Last month I listed them in the city directory survey. After that ran Charles Nigl informed me that the Pratsch name did not come from Southern Bohemia but from Silesia. So they are not part of our study group.

This from Charles Nigl:

Highholder cooking classes

November 15, 2003

Potato Favorites of a Highholder

with guest chef Carol Paulson

Learn how to make German specialties like potato dumplings, steads, flakels, and spaetzel.

January 17, 2003

Favorites from a 6th Ward Kitchen

with guest chef Carol Paulson

Learn how to make German rye bread, grophens, kraut kuchen and egg noodles.

This email came from Ken Mauritz after the September Highholder.

This is a good example of blatherings. If you have any blatherings you would like to share send them to me. You never know what might be revealed.

Thanks, Peter.  I read this with great interest.  I offer some blatherings.  

William Mauritz, born in Neutal - and related to me - and who related the story about the trek to Bischofsreut as a boy in your newsletter - had a father that lived to be over 100 years (was it Josef?).  A wife of my cousin, Jack Mauritz, interviewed him sometime in the 1970's and he related things about the region.   Very sketchy notes taken - fuzzy references - and I have these notes in my possession - as his mental powers were obviously deteriorated at this time.  He even mentions knowing someone who remembers the army of Napoleon going through the region!  I didn't know this stuff about Bischofsreut as well as other things.  I had grandparents from Schattawa, as well.  A very small place in a multicultural region.  Many people around the Sacred Heart, St John and St Vincent neighborhoods came from a region where Bavaria, Bohemia and Austria met at a point.  I suspect that the people freely crossed these national borders in the mountainous region as suggested by the testimony of William Mauritz (who I remember as an usher at Sacred Heart Church in the '50's) in your newsletter. 

I visited a distant cousin in '99 whose last name is Kriha (Helmuth, to be exact) and he told me a lot of things that he discovered when he visited the region of Boehmerwald shortly after the fall of the iron curtain - going into civil and church records.  He hauled out loads of records, clippings, etc.  This guy could tell the most of any living persons about Schattawa as he made it a crusade to put the story together.  I sat down with him in his home in Gross Zimmern, just east of Darmstadt.  He gave me a Kriha family tree that goes back to before 1648.  1648 is an important historical year because it was the end of the Thirty Years War and these boundaries became scrambled.  One should also be aware that there are "German" names in Oshkosh that are not common in the German language.  This happened when some Czechs changed to German names.  Did you know that?  For example, there were a few older people whose first name was 'Wenz' for Wenzl.  Like Wenz Matsche and Wenz Winkelbauer.  Wenzel is the German form of Waclav (as in Waclav Havel), but Wenzl is in fact not a common name in Germany.  I have pictures in my family album of relatives from Boemerwald that are wearing military uniforms that are, first Austrian (Landwehr), then Czech (inter-war era), then German (Wehrmacht-with swastika below eagle patch).  Same place, different masters, from 1914 through 1945. Toward the end of WWII, and the Soviets were closing in on Prague, the Germans of the Boehmerwald (part of the Sudetenland) "had to leave with only the shirt on their back," as told to me by my German relative.

Sorry for all the blathering, but feel free to share this convoluted message with anyone who might be interested.

Ken Mauritz

And one from Charles Nigl

New link 

from Gunter Winkelbauer

Today I found a book with old photos from "Bayerischen Wald". "Schee is gwen, owa hirt" U.a. Bierhütte / Hohenau ---my place of birth. See this link http://www.buch-und-kunstverlag.de/programm.htm 

The First Settlers of Landstrassen, 1790

Landstrassen belonged to the village of Oberlichtbuchet. The first settlers were farmers and the first houses were massive wood buildings. The first job of the village was clearing the forest and removal of stones for the fields. Incomes were very low and most essentials were produced by the people themselves. 

There was a period of great house building between the years 1820-1848. Many new homes were built for the children of the original settlers. In 1836 a border inspection station and a post office were constructed and in 1850 a police office. 

By 1870 Landstrassen had as many as 500 inhabitants. But after this time people began moving away. Between 1859 -1870 there were many damaging storms that devastated the forests. There were heavy snows, damaging spring floods and "Beetle" infestations. At this time there was much work available and many woodcutters were imported to help in the clearing of the wood. 

National Census 1910, Community of Landstrassen

World War I

Forty men from Landstrassen were called up for duty. They were in Infantry Regiment 91 and Land Defense Regiment 29.

Here are the names of the fallen;

1. Franz Reif, 20 years old at the Italian front.
2. Johann Schraml, 30 years old, in Spital in Eger.
3. Kajetan Stoegbauer, 34 years old, ill at the Italian front.
4. Wilhelm Stoegbauer, 34 years old, at the Isonzo front in 1917.
5. Alois Paulus, 23 years old, at the Italian front.

World War II

Fallen in the 2nd world war are:

Karl Jungwirth, #13
Josef Paulus, #25
Alfred Schano, #15
Otto Schraml, #28
Franz Jungwirth,
Adolf Peterlik
Arnold Peterlik, #1
Wenzel Schraml, #45
Karl Schraml, #31
Franz Schraml, #28
Karl Peterlik

Franz Paulus was the last inhabitant of the village of Landstrassen after the war and the start of Czech administration. He left September 22, 1946. So ended the village of Landstrassen.

Thanks to Bob Ziemba for sharing his copy of the story.

New on the Oshkosh Public Library website

Now available access to Heritage Quest online
for library members