We accompany our air-borne travelers between the so unequal halves of the Gottscheer people in their Austrian and German exile and see with their eyes still another fact. Understandably, the older resettlers do not share in the ebbing economic miracle in their new homelands to the same extent as those generations who are now of a responsible age. The latter have to deal with their professional responsibilities as well as with their duties as marriage partner and family provider. But the elderly have also been taken care of in the form of pensions, public
housing, and private efforts in this field. And around Christmas, donations from the "Gottscheer-Hilfswerk" in America arrive and are given to those who are in need of them.

Every, but truly every, "American" has another travel goal in mind. Not Paris or Rome, Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Salzburg, or "die Romantische Straße" (a route in Bavaria so called because of the many "romantic" sites along its way), even though many do head for these international tourist centers, but Gottschee, or more precisely what remains of it, is the secret objective of all. But only some get there. The others hesitate to actually take that trip to Gottschee. They wish to preserve the golden memories of the "Ländchen" as a whole, the village, the house of their birth, the neighbors as they remember them from their youth. However, those who do journey to southern Slovenia approach the city from Reifnitz with apprehension and a mixture of sadness and curiosity, even though
newspaper accounts, letters, and accounts of others have told them what to expect. Immediately after crossing the boundaries of the former linguistic island, they notice that the forest is regaining possession of the "Ländchen." The city has changed very much and only very few of the familiar sights and views still exist. The twin towers of the church no longer dominate the scene. Several concrete apartment towers have been added. They are functional, modern, but tasteless and could be located at the edge of any small European city.

What is missing, however, is the castle of the Duke of Auersperg. The visitor feels as if he is viewing a monument whose head had been severed from the body. Another piece of history has been removed. The branch line Ljubljana - Gottschee, opened in 1893, was abandoned because it was not profitable. Buses transport passengers and trucks goods on the modern expanded state highways. The two routes that have existed since the colonization, Gottschee - Obermösel - Graflinden - Unterdeutschau and Gottschee - Hohenegg - Nesseltal - Unterdeutschau, are now only used to transport timber.

To facilitate the tourist and truck traffic, a new route was established from the city of Gottschee southward to Fiume (Rijeka), thus fulfilling the old dream of a direct connection to the Adriatic. A forest route now runs from the city of Gottschee south-eastward across the southern foothills of the Kummerdorf mountain to Brunnsee. Now as before, visitors to Gottschee do not have access to the Hinterland. Why the government has taken this measure is not clear. Immediately after the war there were rumors that there were concentration camps in the vicinity
of Göttenitz. Later it was adamantly asserted that uranium deposits had been discovered at a depth of eight hundred meters near Göttenitz and that no one is allowed to go there. Likewise, the regions of Verdreng - Hornberg and, since 1977, also of Lichtenbach are off-limits.

Surely one could also describe this traveler to Gottschee who had been born in the "Ländchen" as a sort of returnee, but that would be very symbolic since that which originally made up the homeland exists now only in memory. Only the old settlement sites - we have named them repeatedly - and several larger settlements have at least partially survived the fighting between the partisans and the Italian occupation forces. The smaller towns off the cited routes have disappeared. The "return home" generally looks like this: After one has fought one's way
through the thicket and established the approximate location of one's former house of birth, one stands uncomprehending before very small mounds, overgrown with stinging nettles, weeds, brush, huge shrubs, thirty-five-, thirty- and ten-year-old trees, the grave mounds of former farms, one's former birthplace. For a few
moments one suddenly imagines the village as it once was, the houses, the barns, the fruit trees, the village pond - but the image is strangely lifeless, like painted stage scenery. The people are missing ... "Shall we go?"

Most of the churches are ruins, the mountain churches dilapidated. The church walls and gravestones in many villages were burned in the lime-kilns. Only a few churches, like those in Mitterdorf and in the city of Gottschee, survived the chaos. The German Bible quote around the main altar in the latter still recalls its builders and the pew of the Auersperg family still stands at the head of the left row of benches in the nave.

A few of these visitors to the old homeland also encounter former Slovenian neighbors. These, as well as the older Slovenes in the adjoining region between the Gottscheer-German and the Slovenian settlement area, know that they got along well with the expelled Gottscheers until the time of crises before the resettlement. The meetings between old Gottscheers and old Slovenes are like those between good acquaintances who have not seen each other for a long time. Thirty-five years later, one example out of many: Ernst Stalzer, the master cabinet-maker
from Nesseltal who now lives in Munich, told the author of one such encounter.

After some mutual questioning in the Gottscheer dialect, the Slovene asked bluntly:

"Bei sheit'r gagean" (Why did you leave?)

Unfortunately, the same reporter also could tell of another, an ugly scene, that took place years earlier in Nesseltal. When a tourbus of Gottscheer men and women stopped in Nesseltal and the passengers got out, passing Slovenian women spat. What made them do that? Probably some of that hatred that had filled the Slovenes during World War II. Such a scene is hardly imaginable today. On the other hand, there are many Gottscheers - the author of this book is among them - who regret that the Slovenian people had to suffer much from 1941 to 1945 because of the war waged by the German Reich. The Gottscheers were not to blame for that. Time healed much. In Slovenia, too, thirty and more yearly generations have since been born.

There has also been a change in the political, that is, government stance of the Slovenes towards the Gottscheers. They are permitted to enter the former region of Gottschee without any difficulties and to move about freely within it, except for the Hinterland and the other already mentioned areas that are off-limits. This restriction applies to all foreigners. The Yugoslavian Republic of Slovenia does not owe anyone an explanation. Instead, every summer reaffirms the tolerance that the government shows the Gottscheers, for they do not cause any disturbance and act in accordance with their own realization; Gottschee is no longer a political issue.

Thus, if the last generation of Gottscheers that was born in Gottschee nurtures its cultural heritage outside of Yugoslavia in a non-political manner and endeavors to preserve it in accordance with historical accuracy, then it does so for the same reasons as other people attempt to preserve their ethnic heritage. The Slovenian people are themselves an eloquent example of this. One of the reasons that this Jahrhundertbuch was written was so that the voice of a Gottscheer would also be heard as a spokesman for all his countrymen in the discussion of the history of
the "Ländchen" and tell of the inevitable human tragedy of the destruction of his homeland.

We know that this homeland is irretrievably lost to the people of the calciferous region. All the more reason why, in conclusion, we are concerned about if and to what extent the Gottscheers in the Austrian Republic and in the Federal Republic of Germany have been included in the governmental property compensation. Only after a hard battle with officials, who were understandably concerned with economizing, were the Gottscheer refugees and others who were entitled to compensation included in the corresponding legislation. The Federal Republic of
Germany granted full, and the Austrian government partial, compensation. The Gottscheers in the Federal Republic received their compensation in accordance with the "Lastenausgleichgesetz" (literally: law of equalization of burdens, a law which called for compensating those Germans whose property had been expropriated) and those in the United States, Canada, and South America according to the" Reparationsschadengesetz" (reparations law).

In Austria, the legislature did not set up a separate legal office to ascertain and pay the war indemnities. Rather, it
was included in the already existing social legislation. Compared to the compensation granted by the Federal Republic of Germany, the refugees in Austria did not fare very well. Despite the efforts of the Gottscheer "Landsmannschaften" and the union of the ethnic German "Landsmannschaften" in Austria in which the "Südostdeutsche Rat" (Southeast German Council) vigorously participated, the Austrian government only compensated the refugees for their lost household belongings and for the tools of their trade. The Austrian government was able to reject the claims for compensation for farm- and woodland-property with a rather irrefutable argument: Austria had not been the warring state and its territory had, moreover, suffered heavy damages because of the war.

The loss of business property in the categories of trade, crafts, and business was also compensated in the Federal Republic to a degree that was legally established. Of course, the Gottscheers, like all those concerned, had to undergo the unavoidable and cumbersome verification process which began with an application. Compared to the refugees from eastern German regions, the Gottscheers had the advantage that the property they had left behind in the former linguistic island had remained assessable for two reasons: On the one hand, because the region in question was not so extensive and, on the other hand, because the Gottscheer appraisers, that is assessors, could still be questioned on all sorts of matters. They were divided into working groups according to the districts created in the linguistic island in 1933: Altlag, Gottschee-city and province (both were treated as one unit in the
assessment), Rieg, Obermösel, Nesseltal, Tschermoschnitz (part of the district of Rudolfswerth), the township of Tschernemble province (included were the community of Stockendorf and the wine-growing regions of Meierle and surroundings), and the township of Cabar which included the high valley of Suchen. The appraisers
reconstructed the former properties of the applicants in numerous meetings. The names of these deserving men, however, were and are not allowed to be published. Certainly a wise decision.

However, one name has to be singled out in this regard, Regierungsamtmann Ferdinand Wittine. We have already encountered his name in the Federal Republic of Germany. In an unusually circumlocutious route, fate led him to this post where he could be most useful to his fellow countrymen. Ferdinand Wittine was born in 1906 in Rieg. His education fell into the unusually difficult post-World War I period. Let him speak for himself:

"In September 1918 I started at the eight-year secondary school in Gottschee. The war had barely ended when the upper level of the school (as of the fifth year) was abolished and the first grade was conducted only in Slovenian. I thus had the good fortune of being able to attend the last grade that was conducted in German.
After the fourth grade, I went to the public senior high school in Ljubljana. At that time, it was very difficult for a Gottscheer to survive here." Afterwards, Ferdl Wittine was then the administrator of the township of Rieg for many years. Thus, he was in constant touch with his countrymen and could therefore ameliorate many an encroachment by the state.

During and after the war he had several occupations - just as did other countrymen - and after a long journey, he wound up at the ministry for refugees and displaced persons in Stuttgart in 1954. As the official expert, he was able to assist the Gottscheers in the property issue for twelve years. He was particularly instrumental in establishing the actual hectare size of the properties in the lost homeland. He knew how to assert himself against those around him who were uninformed about this matter.

As was already mentioned, Ferdinand Wittine was the co-founder of the Gottscheer association in Germany and for years its enthusiastic chairman. He was made honorary chairman in recognition of these efforts. He is also an honorary member of the "Gottscheer Landsmannschaft" in Klagenfurt. The president of the Federal Republic of Germany awarded him the "Bundesverdienstkreuz" (distinguished service medal) for his accomplishments.

On the whole, all the Gottscheers who applied have now received compensation for their properties. Some difficult individual cases are still outstanding as this book is being written. Government official Ferdinand Wittine made his records of the number of submitted applications and the useable farmland that they cited available to the author insofar as was permitted by the property compensation and reparations legislation. A total of 1,531 applications - 578 through the "Lastenausgleich" and 953 through the "Reparationsschadengesetz" - were processed and settled. Altogether about 26,000 hectares were considered.

Overseas many of the compensation cases dealt with claims by heirs. The strikingly large difference between the compensation cases through the "Lastenausgleich" and the "Reparationsschadengesetz" and the total area of the former linguistic island of about 85,000 hectares (approximately 850 square kilometers) can be more easily explained than it might at first seem. Above all, the grazing and barren lands which comprise thirty-four percent of the total area were not considered for compensation. Approximately the same percentage of land was covered by forests. No claim could be made for all of the grazing and barren land. The Auerspergian part of the woodlands that were already seized by Yugoslavia in 1930 has to be subtracted from the wooded region. Likewise, one must deduct eight percent of the total area of the former linguistic island for the small Slovenian properties. In addition, the communal property, the extent of which is not known, fell to the Yugoslavian state. The church properties that do not appear in any of the statistics cannot be included either. There is no way of estimating the size of
the last two areas mentioned. Furthermore, the properties of those resettlers who had settled in Austria had to be deducted since - as was stated - the Republic of Austria did not accept such claims. This area, too, cannot be estimated. Quite a few eligible Gottscheers in the Federal Republic of Germany did not file an application, partly because they were uninformed and partly because they dreaded the bother. Thus, the Gottscheers will never know exactly what their little homeland was worth in German marks and pfennigs, in Austrian schillings and groschen,
in dollars and cents, six hundred years after its settlement. Nevertheless, all those who gave much of their time and energies to this task deserve the thanks of all living Gottscheers.

("Jahrhundertbuch der Gottscheer", Dr. Erich Petschauer, 1980)

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