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Another bill in the Senate looms as a problem. It is a bill resulting from the lobbying of professional photographers. The bill will re-assign copyright from the owner/commissioner of a photograph to the photographer. This means that copyright for such photos as family portraits, baby pictures and wedding pictures would reside with the photographer and not the family. Thus, the use of such photographs in family histories, publications, genealogy web sites, or distributed by e-mail would be illegal. There are more potential problems with the bill because legally, family photos taken by non-professional, point and shoot photographers could not be copied or published without the consent of the person behind the camera. Imagine the impact that would have on people accessing a family album or an archive to compile a family history or a website! Organizations of Genealogists, Historians and Archivists continue to pressure government committees to find solutions to the problem of providing access but protecting the works of professional photographers.
The discussion will continue for some time.
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Michael Stang was a Volga German who settled in and around Macklin, SK. in the early 20th century. One day during the World War II, Michael was arrested and put in a prison camp as a German alien. You see, he was reported by the local postmaster as having received a German Language Newspaper from North Dakota. Michael’s English was poor and he was not able to communicate effectively in that language.
The German townsfolk soon discovered that Michael had been arrested and my grandfather, Adam Ell, volunteered to represent Michael in the legal case.
Adam’s case was rock solid and Michael was released from jail after a few weeks. In preparation for the trial, Adam Ell was harassed by the police as an accomplice and a group of German Russians ganged up on one policeman in particular and threatened him with severe bodily harm if he laid a hand on Adam.
Adam went to court and put forward his strong evidence in support of Michael. Upon hearing the evidence, the judge released Michael.
Some time later, Michael received a letter from the office of the Prime Minister of Canada. It read as follows:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Stang:
I have learned, with much pleasure, of the exceptionally fine war record of your family. You have indeed reason to be proud of having seven of your eight sons, and also a grandson, in the armed forces of Canada. (The Prime Minister was not aware of a daughter overseas in the armed forces as well)
Please accept my warm congratulations on the patriotic spirit with which your family has displayed together with my sincere thanks for the manner in which you yourselves have helped the campaign in your community for the Fifth Victory Loan.
Yours sincerely,
McKenzie King Prime Minister of Canada
We will remember those who went overseas and those who stayed. Michael never survived the war. His heart ached every day his boys and daughter were overseas and he never lived to see them when they all returned home….. Bob Ell
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Hello my dear Merv & Patti.
I received your letter with great joy and excitement. Although we do not know each other, we are friends. It is so interesting what can happen in life. If my husband, Josef, was still alive it would have been a joy to him as well. I thank you for your efforts. I can hardly imagine that you have been researching the Weiss family history for only four years.
Now a little about our Weiss family. I can hardly write about it. It is a long story and it could fill a whole book to read. I lived in my home for eighteen years. Then came the great World War and we were evacuated from our home. My home at the time was Grossliebental, Odessa district, and after that we never saw our home again. Rich or poor, no one had it easy. It was the same for all of us.
On our trip, we were three and one-half months on the road. Many old people and children died along the way. And here I will have to be brief because it is impossible (for me) to write about it. First we went to Poland. We were there for one year and then to Germany. Then the Russians took us back, and said that we would not be returning to our homes as we all wanted. So then we had to travel again, not to our homeland, but to Siberia, one very cold land. There we had to live like swine. There my husband, Joseph’s, mother starved as well as his sister, Agnesia, only 22 years old. We had to survive bad food and pneumonia. Joseph was alone with only his brother remaining. And I, Luise, was also alone with my sister, Emma, born in 1923 and brother, Adolf, born in 1929. We were also alone without our parents. It is very hard for me to write about it. Tears still come to me to think about that time long ago in the past. And then we met Joseph and his brother.
In 1949, we were united in a civil ceremony as husband and wife. We were together for 51 years. We had a good relationship. He had no parents and neither did I. I was Evangelical and Josef was Catholic. That made no difference to us because we knew little about our faith at that time . While we lived in the prison camp in the forest, we had to give our signatures that we would always remain in the forest. But then came a miracle and it came from Adenauer, Chancellor of Germany. This man arranged for all the Germans to be released in 1956. Now, finally freedom, but still we were not allowed to go back to our homes. And so we went to Kazakhstan, to the town of Karaganda. There we lived for over twenty years. Then we waited for over four years for approval for our application to move to Germany, our original homeland. And so we, forever the wanderers without a home, are back. And this now will be our last place. I lost my Josef in 1997, and Jacob, my son, in 1996. There is less happiness now but at least I have a home.
Ted Becker continues his efforts to purchase Krasna Catholic Church records from the archive in Saratov, Russia for the years 1851 to 1940. To date the project has received about 2500 pages of extractions but the cost of the entire project has escalated from previous estimates. More donations are requested to complete the project.
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In the Black Sea area, too, Christmas was the greatest feast, for which children along with their parents and grandparents intensively prepared throughout Advent, and which they awaited with great anticipation amidst projects of repairing and applying new layers of lacquer on old toys.
The old traditions had been brought along by our ancestors, from the Pfalz [Palatinate], from Baden, Alsace, and Wuerttemberg, to the Black Sea area. They held on to them even up to the expulsions and deportations four, five generations later, and they practiced them, with slight
variations, in every settlement area, be it the Beresan or the Kutchurgan regions.
And today, the figures of the Christ Child and the Pelzenickel, to name only two of our favorite Christmas-time figures, still make their appearance at the season's celebrations of our organization. Moreover, the descendants of our colonists, beyond two or three further generations, continued to nurture these traditions even in Siberia, and subsequently they brought them back to Germany -- a fact not too well known by our people.
In the new editions of the double-volume book Die deutschen Kolonien in Suedrussland ["The German Colonies in South-Russia"] by Konrad Keller -- the original editions had been published in 1905 and 1914, respectively. – we came upon a description of Black Sea area Christmas celebrations that has, in our opinion, genuine historical value.
Under the chapter title "Volkstuemliches und Volkskundliches aus dem Beresan" ["Traditional and Folkloric Customs in the Beresan"] in Keller's book we find the following concerning the feast of Christmas:
Weihnachten (Christkindl, Pelzenickel, Stefestag, Buendelstag
[Christmas (the Christ Child, Pelzenickel, St. Stephen's Day, Buendelstag]
[Translator's note: the term Christkindl denotes the Christ Child, who in traditional German Christmas customs appeared to the children and would in later times be replaced by the Weihnachtsmann or, in Russian usage, Father Christmas, or the equivalent of Santa Claus. The term Pelzenickel is fairly impossible to translate, so I am leaving it untranslated; it denotes the figure of the "Bad Guy" who often accompanied the Christ Child figure and acted as the punishing agent for bad kids, because the Christ Child would hardly personally punish children; Stefestag is a dialect word for (St.) Stephen's Day; and the last term above, Buendelstag, also left untranslated, is described in the text that follows. "ue" = "u with an umlaut." Tr.-AH]
Christmas, that joyous feast for children, when all Christendom adores the lovable Divine Child in the crib, brings joy and bliss as well as nice presents to all good children.
The Christmas tree was not part of early customs in the Beresan area. Instead, the Christ Child presented the children with all the pretty things that today are hung on the tree. The Christ Child figure was usually represented by a girl with a fine, clear voice and natural wit. She was dressed in white, with a veil covering her face, carrying a basket on one arm and a bundle of switches in the other hand.
Attired in this fashion, along with several other girls and sometimes also accompanied by Pelzenickel, she would come up to a window of a house where the lamps had already been lit. A girl would ring a bell in front of the window, and the Christ Child figure asked, "Darf's Christkindl nein kumme?" [Dialect for, "Is the Christ Child permitted to come in?"] The housewife answered, "Yes," and the Christ Child and company stepped into the room, where the children, with fear and trepidation, usually were awaiting the events to come.
Now the examination begins: have the children been praying willingly and for how long; have they been obedient, etc.? Depending on the answers, there are presents of floggings. Sometimes when the Christ Child asks in a really serious tone or expresses doubts about the children's praying or
their knowledge of all the important prayers, all the assembled children fall on their knees, crying and reciting the prayers in question.
If, however, there are bad, disobedient boys present, the Pelzenickel figure, who has been waiting outside, is called in. Usually a strapping young man with a low voice, he is dressed in a ragged, inside-out animal pelt [hence the first part of his name, Tr.], with a mask over his face, at times with horns on his head, a clanging chain slung over his shoulder, and a bundle of switches in his right hand. This figure, not any more handsome than the Evil One himself, with chain rattling, steps over the threshold, and inside one can hear fearsome screaming and wailing from the
bad boys, all attempting to hide somewhere. But they're all found out and must "justify" themselves to the Pelzenickel, who says little and, instead, allows the switches to whistle their message -- a sound that will continue to echo a long time in the ears of the bad boys.
Finally, after the Christ Child and the Pelzenickel have left the house, the children are presented with their gifts, which usually consist of edible things such as Lebkuchen [ginger cookies, or ginger bread], oranges, apples, and nuts.
In earlier days, the second day of Christmas, or the feast of St. Stephen (Stefestag), was the day when servants would leave their old master and begin serving a new one. Male and maid servants would pack their bundles [hence the first part of the name for that day, Buendelstag, Tr.], lay
them on a wagon or on a sled, and with horses decorated with colorful ribbons, parade up and down the village street, singing:
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