The migration of the Nikolaus Dirk family from Germany to Krasna/Bessarabia

Source: Baptismal entry in Schwarzenholz for Nicolaus Dürck

Nikolaus Dirk was baptized on 10 September 1732. He and his parents lived in Niedersalbach/Saarland.
Sie waren Nachfahren von Ritt von Rittenhofen (Heinrich Türk)¹, der 1664 aus dem Oldenburger Gebiet kam und sich im Dorf Rittenhofen im Köllertal ansiedelte (Ansiedlungsdatum nach OFB Kölln, S. 491: 05. Mai 1665).

They were descendants of Ritt von Rittenhofen (Heinrich Türk)¹, who came from the Oldenburg area in 1664 and settled in the village of Rittenhofen in the Köllertal (settlement date according to OFB Kölln, p. 491: May 05, 1665).

The ancestors of Nikolaus Dirk

Heinrich TÜRK (DÜRCK) (* 1620 † 1684) (Ritt von Rittenhofen)
Ep: Margaretha (* 1625 ⚭ 1650 † 1693)

+-Hans Jakob TÜRK (DÜRCK) (* 1650 † 1719)
Ep: Katharina (* 1655 ⚭ 1680 † 1720)

+-Johann Theobald TÜRK (* 1685 † 1740)
Ep: Maria Margaretha PAUL (* 1685 ⚭ 1707 † 1769)

+-Nikolaus TÜRK (* 1732)
Ep: Barbara SPEICHER (* 1729 ⚭ 1760 † 1765)
Ep: Anna Maria JACOB (* 1744 ⚭ 1767)

Johann Theobald, the father of Nikolaus Dirk, was born in Rittenhofen. After his marriage, he moved to the neighboring village of Niedersalbach, where he also died. His parents-in-law Paul lived there. It is not known why he moved there.

Nikolaus was born in Niedersalbach and initially married Barbara Speicher from Püttlingen. After her death, he was married to Anna Maria Jacob from Reisweiler.
Their lives were not easy, as the Thirty Years' War (1618 to 1648) had left many places in what is now Saarland deserted and empty. Reconstruction was very slow. Of the eight houses/bailiwicks in Rittenhofen, only three had been rebuilt 100 years later. Further terrible wars were fought after the Thirty Years' War. Time and again, the population suffered from the turmoil of war. Famine and high war taxes led to the complete impoverishment of the people. In addition, the region was overpopulated and land hunger was therefore high. From the beginning of the 18th century, an increasing number of people emigrated from south-western Germany (including the Saarland).

The emigration of the Dirk family to Galicia

Between 1782 and 1787, many people went to Galicia, the area east of the upper reaches of the Vistula that had belonged to Poland for centuries and had been taken over by Austria at the first partition of Poland (1772).
The Oberamt Winnweiler, which was located in the Palatinate but belonged to Vorderösterreich, played a special role in this. A special recruitment office for Galician emigrants was set up there around 1781.

Recruiting people to emigrate was not particularly difficult. Some of the large number of children in the farming families regularly had to leave their parents' farm in order to build up their own livelihood elsewhere.
The imperial advertisers described Galicia as a true Canaan: they promised favorable living conditions, a large allotment of the best land, good employment opportunities, free arable and building land, building materials, seeds and seedlings, tax exemption for many years and much more. The response was strong. Many were disgusted with their homeland.
Among the families who moved to Galicia in the hope of finding a better livelihood there was Nikolaus Dirk, who was registered with his family - 8 people - in Vienna on July 10, 1784 (WK 202/42)². Together with Nikolaus Türk, his cousins Peter and Johann Paul left with their families.
Settlers usually left their homeland in groups: relatives, friends, neighbors, usually from the same place or nearby. They also settled together.
We do not know the exact personal reasons of Nikolaus Dirk, but the general circumstances of the time are described above.

The Palatines' main migration route initially took them to Frankfurt/Main, where they received their "Reichskommissariatspass" from the Austrian resident Franz von Roethlein for their departure.
Then the journey went to Ulm or Donauwörth to continue the journey from there to Vienna on the flat, raft-like ships "Ulmer Schachteln"³. The journey from Ulm to Vienna took about 5 days.
In Vienna, all travelers had to report to the Court Agency, where they were registered in consignations⁴ and received a court passport for the journey through Austria and travel money. The Court Agency informed the Gubernium⁵ in Lemberg, from which the expected arrival and further instructions were sent to the Galician district offices and domain administrations.

From Vienna, the journey continued overland. Larger groups traveled by horse-drawn wagon via Brno, Olomouc, Moravian-Neustadt, Bielsko-Biala to Krakow and from there on to their destinations. They only traveled in the summer months.

The length of the journey:

From Püttlingen/Saar to Ulm = approx. 300 km
From Ulm to Vienna on the Danube = approx. 660 km
Vienna- Brno- Olomouc- Moravian New Town- Bielice- Krakow = approx. 570km
From Krakow to Zamosc = approx. 300 km
Together approx. 1,830 km

The settlement in Galicia

The emigrants, coming in large groups from Vienna, entered Galician soil in Biala. The carts now struggled forward, for the roads were bad. The mortality rate among them was high, the infant mortality rate alarming. The imperial advertisers had described Galicia as a true paradise.

The arrivals were therefore very disappointed when nothing was to be seen.

As a rule, the settlers were to receive ready-made farms with basic agricultural equipment and livestock in addition to arable land when they arrived. However, as the Austrian administration was still being established, the furnishing of the farms for the settlers could not keep pace with the influx of colonists. Due to a lack of prepared colonization sites, the authorities had to accommodate the people in emergency shelters. Epidemics, especially smallpox, tore large gaps in the families and clans.

In order to provide some relief, the administration reached an agreement with large landowners to accommodate some of the settlers on private estates. In October 1784, Andreas Count von Zamoyski (Ordination Lord of Zamosc) undertook to take in 80 emigrant families. Other landlords followed suit. In total, there were private settlers in 16 places in the district of Zamosc, more than a third of all places with private settlers in the whole of Galicia⁶.

In 1785, Count Zamoyski brought four families of German colonists to Huszczka, in the district of Sitaniec. They are mentioned in Count Zamoyski's settlement contract. They were the families of Peter and Johann Paul, Nikolaus and Johann Dirk (the latter the son of Nikolaus * 1732 from his first marriage). The brothers Paul and Nikolaus Dirk were cousins.

Each settler received around 12 hectares of land (30 Koretz), a house, stable and barn and living and dead inventory, which was paid for in installments.

The families lived in Poland for around thirty years until the end of the Napoleonic Wars in Eastern Europe. The situation for the colonists was anything but rosy.

The rulers of the time increased the draught and foot robots (certain levies) to be paid after six years at will. The consequences were poverty and famine, which were exacerbated by periods of drought, crop failures and epidemics.

The settlers went through very difficult and troubled times.

• Despite poor harvests, they now had to pay taxes and send their sons to war.
• 1809 Change from Austrian rule to Polish rule⁷ . They suffered greatly under the large landowners of Poland.
• The Napoleonic Wars brought them much suffering. In the Zamosc region in particular, there were several Napoleonic battles against Austria in 1809, during which their fields were devastated and they had to supply the soldiers.
• This was followed in 1812 by the passage of troops, requisitions and looting during Napoleon's campaign to Russia and the return of the defeated French army to the west.

The onward migration of the Dirk family to Bessarabia

This situation gave rise to the motives for the onward migration of the people to Bessarabia, which Russia had wrested from the Turks in 1812.
The Russian government was particularly interested in German settlers and designated South Bessarabia (Budschak) as a settlement area for German emigrants.
The Tsar was aware of the bleak situation of the Germans living in poor and insecure conditions in the Duchy of Warsaw. He had become aware of this when his soldiers pursued the defeated French army on its retreat from the Russian campaign in the winter of 1812/1813.
The Krasna community report of 1848 says the following about the reason for the onward migration: "...The all-destructive war campaigns of the French to Russia via Poland deprived the colonists of almost all their possessions. The colonists felt that torn Poland could not give them any security and protection for the future and followed the invitation issued by the Russian government at the time to settle in Bessarabia."

In his appeal of November 29, 1813, Alexander I called for voluntary emigration to Russia. The Tsar's manifesto guaranteed the emigrants in Bessarabia religious freedom, exemption from military service, ten years' tax exemption, 60 desyatins (=66 hectares) of land for each family and money to build a house.
That sounded very tempting in the bleak situation of the Germans in Poland. 66 hectares of land as property for each family! That was four to five times as much as they had received from Austria.
The Tsar's generous promises meant that many families from Galicia left their barely acquired homes in Poland between 1814 and 1820.

The fathers of the families who emigrated from Germany in 1784/1785 were already between 30 and 50 years old when they arrived in Galicia. By the time they left for Bessarabia, some of them were no longer alive or had not moved on. In 1814, they were already quite old by the standards of the time (around 60 years and older).
The year of birth of Türk Nikolaus *1732 suggests that he died in Galicia and did not move on to Krasna. After all, he would have been 82 years old in 1814.

In these families, children were born in the new Polish homeland between the time of immigration to Galicia and the onward migration to Bessarabia (approx. 30 years). Most of the colonists from the Zamosc area who migrated on to Krasna were probably born in Poland.

From the Dirk clan, son Nikolaus Dirk * 1769 moved on to Bessarabia⁸ . He is the ancestor of the Krasna Dirks.
It is interesting to note that members of the Paul family, who were related to him, came to Krasna together with Nikolaus Türk when they emigrated to Poland.
The church register of Sitaniec contains an entry about the marriage of Nikolaus Türk to Katharina Altmayer on November 22, 1791. Although the Türks lived in the Huszska colony, it was customary at the time for the wedding to take place in the bride's place of residence.

Türk, Nicolaus from the district of Zamosc, Lublin governorate, Duchy of Warsaw, emigrated to Russia in 1814⁹ . Wife Gertrude ; children Peter, Mathias, Johann, Nikolaus, Christine, Marianne¹⁰.
. Gertrud is the second wife of Nikolaus. According to the 1835 census, she was born around 1785. According to the Krasna baptismal register, the couple had a son Nikolaus on December 25, 1817. Further children followed until 1826: Marianna * 12.03.1819, Margaret * 21.10.1823, Elisabeth and Dorothea on 17.06.1826. According to this, Nikolaus Dirk died afterwards.
Gertrud married Johann Peter Becker as the widow of Nikolaus Dirk.

Nikolaus Dirk was one of the first settlers in Krasna.
According to a list of the sick in the Krasna colony dated Nov. 19, 1819 [Schulz Franz Bietsch (Petsch); assessors Nikolaus Dürck (Dirk) and Nikolaus Lauterbach] was

• Nikolaus Dirk around 1819 Assessor of the Krasna colony (in this function he was part of the municipal administration and representative of the Schulzen/mayor),
• Nikolaus Dirk 53 years old, ill on August 24, 1819, sons Mathias & Johann are named.

His farm in Krasna was probably inherited by his youngest son Nikolaus * 1804, in accordance with the applicable Russian laws. But the other sons had also acquired their own farms.
The name Dirk/Dürck/Türk initially only existed in Krasna, in no other Bessarabian colony. In later generations, relatives moved on to Emmental, Marienfeld, Dobruja, the USA/Canada, Brazil and Argentina.
Descendants of Nikolaus Dirk lived in Krasna until the resettlement of the Germans from Bessarabia in 1940. The last member of the family to be born there was DIRK, Klara ? 11.10.1939.

Eduard Volk

Neuwied, September 18, 2024

21 - DIRK, Jacob (1800), Wife: ARNOLD, Marianna (1804)
96 - Michael Dirk 23 - Wife: Susanna 17
Either Hopf's list is not complete or they are children of Nikolaus' brothers, e.g. Johann.