CHAPTER 1

Pastoral Hadad

Looking back today, I cannot imagine a happier childhood than growingup in our small agricultural community in remote northern Transylvania.I lived there until age fourteen with my parents Morice and Ida Frenkeland my brother, Gabriel. Hadad was a farming town of approximately twothousand people located in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.To most Americans, Transylvania conjures up gothic Hollywood tales ofCount Dracula and vampires. To me, it provided the familiar comfortsand endless fascination of rural farm life—horse-drawn carts, ancient dirtroads, Protestant church choirs, colorful Gypsy fiddlers, Tuesday producemarkets, open-sleigh rides, and the weekly town crier.

Transylvania is the Latin word for the region, meaning "land beyondthe forest"—those great forests that cover the Carpathian Mountains. TheCarpathiansprovideTransylvania'shugenaturalborderonthenorth,east,andsouth, leaving it open on the west to the Great Hungarian Plain. Transylvaniaconsists of rolling hills, river valleys, and fertile plains, interrupted only bythe Bihar Mountains near its center, just west of its historic capital city,Kolozsvar (now called Cluj-Napoca). Hadad lies near the very northern tipof Transylvania on a virtual straight line between the border city of Szatmar(Satu Mare), about twenty-five miles to the north, and the capital city ofKolozsvar, about fifty miles to the south (see Map 2).

Called "Hodod" by the Romanians and "Kriegsdorf" by the Germans,Hadad, as the Hungarians called it, was settled in the latter half of theeighteenth century by a Hungarian (or Magyar) nobleman named Wesselenyi,along with Lutherans from southern Germany. Wesselenyi's descendant,Count Banfi, owned a magnificent castle situated on the western side oftown at the highest point in Hadad, about half a mile above the valley below.Count Banfi also owned most of the land in our part of Transylvania, andeverything on it. This included all the animals (pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens,and horses), all the crops (fields of grains, fruit orchards, and a vineyard), allthe forests, and the flour mill. What did not belong to Count Banfi belongedto Count Degenfeld, an absentee German landlord. Degenfeld Castle, locatedat the southern end of town, lay relatively dormant and largely unoccupied,except for the estate manager plus the caretaker and his family.

Hadad covered a mile-wide stretch atop a gentle east-west hill andextended south about two miles down into a small valley with sprawlingfields. The weather was ever-changing, and everyone's daily preoccupation.In summer, the weather was generally pleasant, especially for a youngsterlike me. But in winter, a brisk Siberian wind blew across the Carpathiansinto Transylvania, bringing biting cold winds and heavy snowfalls thatdrove everyone indoors. We huddled before the fireplace, well suppliedwith stacked wood, which was freely available and easy pickings in thenearby forests—at least before the first blizzard arrived. Rarely did peopleventure out in deep snow, except to feed the barn animals or to purchaseflour and cooking oil from the mill.

The dramatic seasonal changes in Transylvanian weather captivatedme. In fall, the leaves formed such a thick ground cushion that I couldpainlessly slide or roll down the long, steep embankments on the Banfiestate. When the weather turned cold, my leather shoes froze, clicked, andsqueaked—clear signals to get indoors before my feet became frostbitten.The winter snowfall was often so heavy that the roads were impassableeven for horse-drawn sleighs. When severe weather forced me inside, Iplayed chess, arranged my stamp collection, and peered through Father'smedical books to read about various diseases.

Throughout most of the winter, Hadad was perfect for sledding.My friends and I whisked down the main road through the town centerand then turned down one of the two side streets, speeding toward thevalley below. We were unconcerned about traffic, since there were noautomobiles and few sleighs. Trees posed the only real danger. Careeningthrough orchard trees, some of my friends lost teeth on impact with theubiquitous tree trunks. My sledding injury occurred near the entranceto my elementary school. To make it all the way to the school entrance,I had to lie flat on the sled in order to pass under a railing in front of theschool. One time I forgot to duck and hit the railing so hard I was knockedunconscious. To this day, I still bear a slight dent on the top of my head.

From spring through fall, we had almost daily rain showers, whichturned the town's unpaved streets to mud. Walking in the slippery mudwas treacherous, since the roads were uneven, strewn with rocks, andlined on either side by shallow ditches. If the weather suddenly turnedcold, animal footprints froze in the mud, which made the roads moreuneven and dangerous. Most people went around town on foot, so shoesbecame mud-caked from the moment they hit the ground. Removing thatmud before walking into your house was a necessary ritual. My practicewas to scrape my shoes using a small pocketknife, and then to clean theknife with wood shavings.

Hadad's main road (then as now) enters town from the northwestnear Banfi Castle at the top of the hill. It descends south to DegenfeldCastle, turns east through the town center, and continues east out oftown about seven miles to Szilagy Cseh (Cehu Silvaniei), which has thenearest train station. As you head east along the main road from BanfiCastle toward...