On the eve of the municipal holiday of the municipality of Murska Sobota, we kindly invite you to the screening of a documentary film among Prekmurje compatriots in Bethlehem.
The documentary (57 minutes) shows the emigration of Prekmurje and porabski Slovenes to the Promised Land. The used archival footage, which is kept on Ellis Island, where emigrants arrived by ship before setting foot on solid American soil, testifies to the difficulties the immigrants had to face. Those who succeeded were received by the US government with both hands, as it needed cheap labor, mainly in the steel industry, which was most developed in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
About 7,000 Prekmurje people settled there and in the vicinity. Thus, in the beginning 20. the largest Prekmurje settlement in the Americas was formed in Bethlehem for centuries. One of the first Prekmurians in South Bethlehem was Joseph Prelec (Joseph Preletz), who settled there as early as 1893.
At the initiative of Stephen Antalich, it was before 30. Bethlehem Twin Cities Association, Murska Sobota . Today the society has about 200 members, which together with the city celebrates the Slovenian day on the sixth of June every year.
However, years pass, and assimilation also takes its toll. The second and third generations of emigrants are becoming less and less, and their descendants very rarely master the native language.
But it is gratifying that you are increasingly interested in exploring your roots. And opportunities such as all-Russian meetings of emigrants in their homeland are not missed. There are a lot of tears in the memory. Much more than the agreements on exchange of students between the Twin Cities of Bethlehem and Murska Sobota, unfortunately, rarely happens.
The documentary consists of archival footage from the first visit of our team in 1989, until 2001, when the then Mayor of Bethlehem, Jimm6 Del Grosso, visited Murska Sobota with a group of emigrants who visited the province where their parents came from.
Documentary records are of invaluable value to our descendants, despite the technical quality of filming that we used to use, because in them we see the statements of people who still spoke Prekmurje at that time. Today they are no longer there, and the Prekmurje language in their city is also heard less and less.
Director: Stefan Celec
Authors: Brigita Bavcar and Stefan Celec
Cinematographers: Sebastian Jancar, Bojan Balazic and Stefan Celec
Editor: Stefan Celec
Na predvečer občinskega praznika Mestne občine Murska Sobota vas prijazno vabimo na projekcijo dokumentarnega filma Med prekmurskimi rojaki v Betlehemu.
Dokumentarni film (57 minut) prikazuje izseljevanje prekmurskih in porabskih Slovencev v obljubljeno deželo. Uporabljeni arhivski posnetki, ki jih hranijo na otoku Ellis Island, kamor so z ladjami prihajali izseljenci, preden so stopili na trdna ameriška tla, pričajo s kakšnimi težavami so se morali srečevati imigranti. Tiste, ki so uspeli, je ameriška vlada sprejela z obema rokama, saj je potrebovala poceni delovno silo, predvsem v jeklarski industriji, ki je bila najbolj razvita v Bethlehemu v Pensilvaniji.
Tja in v bližnjo okolico se je naselilo približno 7.000 Prekmurcev. Tako je v začetku 20. stoletja nastala v Bethlehemu največja prekmurska naselbina v Ameriki. Eden prvih Prekmurcev v South Betlehemu je bil Jožef Prelec (Joseph Preletz), ki se tam naselil že leta 1893.
Na pobudo Stephena Antalicha je bilo pred 30. leti ustanovljena Zveza pobratenih mest Bethlehem, Murska Sobota . Danes šteje društvo okoli 200 članov, ki skupaj z mestom vsakoletno šestega junija praznuje Slovenski dan.
Vendar pa leta tečejo, svoj davek pa opravi tudi asimilacija. Druge in tretje generacije izseljencev je vse manj, njihovi potomci pa zelo redko obvladajo materni jezik.
Razveseljivo pa je, da te vedno bolj zanima raziskovanje svojih korenin. In priložnosti, kot so vseslovenska srečanja izseljencev v domovini, ne zamudijo. Na njih poteče marsikatera solza ob ubujanju spominov. Kaj več od dogovorov o izmenjavi dijakov in študentov med pobratenima mestoma Bethlehem in Murska Sobota, pa se žal redko zgodi.
Dokumentarni film je sestavljen iz arhivskih posnetkov, ki so nastali ob prvem obisku naše ekipe leta 1989 pa vse do leta 2001, ko je Mursko Soboto obiskal takratni župan Bethlehema Jimmy Del Grosso s skupino izseljencev, ki so obiskali pokrajino od koder so prišli njihovi starši.
Dokumentarni zapisi so neprecenljive vrednosti za naše zanamce, kljub tehnični kakovosti snemanja, ki smo jo upurabljali nekoč, saj v njih vidimo izjave ljudi, kiso takrat še govorili prekmursko. Danes jih ni več in tudi prekmurski jezik v njihovem mestu se sliši čedalje manj.
Režiser: Štefan Celec
Avtorja: Brigita Bavčar in Štefan Celec
Snemalci: Sebastijan Jančar, Bojan Balažic in Štefan Celec
Montažer: Štefan Celec