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STORY ON TOMNATIC / TRIEBSWETTER

Tomnatic / Triebswetter / Nagyösz is an old estate of the Cenad Bishopric. In 1590 Serbs inhabited the village. In 1772 is colonized [200 houses] with Frenchman's [192 families] and Germans [8 families] from Lotharingia, Luxemburg and Wurzburg. The village will be named Triebswetter after the name of the topographic engineer [i.e. Captain Anton von Triebswetter] who designed the village's plan, made the measuring and partitioning of the land during the time of the colonization.
The first 2 [maybe 3] Roman Catholic priests officiated the holly service in the local church only in French language. Until 1875 the holly service was still officiated in French and German languages. But starting 1883, the language will be only German.
The translation from French to German language was a very quick process; only 2 generation. After Hans Damas's story1, his grandfather [Boisseau, D 1930] could not speak with his grandmother because she did not know German [only French] but the nephew [grandfather Boisseau] did not speak French at all. At the middle of the XIX Century, the everyday language will be the German language [the German language was the official language of the Habsburg Empire and the schools where in German also].
The French origin of the Tomnatic inhabitants helped a lot of them, in January 1945, to escape from deportation to Donbas/URSS. At the 1927 census, a romanian retired public notary, named Popovici, declared the village as French village. His argument: more than half families where carrying French families names [even under German writing]: Tuttenuit, Marton, Etienne, Dumas, Doron, Richard, Papillon, Renard, Kolen/Coling, Polen/Poling, Wiewe/Vive, Hamann/Amand, Strubert/Strubere, etc. Because the marriages outside the village where only a few, with the help of the local priest [Father Adam Willkomm] and the church books, quickly the genealogy of each family was build [back to 1772]. Some documents [named Uhnenpaß] were elaborated proving that the inhabitants are actually of Franch origin. So, from Tomnatic approximately 200 inhabitants were deported in URSS [~25% of deported people died in URSS !].
But the village will be heavily "kicked" by the communist regime in 1951, when half of his inhabitants [mainly female between 18 and 30 years] where deported to other locations [mainly in Baragan].
In 1989, in Tomnatic 80% of his inhabitants where Germans [of French origin?; this is very disputable; they are define themselves as Germans/Schwaben/Svabi but they still have, after more then 200 years, the memory of their first identity. Amazing for an anthropologist!].
Now, less then 200 of them are still living in this village.
 
P.S. The inhabitants of Tomnatic were probably the only one in Banat that
considered the frog legs as a delicatessen [along with the inhabitants of the rest of “french” villages: St. Hubert, Charleville, Seultour, Ostern, and Gottlob]


NOTE:

[1] published in Smaranda Vultur's book "Germanii din Banat/Germans from Banat", Ed. Paideia, 2000, Romania.
      Hans Damas was born on 9.05.1906 in Tomnatic and his nickname was Batissle.

Check also our comment Black & White in Triebswetter Familienbuch