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This site is dedicated to open discussion about the former linguistic island known as Gottschee (Kocevje), Slovenia. You will also find information about Gottscheer geneaology, villages, food, and folklore.

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NY Daily News Article on the Gottscheer Archives at St. John's University

Note to readers: This article was forwarded to me by Emma Tschern of Searingtown, NY. hwk

Fifty years after the largest wave of Gottscheer immigrants settled in the United States, the shrinking community has started archiving its literature, artifacts and memorabilia at St. Johns University.

"When this fragile group disappears, we want to preserve for future generations the customs, traditions and medieval dialect," said William Schauer, 69, vice-president of the Gottscheer Relief Association, which donated the artifacts.

Gottscheers are the descendants of the people who lived in the German-speaking district of Gottschee in the Austrian duchy of Carniola, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918 when the empire was dissolved following World War I.

About 3,000 Gottscheers live in the Queens neighborhoods of Glendale, Ridgewood, Middle Village, Maspeth and Liberty Park, Schauer said.

Gottscheers immigrated to the United States as early as 1870 but a large number immigrated after 1945 from displaced persons camps in Untersteiermark (Lower Styria), where they had been moved by the Third Reich so that their land could be given to Italy.

"Immigration used to be a never-ending process until the last wave when our homeland was eliminated," said Prof. Bernard Helldorfer, chairman of the division of criminal justice and legal studies at St. John's University and a resident of Middle Village.

"We are trying to get what was lost from old documents because sooner or later it will all get lost," Helldorfer said during a ceremony to mark the opening of an exhibit of the archives at the university's library last week.

"There has been a lot of dilution of the pure Gottscheer line and that has diluted the people who can say they are 100 per cent Gottscheer," Helldorfer added. The exhibit, which runs through May, features books, photographs of members of the early Gottscheer bowling and soccer teams as well as championship trophies. Also on display are an original 1924 U. S. passport used by Joseph Hutter, one of the early immigrants, and the naturalization certificate of his wife, Josefa, dated April 29, 1937.

"They did not have many things left over to begin with," said Dr. Marilyn Pettit, university archivist. "So they reestablished their archives here in New York. The older pieces are from the Gottscheer people who immigrated before the war."

Most of the Gottscheers who settled in the U. S. did so through the help of the relief association, which was initially formed to prepare and send food and care packages to the displaced Gottscheers in the aftermath of World War II, said Schauer. His father, Adolf, was co-founder and first president of the association in 1946.

Because of their German heritage, the displaced Gottscheers were barred from immigrating to the United States but the association fought to overcome that barrier by having them classified as "ethnic expellees," Schauer explained.

Subsequently, members of the association joined together to find jobs and homes for more than 2,000 new Gottscheer immigrants, a condition set to guarantee that they would not become public charges in the U. S.

Gottscheer workers enjoyed the benefits of the Gottscheer Sick Benefit Society, which was founded in 1901 to provide assistance to the families of members who either lost their jobs or died.

"There was no social welfare at that time, especially for new immigrants," Schauer said. "There were no unions and the group invested its money by giving mortgages to members. This way, the money was invested and they helped each other."