September 11th – 25th, 2024
September 11th – 25th, 2024
by Richard Bergmann
We are in the Emmental region which translated means valley of the Emme. The land here is stunning with the endless lush green cattle pastureland high on the hills that are met with pine forests at their edges. Early settlers would have carved this land out of completely forested areas that are in the valley. This is dairy and cheese country and after a brief stop at the Church of Sumiswald (a Reform church that has a plaque listing the Haslebacher family – one of today’s families) we arrive at the Sattlerei Blaser Wasen store. This is a tack or leather shop and a cow bell store. A Swiss tradition is to bring the cows down from the high mountains every fall, decorated with massive cow bells and flowers followed by the herds people and children also decked out in their Swiss traditional dress.
Apparently last week, we missed the sight of 800+ cows marching through the village in this custom which would have been a site to see. The tack in these shops was not just for horses but for cattle as they pull the traditional carts as well.
Next to the livery shop is the ReistOrgeli musical instrument store. They specialize in building accordions and these intricate instruments sounded amazing as we watched to shop keepers play a duet to serenade us which sounded like classic Swiss mountain music.
The village of Wasen is the perfect unique stop if you have a farmer and musician in the family so each can go to the store of their preference to see these collections.
We are now at the Haslebacher family farm where we hear about how Hans was judged from life to death and there is now a poem and song written about this. Ayold had us each take one of the verses to read, my verse 18 is, “From my faith I will not depart, the Word of God I know myself, my cause I commit to God, it is to my heart a light atonement, that innocently I must die.” This is an active dairy farm, and we are welcome to walk around. The first place I head to is the dairy barn, a newer one recently built in 2022, and I watch as some technicians are working on the robotic milking system.
Our host, Trudy Haslebacher, is interacting with our travellers and to their surprise and delight they discover they are speaking in the same dialect of German. I learn from one of our travellers that it is not Pennsylvania Dutch but rather is called Bern-German or Pennsylvania German as in America the notion of Pennsylvania Dutch had nothing to do with the Dutch at all. This traveller was clearly impacted by the discovery that this area was the same region which his mother tongue came from which was touching.
The Anabaptists were persecuted from 1525 – 1743 by the Swiss Reform Church and we visit Trachselwald Castle to see the 2.5-meter-thick stone walls that housed many Anabaptists before they were sent to their deaths or never released including the story about Haslebacher. This castle is for sale but there is one catch – it needs to stay open to the public, hence it is still on the market. Any takers that want to own a Swiss castle that used to house, torture, and perform executions?
Lunch time finds us at Kambly cookies which is the leading Swiss cooking and biscuit company. The bonus on this stop was that there were as many free samples as desired, hundreds we could help ourselves to. Quite a clever marketing ploy as many of us walked out with some bags of cookies.
Our last stop was one of my favorites so far on this trip and that was to another working dairy farm called Hinter-Hutton near Trug/Tuaferverstek area. Our host is Regula Fankhauser and she turned their farm into an exhibition that they have built. It is here that the Anabaptist family had a hidden room in the barn during the reform time and was only rediscovered in the early 2000’s. Regula shared her powerful faith story which tied to this hidden room discovery and personal family tragedy.
I was not expecting the dairy farms and the agriculture connection on this tour so today was a bonus along with many wonderful churches. These farm families have opened their yards to these types of tours and to share the history here. What can we learn from the past as history continues to repeat itself? We learn about the persecution and how Anabaptists stood up for their faith, how they were forced out and they went to find a place where they could raise their families, free to practice their religion and free from violence. This cycle in today’s world continues for many and I wonder how we can tell the story of those being oppressed so that we can be advocates for them, like our ancestors of this Anabaptist movement did.
