| Laurens Tatje (Laurent's great-grandfather) - born 1870 in Manresa, Catalunya (Spain) | |||||||||||
Laurens Tatje had 8 children. All went to Brazil in 1910, but returned
to Manresa later.
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Marcel is Laurent's father.
Laurent Tatgé (Born 1964/10/22)
From an email exchange in 1999. Laurent contacted me while doing research
on his family name and sent the following family information. I have edited
it a little bit, correcting grammar & spelling, rearranging paragraphs
and adding section headers.
Marcel is Laurent's father. |
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| Tatge Family Page | Tatge name | Laurent's Family | Historical Background | Sharon's Page | Kahnhome |
| The Tatge Family Name |
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| Family of Laurent Tatge |
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Historical Background |
In 1890, Laurens Tatge, the father of my grandfather (born in 1870 in Manresa, Spain) was studying catholic religion near Barcelona for being a priest, and was fired from the school because he met my mother's grandmother (Catholic religion don't accept wedding for the priests) and so they married and had ten children.
After this, they were starving and decided to go to Brazil on a boat with 6 of the children (!). They worked on the construction of Brazilia in the Amazonian jungle. Some of the children died, others went to Buenos Aires and we don't have any more information about this branch of my family tree.
In 1914, two of the four children left in Spain Joseph Tatge ( my grand father ) and Isidore Tatge (my grand uncle) had problems with the Spanish government and ran away. After a few weeks walking in the mountains they finally arrived in France, just in time for the beginning of 1st World war... They survived and Joseph Tatge (my grandfather) decided to stay in the south of France and make wine. He met Caroline Giol, my grandmother, and they had 3 children: Pierre, Francis and Marcel ( my father) while the Spanish part of the family was in trouble with the civil war in Spain.
A few years after, Hitler came in Germany and during the Nazi occupation Pierre and Francis Tatge (my uncles) were sent to Germany to one of the POW camps. They didn't die but they came back very diminished. They are still living today, but in a special hospital for "trauma" people, if you know what I mean.
My father ( born in 32) was too young for World War II, but he was called in the army during the 50's for French occupation in Germany. After 2 years in the cold Berlin he came back to his vineyard just a few month and was enrolled again in the army because a new war was beginning in one of the French colonies of Africa, Algéria. After Germany, the Sahara desert and 2 years fighting with the Arabs, the French government decided finally to let Algeria become independent and the soldiers came back with my father.
He met my mother (Marie Thérèse Martin) because she was
the sister of one of his fellow soldiers in the Algerian war. Then
I came in 1964. They gave me the same name of the first Tatge that we know
: Laurens ( in French we write Laurent).
As you see every generation had at least one war. This is one of the
problems here in Europe; it's annoying to rebuild the country every 30
years. I think I'm the first generation of the family with no war.
I lived one year as a music student in your country (Musician Institute
of Los Angeles). I'm a guitar player and a computer scientist. After this
I traveled a lot around the world: Europe, South America and Black Africa
where I met my wife, Olivia. We live close to the Mediterranean Sea in
Montpellier. My family still makes wine. We don't have children yet, but
maybe next year for the beginning of next millennium.
| Historical Background |
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[This is apparently in response to information from Orville that the French Tatges had been Huguenots and were driven out of France during the persecutions of 16th century. Im not sure if Laurent has any additional confirmation of this chapter of the family history, or if he was just filling in some general background.]
About the historical part of the debate, I agree with Orville about the persecution, they begun very early. The first killed was Louis de Berquin in 1529. In 1541,more than 500 Huguenots have been condemned and killed in France. This was not yet the civil war but the beginning. In 1559 there were 72 Lutheran churches in France; two years after there were more than 2000 churches despite the persecutions. This new religion was still growing very quickly. The worst happened during the night of the 23-24 august 1572 "the saint-Barthelemy night." King Charles IX was 22 years old and very easily influenced. His mother, Catherine de Medici, who had been tolerant of the Huguenots, went jealous of the influence of Coligny (a Huguenot admiral) on the king. Coligny wanted to organize a war against Spain (The Supra Catholic in Holland). Catherine told Henri de Guise about this. (Henri de Guise was a Catholic very close to the Spanish royal family). And they both decided to kill Coligny the 22 of august. Coligny survived and decided to discover who tried to kill him. Frightened by the truth, Luc de Guise and the queen convinced the king that the Huguenots were plotting against him. After 2 days of discussion the king agreed to kill the chief Huguenots, and the chiefs only, but everything was ready for a real genocide. During the night of the 24 August, the Catholics Churches bells rang together the "tocsin". This was the signal : 4000 were killed in Paris in terrible conditions and more than 10,000 in other French towns. Coligny was also killed. When the King realized what had happened, he changed his mind and went completely down and depressive during the rest of his life.
If we look at the full story, the surviving Huguenots had not many places to go: England or Germany, but definitely not Catholic Spain. BUT, the northeast part of Spain (Catalunya) has always been independent and tolerant. Still today they don't want to be considered as Spanish. For example, during the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 they wanted the Catalan language to be the official language of the game. If you lose your way in Barcelona, you better ask your way in English or French than in Spanish, most of the people would reply in Catalan to you. Of course they can speak Spanish, but they don't want to. The Catalans are very proud of their identity. Catalunya is the rich part of Spain; they always did a lot of trade with England and Holland and during the 16th century were protected by them. For this a lot of intellectuals, poets, artists in trouble came to settle down in Catalunya. This was also the purpose of civil war in 1936. The Catalans and the Basques were the "reds", republicans and very hostile to the church power, with the help of the condor legion given by Hitler to Franco, the fascists won and many Catalans ran away to France.
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Site Last Updated - February
16, 2003
By Sharon
Kahn
