This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Hignatz (talk | contribs) at 19:46, 21 March 2006 (Description of Veliki Gaj, a small Serbian village). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 19:46, 21 March 2006 by Hignatz (talk | contribs) (Description of Veliki Gaj, a small Serbian village)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Veliki Gaj is a small Yugoslavian village near Plandiste, Serbia and not far from Timisoara, a city in southern Romania, in the shadow of the Transylvanian Alps. For a discussion of this locale in Serbian, go to http://www.plandiste.co.yu/Page10091/Gaj/gaj.htm.
Until 1918, the region around Veliki Gaj, a small village in the Banat region, had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and had received a steady influx of German speaking Donauschwaben or "Donauschwobe" in the local dialect. The German settlers in the area held allegiance to Germany and Austria, although Serbo-Croatian and Hungarian languages were also spoken. After WWI, this region became the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In 1929, the kingdom changed its name to Yugoslavia. After much ethnic fighting that continues to this day, Veliki Gaj is now part of Serbia. Yugoslavia is now a Federation of only Serbia and Montenegro, as the regions of Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Slovenia declared their independence in 1991 -1992.
Most of the German settlers in this area were either killed, expelled or fled during and after WWII.
See also “Donauschwaben in the Banat, Including the Arader Land”, http://www.genealogienetz.de/reg/ESE/dsbanat.html#col, http://www.genealogienetz.de/reg/ESE/banat_g.htm#grossgaj and "History of German Settlements in Southern Hungary by Sue Clarkson, http://www.genealogienetz.de/reg/ESE/dshist.txt