Rocky Cape Christian Community

Vineyards and ripe fields of grain in Southern Moravia, like on 28 June, 1605, the day the Turks came.

The day Solomon Böger lost his wife.

Solomon grew up and learned how to work in the mill on a Hutterite community at Altenmarkt (a place now called Stará B?eclav) in Moravia. There he got married and by the summer of 1605 he and his wife, Gretl, had a baby.

Vineyards and ripe fields of grain in Southern Moravia, like on 28 June, 1605, the day the Turks came.

The day Solomon Böger lost his wife.

Solomon grew up and learned how to work in the mill on a Hutterite community at Altenmarkt (a place now called Stará Břeclav) in Moravia. There he got married and by the summer of 1605 he and his wife, Gretl, had a baby.

All their lives Solomon and Gretl had lived in peace with their brothers and sisters in the Lord's Gemein (church community). They lived on the lands of the kind Lord Ladislav Velen, son of the well-known Zerotin family who themselves were members of the Unitas Fratrum (the "Big Group") of what some people still knew as the Bohemian or Moravian Brethren.

Hutterite communities (underlined in red) once dotted the area where the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria now come together. Some of them, notably the ones at Sobotište and Velké Leváry have remained standing to this day, but the people have long moved on.

Lord Ladislav Velen did everything he could for the eighteen Hutterite communities on his family's vast estate. He often stood between them and their Habsburg (Roman Catholic) government. But when marauding plundering Ottoman Turkish hordes thundered into Central Europe in the early 1600s he could not keep disaster from happening. The community diary (Geschichtbuch) of the Hutterite believers tells how it went:

It began when the enemy made a night raid on Sabatisch (Sobotište) on the third of May. Through God’s providence our people had fled into the woods, but two brothers who were still in the house were horribly tortured. One in particular was dreadfully burned and racked, and his tongue was torn from the back of his throat. Then both were hacked to death.

Our people left the forest, where they were not safe, and fled to the castle at Branc. Three brothers and a sister were overtaken by the enemy and killed, and three others were carried off as prisoners.

On May 4 a great mob of Hungarian soldiers came and raided our community at Großschützen (Velké Leváre), mistreating and wounding many brothers and sisters so severely that some died. Then they flung into wagons everyone who had not escaped -- wounded and unwounded, old and young -- forty-two people in all, including Matthias Pühler the steward, and took them away. This brought deep grief to all the church elders and all the children of God. Those who had escaped in the woods and bogs wer so scattered that it was impossible to tell who was still living and who had been carried off. . . .

That same night there was a raid on the Brodské community [where Peter Ridemann had lived and died]. Although our people were still in the house, God prevented the enemy from entering until nearly all had escaped. . . . The invading Turks plundered and wrecked the place, badly wounding two of the three brothers they found there. The third they killed when he reproached them for their wanton cruelty. They horribly mistreated some sisters, even one who had given birth only two hours before.

On 5 May, the enemy attacked in force, plundering and burning our communities at St. Georgen (Borsky Sväty Jur), St. Johannes (Sväty Jan), Kopčany, Neusorg and Gbely, as well as a number of farms and mills where our people were, and many neighbouring villages. . . .

On May 7 the enemy crossed the March River and made their first raid in Moravia. They burned Lanźhot and Velké Bílowice. In both places our communities were completely destroyed by fire, bringing great suffering and loss to the church. At Bílowice four brothers were struck down and murdered.

On May 9 the enemy raided a second time, plundering and burning our community at Stáźnice and killing three brothers.

On May 27 and 28 the enemy entered Austria, ruthless as ever, robbing, murdering, and burning until twenty-four fires could be seen at once. Of our community at Rabensburg three brothers were killed and cut in pieces.

On May 30 the enemy returned to raid Moravia with fire, pillage and murder. They plundered our community at Neudorf (Ostrožská Nová Ves), killed four of our people and carried off three as captives. The same day the enemy stormed the town of Veselí and burned the brothers’ smithy there. In this raid two brothers were murdered at Velká and one at Svĕtlov, and three people were carried off.

On June 2 there was an attack on Vacenovice. Our community was burned to the ground and four brothers were knocked down and beaten to death. Our three communities at Žadovice, Hodonín, and Kreutz [formerly a Gabrielite community near Hodonín] were pillaged the same day. So were the farms at Jarohnĕvice, Čejč, Krumviř and the surrounding areas.

At Kreutz, Mistřín, and Milotice ten brothers were cruelly killed by the enemy. Four people from Krumviř and two from Kreutz were taken captive and carried off. . . .

On June 28 the enemy again advanced, crossing the March between Hohenau and Rabensburg. They took the Austrian guards by surprise and killed nearly a hundred men. Then they headed toward the forests by the March, plundering and burning Tvrdonice and other villages. It was at Tvrdonice that our people suffered the most. Sixteen people were murdered without mercy, and 112 people -- brothers, sisters and children -- were carried off into foreign parts. The church of God was in great anguish of heart. As a true mother sorrows for her children, so the faithful felt the pain and suffering of these captives as if they themselves were in captivity. Just at this time a brother was seized by the enemy at Týnec, murdered, and cut in pieces.

The same day the enemy burned our community at Altenmarkt (Stará Břeclav) and the farm at nearby Hrušky (Birnbaum), Fifteen people were carried off from Altenmarkt and ten from Hrušky. At both places, four people were murdered and many injured. At Lanšdorf one brother was murdered, and three people were taken prisoner.

For Solomon and Gretl and their new baby, the raid on Altenmarkt could not have gone any worse. Solomon got left behind, fighting the fires, while the Turks snatched Gretl and the baby and returned across the March. Solomon cried to the Lord, vowing in his heart to do what he could to rescue her, but the brothers held him back, pleading with him not to do anything foolish, not to bring greater trouble upon himself and the community by angering the Turks any further.

For another month the invasions continued, as recorded in the community diary:

On July 12 the enemy again crossed into Moravia near Lužice. They set fire to about eight villages, and both our communities at Prušánky and Čejkovice were burned to the ground. Four brothers at Prušánky and two at Čejkovice were cruelly murdered.

From Prušánky thirty-five brothers and sisters were seized and carried off by the tyrant. This deeply grieved all the members of the church, and they faithfully prayed to God for them. . . .

On July 16 the enemy raided as far as Dambořice. . . . Two brothers who were in the fields were surprised by the enemy and wounded so severely that one of them died shortly after. Another brother was knocked down and murdered at Vacenovice. . . . That same day the enemy burned down Kobylí, Bořetice, Podivín and many neighbouring villages. Praise God, our people were spared except for three boys who were carried off and two brothers who were mercilessly slashed to pieces in Podivín and Rakvice. . . .

In two more raids on July 28, our houses in Altenmarkt, as well as anything left standing in the neighbourhood, were burned to the ground. . . . On the first of August the enemy made the twelfth and last raid into Moravia. They plundered Bzenec by night, taking eighty horses from the soldiers billeted there. . . .

In this brutality and terror that lasted three months, sixteen communities, large and small (including eleven schools), were destroyed. All were robbed, torn down, and burned by the enemy, which caused great damage and loss of property to the church. In the course of these raids the enemy took fifty-six horses and other animals from the fields and buildings, while marauding soldiers robbed the church of another forty horses. So we suffered violence from both sides. . . . About 240 brothers, sisters and children were taken from us as prisoners and eighty-one of our people were killed. . . . Disastrous news kept coming -- tragedy after tragedy, endless suffering and pain -- as deep called to deep. The faithful were in anguish about the atrocities committed by ungodly heathen against God-fearing innocent people. It was appalling how they treated mothers with newborn babies, expectant mothers, and unmarried sisters. Most terrible of all was the way they ruthlessly carried of innocent little babies, thrown on the horses’ backs with feet bound together and head hanging down. Many mothers had to witness that. There was much weeping and heartache for all the brothers and sisters and boys and girls who were carried off. Husbands were separated from their wives, wives from their husbands, parents from children, and one friend from another. Some had been born in the community, but some had come from other countries for the sake of faith and Christ’s name. Now they were carried off to foreign lands and sold into slavery to cruel sodomitic people -- the Turks and the Tatars.

For a year and a half after the raid on Altenmarkt Solomon kept begging the church community to let him go and find his wife. "I do not care if I lose my life in the attempt," he told them. "I must go find Gretl and the baby if they are still alive. I must do something."

Finally, with grave misgivings the community let him go at the beginning of winter, in December 1606. One month earlier the Turks and the Habsburgs (rulers of the Holy Roman Empire) had called a temporary cease-fire. Perhaps now it would be a little safer, they thought.

The day he got his Zehrgeld (a little money from the community to spend along the way) Solomon set out resolutely, on foot, for Vienna. He had his plan worked out. From Vienna, he had heard, a few merchants traded with people in Turkish lands. He would go to these merchants, offer to act as their agents, and with their letters of recommendation, with their cloth to sell or trade, he would travel down the Donau, cross the line into Turkish-held Hungary and begin his search.

How would he do it, unarmed, not knowing Hungarian (let alone Turkish), and never having been on a trip before? What would he eat? Where would he stay? Solomon had no idea. But a fire burned in his heart. He had to find Gretl and his little child. He had to go, even if the brothers did not think it safe, or thought it a poor idea. Surely God would help him, somehow.

Would he?

The Lord willing I will share with you in my next letter how it went -- translating pieces from the fascinating letters Solomon wrote along the way.

Peter

Rocky Cape Christian Community
19509 Bass Highway
Detention River, Tasmania 7321
Australia
www.thecommonlife.com.au