In a little village in Provence, family names strangely resemble of German. They evoke the history of a small French minority in Eastern Europe: the French of the Banat.,. Originating from Alsace-Lorraine, they left their home country to colonize the Banat region around the city of Timisoara at the end of the 17th century. More and more Germanized they lost any link to France. In 1945, they were accused of supporting Hitler's Germany. To prevent their deportation into labor camps, one...
more »In a little village in Provence, family names strangely resemble of German. They evoke the history of a small French minority in Eastern Europe: the French of the Banat.,. Originating from Alsace-Lorraine, they left their home country to colonize the Banat region around the city of Timisoara at the end of the 17th century. More and more Germanized they lost any link to France. In 1945, they were accused of supporting Hitler's Germany. To prevent their deportation into labor camps, one priest started to reconstruct the family trees of dozens of families to prove their French origin. In 1960, the Banats had a triptych done representing the three stages of their lives' travel: the home country, the Banat devastated by the war, the refugee convoys on their way and arriving to France. This triptych was made to fit another triptych painted at the beginning of the 17th century, today kept in Timisoara, telling the colonization of the Banat in the 17th century.
Dans un petit village de Provence, les noms de famille ont d'étranges consonances germaniques. Ils évoquent l'histoire d'une minorité française de l'Europe orientale : les Français du Banat. Originaires d'Alsace et de Lorraine, ils étaient partis coloniser la région du Banat, autour de Timisoara, à la fin du XVIIe siècle. Progressivement germanisés, ces Banatais perdirent tout lien avec la France. En1945, ils furent accusés d'avoir soutenu l'Allemagne hitlérienne. Pour échapper à la déportation dans les camps, un prêtre reconstitua l'arbre généalogique de dizaines de familles et retrouva leurs racines françaises. En 1960, les Banatais commandèrent un triptyque représentant les trois étapes de leur parcours : le pays d'origine, le Banat dévasté par la guerre, les convois en fuite et l'arrivée en France. Ce triptyque fut conçu de façon symétrique à un autre triptyque peint au début du XXe siècle et conservé à Timisoara qui raconte la colonisation du Banat au XVIIe siècle.
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