I took the following photos during my visit to the Burgenland in the Spring of 2000. You can read about my trip in this report. I've added some additional photos using my new color scanner. Please note that the page may be slow to load, depending upon your connection speed, as there are quite a few photos here.

This banner was hanging between two trees in the small open space in Wallern im Burgenland across from the railcoach that serves as the town's tourist information office (see below). Werner Perlinger is a vegetable dealer in Wallern. The Perlingers in Wallern are descendents of a Johann Perlinger who came from Sankt Johann (present day Jánossomorja, Hungary) in 1803.

Wallern im Burgenland.

 This railcoach serves as the tourist information office for Wallern. Religious shrines very often appear in public settings in Austria (and Bavaria too for that matter). This is a bit different from American culture, where our system of separation of church and state would normally preclude this type of shrine on public property.

Sankt Peter, Jánossomorja, Hungary

This is Saint Peter's Church, where my ancestors worshipped for literally hundreds of years. The tree and fence immediately in front of the church belong to a kindergarten out of sight to the left. The tri-lingual descriptive sign for the church can be seen on the sidewalk in the bottom center of the photo. The English portion of the sign reads as follows (including the spelling and grammatical errors):

St. Peter's Church

It is not only the closed street structure and the closely built houses, but also the church raised to commemorate the patron saint of the village in the centre of Mosonszentpeter -part of Janossomorja that indicates for the visitor that he has arrived at a once independent village.

The church was built on a foundation dating from the age of the Arpad -dynasty, and the stones built in the bottom third of the spire and the two columns in front of the façade also prove its medieval origin. It was demolished a few times , but was finalli rebuilt at the beginning of the 20^th century. The relief of the altar depicts St.Peter,with the other two characters : St. Stephan and St. Elizabeth from the Arpad - dynasty.The ceiling fresco was made in 1936. The depicted events referring to the age of the Arpads / St. Stephan offering the Holy Crown and the view of Pannonhalma / and the symbols / the Coat of Arms without the Crown / are the proof of the attachment of the German population to Hungary. Nor this, neither the Harmashalom Memorial raised by the people of Mosonszentjanos could save the local German inhabitants from the desettlement after World War 2.

St. Peter's Church

Sankt Peter Krieger-Denkmal (War Memorial)

The central column with the figure was erected in 1924. The two side tablets with the names of WW1 and WW2 casualties were added in 1993.

The following names on this monument are from World War II:

Johann Perlinger 1923
Mathias Perlinger 1904
Michael Perlinger 1920
Martin Perlinger 1926
Karl Rongitsch 1911

Jánossomorja Street Scene

This picture was taken from the same spot as the picture above, looking towards the main street. The houses on the right are those referred to in the inscription for Sankt Peter, and are house numbers 36-76. Notice the horse-drawn cart. This would have been the main street for Sankt Peter, and the view is looking south.

Harmashalom (Peace memorial), Sankt Johann, Jánossomorja, Hungary

This monument in the form of a small hill is to the immediate east of Sankt Johann church. The Hungarians were busy clearing the area behind the monument to create what appeared to be a small plaza. The sign for the monument reads as follows, including spelling and grammatical errors:

The small hill was formed of earth from all the 52 counties of the historical Greater Hungary of St. Stephan ' s time ,in order to remind everyone of the time before World War 1. The inscription on the relief is " Hazadnak renduletlenul " (approx.truly ,steadily to your countrytaken from the famous poem of Voros - marty).This is even a greater thing if the visitor knows that the memorial was raised by German - - speaking inhabitants of the village.

Statue, East side of Sankt Johann Church

I'm not sure who the figure is, most likely John the Baptist. You can see the war memorial tablets on the east wall of the church in the background. The sign for the site reads as follows, including spelling and grammatical errors:

St John Roman Catholic Church

The owners of the villages in the area were Habsburg Maria Krisztina and her husband Albert Kazmer , the Saxon archduke. They founded the Agricultural Academy in Mosonmagyar - ovar and built a lot of churches in the district, for example the St. John's Church with the strikingly low façade.

The well - to - do farmers of the village provided enough money for the builders to create a rich Baroque interior . The richly decorated Baroque pulpit, the elaborately carved benches, the beautiful sculptures and the altars show the generosity of the population . The main altar depicts St.John the Baptist and is of the same age as the church.The altarpiece also originates from the 18^th century and was probably brought from the basilica in Gyor . Out of the three sidealtars, the picture of the Holy Family is the most valuable.The painting of St.Vendelin - opposite the picture of the Holy Family - is the oldest painting in the church. The names of the victims of World War 1 and 2 are listed on the memorial marble tablets on the outer walls of the church proving the nationality of the former inhabitants.

Detail of the Sankt Johann WW1 memorial on the east wall of the church. While no Perlinger names appear, we are related to many that do, in particular Rongitsch, Lang, Husz, Kerschbaum, Wachtler, Neuberger, and Theiler. The German sentence at the top is on the order of "Blessed are (those who) died for the Fatherland".

Detail of the Sankt Johann WW2 memorial on the east wall of the church. Again, though no Perlinger names appear, note the many familiar family names, including Rongitsch, Gruber, Husz, Kerschbaum, Theiler, Wachtler, Lang, Schimonitz and Neuberger. The German phrase at the top is something like "To honor the dead - to teach the living". The German notation at the bottom can be translated as "The 1946 expelled inhabitants from Sankt Johann.", apparently indicating those who erected the memorial.

Statue, west side of Sankt Johann Church.

This statue of the Virgin Mary is on the west side of Sankt Johann church. My apologies for not framing the picture properly: I couldn't quite get the entire statue in the shot.

Sankt Johann Friedhof (cemetery)

The cemetery is a few blocks northwest of the church. Here you can see recent Hungarian graves on the right, and the older section of the cemetery on the left and to the rear. The majority of the cemetery is overgrown with grass and small brush and trees and the gravesites unmaintained. The inscriptions on most of the older, German stones are illegible.

This old chapel has been supplanted by a modern one out of view to the right. The graves are to the left.

The twin spires of this remarkable basilica, built in 1702, are visible from many miles away across the flat landscape. Frauenkirchen is about 10 miles west-northwest of Sankt Johann. The War memorial is in the foreground, the slab with the name Georg Perlinger is the middle slab on the right. The Kalvarienberg and the monument to the lost parishes in Hungary are out of view to the right .

One of the tablets in the WW2 Frauenkirchen memorial. Note the name Georg Perlinger, 21 years old at the time of his death in 1941.

The Kalvarienberg at Frauenkirchen.
You can see the Heideboden 1946 expulsion memorial (Heidebodenkreuz) at the extreme left of the photo. The church is just out of view to the left.

Heideboden 1946 expulsion memorial (Heidebodenkreuz) at Frauenkirchen. Note the large stone tablet to the right of the cross, and the inscriptions in the base of the cross.

This English inscription appears on the far side of the stone tablet seen in the previous photo. It is the same as the inscription in German in the base of the cross.

This is a view of the top of the stone tablet, which is engraved with a map of the Heideboden. The cross is to the left, just out of view. Sankt Johann and Sankt Peter are in the immediate foreground. The Austro-Hungarian border is the relief line running top to bottom. Note Frauenkirchen to the left (west), and the Danube river at the upper right (northeast). From this we see that there were many German villages in the Heideboden.

Last Revised: 12 August 2001
Copyright Ó 2000 Robert G. Hayes
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