The "Willow whistle" could be made where you could find a willow tree near a creek.  One would cut off a branch from the willow tree about one-half inch thick, shaped one end slanted at an angle as a mouthpiece where a blowhole is placed a half-inch from it. 

Also at an angle in the opposite direction a straight cut of about ¼ of the branches thickness is made.  Now we tapped the bark of the willow branch long enough till it could be twisted off the wood.  Now we completed the mouth piece by connecting it with a cut made a half inch away and placed the bark back on.  It did not always work immediately and often required slight modification.

The "willow horses" as you see in the picture below.  Wood work was taught in school; one of which was a Donauschwaben wagon second boy from the right in the first row).

The "willow horses" as you see in the picture.  We did a lot of wood work in the school classes one of which was a Donauschwaben wagon second boy from the right in the first row).

Children & their toys in the arts class.
[Gakowa, Batschka]

Now a wagon also required horses.  The willow branch we used to make very simple horses by taking a ½in. thick branch and cut it to a length of about 4 to 6 inches.  We cut two grooves about a 1/8 in. back from each end and about 1/16 in. wide to tie a string on it.  This was a simple horse.  To be more creative in the design, we skinned the center section to our own imagination and endless creativity.  You may cut circular grooves around the body of the branch or make diagonal or axial groves or spots to enhance its appearance.

The "Schnelzkugel Spiel" we played the age-old marble game all the time with a lot of varieties.  Our favorite, though, was making a hole between 6 to 12 feet from the start.  The winner was the player who could get the marble in a whole first by flicking it with the dump done by releasing the dump with your index finger.  To making it more exciting or challenging we would place one or two sometimes even more marbles in the whole first and the winner would keep all the marbles.  Sometimes we did make our own marbles from clay, which was readily available after a rain.  As you should know some of our earth was a type of clay, one may refer to as muck, which had good binding qualities and was easy to work with.

Toward the end of the war, August-September 1944 when the German air force retreated from our town, they had made an airfield on the "Hutweide" community meadow.  After leaving, they destroyed all their planes because they had neither fuel nor pilots to fly them.  We went there to scavenge whatever we could lay our hands on, one of which was rubber from the inner tubes of the tires, which was very suitable to fabricate a Gummipuschke.  This slingshot turned into a hunting weapon for birds at the death camp of Gakowa.  I took two of my best pieces with me when we were expelled from our home.  They were part of a child’s great treasure, which became very handy in a time of great need and survival.

During the retreat of the military we recovered ammunition, guns, rifles and machine guns to play with.  Actually it was very dangerous taking the powder out of the shells placing rocks on top of them and exploding them.  Luckily, we were not hit by the flying rocks.  One of our friends ripped several fingers of both of his hands leaving him crippled for life.  Prior to the Russian invasion we, that is my brother and I, buried our priced possessions in the back of the yard near the beet storage cellar so we could find them easily later, but there was no later.

There was the age-old hide and seek, as well as catch.  One of our favorite games we played was playing stork by building a nest on the flat roof of an auxiliary building such as the pig stall and take food up there to eat.  In the winter, we made ice skates for ourselves by taking a board cut it to the length of our wooden shoes and attaching two thick wires on the bottom as runners, then attaching the skates on the wooden shoes.  It was fun to ride with these things even though you could not do any more with than run a straight line.

Then there was the carousel in the "Grundloch."  The Grundloch is a lake created by taking soil for building the walls of our houses.  In the winter when the Grundloch was frozen we placed a 6- to 8-inch diameter hole in the ice and drove a pole into the bottom and then created a round disc by cutting out a 6- to 12-inch wide circular strip of 10 to 15 feet in diameter.  We stepped on that disc and one of us set it into motion by pushing with a pole resting on the solid ice outside of the discs.  Naturally there was the sled, although we had no mountains to go to, but we used the banks of the Grundloch to ride down.

Most of the time we did enjoy playing with our farm animals, scratching the pigs and they loved it, the fowl, and doing chores for our parents such as collecting the eggs and feeding the chicken, riding the horses or leading the cows to the "Hutweide" the community meadow.  Although without our help, the cows knew where to go by themselves in the morning and found their way home in the evening.

Going to the fields to help our father in the summer months was a special treat because it was the real thing preparing us for the future.  There, the greatest treat was the lunch which consisted primarily of bacon and bread with peppers and tomatoes and water from the "Pluzer," since there was no thermostat at that time to keep the water cool it had to be buried underground to keep it somewhat fresh.  Going to the vineyards with our grandfather or grandmother was always a treat since they knew exactly what children like and want and therefore they often planted berry bushes and fruit trees.  One of the biggest treats was always a good piece of watermelon on a hot day cooled in the Schwenkelbrunnen and sweet ripened grapes.

While being incarcerated in the death camp of Gakowa, we children played a game referred to as Belitzke.  Whether this is the correct spelling of the game I do not know.  Who invented this game is not certain either.  It could have been a game played by the children of the Turks, the Slavic or even go as far back to the Gothic or Illyrians.  We took a 12-inch long by ¾-inch in diameter stick, pointed both ends then took a 24-inch stick of the same diameter.  We placed the shorter stick on the ground and hit it with the larger stick on either end.  The stick would twirl through the air.  The object was to keep the short stick airborne while you were walking along the street and count the steps one could make while doing this.  The winner naturally was the boy who could take the most steps.

From these pictures you will recognize the various clothing our children wore, starting with the beautiful baptism gowns.  It varied often from town to town, but interesting is that all of our boys and girls in many of our towns would wear the same clothes until they were grown out of the diapers.  We also see the variety of activities with which they occupied themselves.

The Kopp Family, Batschsentiwan 1937. Hans Kopp is holding the ball. This picture is certainly one of my priceless treasures that I'm sharing with you.

Baptism in Filipowa, Batschka one of the villages which was reach on children.

Elisabeth Njary, Batschsentiwan,
Batschka 1926.

Anna Kunter of Bukin, Batschka.

A mother with her child in their native “Tracht” notice the beautiful head cover of the child [Miletitsch]

The children of Matheis Rometsch.
[Neu Passau, Banat]

This picture of children with loafs of bread is certainly a classic. The Picture shows how large the loaves of our bread really were. [Gakowa, Batschka]

Harvesting wheat is Helene Trumpf on her parent’s wheat field. [Altker, Batschka 1939]

Kristina Lutz and the family’s cow,
[Altker, Batschka]

A girls accordion players class.

The children with their baby sitter and their dolls during a working day.[India, Syrmia]