From Toleration to Expulsion

About the Book

On April 6, 1948, a significant portion of the population of the village of Ecsény in Somogy County, Hungary, was expelled from their homeland. This was the result of Protocol XIII of the Potsdam Declaration of 1945 calling for “the orderly and humane transfer of German populations now living in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.”

The families involved were descendants of German settlers who began to arrive in what would become the village of Ecsény as early as 1754. They formed an Evangelical Lutheran congregation at the outset that would survive as an underground movement until the Edict of Toleration promulgated by the Emperor Joseph II of Austria in 1782.

These two governmental actions taken centuries apart, play pivotal roles in the lives and destinies of the families who would call Ecsény their home. The families that were expelled were sent to the then Russian Zone of Germany from which large numbers later escaped into the American and British Zones. Numerous families were successful in emigrating from there to Canada, the United States, and Australia.

This publication is addressed to their English-speaking descendants, providing them with genealogical information about their forebears. In addition, the families associated with the various affiliated congregations in Hács, Polány, Ráksi, Somodor, and Vámos are included as well as information about the families that emigrated to Slavonia, the United States, and Canada prior to World War II.

There are also introductory articles to assist the reader in having a basic knowledge of the history, lifestyle, and origins of their families. This work is published on the 260th anniversary of the founding of Ecsény.

About the Author

Henry A. Fischer was born in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. He is the son of Swabian immigrants from Hungary whose lives and family history form the backdrop for the trilogy Remember to Tell the Children that followed the publication of Children of the Danube, his original historical survey of the Great Swabian Migration of the eighteenth century into Hungary. Although the trilogy focuses on the author’s own extended family it is a reflection of the broader historical experience of all the families who shared in it as Children of the Danube.

This current work, From Tolerance to Expulsion provides the genealogical information researched in the Church Records of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ecsény, Somogy County, in Hungary as well as numerous additional sources. This family history is addressed to the descendants of the families who reside in English-speaking countries and in loving memory of their forebears.

The author and his wife Jean reside in Oshawa, Ontario. Following his ministry as a Lutheran pastor, he was a cofounder of InterChurch Health Ministries and introduced Parish Nursing Ministry to congregations across Canada during his first retirement. His writing career followed after years of historical research. He is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. His other vocation is being Ota to his four grandchildren, the next generation of the Children of the Danube.