The people of Masern left on three different days; the days of December 7, 9 and 11, 1941. Together, three trains transported the 206 inhabitants, their farming equipment, 87 pieces of livestock and crates filled with their portable possessions.
 
The village had been divided into three groups in the order of house numbers starting with number 1 and since our house number was 15 of 65, we were in the first group. Jaklitsch at number 11, being the village leader, was in the last group.

The trucks that were to take our goods to the train station in Stara Cerkev (Mitterdorf) had arrived on the village square early in the morning of December 7th. The buses that took us to the station arrived around noon and we arrived there in time to watch the livestock and possessions being loaded into freight cars. The freight cars were at the end of a string of coaches, each prominently marked with the SS symbol, carriages with soft seats that were to take us on the journey to our new homeland, the Third Reich. Only intimates of the VGL knew that this far away place was no more than another part of occupied Slovenia at the end of only 75 miles (150 Km) of track. The straight distance for a crow was about 40 miles (64 Km). A short distance in miles, but for most people on the train, a world away.

Prior to boarding, we lined up outside the station house where uniformed girls served hot stew from the big kettle of a military field kitchen, to be eaten at tables set up in the station waiting room.  It was bland compared to the meal cooked by the Italians in the courtyard of Grandma Ilc. After the meal, armed SS men managed and controlled the entry to the coaches and organized the seating within, since everyone wanted window seats. The SS men were part of the security staff that accompanied us on the way. This was in line with an order from Dr Hans Bauer, the Chief of Section III of the Gestapo and Commandant of the Security police for the occupied Lower Styria who, in a letter dated October 6. 1941 passed on to his subordinates a directive from Himmler:

“The resettlement of the Gottscheer Ethnic Germans may result in transgressions by certain Slovene circles. To prevent this, thirty Slovene personalities should be identified who in the event of such transgressions can be arrested immediately. In addition it should be circulated that for every Ethnic German who comes to harm, ten Slovene will be executed.”  85
 
At the departure of the first resettlement transport on November 14, there was a band that played, among others: “Muss I’ denn, muss I’ denn, zum Stätelein hinaus, ….”.  (Must I, must I leave the little city ....”). Now there was only the coughing of the steam engine that accompanied the waving of kerchiefs from those remaining on the station platform.  Much had changed in less than one month.

Our train left the siding at Stara Cerkev (Mitterdorf) at 15.00 hrs in the afternoon of December 7 and arrived at a siding in Brežice (Rann) at 2.35 in the morning of December 8. It carried 119 people and 33 animals. At nearly the same time the people of Veliko Mraševo, renamed by the occupier to Gross Mraschau, were being loaded into trucks and deported to make room for us.

The other two Masern trains followed two and four days later.

Our train, the second of three each day, traveled according to the schedule set at a meeting of officials of the “Deutsche Reichsbahn” and “Direzione Ferrovia Lubiana” in Munich on October 23, 1941. The route taken was from Stara Cerkev (Mitterdorf) via Grosuplje, Ljubljana and from there via Litija and Zidani Most to Krško and Brežice, the final destination. It had covered the distance of approximately 75 miles in roughly 11½ hours, after several stops along the way. 86

The schedule was precise in order to avoid blocking this main rail link to Zagreb which was heavily traveled by the military. At times the train sat on sidings to allow higher priority trains to pass. It sat on a siding outside Brežice until daylight when finally it pulled into the station. 87
 
I vividly remember waking up during one of our many such stops. The light from the moon in a cloudless sky lit up the darkened coach, its brightness increased by reflections off the glistening snow on meadows outside. Most people were asleep but some of those awake, including my father were singing, albeit quietly so as not to disturb the others. The conclusion of Heimat deine Sterne, Sie strahlen mir auch am fernen Ort,…... (Homeland your stars, they shine for me also in a distant place …..) was followed by silence interrupted only by deep, if suppressed, sighs.  The song, a popular hit like Lili Marleen, was repeatedly played by the Reichsdeutsche Rundfunk for the Wehrmacht soldiers in many occupied and distant lands. But for those in our coach now blowing their noses it carried an unintended message; their old Heimat was no longer theirs, the future Heimat unknown.  I was not burdened by such reflections and went back to sleep.

The farmer K.R. writes about the start of the resettling:

“After the departure of the first three trains [November 14, 15 and 16] there was a pause. [A 5 day interruption, but he does not say why]. At their departure, these initial resettlers knew not where they were going. Only after their arrival [the following morning] did it become known that this was their new homeland.  And a few days after the arrival of these three first trains it also became known in the Gottschee district where this new homeland was. Many did not believe it and said it was impossible that it was.” 88

And the Reverend Alois Krisch [who arrived in Brežice on December 15, one week after us] writes:

“We have arrived. At first we could not leave the train since the people from the Mőseler transport [another village], which had arrived before us, were still in the hotel.
 
“But even before we exited, there came one who arrived two days before and, crying, told how bad it was here, how badly he fared and about the hovel he had received as a house. I was angry but restrained myself from scolding him knowing that he owned nothing at home, where he rented a hovel. When I explained his former condition to the people they calmed a bit. Later, a woman who had arrived some days before came and made it even worse. Reality and all its aspects had come very soon and all too harshly.
  
“After we exited the train we were taken to the hotel, the formal place of reception. (The Mőseler people had been moved to the movie house). The officials who received us there and who for weeks had seen the disappointments experienced by our people and heard their lamentations, tried hard to be welcoming. One official, who was aware that I was the transport leader and a priest, asked me to calm the people and make clear to them that at first they will be assigned only temporary accommodations and that they will all receive their final properties in the spring. He asked me to do this while we were having a good warm breakfast.
  
“Then a pleasant flicker of hope lit up among the arrivals. This happened when, prior to their departure from the hotel, they were given provisions for the first eight days; bread, butter, flour, meat, coffee, canned food, etc. In addition they received money; 100 RM [Reichsmark] for each family head and an additional 50 RM for each family member. And on the bus to their new village, they laughingly announced: ‘This is not a bad beginning’.” 89
 
- - - -

I also remember the ‘good warm breakfast’ and the move into the movie house where we were welcomed by friendly young women in the uniform of the Reichsarbeitsdienst. They led us, mostly children, to the large viewing room where the rows of chairs had been replaced by rows of mattresses. The warm cocoa quickly put Mitzi, Paul and me to sleep, while Father, Mother and most other adults went back to the station to see about their possessions in the freight cars. We were awakened early in the afternoon and together with the adults who had returned we received a meal and the provisions as described by the Reverend. During lunch, we were addressed by an SS official from the Settlement Authority, the DAG (Deutsche Ansiedlungs Gesellschaft). The uniformed officer divided us into groups, each group to be bused separately to Veliko Mraševo (Gross Mraschau) our new village. He also stressed that the assigned house was temporary and that we would move into the final house as soon as all the property details were worked out. Our possessions now being unloaded from the freight cars were to follow in the next few days with the livestock coming first.

The ride to Veliko Mraševo was slow, covering the short distance of only fourteen km (approx nine miles) in about an hour. After leaving the movie house near the train station, the bus traveled through the center of the town to the long bridge at the other end. This gave us the first glimpse of the local administrative center of our new homeland. The town, which predates the Roman era, was known as Rann when the region was under Imperial Austria. It became Brežice after 1918 when Lower Styria became part of the new Yugoslavia. It reverted to the German version, as did Veliko Mraševo and all other names when the region was occupied and annexed to the Reich in 1941.

Brežice (Rann) was a neat little place with its own medieval castle and a high water tower that defined the town's skyline. However it lacked the large square of Gottschee city and its imposing double spired church. Instead of the little stone bridge over the tranquil river Rinse next to the church in Kočevje city, there was a long double arched steel bridge spanning two mighty rivers at the end of the town opposite the rail station. One of the arches was over the wide and swiftly flowing Sava. Only a short distance beyond that, the second one arched over the slightly slower and narrower Krka (Gurk) which merged with the larger Sava less than 500 meters downstream.
 
After crossing the Krka, the driver turned right and after 1,500 meters crossed the same river which had made a sharp left again to immediately enter a small, seemingly deserted farming village. It was Krška Vas (Gurkdorf ), a village of less than fifty one story houses close to either side of the road; the buildings in the back not much different from those in Grčarice (Masern).

The land beyond Krška Vas on either side of the road was flat, farmland with stubs of cornstalks protruding from the snow. To the left in the distance, beyond the Gurk which had turned away from the road, were the southern high hills that surround the Krško/Brežice plain, from which the Slovene population was still being removed by the SS to make room for the “ingathered” Gottscheer. The bus driver explained that at this point, the hills were the border between Italy and the Reich.  Further on, the river Krka (Gurk) would become the border. And to the right of the road the land was flat, the northern hills surrounding the broad Krško/Brežice (Gurkfeld/Rann) valley too far away to be seen.

After three Km we entered Cerklje (Zirkle). But just before we came to this village we became aware of a Luftwaffe airfield on the right from which planes were taking off and landing. It was a training field for Stuka dive bombers which explained the occasional screaming noise in the distance where pilots were practicing their aim. Later, near the end of the war, this airfield and its surroundings became a prime target for Allied planes from their bases in liberated Italy. At the entry to Cerklje, a village much larger than Krško, we noticed the school house on the left, a place where I was to continue my spotty education. A building much larger than the one in Grčarice, this school served all surrounding villages including the one in Veliko Mraševo and was the place where all youngsters of the area would be educated.
 
As we drove slowly through the empty Cerklje, at least twice the size of Masern, other landmarks appeared. At the only intersection in the village center, the large building on the right was the local Gasthaus. It was to become the new Jaklitsch inn, the replacement for the one left behind. The road on the left led to the church of St. Peter and Paul and to the bridge over the Krka (Gurk) which had again come closer. But after Cerklje, the river again curved to the left to get out of the way of the hills directly in front of us.
 
Beyond the intersection on the left was the walled in cemetery in which, in the very near future, were to be buried two of my best friends. And further on at the end of the village on the left was the Reichspost, the post office which, like the one in Dolenja Vas, served the surrounding villages. Except that instead of Jula Bojčeva, our postwoman in Masern, a uniformed Reichspost man delivered whatever mail there was to our village on a bicycle. There was never much of it since no one, including our relatives in Dolenja Vas or Brooklyn, New York, knew where we were.

What did come was the mail from the Government which kept sending call up letters to the shrinking pool of eligible men. Later on, when all able bodied men, including the postman and many women were taken into the Wehrmacht, we school children picked up the mail and brought it back with us. And in the winter when the snow was too deep to trek to school, I would shoulder my rucksack and climb on the back of our second horse Shargo, the new companion to Yiorgo, and ride the always good tempered animal to the post office to get the mail for the village. But as we neared the village on our return, Shargo took control, assumed a trot and then a full gallop, all in eagerness to return to the warm stable where a measure of oats was waiting for him in the trough. All I could do was to hang tightly to his mane to prevent falling off. And duck my head as he stomped through the open door of the stable.
 
Beyond the post office, the last building in Cerklje, there was a straight stretch of 1,500 meters, half of which was a gradual incline to the top of the hill separating Cerklje from Veliko Mraševo. This slope was to become a joy on my bicycle; the accumulated downhill speed making it possible to coast the straight and level part way into the center of the village. Many a test run was made here to determine who had the best bike, the best being the one which coasted the farthest. I usually lost each race in spite of the frequency with which I disassembled the axle of both wheels to clean each of the bearing balls and then carefully returned them into the raceway coated with grease. But nothing helped and I never won a race. Equally frustrating was the return since the bike had to be pushed the entire distance, the gear ratio being far too high to pedal it uphill. Most others could do this on their much older models, disproving my claim that my bicycle, being German made, was the best.

After only a short level stretch at the top of the hill, zigzagging at first to the right and then to the left, the road came to the downward slope giving way to the Mraševo (Mraschau) valley. At the bottom of this much shorter and steeper slope, the bus made a sharp left turn on to a secondary road and just beyond, after a 500 meter stretch of open fields, was Gross Mraschau/Veliko Mraševo, the village destiny had decreed to be our new home.

At the near left side of the intersection stood a solitary little house, the lower edge of its straw covered roof barely above the heads of the couple standing beneath it.  It was the house of the only Slovene and his wife who had been allowed to remain in the village. This we found out in the next few days when we, the new arrivals, especially the youngsters, explored the empty houses in the empty village, the signs of a hasty departure evident everywhere.  In the centre of the kitchen table of one abandoned house there stood, surrounded by unused spoons, a bowl of untouched porridge while on the stove the residue of the meal clung to the sides of the pot in which it was cooked.

After the open field, the bus entered the village. The houses, while different, were in many ways not unlike the ones in Masern except that all had much more space between them, including more open ground also between the stables and barns behind the main house. All on the bus admitted to a good initial impression. And when asked what happened to the prior owners, the driver replied that they were all resettled into the inner Reich. This was puzzling since it was us who were supposed to be resettled to the inner Reich. However, the credibility that they were resettled willingly did not last beyond the time it took to see that the prior owners had left in a great hurry since they took with them only the barest of necessities.

The signs that the former owners were forced to leave in a great hurry were elaborated on by the Slovene at the intersection. After classes were started the following spring in Cerklje, I would stop in front of his little house on the way home from school. There I watched him operate his delicate veneering saw, which he worked by pedaling with his feet like a sewing machine, and with which he cut the delicate slivers of wood for a chest he was decorating. He did not mind and since I spoke Slovene he soon, if reluctantly, began to tell me in detail how the village was emptied out by the SS.

This may have been a mistake since I repeated it all to Father who may have passed it on to Jaklitsch. In any event, later that fall of 1942, he and his wife disappeared. Whether they were removed by the SS during the night or they slipped over the border to safety was not known. All the contents within the house, including the little saw were left behind. I am sure he would have wanted me to have it, but soon someone else took it; it was too heavy for me to carry home.
   
Half way into the village the bus turned right on to a branch road. After passing a few houses on either side it pulled into the courtyard of the house next to the last on that road; our new, if temporary house according to the bus driver who had read our name off his list. He unloaded our hand luggage and the bundles of food we received in Rann before leaving. “We will pick you up early in the morning and take you back to the station where you can sort out your possessions and your animals and bring them back to your house”. Then the bus backed out and returned to the center of the village, leaving us standing in the few inches of newly fallen snow.
  
- - - -

The door to the house was unlocked and the first thing we noticed inside was the bitter cold. Hardly surprising, this being nearly mid December and the house unheated for days after the prior owners left in a hurry. Signs of this were everywhere, in the unmade beds, the open doors of the half empty wardrobe, the pulled-out drawers of the chest from which most contents had been removed. After a quick look about, we settled in the kitchen where the unwashed dishes of that day of hasty departure were still on the table and the water in one of the pots on the stove frozen to solid ice.
 
Then Mother took charge. She ordered her silent and deeply distressed husband to inspect the stable and barn and see if there was feed for the animals when they arrived tomorrow. But she did this mainly to spare him his crying in front of the children, something he could do freely outside but tried to hide when I joined him in a little while. Years later, when we talked about that day, he admitted that he was prepared for much unpleasantness but what disturbed him most was the realization that due to us, other people’s lives were so profoundly affected.

Mother started a fire in the stove that quickly warmed the freezing kitchen, a space somewhat smaller than the large one in Masern. She did the same in the cavity of the fireplace of the oven heating the bedroom, a corner cube similar to the one in Grčarice (Masern) and which likewise was fired from the kitchen. This oven, like the one in Masern, not only heated the large room that was used as the common bedroom, but with its door open, also the rest of the house. As in Masern, this method for heating was also used in this part of Slovenia.

With the kitchen cleared and the house warming up, Mother and Mitzi prepared the large bedroom for the night. They refilled the mattress sacks of the two double beds with fresh straw from the barn and made them up with clean linen sheets they found in the cupboard. The coarse and heavy horse blankets that had been left behind on the beds would keep us warm until ours arrived. The parents and Paul were in one bed and Mitzi and I in the other.

It was getting dark. Mother lit the kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling in the still warming kitchen and started to prepare a meal from the provisions received in Rann. The aroma from the meat and gravy of the tin cans soon filled the house. And as the temporary chill, brought through the front door by a shivering Father was vanishing, we had our first meal in a house which, even if not final, was now ours but in which we felt like intruders.

During the meal Father told us what he had discovered.
 
There was some fire wood stacked and drying under the barn overhang. Hardly enough to last the winter. The barn itself was full of hay, enough to feed Yiorgo and our cow until the next harvest. The granary bins in the barn were filled and the below-ground cellar next to the house was full of potatoes and other staples.  The empty stable was large enough to house Yiorgo, the cow and several additional animals. It only needed cleaning out. The solidly built but also empty pig pen was ready to accommodate the fattened pig. It was large enough to accommodate several others in the future, Father said. All seemed, at least for the time being, satisfactory. And in the warming bedroom, with its newly made up beds, we all went to sleep.  In beds, in which not so very many days ago, others were equally anxious about their future.
 
- - - -

The farmer K.R. and the Reverend Alois Krisch each wrote their versions of arrival in the settlement area. 90

The train of the farmer unloaded in Krško (Gurkfeld) station in the western end of the Krško/Brežice plain, whereas the train of the Reverend (who arrived in Brežice on December 15, one week after us) had made its final stop in Brežice (Rann).
 
The farmer writes:

“When my turn came, the exodus was nearly completed. I left my Gottschee homeland on January 9. The last transport left two or three days later. [Actually, the last train left on January 22, 1942. But by January 1st, 1942, as many as 9,000, more than three quarters of the total of the Gottscheer had already been moved]. Apart from the furniture and the farming gear, I was allowed to take only one cow. Three other cows had to be turned over to the Italian administration. Three families and a single man remained in the village. One of these three was expelled in 1946. Two families are still there and live on the land they own. The single man lives with them.
 
“When I, with my family and the others from our village arrived at Gurkfeld rail station, we were welcomed there by representatives of the DAG. For the first night we were quartered in makeshift buildings next to the station house. On the following day we were registered. The DAG made available vehicles to us to bring our properties to our destined village and place.

“Late in the afternoon I arrived at our assigned farm near Rann. It was a desolate sight.  The windows and door were in very bad condition. There was driven snow in the rooms of the house. In the neglected stable where I was to shelter my cow there was no room. A stable for three animals was occupied by five. Two of the animals were removed by the DAG in order for me to shelter my cow. To do so I first had to drain the stable floor and remove the dung. I was also required to assume the care of the other three animals.

“No firewood was on hand; for the first night I fired the ovens with debris from the attic for three hours but the rooms remained cold since they had not been heated for a while.
 
“The winter of 1941/42 was very cold. Necessary firewood was not available.  Most of the houses which the settlers occupied were in a neglected condition. The region was poorer than the one in Gottschee; the houses and farms inferior to those we left behind.
 
“But most troubling for me, as for the others was the fact that, from this region, the native Slovene population had been forcibly displaced. How could one sleep in houses that had been taken from other people?

“Now it was clear to us why the settlement region had been concealed!”
 
- - - -

The Reverend also reports, if with a different perspective, on the conditions and the attitude of the settlers.

“Here the condition of the houses and farm buildings is way below those at home.  In fact, the dwellings in the Gottscheer land were much better and roomier.
  
“Much blame regarding the dissatisfaction rests with the senselessly exaggerated propaganda of the past summer describing splendid homes and farms into which the re-settlers were going to move.

“It was said, ‘the resettlement will be from farm to farm. You will leave your house and will be transported by automobile from the train to your newly equipped farm’ – now they find hovels and live with the entire family of four, five even six children in a single damp room. It is incomprehensible how the propaganda was able to convert such adverse conditions into reality”.

It seems that the Reverend, one of the two Gottscheer priests who resettled, (there were four who did not), wants us now to think that he, like the simple farmers, was also fooled by the “propaganda”. This is unlikely given the fact that the Reverend was an educated man in contrast to his parishioners, most of whom read no newspapers and heard no newscasts on a radio and had never been outside the Enclave. He was a vocal supporter of the resettlement and a defender of the VGL who, even after 1945, claims that “Nazis they were not”. But now, he justifies himself with the following:

“Many of our people had second thoughts about resettling after it became known that a part of Lower Styria would be forcefully cleared to make room for us. [Word got back to the enclave soon after the first settlers arrived there.] ‘To move to a place from which others are being driven out?’ This caused our people great difficulty; many talked to me about it!

 “In actuality these considerations were a question of conscience; the question being, could one accept a property which became available through such methods? As spiritual adviser I counseled that they should dismiss such thoughts. The entire matter is, for the re-settler, only barter; the surrender of one property for another. And since the intermediaries in this case are two states, (Italy and Germany) the individual re-settler is not responsible, even less so because he neither caused it nor wished it”.

The value of the Reverend’s spiritual advice may be seen in the following:
 
“When asked by my bishop in 1941 if I will leave [resettle] or stay I replied: ‘I will stay with my people; wherever they go, I will go’ ”.

Four years later, in May 1945, he is on the road with his people attempting to outrun the approaching Communist liberators.  He calls them bandits.
 
And when he realizes that they are very near, he takes flight. “I decided quickly, took my briefcase and told my housekeeper that I may not return and left.  With that I separated myself from the bulk of our people and from all I had wished to save”.
 
Nowhere does the Reverend reflect, as do the farmer, my father and many others, on the fact that from this region the native Slovene population had been forcibly evicted to make room for the Gottscheer! Did he, especially as a priest, sleep peacefully, knowing that the houses his parishioners were now sleeping in had been taken forcefully from other people?
 
- - - -

The Reverend also writes that he spoke with many settlers in various villages and learned much, but to obtain a total overview was not possible. He is certain, however, that not all settlers were treated the same and often with wildly contradictory ground rules. Among the lucky and satisfied, the Reverend places those who had little or nothing in the enclave but now were much better off. He also talks about those who did not complain and accepted what they were given. Then there were those who complained bitterly and with good reason:
 
 “There were too many disappointments, much sorrow and many tears, much anger and cursing, most often with good reason and cause. But also in some cases without justification, since they had nothing at all back in the enclave.  And it was these who complained the most. They were the people who had shown the greatest enthusiasm for the resettlement and now were the least satisfied. Some believed that they were to get something special, much better than the others. They believed in this but could not explain why”.

- - - -

The answer to the “why” is in the letter Lampeter wrote to Gauleiter Uiberreither on November 2, 1941. 91 In this letter Lampeter states that the VGL had decided to deny 577 farmers their equivalent, if small, farm in the Reich.
 
Instead, “worthy and capable” young Gottscheer, landless peasants who had never run a farm but were loyal supporters of the VGL were to become the landed “border farmers” of the Reich. This is verified by SS-Untersturmführer A. Dolezalek, head of the planning staff for the “General Settling Area”. 92
 
But the promise of the VGL to its “enthusiastic supporters” (those who now complain the most) had been confirmed by SS-Sturmbannführer Dr. Stier and Dr. Wollert (the DUB in Ljubljana) when they came to Gottschee on November 9 to reverse the severely lagging enthusiasm for the resettlement. Their decision had been published in the November 17, 1941 issue of the GZ.  (see chapter Assignment and Preparation)

The reason by the VGL for concealing the settlement area to its people is given by SS-Sturmbannführer (Major) Dr. Stier, the Leader of the Resettlement Office in Berlin. He described in his notes the initial planning meeting with the VGL held at the SS Reichshauptamt (headquarters) in Berlin in May 1941. (see chapter Assignment and Preparation)

The Mannschaftsführer had good reason to conceal the region and the conditions there. Lampeter knew that to convince a population attached to their land was going to be difficult. And to tell them that instead of being resettled to the ‘Inner Germany’, they were to take over the properties of expelled Slovene, would most likely threaten the success of the resettlement. But Lampeter was wrong. This concealment not only jeopardized the resettlement but, ultimately, contributed to Lampeter’s downfall and disgrace.
 
- - - -

Long before the invasion of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, Hitler had decided to annex Lower Styria and Upper Krain, both populated by Slovenes believed to be sympathetic to Germany and therefore willing candidates for assimilation into the Reich. Hitler ceded the Slovenia south of these two areas, which included Ljubljana and the Gottschee enclave, to Italy. (Hitler had communicated his decision to Count Ciano at the conference in Vienna on April 20, 1941).

After the occupation Hitler gave total responsibility for the civil administration of Lower Styria to Siegfried Uiberreither, the Gauleiter of Styria. He formalized this assignment on April 14, 1941 by appointing Uiberreither as the Chief Civilian Administrator for Lower Styria with orders to take directives only from himself.  Simultaneously, Hitler gave Gauleiter Kutschera of Carinthia a similar responsibility for Upper Krain. 93

(The Enclave was not occupied for strategic reasons since it was too isolated, geographically too remote in difficult territory and as such presented indefensible borders to the German Reich. Consequently Hitler decided to resettle the Gottscheer to the Save/Sotla area of the de-facto annexed Lower Styria, from which all resident Slovenes were to be removed).

The Marburger Zeitung of April 29, 1941 reports on a speech of Uiberreither
: 
“On April 28, 1941 the Chief of the Civil Administration of Lower Styria gave a speech in which he told a group of SA-Men from Upper Styria:

“When more than three weeks ago the Führer gave me the assignment to again incorporate Lower Styria into the homeland he said to me: ‘Make me this land [Lower Styria] German again!’ And when he also said: ‘I will place all the power in that land in your hands’, I realized that a heavy responsibility was descending upon my shoulders”.  94

With this assignment Hitler tasked the Gauleiter to prepare Lower Styria for formal annexation to the Third Reich. However, from that day forward the Gauleiter treated the area as annexed, certainly de-facto if not de-jure, which was never to be.

And on April 20, only nine days before the article in the Marburger Zeitung, Himmler had already promised part of this land to the Gottscheer who were told that they would be resettled into the “Reich”.

- - - -

Both Lower Styria and Upper Krain (like the rest of Slovenia) had been part of the Austrian Monarchy until 1918. During this time, the Austrians were successful in their centuries long germanization of these lands, partly because both areas were geographically close to the German speaking part of Styria and Carinthia. During this time, German expressions entered the Slovene vocabulary to such an extent that a large part of the population, especially in the rural areas, now spoke a language that was a mixture of both. The SS Reichsamt called these Slovene “Windische”.
 
The germanization of the Slovene had been especially effective in the main cities of Maribor (Marburg), Celje (Cilli), Ptuj (Pettau). By the start of WW1, they were seen to be German cities. This was also, if to a lesser degree, the case in the smaller cities further south such as Krško (Gurkfeld) and Brežice (Rann).
 
However, this ongoing “germanization” by the Austrians was challenged by the emerging Slovene nationalism during the 19th century. And when after WW1, Lower Styria (like Upper Krain) became part of Yugoslavia, the new Slavic state decided to negate the effort of the Austrians.

To do this, the Slovene government used the same tactics as it did in the Gottschee enclave. It replaced the formerly German official language with Slovene, turned administrative controls over to loyal Slovene nationals, encouraged Slovenes to move into ethnic German areas and forced the German speaking minorities to learn the Slovene language.

But as in Gottschee, the resident ethnic Germans, the Germanized Slovene elite and many of the Slovene sympathetic to Germany, particularly those in the big cities, actively resisted the ‘re-absorption effort’ after 1918 by joining pro German organizations such as the Kulturbund and the Steirischer Heimatbund. After Hitler came to power in 1933, these organizations actively served to promote Nazi ideology. As in Gottschee, they lobbied for annexation to the Reich in the event of German occupation of Yugoslavia. And when in 1941 Hitler agreed to do this in Lower Styria, the leaders of the Steirischer Heimatbund were overjoyed, while their counterparts in Gottschee were deeply disappointed.

- - - -

The notes on a meeting between the Reichsminister of the Interior and Gauleiter Uiberreither (stamped secret) explain the “Windische” to be in line with the opinion of the Reichsamt:

“The Windische represent a sort of intermediate stage between the Germans and the Slovene. Predominantly they are a rural population, which during the Habsburg Reich was loyal to their German state. They will today strongly welcome the annexation, since they will benefit economically from it. Among them, our germanization policy will fall on fertile ground. Viewed racially, there is hardly any difference between the Windische and the Upper Styrians [in Austria further north]. Among them the German language has remained known since 1918.  Via the Steirischer Heimatbund and close contact between the Windische and the Germans at all levels, their re-germanization will occur rapidly.

“In the new territories, the NSDAP [the Nazi party] will not be built up. In its place steps the Steirischer Heimatbund. It encompasses all the Ethnic Germans and the German-friendly Windische. The Heimatbund is organized in line with the [NSDAP] party. The leadership in the Local District Office will be predominantly Ethnic Germans. Their leader, the Bundesführer, shall be an ethnic German, presently the SA-Standartenführer, [Franz Steindl]”. 95

How the Reichsamt itself viewed the population of Lower Styria in 1941 is documented by Dr. Lammers, Reichsminister and Chief of the Reichskanzlei in Berlin:
 
“In the area of Lower Styria, which contains approximately 550,000 people, there live several hundred thousand “Windische” who represent the majority of the population. The Windische were originally Slovene who, after strong intermingling and centuries long cohabitation with the Germans of Lower Styria, moved closer to ‘Germandom’ and in doing so adopted the German culture”. 96

(A more precise later statistic places the total population at 570,000 with a breakdown as follows: Ethnic Germans 35,000, Slovene 135,000 and Windische 400,000.)  97
 
The Gauleiter also believed the Windische to be loyal and valuable members of his dominion and was to give them full rights as citizens of the Reich, he now having, according to Hitler “…all the power in that land” in his hands. But this plan would soon lead to serious conflicts with the ingathered Gottscheer who objected to be placed on the same level as the “racially inferior” Slovene and with whom they were now to coexist as equals in the Third Reich.
   
The process of “assimilating all Slovenes of Lower Styria” was to be through the “Steirischer Heimatbund”. “By joining, the Slovene (mostly Windische) will show their intent to become Germans”. After they joined, they were issued a green ID card and given all the rights of a temporary German citizen. They would become full citizens of the Reich after a trial period of 10 years. Those Slovene who could prove their lineage was Ethnic German (like the Gottscheer) were given a blue ID card and made citizens of the Reich immediately. 98

Both the Gauleiter and the SS-Reichshauptamt in Berlin knew that success with Hitler’s assignment: ‘Make me this land [Lower Styria] German again! ‘ depended on solidifying the attachment of the Slovene “Windische” to German nationalism.  To assure this, all Slovene nationalists who might interfere with this objective had to be removed, their property nationalized. In line with this, SS-Reichsführer Himmler issued the first directive on April 18, 1941:

1. “Remove immediately the entire Slovene intellectual elite. [Teachers, priests, lawyers, doctors, engineers].
2. “Remove all Slovene nationals who settled in the area after 1914.
3. “Remove the entire Slovene population from the Save/Sotla area. [The southernmost border of the Reich].
4. “Remove from the villages of Lower Styria the inhabitants who display a foreign bloodline.
5. “The rest of the population, [mostly Windische] remains.  As per directive from the Gauleiter, this population shall show its allegiance to Germany by joining the Steirischer Heimatbund”. 99

In line with this directive, SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich estimates that a total of 260,000 Slovene must be deported.  All were to be evacuated to Serbia.  100

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The responsibility for the ingathering of ethnic Germans had been assigned by Hitler on October 7, 1939 to the SS Reichshauptamt under Himmler. This included the clearing of annexed lands of non-German resident population to make room for the ‘ingathered’. To deal with both aspects of this assignment Himmler established the office of the RKFDV.

To facilitate this effort in Slovenia, the Reichshauptamt set up an RKFDV Station in Maribor, headed by SS-Sturmbannführer (Major) Laforce. This office was to take and coordinate directions from both the SS Reichshauptamt in Berlin and the Gauleiter in Graz, Styria. Differences, if any, were to be resolved by Hitler himself. The Ingathering into Lower Styria was labeled “Südmark” and placed under SS-Untersturmführer Bliss.
 
This dual governance led to considerable friction between the two offices. The objective of the SS was to remove the entire non-German population and resettle the land with ingathered ethnic Germans. The objective of the Gauleiter, however, was to follow Hitler’s orders:  “Make me this land [Lower Styria] German again! “ To accomplish this, he wished to keep in place all those Slovenes who were sympathetic to Germany and who had been partially assimilated during the many centuries under Austria. And settle the ingathered Gottscheer among them as equal citizens of the Reich.

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At a meeting on May 6, 1941 between the Gauleiter, the SS-Stabshauptamt and the Foreign Ministry of the Reich, the German Military Command in Serbia presents objections to the proposed immediate shipment of 260,000 Slovene to Serbia. It claims that in view of all other demands on transportation at that time, including the war in Greece and the preparations to invade the Soviet Union on June 22, such shipment will impose a severe burden on the rail network. The start of moving the Slovene is therefore postponed to the beginning of July.  101

In mid May the government of the newly formed Croatian Ustasha state, (now an ally of the Reich), offers to accept the Slovene who were to be expelled providing it can, in turn, expel to Serbia (now occupied by the Reich) an equivalent number of Serbs residing in Croatia.  Hitler agrees to this offer on May 25, and on June 4 discussions to accomplish this start in Zagreb. 102

The conclusion at that meeting was that the population transfer was to occur in three waves.

1.  Move 5,000 intellectuals and politically suspect Slovene to Serbia.  To be done by July 5, 1941.
2.  Move 25,000 Slovene, who had settled in Lower Styria after 1914, to Croatia.  To be done between July 10 and the end of August 1941.
3.  Move 145,000 Slovene to Croatia.  To be done between 15 September and October 31, 1941.

Included in the last wave were 65,000 Slovene farmers from the Save/Sotla area (in part to make room for the Gottscheer) and 80,000 farmers from Upper Krain, the part of Slovenia that was annexed to the Carinthia Gau in April 1941.

In all, the 260,000 of the original plan of May 6, 1941 had been reduced to 175,000.

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The following is what actually did occur:

Wave 1:  By July 5, 1941, 4,780 of the targeted 5,000 intellectuals had been shipped directly to Serbia. The rest fled beyond reach.  In essence this task was accomplished mainly due to careful preparation prior to the occupation.

Wave 2:  By August 22, only 7,750 of the projected 25,000 had been moved to Croatia. The initial estimate proved to be far too high. Some of the targeted 25,000 escaped over the border into the Slovenia occupied by Italy. Many others were reclassified as being of German descent, or discovered to be Croatian citizens and, therefore, could remain in place. Additional individuals were excluded due to a shortage of qualified labor in Lower Styria. 103
 
(Wave 2 evacuation ceased between August 22 and September 8. This was due to extensive Slovene Partisan activity against the Nazi occupier at the end of July - beginning of August in both Upper Krain and Lower Styria. This action was so serious that Himmler ordered a stop to the evacuation).

Wave 3: By September 22, a total of 9,343 had been moved to Croatia.  Another 17,000 moved to Croatia voluntarily. By this date only 26,343 of the 175,000 had been removed. 104
  
At a meeting in Zagreb on September 22, the RKFDV projected another 65,000 Slovene to be moved to Croatia, 45,000 from Slovenia and 20,000 from Carinthia.

But the Croatians stated that “due to the political situation it is no longer possible to accept and settle the Slovenes”. This was because Partisan activity in Croatia (in response to the expulsion of the Serbian population to make room for the Slovenes), reached such proportions that further acceptance was out of the question. 105
  
By September 22, 1941 the Slovenes that were to be deported to make room for Gottscheer were still in place; their resettlement, as ordered by Himmler to start on October 10, was now in doubt. However (according to Article 10 of the Resettlement Contract with Italy), the resettlement of the Gottscheer was required to be completed by November 30, 1941.

Consequently Gauleiter Uiberreither concluded that the Gottscheer resettlement had to be postponed to the spring. As a result, SS-Sturmbannführer Laforce, head of the Maribor RKFDV office, on October 8 requested that the resettlement be postponed until after March 20, 1942. 106

When the VGL received the news that the resettlement might be postponed, it sent protests to the SS-Stabshauptamt in Berlin and to the RKFDV branch in Maribor. It had good cause to protest the delay since it already had to deal with substantial opposition by the Gottscheer and they feared a further delay would increase this resistance to a point which might threaten the entire resettlement project. 107

On October 18, however, Himmler did order the deportation of the Slovene population from the Save/Sotla region. But now into camps of Inner Germany, their transfer to Croatia being no longer possible. This decision was announced to the Slovene on October 20 and the removal of 45,000 Slovene from the region started without further delay. The first train carrying Slovene to Lower Silesia left on October 24, at 10.28 AM. 108  On October 20 Himmler also ordered the start of the Gottscheer resettlement.

The VGL received Himmler’s decision on October 20 and it immediately began to carry out the final preparations. The ingathering train “Heinrich” arrived at the Gottschee City station on October 21 to start the “Option” processing.

And on November 15 the SS-Stabshauptamt reported to Himmler that: “The first Gottschee transport left on November 14 for Lower Styria. And by today 20,000 Slovene had already been removed”. 109

But by November 15, 1941, another 17,000 Slovene had still to be removed.  This was happening while the Gottscheer were already arriving. It is very likely, therefore, that our train crossed with one going in the opposite direction carrying expelled Slovene. When we arrived in Veliko Mraševo (Gross Mraschau) it was obvious that the former residents had been forced to leave not much more than a few days ago.

The final train carrying re-settlers left Gottschee on January 22, 1942.  But some Slovenes were being expelled even long after that. Including the family living in the small house with the thatched roof at the turn-off to Veliko Mraševo.

According to the final SS records of the initially targeted 260,000 Slovenes, only 68,123 were removed from Slovenia; around 37,000 of them to make room for the Gottscheer. The reduced number was in large part due to the effort of Gauleiter Uiberreither who wanted to keep the Slovene in place.

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At the end of 1941, the Reich’s Ambassador to Croatia, SA-Obergruppenführer (General) Siegfried Kasche sent Gauleiter Uiberreither a report on the resettling of Slovene and Serbs. 110 Part of this report is an appraisal of the political and economic consequences of this resettling effort. Essential excerpts are quoted below:
  
“Lessons from the Slovene Resettlement.

“Through this Slovene resettlement, the southern border of the Reich was to be cleared of all hostile forces and the national determination of the Slovene destroyed.  In fact, exactly the opposite was achieved.
  
“By resettling entire villages without considering the political orientation of individuals, even of persons who were already accepted into the Steirischer Heimatbund, the remainder felt uncertain and threatened. Had the deportation been more specific it would have given those remaining a feeling of being secure; but in fact it was expanded and continued sporadically. Consequently, this uncertainty, together with unfavorable economic measures, in effect turned the 70-80% of German-friendly Slovene into bitter enemies of Germany, bringing new numbers to the forces of the bandits. 111

 “While we ruthlessly resettled the Slovene, the Italians [in their part of occupied Slovenia] used a surprisingly different tactic. The Italians accept as valid the Slovene national personality; the Italian High Commissioner even declared, on his arrival in Ljubljana, that he valued Slovene culture and the Minister for Italian national culture created an important Slovene function within the Italian Imperium.

“When the Slovene initially learned that Ljubljana was to be under the Italians, the Ljubljana Slovenes were horrified. (The prior poor treatment of Slovene minorities by the Italians was well known). Today the situation is quite different; the Slovenes see the Italians as their savior. And through the establishment of a Slovene University in Ljubljana, there will doubtlessly emerge a Slovene-Italian center, whose activity will naturally be directed against Germany.

“The Slovene resettlement has also unfavorable results on the rest of Europe since it portrays us Germans in the role of a brutal egotist. The worst being that we could have avoided this label. This label [brutal German egotist] is self evident in the grotesque cases where Slovenes, resettled to Croatia and above all in Serbia, are captured by representatives of the Reich’s Labor Ministry and are transported as laborers to Inner Germany. This begs the inevitable conclusion that the resettlement of the Slovenes had no other purpose than to steal their property and use them as ordinary slave laborers.

 “The Slovene resettlement also brought substantial economic damage. The Reich lost a large part of the valuable workforce of farmers, craftsmen and ordinary laborers.  The Slovenes are a thoroughly qualified workforce.
 
“As a replacement for the very capable Slovene farmers, the Gottscheer are not an equivalent substitute, firstly because their work methodology is antiquated and secondly, because a part of them have, through their wanderings, lost their farming skills. Through this, some of the fertile lands of Lower Styria will become, if not totally untilled, at least in part under-utilized”.

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At the time of this report, Germany’s Ambassador to Croatia, SA-Obergruppenführer (General) Siegfried Kasche did not yet know of the severe penalties Himmler was to impose on the once friendly Slovene for their unexpected resistance to the Germans. To suppress this resistance Himmler issued, in June 25 1942, an edict called: “Befehl für die Unterdrückung der Bandentätigkeit in den Gebieten Oberkrain und Untersteiermark” (Order for the suppression of bandit activity in the territories of Upper Krain and Lower Styria).
 
According to this edict, “... all elements of the population who willingly supported the bandits with manpower, provisions, weapons and shelter, are to be rendered harmless. The men of a guilty family, in many cases also those of their clan, are to be executed, their wives taken to concentration camps and their children sent into the Altreich for reorientation.”  112
 
The first mass action to expel relatives of the executed supporters of the Partisans in Lower Styria according to Himmler’s edict, started at the beginning of August 1942. More than 1,000 persons were seized and taken to a collection camp in the Celje vicinity (Teharje). On the 9th of August, the children were separated from the surviving adults and taken (by train) to the re-settlement camp in Frohnleiten (Upper Styria). Anna Rath, the leader of the guards, reports on the abysmal condition of the 430 children on that train. The adults were taken to concentration camps where most of them perished in gas chamber.

“In four other major actions between October ’42 and June ’43, the children and the surviving adults were taken to various camps of the VoMi in the Bavarian part of the Ostmark. With another edict from the Reich’s Security Headquarters in Berlin, dated July 16, ’43, further expulsion of relatives of the executed collaborators of the Partisans was stopped. After that date, they were taken to the penal work camp in Sterntal [Sternice] which was set up and run by the Steirischer Heimatbund”.  113
  
According to a letter dated February 10, 1943 written by SS-Sturmbannführer Klingsporn in Berlin:

“Approx. 600 children from Lower Styria and Upper Krain were, according to directives from the Stabshauptamt, turned over to the ‘Verein Lebensborn e.V.’ for their care and adoption”.114  The purpose of Lebensborn was to help raising the next Nazi generation.
   
“In the months of July and August 1942 alone, the German occupier burned eleven villages and leveled them to the ground; shot the entire male population above fifteen years of age and deported the rest of the population. This population had for some time given shelter and support to the bandits”. 115

 The reflective Ambassador Kasche could have predicted that Himmler’s edict would only turn the once German-friendly population of Lower Styria into hatred for the occupier. In fact, any sympathies the Slovenes retained toward the Germans remained only among the most intimate collaborators of the Nazis.

After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, the rest of the Slovene territory, until then occupied by Italy, was taken over by Germany. In this part as well, Himmler’s edict of June 25, 1942 was enforced mercilessly to deal with Partisan collaborators.
 
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On our second day in Veliko Mraševo (Gross Mraschau), Mother woke us at daybreak and all were up long before the bus arrived.  Mitzi, Paul and I were to stay behind while Father and Mother left for the rail station in Brežice (Rann). “You are not to go far and stay out of trouble while we are gone”, she said.

The three of us went to look for the others who had arrived with us the day before. But we found only teenagers and children since most of the adults, like our parents, had taken the bus back to the station to take possession of their belongings. And after the young neighbors showed us their new houses, we continued to explore our new surroundings.

The village consisted of about 80 farm houses, all next to one another and most of them along the dirt road that started 500 meters beyond the little thatched house at the intersection and led to the river at the other end of the village. Along this dirt road, two other dirt roads branched off to the right, the first leading to our house and the fields beyond. The second branched off at the apex of a small triangle of space in the middle of the village.  This road served another few farms and then also disappeared into the fields.
 
The triangle of graveled space at the second intersection appeared to be the village square; a space only a small fraction of our large village square in Masern.  A space far too small for a troop of gypsies, a traveling circus, the assembly of a fire brigade or the trinket stands set up on the day of the patron saint.
 
And the triangle was bare. There was no ancient linden tree offering pleasing fragrance in the spring and pleasant shade in the summer to those resting on surrounding stone benches. No tree on which to nail important announcements. And along the edges of the square there were no taverns in which to have meetings, have a drink, talk or argue with friends and neighbors. No school. No store for women to buy staples and to gossip.

There also was no church on or near this triangle. Instead there was a large freestanding cross constructed of lumber beams on to which was nailed the carved figure of a thorn-crowned Christ. It stood not on the square but on one side of one of the three roads bordering the triangle.
 
But there was a church on a raw plot of land at the end of the road leading away from the tip of the triangle, just before the start of the fields. It was dedicated to St. Markus. It was a lonely structure surrounded by neither trees nor bushes; a parsonage nowhere in sight. The main structure seemed complete but it was obvious that the completion process had been interrupted, if not by the war, then by a lack of funds prior to that. The nave inside was empty; its large and spacious floor space lacked benches. The walls were void of any decoration and the bare and unadorned altar a mere shadow of the one we left behind. Also bare was the raised choir space with its entry to the bell tower whose interior was also empty; no stairs or ladders leading upward to a clock platform or a space for the bells. And with no clock or bells to obstruct the view, the raw interior of the steeple disappeared in darkness.
 
Beyond the base of the triangle, the main dirt road continued through the rest of the village toward the river. Straight and in-between an uninterrupted series of adjacent farmhouses. After about 300 meters of open fields, the road ended in a small sandy beach. The river Krka (Gurk), which had skirted the hills after Cerklje, had swung back again toward Veliko Mraševo (Gross Mraschau). At this point it was wide, deep and dark, its slow waters silently hiding the destiny of my school friend Franz. But further downstream where it curved to the right it narrowed and hurried over shallows, the water rippling over protruding rocks. Here one could wade across as did some of the Slovene in their desperate attempt to escape the SS that was clearing the village only a few days ago.

At this point the three of us were unaware that this relatively young, bland and characterless village would never become a successor to Masern with its 600 year old tradition, its harmonious self sufficiency and interdependence. But we were aware, if dimly, that the river would play a major role also in our future and the future of our new village.
  
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They returned from the train station in early afternoon. Yiorgo pulling our own farm wagon with Father sitting on the bench up front holding the reins. The light carriage was attached to the rear and to that was roped our cow. Mother followed on foot. They were part of a caravan of wagons bringing the possessions of those of us who had arrived yesterday.
 
Some of the crates were on our wagon behind Father. The rest, including the crate with the fattened pig was on a second wagon provided by the DAG. The caravan was accompanied by Slovene men the SS had engaged to help with transporting the possessions of the settlers to their destination. They and others had loaded the labeled crates on the wagons, crates which had been placed in the snow on the siding at the station since the train had to return to get other settlers.
 
In our yard the Slovene unloaded the wagons, taking the most sensitive crates into the big barn. And when the unloading was done and the animals safely in the stables, the Slovene men chatted with Mother in the kitchen as she was giving them something to eat and drink. Whatever went through the minds of these men when they discovered that this intruder was also a Slovene can only be guessed!

After that day, the 9th of December 1941, it took several days to unpack the crates and find a place for their contents.  There was much redundancy of items, both within the house and in the farm buildings since the previous owner had been forced to leave all his possessions behind. Much of the existing furnishings within the house, including a complete set of china, were given to Katharina who arrived four days later with far less and was given a house that had very little in it. She had brought little with her, having lost all of her possessions when her little wooden house burned to the ground in 1938. Since then, she, her husband and the two boys had been living in the house of her in-laws. Now she was happy to again have her own place, one far better that the one consumed by flames.

During the following few days, Mother would find time to walk with us three into the village and visit those who like us had come on the 9th of December or thereafter. And while she talked to other women, Mitzi and I wandered off to join other youngsters inspecting the village and the still empty houses in it. Signs of a chaotic and hasty departure were everywhere, all similar to what we had found in our house.

By December 13, all of those destined for Veliko Mraševo had arrived. But not all of the 206 that had left Masern; some were taken to Malo Mraševo (Klein Mraschau), a smaller village about two km further along the Kostanjevica Cerklje road. Two of them we never saw again; our former neighbor Mattl and the incontinent recluse Peinitsch. They had their papers marked “A” and were sent to the ambiguous “Altreich”.

I do not remember how the other new arrivals reacted to their new village and their assigned homes. It seems, at least judging from the reports of the Farmer and the Reverend that the people of Masern fared better than many others in different villages. I do, however, remember Father commenting to those who arrived later that the soil of the land was superior to that we left behind.
 
But I also remember that most kept lamenting the expulsion of the Slovene.

All however, talked nostalgically about the Masern they left behind. “A jewel of a village left for this drab and characterless place of no more than a string of houses on a dirt road leading to a river” was being said. Not the promised place somewhere in the inner part of old Germany, a place of culture and tradition that had been promised us so frequently during the year, a Germany of which we had become especially proud in the last decade. Instead, it was just another part of the annexed Slovenia from which the rightful owners had been forcibly removed. And the possibility that it was to be part of the Third Reich only temporarily and that we too might suffer the same fate, had not yet crossed many a mind. But this was to become apparent all too soon.
 
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