After many years, false starts, disappointments, frustration and delays we finally succeeded in having a beautiful Molidorf memorial built in July 2008.
It is indeed a lovely memorial to our ancestral town, standing approximately 10 feet tall amid the surrounding greenery.
Located adjacent to the old Molidorf cemetery, the white marble cross atop the pedestal now stands as a remembrance in the area of the mass graves, where so very many innocents were buried without ceremony or prayer during the post war years.
The inscription on the cross is in gold lettering and reads: 1833 - 1947.
|
|
On the pedestal below the cross, a white marble tablet has been securely embedded. The inscription on the tablet is also done in gold lettering and the text is in four languages ~ German, English, Hungarian & Serbian.
The English text reads:
Our Molidorf
with love and devotion
we honor your memory
The German text reads:
Unser Molidorf
bleibt immer
mit Liebe und Ehre
in unseren Gedanken
This text was drawn up with great care and consideration by Mark Remsing and Anita Pare with helpful assistance for the proper translations from Roswitha Egert in Germany, Marta Istvan in Kikinda, and Sorin Fortiu of Timisoara for which we are very grateful.
For all encouragement and assistance in the planning, preparations and problem solving we thank Marta Istvan of Kikinda, Sorin Fortiu of Timisoara, and Stasa Cvetkovic of Novi Sad and Fr. Pethö Laszlo of Toba.
The memorial building plans were professionally drawn by Heath Stickel according to the hand-drawn design by Mark Remsing. We are very grateful to Heath for doing such an excellent job on such short notice and re-doing the prints on even shorter notice when unexpected changes were required. Thank you for burning the midnight oil!!!
The actual construction was done by Atilla Toth, a local brick mason from Toba and his crew who did a remarkable job, working patiently and diligently in difficult circumstances and very high temperatures under the hot Balkan sun.
The Molidorf Memorial was consecrated on Friday July 11, 2008 by Fr. Pethö Laszlo, the catholic priest from the nearby village of Toba. We must also give our sincere thanks to Fr. Laszlo for his considerable help in the ordering of materials and co-coordinating the deliveries along with actually digging in & helping with the construction.
At the conclusion of the religious ceremony, three officials from civic administration of Nova Crnja-Magyarcsrnye attended and laid a wreath. We thank Bicok Tibor, Nemeth Zoltan and Branislav Damjanov for their considerate remarks and warm welcome and look forward to their continuing support. Their invitation to refreshments and discussions at the city hall was readily accepted and the delicious lunch prepared for us at the community center was much appreciated.
Our heart-felt thanks also go to Marta Istvan who published several articles in the local Kikinda & Voijvodina newspapers and magazines about our endeavour. Thanks to Marta's considerable efforts, the history of Molidorf aka Molin aka Molifalva is no longer lost and forgotten.
We extend our gratitude to so many people, who encouraged and supported our efforts in this endeavour....it is not possible to include each name individually at this time, but we do want to particularly also extend our appreciation to Mathias Binder, Horst Kohl, Jakob Dippong, Mary Staub, and Peter Engst .
Finally after more than 50 years of waiting and hoping, a start has been made to recognize the existence and history of Molidorf. This was truly an international effort and we hope to continue to enlarge the project in the future. |
|
Molidorf Memorial