear showed up.

The slain stag was dragged on to Father’s wagon and taken to Josef Kren, the village butcher near the cemetery. Kren carefully separated the head including antlers from the carcass, cleaned out the inside of the skull and wrapped it in burlap for transport to the taxidermist in the city. He then butchered the carcass into sections which were, on the Prince’s orders, given to the villagers.  Mother roasted our portion in the big oven, already fired up this late in the season to heat the house.

While the Prince hunted and roamed the forests, the chauffeur busied himself with the huge limousine. Since he was particularly friendly with Father, he allowed me to be near him and help him polish the brass headlamps, clean the wire spokes of the wheels and wax the paintwork. And he even let me sit in the driver seat and allowed me to try to turn the wooden steering wheel.

But equally exciting, if not more so, were the stacks of illustrated newspapers and magazines this Austrian chauffeur brought with him from Vienna on the drive to bring the master to his hunting grounds. The sepia colored pictures of marching troops, flying banners, masses of smiling and cheering faces and uniformed leaders with swastika armbands standing on raised platforms, were glimpses into a yet unknown world, not only to this eight year old but also to all others living in the village. Such literature was freely available in Austria which had been annexed to Hitler’s Reich in March of 1938. But it was strictly outlawed in our part of Yugoslavia.  Soon all that would change.

I was unhappy to see the men of this hunting party leave. But more so the chauffeur than the Prince.
  
- - - -

In the summer of 1939, work began on a new Auersperg mansion high on the northern hills of the Masern bowl but on the gentle slopes facing the south. Surrounded by magnificent pines, the beautiful site had great views especially of the westerly hills into which disappeared the reddening disk of the evening sun.  And at the bottom of the hill, with every detail fully exposed during the bright of the day, was the picture postcard of our village.

The construction site being not far from the center of the village, we would often make for the place, after being let out of the classroom and having obtained permission at home. Progress at the site was slow since all work was manual, a great boon for the idle labor of the region, much of it in Masern, Rakitnica and Dolenja Vas. By the end of summer 1940 the foundations were in place and some structures, such as garages and servants quarters, had been built. However, in April 1941, WWII also came to Masern and with it an end to all further construction on the new mansion of this aristocrat.
 
In 1943, the Auersperg hunting lodge in the village was heavily damaged during the final battle in which the surrounding Partisans wiped out the last units of the “Plava Garda”. (More on this later). The thick walled, two story structure was ideally located to fend off the attackers surrounding the village. At least until the expected arrival of the relief forces that never came. But even before the defenders ran out of ammunition, exploding howitzer shells, aimed through barricaded window openings killed most of the defenders and caused the survivors to surrender.
 
- - - -

After the Auerspergs acquired the dominion in 1641, the population of the Gottschee enclave increased substantially. Part of this was due to the settling of the inner forest which became known as the “inner settlement phase”, to a large extent with subjects from other Auersperg estates within the Empire. This phase ended around 1825 and soon thereafter began to reverse when many residents started to leave for America.
 
The increase in the population of the enclave is evident also in our village. According to the census of 1770 ordered by Empress Maria Theresa, who was in need of soldiers for her wars with Frederick II of Prussia, the census revealed that the residents lived in 35 houses, but the number of males living in these houses was not listed. However, assuming five residents living in each house puts the population of Masern at 190 persons. But this increase was due to a natural increase only and not due to arrival of additional settlers, evident from the fact that since 1613, no additional land was released to the village.

Among these 190 inhabitants were young men fit to be soldiers who were pressed to serve in the armies of the Empress. Most of these young men saw, for the first time and in numbers far exceeding those who traveled as peddlers through the Empire, the world beyond the forest. Some may have even learned to read and write during their absence lasting many years. This would have given them a significant advantage when they returned.

But their military training also prepared them for the next invader, the French. However, these preparations and fortifications erected on the hills beyond the fork outside Dolenja Vas separating Ribnica (Reiffnitz) from the enclave did little to stop them in 1809.

- - - -

The French may have left in 1813, but some of the institutions and functions they had put in place remained under the “Kingdom of Illyria”. The Kingdom, a province of Austria was dissolved in 1849, its area distributed among the Crown lands of the Empire.
 
One of the functions that remained was the Office of Surveyors which surveyed all properties in the villages. In Masern this was done by a Frenchman named Franz Colanetté who recorded each parcel of an owner in an “Alphabetisches Verzeichnis der Gemeinde Masern im Jahre 1825”, a register now kept in the Slovene National Archives in Ljubljana.
 
Buried among the pages of this register was a surveyor’s map of Masern prepared by Colanetté, showing each sliver of each parcel which he identified with a number corresponding to the number in the alphabetical index of owners. It was a beautiful, multi-colored document, drawn on parchment and modestly signed and dated by Colanetté. From these two documents, I was able to identify each of the 57 different parcels owned by my great-great Grandfather Johann Tschinkel who was born in 1789. I successfully resisted the temptation to put this map into my briefcase and smuggle it out of the Archives.  Unfortunately, someone else had no such reservations. When only a few years later I tried to find this map where I had left it and get it reproduced, it was no longer there. But it was the effort of this Frenchman which, 114 years later, saved my father’s dignity and got me my first bicycle and a new set of clothes.

- - - -

Father had a sizeable parcel of forest on the hill behind the “Kuckenbichl”, the Cuckoo Hill, a flat piece of grazing pasture on the easterly hill surrounding the village. It was known as the Cuckoo Hill because it was here the cuckoo was heard every year, telling the village that spring had arrived.

The adjacent forest parcel was owned by Karl Tschinkel living at Number 12, three houses away on our side of the square. Karl, the oldest of three brothers, had automatically inherited the property when his father died, the mother having died before that. Also living in the house were his two single brothers. The three bachelors were looked after by their married sisters Katharina and Jedert.  Katharina’s house had burned down in 1938 and she now lived, with her husband and two sons, Albert and Anton, in the house of her in-laws at the eastern end of the village. Jedert was married to Johann Sbaschnig and lived with her husband and son Karl in a house across the square next to the fire house.
 
The relations between Father and the Tschinkels in number 12 were far from friendly. In fact, thanks to the survey of Franz Colanetté, they were downright hostile.

The Tschinkels of number 12 were related, albeit distantly, to those of us living in number 15. It seems that some time in the 18th century or even before, there was a sub-division of property owned by the Tschinkel family, including a parcel of the forest which was split into halves. Colanetté had surveyed the split, put in place markers and recorded the division in the Land Register of 1825.
  
The Tschinkels of Number 12 did not agree with Colanetté; they claimed that the Frenchman had set the dividing line to their detriment.  And the anger over this perceived injustice simmered over many decades and generations to the present. It came to a boil in the spring of 1939 when, after some dispute with Father, the brothers living in Number 12 secretly moved the markers to the right, 10 meters into our land and felled the lumber on the annexed part.
 
Father and I set out for Kuckenbichl immediately after somebody brought the news of the rape of his forest.
 
The devastation was heartbreaking.  An entire swath of mature pines had been felled on the entire stretch along the boundary and each tree cut into sections for transport to the mill. Since it was spring and the sap in full flow, the bark had been stripped from each log making the violation even more vivid by the nakedness of the victims now sprawled helter-skelter on the barren ground.

Father ordered me to fetch his friend Johann Krisch and Franz Jaklitsch, the now unofficial head of the village. Mother told me later that he did this in part so that I would not see him cry. He had for years been tending the ground under those trees to keep the underbrush in check and allow the trees to mature unencumbered.  In contrast, the land of the Tschinkels next to his was bare, its lumber having been sold off for needed cash over the years, the bareness inflaming only more their lust for the riches on the other side of the boundary.
 
The three agreed that only the law was able to deal with this violation. When the gendarmes arrived and confronted the perpetrators, their defense was, the markers were placed by Colanetté in the wrong place and they only took what was rightly theirs.
 
Karl Tschinkel and his brothers were ordered to cease any further action until the matter was put before a magistrate in Ribnica (Reiffnitz). At the hearing a few days later, this magistrate ordered a survey to verify the boundaries determined in the original survey by Colanetté and taken into the records of the county as final.

- - - -

The arrival of the surveyor and two assistants, both accompanied by several gendarmes, was a village event. There had not been this many legs trampling the new spring growth of grass on the flats of Kuckenbichl since it ceased to be common grazing ground many centuries ago. The gendarmes had their hands full to keep the villagers out of the way of the surveyor and his assistants.

The outcome of the survey was, of course, predictable and the assistants moved the markers back to the original position. The fury of the Tschinkel brothers, in part over the loss of the lumber and even more so due to their public embarrassment, was held in check only by the presence of the law.  But on top of it all, they were to be charged for the expenses of the court and that of the surveying team. I grinned along with Father as the three of them, together with their retinue, most of them relatives, left the arena. But my reason for grinning was different from that of my father.
   
In the days leading up to the arrival of the surveyor, Mother and Father, who were certain of the outcome, kept discussing the disposal of the lumber and what to do with the money from its sale. “A new horse; a new wagon; a new roof for the main house; new clothing for the kids; a bicycle for Johann”, they said. I immediately verified what I heard and staked my claim; the bicycle I had been begging for, for quite a while.  “Yes, if we win, you will get your bike”.  And win we did, and with that, my bicycle was now only days away. A very good reason to grin.
 
Father treated the surveying party and the gendarmes to a meal at the Jaklitsch tavern. Wine flowed freely even for those who arrived after the surveying party left and after it became known that Tschinkel was buying.
 
- - - -

In the days to follow, in spite of the victory, Mother voiced her concern. “Is this public embarrassment of the Tschinkel brothers going to lead to even more hostility? Yes their behavior was that of bullies and we set them straight.  But they had been fully convinced they were in the right, this belief having been passed down to them by their father, grandfather and others before that. And it seems that they were also desperate, even lacking the money to pay for their annual assessment, having stripped their forests bare to sell the lumber. And now they have to pay the cost of their mistaken behavior. Why don’t we split this cost with them, consider it as payment for felling the trees and stripping and cutting them into mill-ready logs. There will be enough money to do this when we sell the lumber”.

After several of such discussions which included our good friend Johann Krisch who believed Mother’s plan was overly generous, Father went to talk to Jaklitsch who judged that it was a good idea. Father asked that he become the intermediary and take the offer to the brothers which he did.

Predictably, they insisted that Father pay all the costs since they still believed that Colanetté had made a mistake. They also insisted that he pay for their labors. But Jaklitsch was persuasive and got both sides to agree to a compromise. Father was to pay half of their fine and give them the other half as payment for their labors. Jaklitsch also convinced them to give up their notion that Colanetté was wrong.
 
Jaklitsch had been persuasive and the village was impressed with his diplomacy. But the full power of this ability to convince became evident two years later when he convinced most of the villagers to give up their homes, lands and heritage and resettle into the unknown for no more than a promise: “a secure future guaranteed by the full power of the all powerful Third Reich”.

So the lumber was sold at a good price and new groups of wagons, ferrying naked sections of pines stopped at the Jaklitsch inn for lunch. This time the lumber was from the forest of my father, lumber that was soon to bring the cash for the bicycle I now dreamed about every night.

- - - -

The day this happened found us in Gottschee city, in the store that sold bicycles, the store of Father’s cousin Franz. My eyes quickly settled on a multi speed beauty with a gearshift mechanism that would help me take in stride the steep hill on the way to Grandma Ilc in Dolenja Vas. It also had very modern rim brakes for the long slope downhill on the way back, not the brake embedded in the rear axle which, after only a short distance of serious braking, overheated and failed, causing a dangerous runaway unless the rider was somehow able to stop and continue by walking downhill. To deal with this problem, riders would cut down a small Christmas tree sized pine and attach it with string to the saddle post of the bike as a brake. But this was put to a stop after it was noticed that the area around the top of the hill was becoming bare.
 
Franz listened attentively to my arguments but Mother prevailed.  A bike like that would be more than we could afford, besides no one else in the village had anything like that and why should I be different.

I had asked for the moon, but got a distant star instead, a silvery beauty just the same. Soon after we got home, I was surrounded by all my schoolmates of both sexes who wanted to try it. I sped away but they were waiting for me on my return at the edge of the village. Unable to retrieve it from the bigger boys, I had to run home tearfully and it was Mother who finally got it back for me.

But soon the novelty evaporated and disappointments arrived.

Both Father and Mother had insisted with Cousin Franz on an adult bicycle since I was growing rapidly. I got a bike years too big for me; its saddle too high even at the lowest setting. I could sit on it only if it was adjusted so that its front pointed downward at a steep angle. And even so, the tips of my toes reached the pedals at their low point only if I kept shifting my behind appropriately from one side to the other, which soon resulted in a serious rash between my tender buttocks. Not to speak of my testicles, aching from continuously being crushed against the center bar, far too high to be comfortably straddled by legs too short for their feet to reach the ground.
 
My first long journey on this bike was a visit to Grandma Ilc in Dolenja Vas. This turned out to be both a joy and disillusionment. I moved with speed over even ground renewing the sores on my buttocks, and at even greater speed on downhill slopes.  But at nearly every upward slope, I had to get off and push.  The gear ratio was too high and my weight on the pedals too light. A gear shift or even a lesser ratio would have overcome all that. The bike was best for level ground only, something Cousin Franz omitted to explain to Mother.

Even more upsetting was the brake. It began to fade down the long steep hill into Masern and only crashing into the embankment saved me from excessive speed and a serious fall. The front wheel was twisted, the fender bent beyond repair, my face severely bruised and bleeding. The face healed and the bike was repaired, but when I next visited Grandma Ilc, I walked the bike both up and down the hill.

- - - -

In addition to the bicycle there was money for many other needed things. Mother confided to Schaffer’s wife Maria that she was grateful to the brothers since her husband had had no intention of harvesting the already fully grown lumber in spite of her frequent urging. And decades later with hindsight to support her, she confessed to Karl’s sister Katharina: “They should have cut down even more; it only got left behind for others anyway”.

There was money for clothes, including my first suit which was ill fitting and much too big. Like the bicycle, it would fit when I grew a little more. Except that I wore it out long before I got there. But that is part of another story.  There also was enough money for a new wagon and a new horse.

Yiorgo was showing his age by tiring from even the easiest tasks. Father could no longer urge him into the lively trot he once so willingly fell into on the way home from Grandma Ilc. Even the measure of oats waiting for him at the trough was no longer an incentive. He resisted leaving the stable and the once so effective chamomile tea, administered ever more frequently, was becoming ineffective against his nightly colic. All this was a recurrent topic at evening meals, irrefutable logic used to overcome the objections of both Mitzi and myself, both drawn ever closer to our ageing friend who looked at us with sad but now oozing eyes as if sensing his imminent fate.

There was no warning and no tearful goodbye. And when Father and Mother came back from the city one day, a vigorous new Yiorgo trotted the wagon into the courtyard.

The new Yiorgo (we all agreed to keep the name), was a young “Schimmel”.  Young, “because the gray of the fur had only a few of the white spots which with age would ultimately cover the entire body”, they said. He was also much bigger and stronger than his former namesake and even the harness fit better; it had always looked too big for his predecessor who, like me, also never grew into it.  “But be careful, don’t go near him yet, he is young and impetuous; he has to get used to you first”. A trip to Dolenja Vas now took considerably less time. To make full use of the stronger horse, father also bought a bigger farming wagon with better brakes and stronger wheels. Those on the old one had started to wobble in spite of the attention annually received from the smith.

All these additions did not escape the Tschinkel brothers; still smarting over their defeat in spite of the promise to Jaklitsch, they were not letting bygones be bygones. And one Sunday afternoon when we returned from visiting Grandma Ilc, the new wagon was missing. But it was soon discovered straddling the peak of the house. The brothers had taken it apart and re-assembled it on the peak of the roof.  Mother cried, Father ground his teeth and some neighbors shared his outrage, but most of the village had a good laugh.
 
Again, Jaklitsch came to the rescue. The next day he assembled the firemen including Schaffer, and with the promise of free wine they formed a “bucket brigade” up a ladder to the men taking the wagon apart and passed the pieces on to the ground where it was put together again. Jaklitsch even persuaded the brothers to take part, but more with a promise of free wine than an appeal for remorse. But with this prank the mutual animosity ceased and a few years later, the century old grievance was forgotten. And many more years later Karl’s sister Katharina became Mother’s best friend.

- - - -

The plague arrived in Masern in August 1836.  The disaster lasted 53 days from August 11 to October 3 and claimed 51 lives, nearly one third of the inhabitants of the village. Father Munini, the village priest who administered the last sacrament, recorded each victim in the “ledger of deaths”, listing Variola, or black smallpox, as the cause. Who brought the pox, where it came from and what stopped it, Father Munini did not write. Since medical help was not available, the most likely end to the disaster was the natural resistance of those who survived.
 
Among the 51 victims were two members of the Tschinkel family at Number 15; Elisabeth, 50 and Gera 38. A total of ten Tschinkels died; the other eight living in houses of related families, Tschinkel being the most common name in the village.

At the height of the carnage the villagers, led by Father Munini, prayed to Saint Rockus, the patron saint for protection against diseases, to lift the pox and spare the village, which he did on October 3. 1836. They pledged to commemorate the divine trial in an annual procession to the church in Dolenja Vas dedicated to the saint. This promise was kept every year on August 16, the name day of the saint.  I participated in the final procession in 1941.

On the morning of that August 16, a group of villagers assembled at the church and followed the sexton, holding high the banner of our village Saints Primus and Felizian, toward Dolenja Vas. In the procession behind the sexton was Father Gliebe in his black funeral attire and white cassock, leading in prayer the followers, mostly women in black, their heads covered with black kerchiefs, all fingering their rosaries and responding to the priest in muttered unison. Father Gliebe was the permanent priest of Göttenitz/Gotenica who became our stand-in spiritual leader after Father Rozman left in 1939. Later, Father Gliebe, like most of the priests in the enclave became a forceful advocate against the resettlement in addition to his well known hostility to the young Gottscheer leaders who were preparing the population for the move. He remained in his village when it was emptied in 1941 and thereafter served new arrivals there until 1949 when he became the priest of Dolenja Vas where he died in 1960.

In Dolenja Vas there was a lookout in the church steeple and its sexton rang the small bell when the pilgrims came into view. When they arrived at the church, the parish deacon greeted them at the open portal.  He then led the procession into the church where Father Gliebe prostrated himself before the image of Saint Rockus as his tired followers slid into empty benches. During the Mass conducted by both priests, our sexton Michitsch held upright the banner of Primus and Felizian and after Holy Communion, the pilgrims were led in a final thank-you prayer to the Saint who had heard our plea in 1836.

After the Mass, the pilgrims descended from the church to tables in the shaded courtyard of my Slovene grandmother’s tavern at the foot of the hill, where they ate the lunches brought with them while Mother, Mitzi and I served them liquid refreshments.

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The pox left its mark on the village in other ways.

To begin with, the walled-in cemetery surrounding the church could not accommodate the large number of those who died of the pox and who, as a result, had to be buried temporarily in a mass grave consecrated by Father Munini. This forced a decision to move the cemetery and all its buried contents in 1838 to a larger location at the end of the village in the direction of Gotenica (Göttenitz).  Now that there was more space in the cemetery, each house in the village was assigned a larger plot and the remains from the old grave at the church were transferred there.  Each house handled its own relics. A corner of the walled-in cemetery was reserved for a small charnel house and the space around it was left un-consecrated to accommodate those who did not die in grace.

The space vacated by the cemetery made possible the planned elongation of the church by adding a bell tower which also provided room for a raised choir space and eventually, an organ. The belfry space was designed to accommodate three bells to be obtained in the future. Until then, the small bell would continue to serve the village but from a higher and more effective vantage point.

Entry to the church was now through the vaulted ground level space of the tower.  Holes through the vaulted ceiling provided for the long ropes to the three future bells so that they could be rung from ground level. The completion date of 1845 was recorded on an engraved stone embedded in the portal above the new entry door.
 
Father Munini also persuaded the villagers to erect a chapel dedicated to mark ending the pox in 1836. The memorial, called "the old chapel", was a three meter high masonry structure with a pointed, four sided peaked roof covered with wooden shingles. The structure had a recess in the wall facing the street to hold a picture of St. Rockus and, occasionally, a bouquet of wildflowers. It stood at the bottom of our side of the hill toward Dolenja Vas and the pilgrimage stopped there for a special prayer. The chapel fell apart from decay after WWII and the ruins were removed.

Another and more substantial chapel, dedicated to Mary of the Seven Sorrows, was built just outside the village toward Dolenja Vas. It was surrounded by a waist high wrought iron fence with a swinging gate. The chapel itself had a wrought iron door and inside was a small altar on which stood the statue of a sorrowful, upward looking Mary with her exposed heart pierced with seven symmetrically spaced daggers; four on her right and three on her left. Hanging on a chain from the ceiling was a small glass vessel for oil on which floated an eternally burning wick.  The women of the village replenished the oil and provided the flowers that always graced the altar. Over the decades since the plague, the grateful villagers did not forget the reason for this and even today this chapel still stands.

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While the pox brought about the enlargement of the church, a major fire in the village resulted in the first schoolhouse, a firehouse outfitted with a manual fire pump, uniforms and brass helmets for the firemen and a cistern to collect and store the runoff waters from melting snow and frequent rains.
 
The fire of August 2, 1882 destroyed fifteen houses and their adjacent barns and stables. The story of this event and its aftermath has already been told in the Chapter  “The Fire Pump”.

One of the houses destroyed that August was the one at Number 30. The burned out shell was rebuilt  (with funds from the Deutscher Schulverein) into our first school which opened for formal education in October 1884.  It consisted of one large schoolroom in one half of the house and a separate apartment for the teacher in the other half. While this schoolroom became the center for our learning, it also became the symbol for competing ideologies, not only in our village or the enclave, but also throughout many lands of the multi-ethnic monarchy where minorities such as the Gottscheer struggled for ethnic survival.  In the enclave the struggle was against the encroaching majorities of the Slovene, while the Slovene in turn were struggling against the long Germanization objective of the Austrians.

The Primary Education Act of 1869 had mandated state supervision of the school system, thereby supplanting the function until then performed by the Church. And since the language of instruction was to be that of the majority of the ethnic make up of the population living in the district, the language of schooling in Grčarice (Masern) was German. The Church, however, retained the duty of supervising religious instruction.

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Prior to the opening of the schoolhouse in Masern in 1884, limited education was provided in the parsonage by the village priest, teaching his pupils to read and write a short letter. The first resident priest/teacher was Anton Wallisch who came to the village in 1767 and left in 1771. For 51 years thereafter, there again was no priest/teacher and Masern again had to rely, as before 1767, on the priests from Göttenitz and Dolenja Vas for learning and religious care.

Johann Munini was the priest between 1822 and 1837 and after he left there was again a 30 year period when there was no resident priest/teacher until the arrival of Father Johann Posnik who came to Masern in 1867.

In spite of the prolonged absences of priest/teachers, the villagers of Masern learned to read and write, even if in only a very limited way. This is evident from the ledgers of births, marriages and deaths stored in the Archives of the Archdiocese in Ljubljana, starting with the year 1773. The initial entries made by the priest who kept the records, show only crosses substituting for a signature.
 
Learning progress was very slow since instruction was in German, a new language for the children as well as most of the adults of the village; the language of the village being the Gottscheer dialect which had little resemblance to the language they were now required to learn. Due to this the priests, who spoke only German or Slovene, had a difficult time communicating with their parishioners.
 
But with the arrival of Father Johann Posnik in 1867, continuity of teaching and religious care finally came to Masern. He had come as a priest and gave limited instruction at the parsonage, but only to boys. Learning was still slow in part due to the language barrier and also because the boys could come to lessons only when they could be spared from doing farming chores and then mostly on weekends or during the winter months. Their help was desperately needed due to the large scale emigration to America of both men and women not only in the enclave, but throughout Krain, that started in the second half of the 19th century.  This emigration reduced the 1857 population of the enclave from 22,920 to 10,983. 41

In Masern all this changed when the new school opened in 1884 and all children were now required to attend class. Father Posnik gave up the priesthood to become the first full time teacher in the village, but continued to give religious instructions until 1892. As a teacher he was paid a salary and therefore was no longer required to live off the fields that belonged to the parsonage.

In 1892, Posnik was replaced by Johann Hutter who was a full time teacher for the next fourteen years. But in 1906, his teaching job was relieved by Johann Schober, a full time teacher. From that time forward all instructions were by full time teachers and priests were no longer called upon to teach the children of Masern.

With the dissolution of the Monarchy in 1918, the village school at Masern number 30, the property of the “Deutsche Schulverein”, was sequestered by the State of Slovenia according to the right of pre-emption of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovene. On June 4, 1920, the sub-municipality of Grčarice purchased the school and its surrounding property for 700 Krone, the currency of the former Monarchy. And Masern, for about 600 years the official name of the village, reverted to its original - Grčarice. 42

The Imperial Education Act of 1869 remained in effect until December 5, 1929, when it was replaced by the School Act of the State of Yugoslavia, the successor to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovene. But this Act had little effect on the school of Grčarice or other schools in the enclave or other parts of the land where primary instruction continued in the language of the ethnic majority of the principality.

This changed with the Decree issued by Ministry of Education in January 1936, which decreed that all education be conducted in the language of the land, in our case the land of the Slovene.

When I started school in the fall of 1937, I had no problem with this. Because of Mother and Grandma Ilc, I not only knew how to read and write but also could speak Slovene fluently which put me from the beginning at the head of my class. My success was obviously not due to the inability of the others; I simply had a head start, whereas they had to struggle with the new language the way their ancestors struggled only a few decades ago when they were learning German.

But my good fortune immediately got me into trouble with my school mates.  This in part because by 1937, Slovene had become the language of an “inferior race”. At least according to the ideology of the Third Reich which by then had taken hold in the enclave, including Masern, a hold greatly strengthened by the Decree of January 1936. And I was part of this “inferior race”, at least half of me was, a fact that caused me much agony in the days to come.

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