SARVAS, May 16 (Hina) - A monument was unveiled at the cemetery in the eastern Croatian village of Sarvas on Sunday in memory of all Sarvas Germans who lived and were buried in the village between 1770 and 1944. The monument was
unveiled by Karlsruhe-based Franz Buch, president of the Sarvas Homeland Local Community. Also in attendance were 14 Sarvas Germans from Germany, Austria and the United States who visited their place of birth for the first time since a 1944 exile, Austrian Ambassador to Croatia Rudolf Bogner, and the chairman of the Croatian parliament's Committee for Human Rights and the Rights of National Minorities, Miroslav Kis. "We don't want to provoke anyone with this monument, quite the contrary, our aim is to help all in these regions, regardless of religious and national belonging, live in peace and tolerance," Buch said. Some 1,100 Germans lived in Sarvas until 1944, and made
SARVAS, May 16 (Hina) - A monument was unveiled at the cemetery in
the eastern Croatian village of Sarvas on Sunday in memory of all
Sarvas Germans who lived and were buried in the village between 1770
and 1944.
The monument was unveiled by Karlsruhe-based Franz Buch, president
of the Sarvas Homeland Local Community.
Also in attendance were 14 Sarvas Germans from Germany, Austria and
the United States who visited their place of birth for the first
time since a 1944 exile, Austrian Ambassador to Croatia Rudolf
Bogner, and the chairman of the Croatian parliament's Committee for
Human Rights and the Rights of National Minorities, Miroslav Kis.
"We don't want to provoke anyone with this monument, quite the
contrary, our aim is to help all in these regions, regardless of
religious and national belonging, live in peace and tolerance,"
Buch said.
Some 1,100 Germans lived in Sarvas until 1944, and made 92 percent
of the village population. "We all had to flee in front of the Yugo-
communist regime," Buch said, and added Sarvas Germans now living
abroad would help in the reconstruction of the village, damaged
during the Serbian aggression on Croatia earlier this decade.
Austrian Ambassador Bogner pointed out Europe's goal is for
"Croatia to become a European Union member as soon as possible,
thereby creating quality development and economic conditions for
living and the future in these areas."
He reminded that eastern Croatian Germans had come to Sarvas in the
18th century and greatly contributed to the development of the
village and the surrounding area.
Parliament representative Kis said, "the (1944) exodus of eastern
Croatian Germans was the first in this region, but unfortunately it
happened in 1991 again to Croatian displaced persons, who unlike
the former, have returned and are now reconstructing Sarvas and
other place in eastern Croatia."
Sarvas had 2,500 inhabitants in 1991. Serbian aggressors expelled
more than 1,000 Croats. Almost 80 percent of the pre-1991 Serbian
aggression inhabitants have returned, but still face difficulties
in reconstruction and other living and working conditions.
The Serbian aggressor in 1991 demolished a St. John the Baptist
church in Sarvas which the village's German residents had built in
the 18th century.
(hina) ha