EXULANTEN MEMORIALS
KAMMERSTEIN, BAVARIA, GERMANY
The memorial is right in the heart of the village. It was created by the artist Thomas Volkmar Held and shows two exiles (father and son) walking through
a gate towards their new home. Optical trick: Depending on one´s viewpoint, the Exulanten show themselves inside the gate (as below) or on the ground. Dedication was in June 2000.
A father and his son seem to be walking through the gate at Kammerstein, after just having arrived from Austria.
WAIN, WURTEMBERG, GERMANY
In Wain, a small village 20
miles south of Ulm/Danube, a little fountain on Kirchstrasse reminds us of the many Austrian Protestants which arrived here from Carinthia and Styria roughly 350 years ago. They had come to live in religious freedom. The
fountain is made of bronze and was created by the artist Rainer Schlecker. It shows a woman on her way to Wain with a rack waggon.
ST. VEIT IN THE DEFEREGGER VALLEY, TYROL, AUSTRIA
This
18 feet long stone plaque can be found outside the church of Bruggen. The village is part of the city of St. Veit today. The piece reminds us of the Deferegger Valley exiles and was created by the artist Georg Planer. As
a symbol of the separation, the plaque is split in two, with two copper bands forming a cross over the gap. On its left piece it shows a group of people left behind and a child - held back by an old man - stretching its
arms out to its mother in the group of exiles. Full of despair she also reaches towards her child.
The Exulanten on the far right side seem to fall off the stone board, as they walk torwards the valley´s end. All people are naked (therefore without protection) in the hands of the Archbishop of Salzburg (left). Only he is dressed and is staring into emptiness. The Protestant girl next to him looks straight into the viewers´ eyes. Deprived of her parents, she stands upright, facing an unknown future.
This work of art commemorates the 691 exiles from the Deferegger Valley that were expelled between 1684 and 1686. They were forced to leave their children under the age of 15 behind.
To the left one can clearly see the faces of the archbishop and the girl that was forced to see her parents leave the valley. Right: the little chapel in the village of Bruggen, Deferegger Valley, Austria.
THALMÄSSING, BAVARIA, GERMANY
This memorial in a small
town just 17 miles south of Nuremberg, symbolises the wheel of time and what it left behind on a metal plate: The traces of the exiled Austrian families.
Above one can see the wheel of time from behind and the engraving that it left on the ground. Besides a note about the immigration of the Austrians, it also mentiones their surnames. (Thanks, Lois)
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A unique
monument for the Salzburger Exiles who emigrated to the USA can be found in
Georgia, a state that was named after King George II. of England. In 1734 he allowed the banished Salzburgers to emigrate to his American colony. They settled in Ebenezer, a village 25 miles north of Savannah. The monument was donated in 1994 by the State of Salzburg and sculptured by the Austrian artist Anton Thuswaldner.
The monument of the Georgia Salzburgers is located at Salzburger Park on Bay Street in Savannah. The text says: “Denied their religious freedom, they were forced to leave their homeland”. (Thanks, Linda)
EBENEZER, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
When the
Salzburg emigrants founded the village of Ebenezer in March 1734, it soon had to been moved due to its unconvenient location. Until 1855 the village even became a ghost town. But what still remained at its old place was the
Jerusalem Lutheran Church which was erected between 1767-69. It is the oldest Lutheran church in the US. A board inside the church commemorates the approximately 300 Salzburger immigrants who once arrived here to live their
believe and settle in freedom.
Left: The Jerusalem Lutheran Church in Ebenezer. Right: The board inside the church.
On the nearby cemetary still some of the early Salzburgers and their descendants are resting in peace.
Left: The memorial on Ebenezer´s cemetary. Right: “To the memory of the SALZBURGERS and their faithful Pastors REV. JOHN MARTIN BOLZIUS and REV. ISRAEL CHRISTIAN GRONAU who for their faith in the doctrines of God´s Word as taught in the Augsburg confession were banished from their homes in Austria and settled in Effingham Co. Geo. in 1734. Hebr. 11, 36-38.”
SIBIU (HERMANNSTADT), ROMANIA
Hermannstadt was already
founded in 1150 by German settlers. Between the years 1734-1737, Emperor Charles IV. of Austria ordererd the deportation of 800 Austrian Protestants to what is Romania today. Appr. 200 of them came from Carinthia. In the years
1752-1756 additional “transmigrations” of around 3.000 people followed. More exiles arrived until 1776.
Above is the Lutherian Church at Hermannstadt (left). In front of the church stands the Archbishop Teutsch Monument. The window painting says the following: “In memory of the immigration of Protestant Austrian Exiles who arrived between 1733 and 1776”. (Thanks, Linda).
GUSEV, RUSSIA (formerly GUMBINNEN, EAST PRUSSIA, GERMANY)
This fresco in Gumbinnen´s Frederick´s School was repainted in 2008 and was originally created by Otto Heichert in 1912. It shows the arrival of the Salzburger emigrants and
their welcome by King Frederick-William I. of Prussia. Despite war destructions and multiple overpainting over the years it could be restaurated and now reminds in the school´s main hall of the Salzburger´s heritage.
The renovated Salzburger Church at Gumbinnen (above). To the right, the altar picture which depicts an emigration scene of the Salzburgers leaving their homeland. (Thanks, Linda)
VILKYSKIAI, LITHUANIA (formerly WILLKISCHKEN, EAST PRUSSIA, GERMANY)
In the 18. century some hundred Protestant refugees from Salzburg and the German Palatinate settled in the area around Willkischken. In the village´s center one erected a
memorial of black wood for them. It shows a waggon´s tongue, symbolising
the horse waggons with whom the refugees once arrived here. A stone board tells the following: “In remembrance of the Salzburg Protestants who found a new home near the Memel river in the 18. century”.
Above one can see the oversized fork in the village of Vilkyskiai, Lithuania.
SCHWARZACH IM PONGAU, STATE OF SALZBURG, AUSTRIA
A
“Salt Licker” memorial shows the approximately 150 men of Schwarzach which swore 1731 - by tipping a finger into a little salt barrel - to obey “the rules of God more than mankind” and to confess their Protestant belief openly
to the Catholic investigation commission.
The memorial with the “salt lickers” is located in Schwarzach´s center.
BECHHOFEN, BAVRIA, GERMANY
This memorial near
Windsbach, Frankonia, was inaugurated on 12. July 2009. It was made by the artist Thomas Volker Held and is located on both sides of the little Rezat river. It consists of several scissors cuts and symbolises an exiled family
arriving from Austria - willing to settle in the village of Bechhofen. The horizontally cut children in the foreground already seem to have settled on the new land with their feet. The two remaining parts of the monument on
either side of the Rezat are fragments of the parents with their children. Only on the other side of the river one can reckognise the full picture. The reflecting images of the memorial on the stream´s surface seem to fade like
the memories of their Austrian home while the water flows by.
Below (outlined with white colour by the author) one can see the full picture: A family of four - the father holding a bible in his hand. 46 expelled Austrian Protestants settled in Bechhofen in the middle of the 17th. century.
HALLEIN, STATE OF SALZBURG, AUSTRIA
These memories can be found at Bad Duerrnberg near Hallein:
Left: The wooden board commemorates the secret evangelic sermons at the “Predigtstuhl” in Duerrnberg´s Abtswald forest. To the right: the “Predigtstuhl” in the Abtswald forest.
RADSTADT, STATE OF SALZBURG, AUSTRIA
In Radstadt at the
Tauern Mountains, one can also find a short notice about the fate of the Protestant citizens that had to leave the town in the 18. century:
Little showcases in Radstadt remind us of the more than 4.000 Lutherans that were expelled from the city in the years 1731/32 - mainly to East Prussia. (Thanks, Manfred K.).
FILZMOOS, STATE OF SALZBURG, AUSTRIA
When the Salzburg
Exiles emigrated to East Prussia in 1732, the 20.000 or so settlers were also joined by an ancestor of the German
poet Agnes Miegel. With a celebration on 13th May 1988 Wilfried Haslauer, who was the then Prime Minister of the State of Salzburg, unveiled a board at the Oberhofalm in Filzmoos. Underneath the text, the coast line from Pommerania to East Prussia shows.
Left: The Oberhof farm. Right: The text says: A maternal ancestor of the German poet Agnes Miegel, born 9. March 1879 in Königsberg in Prussia, died 26. October 1954 at Bad Salzuflen, emigrated from this farm to East Prussia in the year 1732 .
HAMBURG, GERMANY
In the Salzburger Hauser Street in
Hamburg´s Harburg District, once stood a so-called immigrants´ house. Here, 42 banished exiles from Berchtesgaden were given shelter in 1733. They had arrived at Hamburg via Hanover. After the building´s renovation in 1993, a
memorial which commemorates the fate of these people was placed in the inner courtyard. The artist Knud Knabe created two bronze columns which symbolise a gate as “Gate of Remembrance”. The first verse of the exiles´ song forms
a chiseled circuit on the ground stones: “I am a poor exile, that is why I have to write ...“
Above: The Salzburger Hauser at Hamburg-Harburg. Right above: The Salzburger Verein added an additional information board on the exiles´ fate to the monument in 2003.
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