Interview: Anton Beck, founder of the "Gerhard" Association

New national minority

"National hate made impossible to accept Germans as national minority", said Mr. Beck in his point of view, in a story about new national minority in Serbia and their activities as well as their preservation as a nation


By LJILJANA SAMARDŽIĆ (ljiljana.samardzic@wavemagazine.net)
from Sombor, SERBIA


Sombor is a town where you can find a great variety of nationalities: Serbs, Hungarians, Croatians, Bosnians, Slovakians, Roma people and many others. It usually surprises how all those people succeed to maintain good relations. In the last decade, that is to say in '90s, Serbia recognized one more national minority - Germans.

In year 1999 Association of Germans was finally established. Finally because the idea existed for few years, but it was impossible to actualize it since national hate was in blossom after war with Croatia. "Despite Hungarians and Croatians already had their associations, Germans as minority were not yet accepted", said Mr. Beck, the establisher of "Gerhard" Association in an interview for WAVE magazine.

- After first step, the founding, everything took greater and fast steps forward. People wanted to be members of our association and they wanted to register themselves in. At this very moment, we have around 700 official members - explains Mr. Beck.

Becoming a member

To become an official member of "Gerhard" you must be, first of all, of legal age and you must declare yourself as German. The origin is proved by birth certificate from church. Birth certificate is not obligatory for membership. You can be part of association even if you have not German origin, but there is a certain difference between membership of Germans and others.

- All members can participate in every our activity, events and programs, but only members who have German origin can be elected and have the right of voice when it comes to positions and functions in Association - says Mr. Beck.

The prime aim is to unify Germans as national minority, and then, to nurture the culture, the old customs of their ancestors and language. Activities have educational, cultural and humanitarian character. Regarding educational based activities, "Gerhard" offers computer and German language training courses. When it comes to cultural character, they organize variety of concerts and exhibitions. It is very important to point out those artists who exhibit and play at concerts are not exclusively of German origin.

- The great accent is on humanitarian activities and work. In that field, we take the first place in Serbia. We have two main categories: the old Donau Swabians [a collective term for Germans who lived in the former Kingdom of Hungary, especially in the Danube (Donau) River valley: Germans of Hungary, Satu Mare Swabians, the Banat Swabians, the Vojvodina Germans and Germans in Croatia's Slavonia], over 60 years old and children without parental care.

Anton Beck also said that the name of "Gerhard" association signifies the house of resignation with God. It refers to all Christian people: Orthodox, Catholics, Reformists, and Evangelists. So, from this point of view, "Gerhard" has one more aim, and that is to "find meeting points where all Christians meet".

The advantages for new generations

- Our work is highly focused on young people, because all existing customs would die away with old generations. We are starting in preschool area with German language and we were among first who did such thing, all free of charge. Educators in kindergartens are keeping lessons of 25 minutes, on daily basis. We have good results there - claims Mr. Beck.

Everything is supported by Ministry of education and the program is planned out by the rules of Melanija Mikes from Novi Sad, who received the highest world recognitions and rewards for language teaching methods. Her methods are based on playing.

- There is a certain gap between first and fourth grade in primary school. Since children do not have an option of learning German language in this period, one of our main goals is to enable them to learn it in "Gerhard", at least once a week. This program should be used by those children who learned it in preschool institutions in Sombor.

He continues that there are much better conditions for children in higher grades of primary school - "there are 3-4 group departures in each year. Children are being sent away in Germany in different schools and on different educational programs. Also, every year there are two or three summer courses, located in Germany, which last one week. And finally, each year 4 or 5 best second grade students from Gymnasium are being sent in Stuttgart on one year, with all costs paid".

Besides "Gerhard" in Sombor, there are two bigger associations in Subotica and Novi Sad. "Our cooperation is turned to Danube triangle - Serbia, Croatia and Hungary. Two or three meetings are being held each year in Baja, Hungary. They have Educational center of Germans located in Hungary. Their educational system involves entire educational cycle on German language - children's nursery, primary school, gymnasium, department for culture and pedagogical institute".

Financial support

- On December 15th, 2007 the National Council was established and then we succeeded to obtain minimal, but well enough financial support for the last year from Ministry for culture and education for national minorities. This year, the budget was cut off, so we got only 10% of last year's resources. Money is great issue for us. We get the money for different projects, but that is for projects only. For other, basic expenses such as bills, we have real battle - finished Mr. Beck for WAVE magazine.


(Published: 11.10.2009.)