By Paula Schleis
Martin Schleis had found life challenging but rewarding after settling into his new home
in America. He'd hoped his younger brother would join him in Ohio, and saved up enough money so Michael could buy passage
on a ship.
Jakob Schleiss accompanied Michael, who was still a boy, to a port to catch his ship. But
the distance to the port was greater than Jakob had anticipated, and they arrived late. The ship had sailed.
Jakob made arrangements for Michael to catch the next ship out, but he couldn't stay with his
son. He had already spent too much time away from his farm. They said their goodbyes, and Jakob returned home to Gorjani,
Yugoslavia.
Left alone, Michael began to have second thoughts and grew homesick. He allowed the next
ship to sail without him, and returned to his father. He would never see his brother again.
Michael married and raised a family in Gorjani. There, they lived peacefully among Serbians,
Croats, Hungarians and many other Germans who - like Michael's ancestors - had followed the Danube to settle in these lands
nearly two centuries before. To honor their special tie to the river, they called themselves Donauschwabens, "Germans
of the Danube."
But the town's diversity turned dangerous when World War II found its way to the small
village. After Hitler's army conquered the country, many young men who were of German blood were drafted into the
military. Those who remained in Gorjani feared for their lives from residents who were not happy with the German occupation.
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Michael and other villagers too old to serve in the regular army formed patrols to protect their families,
strolling the town at night. That's what Michael was doing in 1943 when he was confronted by a Serbian woman in
a vineyard. She shot him dead. After she stripped him of his clothes, boots and rifle, the former
neighbor paid a visit to Michael's wife, Maria, to boast of what she had done. A sign of just how wretched the times had become
was the fact that the killer was not a stranger. She was a frequent customer to the business that Michael's father, Jakob,
owned.
In 1944, Hitler's battered army was retreating from Yugoslavia. The country's military
leader, Tito, started on a program of ethnic cleansing. He decided to evict all citizens of German blood.
Jakob refused to leave. It was the only home he'd ever known, and it was unbelievable that someone
would order him to give it up. He told his friends that if he was going to die, it would be on the land he had invested his
life into.
His stand was unsuccessful. The evening of Dec. 4, 1944, armed partisans raided what was left
of Gorjani. Using rifle butts, they knocked down the doors of the German families that remained and marched them to the school,
where they stayed for the next two days. Jakob was accompanied by his two daughter-in-laws (including Michael's wife,
Maria) and his grandchildren.
On Dec. 6, the Gorjani Germans - numbering about 80 - were marched toward the southern
town of Djakovo, certain they were being taken to their deaths. They prayed and
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said goodbye to each other. But once there, they were loaded into a single box car, which started off for Austria.
A trip that should have taken a couple of days took two weeks because of heavy fighting along the route.
Once in Austria, the Germans began to realize they were safe, if not much better off. In Mailing,
Bavaria, they were taken to another empty school that served as a refuge camp. The families had to fend for themselves, and
Jakob went out to find work. He approached a farmer, who had no money to give him, but found some clothes and hats to
keep his grandchildren warm.
Jakob became increasingly despondent at having been forced from his home. As a soldier in World
War I, he remembered returning to Gorjani to find half the town moved away or among the war's casualties. But it was always
a place where people looked after and cared for each other, and he feared losing that forever.
In February of 1945, Jakob was raising his voice in anger at the mess his life and that of his
family's had become when he had a fatal heart attack.
The hardships were over for Jakob, but not for his family. Having been unexpectedly ushered
out of the country, Maria (Michael's widow) feared she might never see her two sons again. Jakob and Josef were serving in
the military. It took eight months to discover Jakob in a French prison. Josef, however, was never found and was listed as
Missing in Action.
Maria eventually emigrated to the United States. Her children and grandchildren put new
roots down in Chicago.
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