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  Donauschwaben Villages Helping Hands
  Remembering Our Donauschwaben Ancestors
 
     
Village Life
Backyard Gardens
 

 

Back Court Yard

by Hans Kopp

     The Back court was designed for stables housing the horses, the cows and pigs. They provided a huge roaming area for the chicken, gees and ducks besides being the mean court where the manure was deposited to cure and taken to the fields during the winter months. The Back court was designed for stables housing the horses, the cows and pigs. They provided a huge roaming area for the chicken, gees and ducks besides being the mean court where the manure was deposited to cure and taken to the fields during the winter months.

  Click Images to Enlarge

A typical home garden often located in the front court but here we see one in a back court in the town of Altker, Batschka.

   

A typical manure pile and a farmer loading the wagon in Filipowa, Batschka.

   

A farmer taking his manure to the field with a cow wagon in Sathmar. Notice the typical Hungarian Longhorn cows.

   

A typical farmer raising pigs in Ernsthausen, Banat.

   

Two sisters of the Saller family with their dolls and their ducks.

   

Helmut Bundus of Altker, Batschka as a little boy with the chicken in the back court.

   

A view of a back court, Indija, Syrmia. Notice; the gate, the “Hambar,” storage area for the grain and corn.  The small door led to a stable and the bird’s house.

The Salasch

by Hans Kopp
 

A Salasch can be easiest compared to the American farm, a group of buildings with a residence, stables and storage buildings for grain and equipment, although the acreages usually never was as large as the farms in the USA. The Salasch was a “Bauerngut” of an influential larger farmer while the usual commuting farmer was a known as the small farmer who owned pieces of land around the villages.

As we know the Danube Swabian had for the most part closed communities and had to commute to their fields. These fields were often small in acreages either purchased or inherited and often divided among several children. Many of those acreages had different value depending where they were located and on what soil they were located on. The Salasch on the other hand was mostly farm acreages were larger size fields were used for the same type of crops, wheat for bread, corn for pig and poultry feed, sunflowers for cow feed or oaths as horse feed. Even for a lucrative export we will hear about from the economical section of the Donauschwaben.

The large farm of Andreas Rollinger near Ernsthausen, Banat on his last day at his home. The picture was taken just hour before the family fled their home under the protection of the German Army in 1944. Notice the horses seam to be ready to pull the wagons of a wagon trek fleeing from the oncoming Russian Red Army only days away.

 
 

A Salasch near Jarek, Batschka

 

A Salasch in Gakowa, Batschka

 

 

Excerpts from the book “The Last Generation Forgotten and Left to Die” by Hans Kopp,
with additions for the study of the history of the Donauschwaben, their heritage, customs and social mores.All Rights reserved. ISBN No. 0-9701109-0-1. Copyright 1999 and 2006
Reproduction of this material for resale is prohibited by law.
Special permission is granted to the “Donauschwaben Village Helping Hands Project"
to be published on their webpage as “An Illustrated History of the Donauschwaben”

[Published at www.dvhh.org, 15 Nov 2006]

The Hambar

'Corncribs' in Europe

The European hambar is a ventilated storage place, mostly used to dry corn. The wind can blow between the lattice works to dry the corn.  For that reason it is standing by itself.

 

 

 

Upper Hambar photo taken by J. McKim, 2004 in Fibisch

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 


     

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