Gábor M. Trischler, on behalf of the Trischler family, welcomed the Gábor Bethlen College community at the closing ceremony of the school year
(The Trischler family is the operator of the Premium Scholarship Program since 2020)
The description of the Premium Scholarship Program can be read HERE.
Dear teachers, dear students, dear participants!
It is a tremendous honor and pleasure for me to be here with you today!
As a member of one of the families supporting Gábor Bethlen College – the long established institution, I am giving a short speech today.
The diversity of nations and nationalities living in the Carpathian Basin, the uniqueness of our cultures and their mutually enriching effect make the Carpathian Basin exceptional for us.
However, why does a German family support a Hungarian institution in the administrative territory of Romania, in Transylvania, with which it seems to have no connection from a historical or kinship point of view?
There are several reasons for this:
I have already stated one of them: supporting and maintaining the diversity of our cultures in the Carpathian Basin.
I am one of the last members of the almost extinct national minority, who could live partially, but rather only from the stories of my grandparents and great-grandparents, and now only from books, folk shows, keeping traditions and culture of ancestors.
I would like to briefly emphasize here one – and perhaps the most important – aspect of the emigration and expulsion of the Germans from Bácska, the “Danube Swabians”, and the cessation of our living culture.
This was nothing but the end of the independence of our national schoolsMy grandfather – a true German – fought as school board president during the Monarchy to prevent the German “Deutscher Schulverein” from supporting German schools in the area in Voivodina. This would have meant political and ideological influence, and would not have served the local interests, the culture of the Hungarians and therefore of the Germans in Bácska.Only 50 years later, most southern Germans were not opposed to such aspirations. My grandfather’s anxious fear has been confirmed: if our schools are not autonomous institutions that serve the needs of our local cultural community, then our cultural community as a whole will be at risk. Emigration and nationalist revenge during and after World War II, which was the response to Nazi German nationalism, virtually spelled the end of this living culture. And the numbers show it: in 1941, 440,000 people of German nationality lived in Voivodina.According to the 2022 census in Serbia, 2,573 people declared themselves German or of German origin. According to another survey, 46% of them, cannot express themselves in their mother tongue, German.
Our family would like this fate not to happen to other nationalities, other cultures in the Carpathian Basin.
Knowledge is a responsibility for us: hence the support.
We know that, in the old times, this college made a great contribution to the literacy and education of the population living here, when most of the Hungarian Plain was still illiterate.
Through this, it acquired an extraordinary role as a cultural and community supporter. We want to support this.
For me, who was born and graduated in Budapest, – you can twist and turn as you like – Hungary was a fixed central point from the beginning, and in many ways it has remained so. When I emigrated to West Germany in 1983, my life – and the history of my family in the Carpathian Basin – becamed a closed circle.
Despite the fact that today I am a conscious German and oriented towards German society, perhaps because most of my ancestors have always been German, the fate and path of the Carpathian Basin have never been indifferent to me – and never will be. I am glad that this region of Europe is also important to my son, for whom the Carpathian Basin is no longer home, but it is not foreign and it is not just family history.
Through the People of Europe, all the inhabitants of the Carpathian Basin, whether they are Hungarian, German, Romanian or of any origin, have unpredictable horizons. One or another branch of my family seeks and finds its future in Hungary, Germany, Austria and many other countries of the world.
What remains and must remain: the place where the alma mater is – like Budapest for me – and where everyone can freely experience their own native language and culture, to which they can always freely return!
On behalf of myself and my family, I wish for the students a meaningful holiday, for the teachers a pleasant time on vacation and a lot of strength and health!
