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German-Bohemian Monument
The German-Bohemian Immigrant monument is located in the city of New
Ulm, Minnesota. It was erected in 1991 by the German-Bohemian Heritage
Society to honor the German-Bohemian immigrants who had the courage and
foresight to come to this country. The immigrants came mostly from small
villages, with the largest number from the village centers of Hostau,
Muttersorf, and Ronsperg. These were farm communities where the people
lived and housed their stock, going out daily to work in the fields. Most
villages had Catholic churches or chapels and the residents spoke a Bohemian
dialect of German.
Inscribed in granite slabs around the base of the monument are over
350 immigrant family names. The first immigrants were farm settlers. As
more and more arrived, and as they could all no longer farm, they settled
in the city of New Ulm and some of the small communities to the west and
north.
The bronze statue that rests on top of the granite base was designed
and sculpted by the renowned sculptor Leopold Hafner, a German-Bohemian
who now lives near Passau, Germany.
Monument photo
Text on the German-Bohemian Monument
This monument was erected in 1991 by the German-Bohemian Heritage Society
to commemorate the immigrants to this region from the German speaking western
rim of present-day Czechoslovakia. They emigrated from the counties of Bischofteinitz,
Mies and Taus in the province of Pilsen, as shown on the European map and
settled in the townships sketched on the U.S. map. Around the base in the
granite slabs are inscribed the over 350 immigrant family names as they
were approximately spelled when the families departed their old homeland.
Known at the time of their departure as Bohemia, a crown colony in the Austro-Hungarian
empire, this region in the twentieth century was included in the larger
periphery of the Czech nation designated as the Sudetenland, more locally
it was called the Bohmerwald, Bohemian forest, a ridge of high hills that
forms a natural border with Germany.
The immigrants came mostly from small villages, with the largest numbers
from the village centers of Hostau, Muttersdorf, and Ronsberg. These were
farm communities where the people lived and housed their stock, going
out daily to work their scattered non-contiguous fields. Most villages
had Catholic churches or chapels and the residents spoke a Bohemian dialect
of German. From New Years day to Christmas each year they observed special
traditions spiced with large wedding celebrations and funerals attended
by the entire communities. Music in every form--bands, singing societies,
and choirs--permeated all the aspects of village life.
Family names on the monument
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