Branching Out: The Beslers of Landestreu

Heimat Galizien im Bild,  Hilfskomitee der Galiziendeutschen 

I've been researching my grandfather’s family in Galicia lately which is a perfect lead in for this month’s topic. The picture above is Landestreu, Galicia. My grandfather Jacob Besler left his home there in 1902 at the age of 18 to emigrate to Canada. He never returned to his homeland and never again saw most of his family. I don’t know if he exchanged letters with his family. If he did the letters have not survived. He was busy raising his own family and trying to survive in the harsh climate of Saskatchewan but he must have thought of his parents and siblings and wondered what became of them. Here’s what I discovered.

My grandfather was the 8th of 10 children born to Johann Heinrich Besler and Maria Barbara Baumung as well as the youngest son. Large families were common in the village of Landestreu and land was scarce. Most of the inhabitants of the village were described as Grundwirts or Landwirts which translates to farmer in English. A promising future was not in store for young Jacob so his decision to emigrate to Canada made sense. You can read my earlier blog post about his journey here. 

Survival into adulthood was difficult. Many children in these large families did not make it past their first year. Heinrich and Barbara’s first child Johann Christian was born in 1868. Their next four children died young: Katharina Elisabeth born in 1871 lived 2 1/2 months and died of Schwäche (weakness), Johann Philipp born in 1872 lived 8 months and died of Zahnen (teething), Jakob Adolf born in 1874 lived to 6 1/2 and died of Auszehrung (weakness/emaciation, possibly tuberculosis) and Maria Katharina born in 1876 lived just 3 weeks before succumbing to fraise (infant spasms). In other families masern (measles), keuchhusten (whooping cough) and rachitis (rickets) claimed many children, causes of infant mortality that we don’t see any more. Luckily for the Beslers their last 5 children were healthy and lived well into adulthood.

Heinrich died on 28 Nov 1912 at the age of 69 from some sort of cranial issue, perhaps a stroke? (Gehirnenig). Barbara died on 26 Oct 1920 at the age of 73 of Alterschwäche (old age). When Jacob married in 1915 he noted that both his parents were dead which leads me to believe that he did not receive letters from his family once he settled in Canada. Perhaps mail wasn’t coming through during WWI leading him to guess that they were dead. 

Record book of deaths. Ugartsthal-Landestreu commune agad.gov.pl

Once the senior Beslers died their oldest son Christian took over the family residence House #7. He had married Eleonora Löwenberger in 1895 and was listed as a Grundwirt or Landmann.

Record book of Weddings, Ugartsthal-Landestreu commune, agad.gov.pl

The couple had 8 children that I know of. I don’t know when or where Christian or Eleonora died nor the fate of 4 of their children.  Fred and his wife Minnie emigrated to Canada, settling in Winnipeg. My mother was close to their daughter Eleanor. Minnie and her husband Wilhelm Schick settled in Toronto. John settled in Toronto as well. 

I wasn’t able to determine the fate of Johann Georg Besler born in 1878. Perhaps he died young or moved to another village in Galicia.

Eleonora Besler married Johann Friedrich Lowenberger in 1896 and had 9 children that I know of. Friedrich died in 1920 of the Spanish Flu, one of a number of relatives that succumbed to the deadly virus. I don’t know of Eleanor’s fate but she remained in Europe. Two of the 9 children emigrated to Canada: Fred and his wife Hedwig and George and his wife Irma settled in Toronto.

Katharina Besler married Johann Reihl in 1913. They had one child that I am aware of. I do not know their fate.

Finally Dorothea Besler married Rudolf Kandel in 1906. This is the only sibling that my grandfather even saw again. First Rudy then Dorothy emigrated to Canada in 1912 with their two eldest children. They settled in Brandon Manitoba. My mother has fond memories of her Aunt Dorothy and stayed in touch with her cousins even when she moved to Toronto.

Hamburg Passenger Lists 1850-1934, ancestry.ca

Jacob and Dorothy were the lucky ones as they left Galicia before the first World War. The inhabitants suffered greatly but many residents remained even after the territory was divided after the War. Things improved in the inter war years but little did they know that the worst was yet to come in the form of World War Two. 

In 1939 Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement. One of the terms of this agreement was that those of German ethnic background were to be relocated from the Russian area to the German area. So the residents of Landestreu had to leave; likely they did not want to stay in Russian controlled territories though it was a difficult decision to leave their homeland. Always particular, the Nazis created Einwandererzentralstelle forms, translated as Immigration Centre documents. The documents were stored in the Berlin Document Centre and captured by the American army at the end of the war. Starting in 1939 hundreds of thousands of people were recorded as they packed up to leave their homes. 

In English Landestreu means “faithful land” and the Beslers were indeed faithful to their land. The family moved to Landestreu from Biedesheim in the Rheinland Palatinate in the late 1700s. The village was founded in 1783 and my 4x great grandfather Konrad Besler was listed on the first census of residents taken in 1788.   

 

Ludwig Schneider, Das Kolonisationswert Josefs II in Galizien

This was the only home they had ever known. Despite speaking German and worshipping in the Lutheran church their ties to German were very weak. They were moved to camps in German controlled territories in Poland and often into farms that were cleared of their original Polish inhabitants. The intent was that they would produce food and provide other services to support Germany and the Nazi war machine. 

The Galizien German Descendants has indexed many of the EWZ forms relating to Galizien residents.  The forms from 1940-1941 are available on Family Search to view. I was not able to find my great Uncles and Aunts though I did find a variety of more distant cousins. Then, by chance I realized I was looking at one of my mother’s cousins. Her record had not been indexed and I found it as I browsed the records looking for someone else.

Eleonora Besler was born on 13 May 1900, the second daughter and third child to Johann Christian Besler and Eleonora Löwenberger. Her birth record is not yet available but I located the record of her marriage to Jakob Weiss on 15 February 1920. 

 

Record book of Weddings, Ugartsthal-Landestreu commune, agad.gov.pl

After her marriage she lived a quiet life in Landestreu, until she presented herself and her 17 year old daughter Alwine to authorities in Pabianice on 23 February 1940. They had been moved from their home in Landestreu to nearby Manasterczany then to Zdunska Wola, near Łodz for processing. Today this is a 10 hour drive. Eleonora and Alwine likely spent many more hours on a train to get to the relocation camp. The photos are poignant. They look apprehensive and rightly so. They were headed to an unknown future in a new town. They were separated from Jakob who had apparently already been relocated. The form notes that they are of Polish nationality, the Evangelisch (Lutheran) religion and of the Aryan race (not likely that anyone would say otherwise to this question!). They both wished to apply for German citizenship. At the bottom a physical description is added by hand. Eleonora is 156 cm tall, slim with blond hair and blue eyes. Alwine is 148 cm tall, slim with blond hair and light brown eyes.

Stamblätter 1940-1941, Deutschland Einwandererzentralstelle FamilySearch.org    

 

Their post-war fate is unknown but likely tragic given their location in the path of the advancing Soviet army.  It was a sad end to what began as hopeful emigration and emphasizes how fortuitous my grandfather’s decision to emigrate was.  

To conclude here is a German newsreel clip from early in 1940 showing Galician emigrants in the course of their journey. 

No names are provided but likely some of the people in this film were my family members. The enthusiastic greeting by the Nazis was no doubt put on for the camera - I’ve seen anecdotal evidence that their possessions were stolen and compensation for the loss of their lands never provided. Today Landestreu is in western Ukraine and has been renamed Zelenyi Yar. The fate of this area of the world is once again uncertain.