The Danube Swabian Foundation of the U.S.A., Inc.
Die Donauschwaebische Stiftung der USA, Inc.
AKRON Jugendfreundschaftslager 2017
Every year there is a Jugendlager, or youth campout in which all Donauschwaben groups from around the country are invited to participate in this friendship and culture themed weekend. This year our group had the honor in hosting this large event. This was our second time hosting this campout; our first time hosting being in 2009. Many of the other groups have hosted this event and we took the opportunity to host it again. A lot of time and planning went into hosting this event and I would like to give a shout out and huge thank you to everyone who put their time and efforts into planning and helping make this event a huge success!
The Jugendlager this year began on Thursday evening with groups beginning to arrive after 6 and ended on Sunday morning after breakfast. There were 7 groups that attended this year; Akron, Cincinnati, Chicago Donauschwaben, Chicago Aid, Detroit, Kitchener and St. Louis. It was a pretty large group which made for a lot of fun and a lot of opportunities to make new friends. Thursday was more of a casual day. As the groups arrived everyone set up their tents, got settled in,then headed into the clubhouse where there was a taco bar for dinner. We had a registration table set up so the group leaders could check everyone in and pick up their T-shirts for their groups. Since it was such a large group we decided that we would divide everyone into 4 groups. We gave every group leader a bag of different colored T-shirts, and these would be the different groups for the weekend. We had yellow, red, white and black groups.
After everyone was settled in and had dinner we called everyone into the club house for a large group activity. After the activity we split into our 4 groups- while in our different groups we made a group poster and did several ice breaker activities to get to know everyone in our group. After everyone was finished we had free time. Some people went to the back fields and played soccer, others sat down inside and played cards, and the Kitchener group stayed in the outdoor pavilion and taught their dance “Du Hast” to everyone who wanted to learn. Lights out was at 11or 11:30 every night to ensure that everyone had enough rest for tomorrow’s long list of fun activities.
Friday morning began with an early breakfast along with some rain. All the groups got on the buses and we headed to Akron for the day. We began our excursion at St.Bernard’s church to learn the Donauschwaben history that the church has. After that we headed down the Locks where each of the 4 groups had their own tour guide. The guides took each group on a tour of the locks and canal systems and explained to us the history. After our tour and a quick lunch we got back on the buses and started our trip to Parma to play a game called “Whirleyball”. Whirleyball is kind-of a mix between bumper cars, lacrosse and basketball. The facility also had Laser Tag and bowling and we spent about 4 hours here playing games and having a great time. Then we returned to the club where we had free time for the rest of the night.
Saturday was the cultural day. We had some of the founding members of our club come in and speak to everyone about the history of our club and how it all began. It was very touching to look around at everyone while our founding members were speaking because there were very few dry eyes in the crowd. After this we split up into our 4 groups again. There were 4 stations, a cooking station where we prepared our dinner, a dessert station, a cultural station and a dance station. Before the Jugendlager our Youth Group made up a Friendship Dance to teach to everyone at the campout. When the groups rotated to the dance station they were taught the dance. After dinner, everyone went outside and performed the Friendship dance with all the groups. Towards the end of the evening we gathered everyone for a candlelight ceremony. Every group was to write an answer to what it means to be Donauschwaben, and how does your culture affect your everyday life. Everyone was very moved by this ceremony and it served as a very reflective time for everyone there. All in all the Jugendlager this year was an amazing experience. Thank you again to all the groups that attended and thank you to everyone from our club who helped plan this event the groups that attended and thank you to everyone from our club who helped plan this event. Taylor Herring
St. Louis Jugendfreundschaftslager 2018
The Stiftung has helped sponsor the Jugendfreundschaftslagers for the past ten years. We are pleased to share with you the report of the Annniversary year Lager in St. Louis. The St. Louis group hosted the first Lager in 2008 and how fitting that ten years later, they again hosted our youth from across the continent for an event not many will soon forget.
Jugendfreundschaftslager 2008-2018 – 10th Anniversary
WEIHNACHTEN IM SOMMER
This year’s Jugendfreundschaftslager was hosted in St Louis by the German Culture Society. The goal of the Jugendfreundschaftslager has always been to promote friendship and a better understanding of the Donauschwaben heritage and traditions in an atmosphere of fun and camaraderie. So, with that thought in mind, Christmas trees were trimmed … lights & stockings were hung in the pavilion with care in hopes that the Christkind’l soon would be there! There was no better time or place than ‘Weihnachten im Sommer” at a Jugendlager to share some Donauschwaben Christmas traditions and history with our youth. Thursday – Arrival & Welcome. The Jugendfreundschaftslager began after 2:00 when the Donauschwaben clubs from Chicago Aid, Chicago Donau, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Kitchener, Los Angeles, Milwaukee and St Louis mixed & mingled after arriving. Camp was set up and ice breaker games were played. Dinner consisted of St Louis’ Bavarian Sliders (pretzel bun, bratwurst, swiss/cheese & spicy mustard), potato salad and chips. Wrist bands of 4 different colors were given out, one color per person for whatever group they would belong to for the weekend. Each of the four groups were made up of a few Jugend of each city to help promote new friendships. There was music entertainment and games in the evening. Friday – ‘Meet Me in St Louis’ tour day. Leaving at 8:30am, 93 of us (all wearing our red ‘Weihnachten im Sommer” t-shirts) loaded up two coach buses that took us downtown to tour the Gateway Arch. The Arch is 630 feet tall; making it the tallest man-made monument in the United States; 630 feet is also the distance from leg to leg at ground level. We took tram rides up to the top, looking out the windows on a clear day the view at the top can cover up to thirty miles in either direction. Lunch took us to the German Culture Society hall for a ‘Taste of St Louis’ – an all original St Louis cuisine – Imo’s pizza (St Louis’ original thin crust pizza), toasted ravioli, Rich & Charlie’s Salad and a desert of ‘Gooey Butter’ cookies. After lunch we headed to another St Louis icon the City Museum. The museum is for young and old, a playground & funhouse made out of unique found objects such as old chimneys, salvaged bridges, construction cranes, miles of tile, and even two abandoned planes coming all within St Louis’s municipal borders. After hours of fun the buses headed back to Donau Park where dinner also hosted a few more St Louis originals: BBQ pork steaks and Ted Drewes’ frozen custard for desert. Many cooled off on the slip ‘n slide (a Jugendlager tradition) after dinner and the rest of the evening was a mix of music, fun & relaxation. Saturday – Tag der Donauschwaben. The entire day was oriented towards learning Christmas culture and history. Each color group was assigned to one of 4 stations, which rotated throughout the day.
- The pavilion hosted dancing and everyone was taught a new friendship dance that was choreographed by the St Louis Jugendgruppe.
- The kitchen- every group that came in had their hands in making dinner for the evening. With recipes in hand they made…Chicken Paprikash & Knödel. They chopped & browned onions, cut up chicken, added spices, stirred the Paprikash to perfection. Then the Knödel were made; measuring ingredients, mixing the dough, dropping spoonsful of dough into boiling water, watching the Knödel as they rose to the top, checking to make sure they were no longer doughy.
- Our indoor lodge also hosted each group and they were shown how our ancestors made original Strohsterne Christmas ornaments. Strohsterne once decked many Donauschwaben Weihnachtsbäume, along with Szaloncukor (salone-zucker) and candles. Each Jugend made a Strohstern (straw star) ornament and hung it on the our Weihnachtsbaum.
- The most loved station by all of the Jugend was our ‘Einmalige Wettlauf’ or Amazing Race (Donauschwaben style). Again, with Weihnachten in mind our Amazing Race had passports, route info, road blocks, detours and speed bumps. The obstacle course was decorated with wrapped presents; the vocabulary session blasted Donauschwaben words with a Vocab Scramble to get the next clue; the coloring session had blind-folded Jugend coloring the Donauschwaben Wappen (coat of arms) and the German Food Taste Test was determined by a game of pong in empty beer steins! Winners of each race received various St Louis memorabilia .
Lunch was served in the pavilion with Weihnachtsplätzchen (Christmas cookies), made by our Oma’s, as a desert. Various stories were told about all of our Oma’s & Opa’s childhood Christmas memories. Many of them remembering similar things; Christmas church services and das Christkind, special meals such as ham baked in bread dough, Weihnachtsplätzchen, gifts of oranges and nuts, singing Weihnachtslieder beim Weihnachtsbaum etc.
Christkindchen Zart Dear sweet, tender Christkindchen,
Ich hab schon lang auf dich gewartet. I have waited a long time for you.
Sollst mir Äpfel und Nϋβe beschehren Please gift me apples and nuts.
Und mich lehren Vater und Mutter Ehren. And teach me to honor my father and mother.
We followed some of those traditions, singing German Christmas songs together with the accompaniment of Joey Wendl’s accordion…in 97-degree heat of the summer:). And yes, das Christkind and Knecht Ruprecht did make an appearance bringing oranges and chocolate for everyone. They singled out many of the Jugend whom they knew had not been so good all year. Each was brought to the front of the pavilion and their wrongs recited to everyone. Knecht Ruprecht set them straight with threats of taking the switch to them if they didn’t change their ways! Low and behold even our Jugendleiterin from Cincinnati was scolded for her ‘Zähneputzen’ ?…but was then rewarded with a gift of a camping gnome in remembrance for attending every Jugendfreundschaftslager since it began in 2008! The afternoon continued by finishing our group rounds of each activity and then in lieu of the terrible hot weather everyone went to a nearby pool to swim for a few hours. Dinner was ready when everyone returned and the Chicken Paprikash and Knödel made by the Jugend, along with Gurkensalat and other various salads was served to all who attended. The evening began with all of the Jugend dancing the new friendship dance that they had learned and music from “Die Spitzbuam” band played afterwards for dancing & music entertainment. The finale of our ‘Tag der Donauschwaben’ ended with a fireworks display enjoyed by everyone. Sunday after breakfast, we broke down camp and said our ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ to new and old friends with hopes of seeing each other the next Labor Day weekend. It’s been exciting to see the great leaps and bounds that the Jugendfreundschaftslager has made since it first started in St Louis in 2008. Many thanks to the support of the Stiftung, and to the Landesverband clubs for making this one of the best events for our Jugend.
Happy 10th Anniversary Jugendfreundschaftslager and Frohe Weihnachten! Rosemarie Ficken, St. Louis
Cincinnati Jugendfreundschaftslager 2019
“Portable Roots” – the 11th annual Donauschwaben Jugendfreundschaftslager
The Cincinnati Donauschwaben Verein was home to 45 Jugendgruppe members from 6 different cities the last weekend of June, 2019. On June 27th, Jugendgruppe members and their chaperones from Kitchener, Toronto and Leamington, Canada and St. Louis, Detroit and Cincinnati arrived late in the afternoon and began to set up a tent city around the playground. By dinnertime everyone was hungry and ready to get the weekend started. Thursday evening activities included a simulation on immigrating into a new “land”, and building Ulmer Schactels, that would carry the campers down on Danube River. The evening was capped off with an ice cream sundae bar. Friday found the campers up early and dressed in their orange shirts. They hit the road for a day-long adventure. The first stop was a “drive by” of Union Terminal and a brief history of the importance of this train station to the Donauschwaben who moved to Cincinnati. The next stop was a walking tour of the “Over-the- Rhein” historic district of Cincinnati. Here they heard interesting stories of the buildings that were important to the Donauschwaben people as well as the huge German impact on this area and the city of Cincinnati. The afternoon was filled with a picnic lunch and swimming at Sunlite Pool. We traveled to Smale Park for a beautiful view of the Ohio River and an all-you-can-eat pizza dinner. We walked along the riverfront to the Red’s Stadium where we actually saw the Red’s beat the Chicago Cubs and had a front row seat for Fireworks Friday. Saturday, June 29th was set aside for our cultural day. The campers spent the day immersed in activities that taught them of life in the “Heimatland.” More members of the Cincinnati Jugendgruppe took advantage of the Jugendfreundschaftslager being on their home turf and joined in the activities for this day. We had a special “Kindergruppelager” take place this day as well. Patty Butterfield and Catherine Dehne designed activities for the day that shadowed what the Jugendgruppe was doing and they joined us for lunch and the history lesson. After a filling breakfast, the campers were split into groups based on their age and for the remainder of the day, they rotated through a series of five activities. Katy Abt taught several songs, Wahre Freundschaft, Kehr ich ein zur Heimat Wieder, and the Donauschwaben Hymn, to each group. Jen and Johna Stolze discussed the Wappen and then the groups painted the Wappen on clay Christmas ornaments. Lisa Spraul had the groups busy making spaetzle for dinner. Megan Spraul taught each group an upbeat dance that was created by members of our own Jugendgruppe. Barb Waldeck, Cathi Weissmann and Marty Kunkle worked with the groups to mix, bake and ice a lot of Honig Bursl cookies as well as rolling and dipping “Buckeyes”. Joe Abt took time to demonstrate for many interested people the various steps of making Oktoberfest chicken. A very personal and touching presentation was given in the afternoon by Barb Waldeck, Cathi Weissmann and Marty Kunkle. These women spoke of their memories of living in the Lagers in Austria and then what life was like for them as they immigrated to Cincinnati and finally beginning their life anew. It was a marvelous way to tie together the theme of Portable Roots, the information the group learned on the Over-the-Rhein tour and how the Donauschwaben club was central to these women’s lives as teen-agers. They brought many artifacts with them that their families had carried from Europe. These items held a special interest for the Jugend and there were plenty of questions afterwards for the ladies. After a delicious dinner of Oktoberfest chicken and spaetzle, there was a closing ceremony that was followed by a night of dancing to music provided by DJ ED, Eddie TulliusAfter breakfast on Sunday, the groups found it hard to say good-bye. There were plenty of pictures taken and promises to keep in touch. Everyone is already looking forward to the Labor Day festivities. Everyone left “Proud to be Donauschwaben”.
**Cincinnati wants it to be said that this was the first Jugendfreundschaftslager in eleven years to have NO rain.
Debi Tullius, Cincinnati Donauschwaben Jugendleiterin