Celebrating Miss Baba

This weekend we celebrated the 150th anniversary of Miss Baba in Niederroßla. Niederroßla is a small village near the town where I live and I’m half-rooted in Niederroßla too. Miss Baba is an Indian elephant that died in 1857 right behind the borders of Niederroßla in a tragedy which became part of the history of Niederroßla (since then also known as “Tickle-Village” where the “Tickling-People” live).

The event is celebrated only every 25 years. I had an awesome and unforgettable weekend. The attraction this time clearly were two living elephants.

Both elephants were brought to Niederroßla in a parade on Friday from the train station in Apolda. We (our fanfare group, yes I play fanfare, timbal and piano) were sitting on a truck (well an old wagon actually, pulled by a tractor) in front of the elephants on Friday. Here is a picture taken with my mobile phone. The quality is poor. Sorry about that.

Elephant Parade Friday

More pictures (and of much better quality 😉 ) are available here taken by a very active member of the Niederroßla community. They also show the big festival procession on Sunday where our fanfare group walked right in the front (see here, here and here).

Update: Thanks to Thomas Pake which sent me the following pictures of me. 🙂

Picture Festival Procession Picture Festival Procession

4 thoughts on “Celebrating Miss Baba

  1. My ggggrand father was Gottlieb Kreutzberg, the owner of the elephant Miss Baba who sadly died and was the reason behind your festival.
    I have tried to find out about my german ancestors without any success and was hoping that someone might be able to help me find out more. I have spoken to Thomas Pake some time ago and he passed my details to the organisers of the festival, because I would’ve liked to see it, but nobody contacted me.
    I would be grateful for any help.

    Lyn
    United Kingdom

  2. hello,
    i’am a french collector of éléphants and i’am looking for wellknown éléphants like Fritz, Jumbo, Hanno, Hansken etc
    i don’t speak neither read deutch
    could you tell me more about Miss Baba her history and more
    thank you
    Marc Talamon
    marc.talamon@sfr.fr

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.