CIDRE Portfolio

7. One Travel Writing Piece 

Burgenlander Family Weekend

My mother comes from Pinkafeld, Austria.  This tiny town lies along the Pinka River in the province of Burgenland, a land steeped in history and dotted with castles.  In German, “burg” means castle.  Burgenland is the easternmost Austrian province, therefore the closest to the countries and cultures of Eastern Europe, sharing borders with Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia.  I am not close with my mother’s family in Burgenland and hadn’t visited in 25 years.  The free weekend of our CIDRE program seemed the perfect opportunity to spend some time with these Austrian relatives both to reestablish connections and to do some more personal cultural investigating.  Who are the Burgenlander people?  

My original plan was to take a bus from Vienna Hauptbahnhof to Oberwart, where my cousin Manfred lives.  He was to be my host for the weekend.  At the last minute, I received a WhatsApp from another cousin, Johannes, who messaged that he would drive the 1 ½ hours to pick me up personally.  Such a generous offer!  My Catholic priest cousin arrived on time, we sized each other up, hugged, and off we went, southbound toward Burgenland in a Honda civic playing classic rock.  It was great to catch up on 25 years of happenings and I was grateful for the crash course in names, events, family ailments and hard luck stories.  It was such an engaging conversation that Hannes did not smoke a single cigarette on the drive; very rare, I came to find out.

 Once in Pinkafeld, we picked up Hannes’ mother, my aunt Gisela.  At 90, “Gisi” is the oldest of my mother’s 5 siblings. She was named after my grandmother, or Oma in German.  Gisi was just as I remembered her from years ago.  Her home was tidy, her hair perfectly curled, and she was ready with an aperitif.  A little bubbly was certainly in order.  Let the weekend begin!   

The 3 of us scooted off to Oberwart to join the gathered relatives at Manfred’s house.  In attendance were my aunt Marrianne (my mother's other sister), her daughter Andrea, Andrea’s 17 year old son Alexander, Cousin Martin, his wife Elfi, Manfred and his wife Marion.  It was a welcoming and jovial group.  The awkwardness I had anticipated at having to converse in a difficult dialect evaporated quickly.  The evening was full of storytelling, laughter, grilled meats, and Uhudler wine.  It was lovely just to sit back and watch these kind, warm people interact so playfully with each other.  Clearly, this family is close and see each other often.  Cousin Manfred was the entertainer, retelling a family favorite about Gisi and sister Marianne once being mistaken for the “Golden Girls.”

Saturday morning began with a trip to the farmer’s market, held in the public square of Oberwart.  Manfred and Marion never miss, bringing baskets and porcelain cups with them.  Their tradition is always the same; start with coffee.  Coffee is served from the back of a small truck by a local who knows everyone’s order.  Market goers bring their own cups from home and stand to enjoy coffee and conversation at a few small tables in front of the coffee truck.  The mood was friendly and interactive, as people clearly know each other at this market.  I was introduced to many artist and farmer friends.  After a good bit of socializing, we made our way around the market, shopping for fresh bread, cheese, and vegetables.  

 Following our famer’s market breakfast at home, we connected with another carload of relatives and embarked on an outing to a castle featuring the exhibit “100 Jahr Burgenland.”  Held at castle Friedensburg in Schlaining, this exhibit was filled with historical images, articles, and artifacts chronicling the 100 year history of Burgenland.  It was fascinating to learn about the people and cultures of this “crossroads'' province.  Burgenland was once a Hungarian province.  In 1921, at the end of WWI,  political boundaries were drawn that left Croatian, Slovenian, and Hungarian towns within Austria’s new border.  The languages of these people as well as the Roma language are still heard in Burgenland today.  German is the most spoken language, but Burgenland works hard to maintain harmony among these different language groups.  Students from Hungarian speaking families can attend Hungarian language schools.

“Burgenland is characterized by a strong “we-feeling” on a village level.  It has historical experience with the integration of the ethnic and religious minorities.  After a past of racist-driven social and political exclusion and even persecution, today the Burgenalandian Croatians, Hungarians, and Roma are now legally recognized as ethnic groups widely accepted by society.  In critical times, Burgenland has shown that it is willing to reach out and help refugees.”         

-100 Jahr Burgenland Exhibit

Burgenland was also once home to many Jewish settlements. In the 1934 census, 3,632 people professed to be Jewish (1.2% of Burgenland’s population). The Nazi annexation of Austria brought an end to community life for the Jewish people here, as more than ⅓ of this population was murdered in the Holocaust.  Only a few Jews returned after 1945.  The one and only synagogue that remains in Burgenland is the Wertheimerhaus in Eisenstadt.  I appreciated the candid way the exhibit handled this dark history.

“Museum exhibits and narratives are insufficient to even partially describe the suffering that National Socialism brought on the people.   In Burgenland, thousands of people suffered persecution, displacement, torture and even cruel murder because of their ethnic background, beliefs, sexual orientation, political convictions or for daring to offer resistance.  30 biographies are intended to honor the memory of these victims and to sharpen our critical awareness of impending dangers in the present and future.  We also do not hide the perpetrators and openly address their role in the Nazi terror apparatus.” 

- 100 Jahr Burgenland Exhibit

Indeed, the stories of 30 Burgenlander people were shared through videos.  These were first-person narratives of experiences from WWII, the Hungarian Revolution, refugees fleeing Eastern Europe, and the fall of the Iron Curtain.  These stories were fascinating and taught me a lot about both Austria and Burgenland.  It was helpful to tour the exhibit with relatives that could share their experiences and answer my questions.   I made connections to stories my mom has told me about the Russian soldiers that occupied her town during WWll.  I shared the exhibit’s online link with my mom.  I look forward to talking with her when we next get the chance. The exhibit’s website includes digitally uploaded stories from the many Burganlanders that have left the province, like my mom.  There is so much more to read and learn.

This heavy history outing was made lighter by a delicious lunch and local wine in a heuriger, a typical family-run Austrian vineyard which also offered a few meat dishes.  Burgenland is swine and wine country and neither disappointed.  My glass of dry white was wonderful and the wurst was not the worst.  Manfred’s ribs, however, were the best!.  I was glad for his uber hospitality in insisting I have a bite.

Later that evening, I found myself at Martin’s house.  My cousin Martin has 3 kids, all grown and living nearby.  His middle son, Thomas, was recently promoted to the position of head coach of the professional soccer team in Moedling, south of Vienna.  Flyeralarm Admira soccer club has had its ups and downs over the years and is currently in the second tier of Austrian professional soccer.  Thomas is a very young coach at 28 and expectations are high.  His success is a great source of pride for Martin’s family and it was fun to talk soccer as I too, love the sport.  When I asked Martin if he’d travel to see all the home games he looked conflicted.  He explained that this is a  new situation; when Thomas was a player, he never missed a chance to see him play.  Coaching soccer is now his job and Martin does not want to add additional pressure to what is already stressful.  He did, however, plan to go to Kaernten the next morning to watch Flyeralarm Admira’s opener.

The evening at Martin’s continued with wine, water, and a “snack” I was encouraged to try. “Grammeln” was brought to the table and I was shown how to scoop a few spoonfuls of the small, crispy pork pieces into a bowl, mixing in salt and garlic powder.  This savory mix is eaten with a slice of bread.  Essentially, grammeln are salted bacon bits on bread.  The family was delighted that I liked it.  I mean, bacon, right?!  We shifted from savory to sweet with homemade Sacher schnitten; individual slices of the famous Austrian Sacher torte, each covered in chocolate all the way around.  Although it was evening, dessert was, of course, served with coffee.  The coffee tradition runs deep and I suspended my “no caffeine after 4:00 rule.”   Sacher-anything is made better with coffee.

Manfred and Marion waited up until I returned to their house. Manfred was happy to hear about the grammeln success and Marion, in striped overalls, was in the kitchen with a pile of greens just “playing with herbs,” as she put it.  Manfred adores his wife and teases her often about her creative and curious ways.  She works as a pharmacist at the local hospital where they met, but has many other interests outside of work. Marion dances in a contemporary dance group, loves to read, cook, hike, bike, travel, and throw theme parties.  (The most recent of those was a 50th birthday party with a “Mama Mia” theme-amazing!)  Marion is fluent in both English and French.  She was looking forward to an upcoming trip on a houseboat on the Loire.  As an “Umweltshuetzerin,” or environmentalist, her travels do not include air travel .  

Sunday morning was lovely- sunny and warm with just a touch of humidity.  Marion was already at work in the gorgeous garden, gathering herbal greens in a basket. We enjoyed breakfast on the veranda overlooking the small yard full of plants and bushes both ornamental and edible.  The veranda was draped in verdant Uhudler vines.  Manfred is really into these grapes.  Uhudler grapes make the pinky colored wine he loves and Marion makes Uhudler jam, which she served with breakfast. Of course, coffee.  I recognized the farmer’s market bread from Saturday, as well as some of the cheeses they purchased from market locals.  This was not a muesli situation; meats, cheeses, and soft-boiled eggs.  My favorite part of breakfast with these two was the tea Marion makes from garden herbs.  Lemon verbena and other herbs are steeped in a ceramic teapot handmade by a friend.  The tea is light, fresh, and the most beautiful color.  It looked and tasted like an elixir of health.  The plates from which we ate were also beautifully crafted by a friend.  The way of life I experienced with the Wagner’s was intentional and inspirational. 

Our last adventure of the weekend was another drive through the countryside along the border and into Hungary.  Although we’d just had a hearty breakfast, Manfred insisted we stop at the best ice cream spot in the area.  There was already a line in the shop at 10:30.  I ordered tiramisu and coconut- divine!  Manfred got Uhudler, of course.  We made a few more stops at castles and pulled over a few times to enjoy the views of rolling hills, tall grasses, and vineyards.  The border crossing was smooth. Just a look and a nod from a sleepy young guard in military uniform and we rolled into Hungary.  The differences in the villages on the Hungarian side were visible immediately.  Gone were the sidewalks and the cared for gardens.  Overgrown ditches lined the streets and the architectural styles of the modest homes were unrelated to each other, giving the town a patchwork look.  Most of what I saw looked worn and dilapidated.  I was told that most of the people living just across the border travel to Austria for better job opportunities. I was challenged trying to read the Hungarian language on the street signs.  Rural Hungary is clearly quite different from rural Burgenland.  I couldn’t help but wonder whether the regions had been more similar in Franz Josef’s Empire, before their split on either side of the Iron Curtain.  My mother and her family certainly had better opportunities when Burgenland became part of Austria.

The highlight of the day was a hike through the wine country back on the Austrian side of the border.  We parked the car in a shady spot.  The non-hikers remained there, reading the newspaper. Marion, Andrea, and I headed out into the sunshine and up into the gently rolling hills to take in the views.  This part of Burgenland is known for its white wines, which are lovely.  As we ascended a few hills and the day got warmer, I was completely charmed by tiny little houses tucked into the vineyards called “keller stoeckl.”  Keller stoeckl are small sheds that have a wine cellar basement and a small room above.  They are pint-sized wine cabins each built in a slightly different style, but always integrated into the vineyard.  I could not get enough of these charming little cuties.  Marion said they are family owned and can be rented for the weekend.  On my list for next time! 

As my Burgenland weekend came to a close, my Austrian family insisted on taking me part way toward Vienna, again not allowing me to take a bus.  We traveled to Wiener Neustadt, where I caught the train the rest of the way.   Somewhere on this hour-long drive I asked if anyone knew how Thomas’s Flyer Alarm team had done.  Manfred immediately called his cousin on speaker phone and we got the rundown of the game.  Tied 2-2 after 90 minutes, Flyer Alarm won 4-2 in extra time.  The whole car erupted in cheer!   I loved being in the car for this sweet moment.  It was such a warm ending to a true family weekend; a family who so clearly support and care deeply for one another.  I will not let another 25 years pass before I visit again.  Burgenland and its people are special.