THE NAME OF THE ROSE

We have been in northern Hungary, called Transdanubia in the town of Gyor, which rhymes with Burr (as in Aaron). The gy sound is like the j in jar. What a delightful place this is! I feel as if we are living Umberto Eco’s THE NAME OF THE ROSE. Here’s why.

We are staying in a 200+ year old Carmelite Monastery. For real. Pope Saint John Paul II stayed here in 1997. For real. The rooms are cool–sort of austere but with touches of elegance. The door hinges are the incredible scroll work things–not just a couple of hinges with pins. The ceilingas are very high, maybe 15′, with vautlts over the entrance, window, and each side. None of the ceiling is flat. The furniture is plain but modern.

When we checked in, the receptionist told us we had a first floor room. We were delighted! In Debrod we were on the 2nd floor and had to lug (drag) our luggage up both flights. Ugh. A first floor!

Well, anyone who has been here probably knows what we learned. The first floor here is what we would call the second floor. So we drug our suitcases up the flights of stairs to our “first” floor room. No problem; you arrive and leave only once.

We walked around town a bit getting our bearings and finding dinner the first night. Yesterday we decided that it was high time that we hit the laundry. What an adventure! It was about a mile away; so, we loaded up the daypacks and hoofed it. We didn’t walk much on Tuesday when we drove from Debrod to Gyor; so, we needed the exercise.

The laundry mat was in this stand alone building along a somewhat old residential street. When we entered, a guy pointed to these two plastic buckets and told us to put our clothes there. We learned that HE was going to do the laundry for us! The cost was about what a US laundry mat charges. He told us to return between 1300 and 1700. (I actually understood the numbers in Hungarian!) We did. And our clothes were laundered and folded. All we had to do was load up the packs and return to the hotel. We needed one of those “that was easy” buttons!

On our walk to the laundry, we passed as restaurant with turrets on either side. There was a third turret on the other side of a driveway with a sort of small industrial looking building which looked as if it was built in the 1940’s or 1950’s. On our return, a woman passed us as we approached the building. We discussed the turrets between ourselves and I said that I thought it looked Soviet.

With that, this woman whipped around and started telling us the history of the building. Damn! I wished I could actually speak this language! She was so passionate about what she was telling us. I heard the Hungarian words for “family” a lot and “Nazi” and “Soviet” but I honestly don’t know what she was telling me.

Piecing together what we have learned about the period from 1944 through 1990 maybe we can make a stab at this. This building wasn’t too far from the train station. Gyor had a Jewish population which it no longer has. (Maybe a few but we haven’t seen a synagogue or temple.) We wondered if she was telling us about whole families being shipped out on the trains to the death camps. I don’t know.

The Nazis were really bad guys; we all know that. The Soviets “freed” Hungary by chasing out the Soviets in 1945. The problem was that the Soviets were worse than the Nazis. They wanted everyone to be equal. Their methods were brutal to say the least. A dentist might have had to become a pig farmer while a pig farmer may have had to work in a factory. If the pig farmer didn’t raise enough or fat pigs, he and his family were punished by not having food and they may have been beaten or tortured. If he was a good little doobie, got lucky, and raised the right quantity of fat pigs, his quota was raised the next year. Real good guys, those Soviets. (And some libtards actually want acknowledged socialist Bernie Sanders for President of the US? Get real!)

Back to the NAME OF THE ROSE. If you read the book or saw the movie, you must remember the library. For me the movie library didn’t seem right. Anyway, we visited the library in the Benedictine Monastery, the place where they originally made the Benedictine liqueur. I could have spent the day there just staring at the religious art and old texts. The oldest document they have is a fragment dating from around 1100. There were those incredible beautiful ornately decorated Bibles and Missals. How I wish my Latin was up to snuff! But seriously, the script was so old that even if I recalled the language, the script was difficult to read. There was one priest’s sermons from 1600 and it was the tiniest script! He had all sorts of notes, including determining the time between two dates, on one page, may 5X8 and the entire sermon on the other side. Awesome! I was right in Eco’s book. And all of this cost us about 200 Forints–look up that price–which included our senior discount!

There is a small pharmacy museum in the same building right in the entrance to the pharmacy. It’s easy to miss. Let’s just say that we sure are glad that we live in modern times. I suppose pharmacists may have also been doctors because some of those things sure looked like surgical instruments. I had to think about Bryan and Andy operating on me! SHEESH!!!

Walking around after dinner, we window shopped in a book store. How I yearn for a newspaper in a language which I can read! Well, Tom spotted a book for me but we already own it: BAUDOLINO by Umberto Eco! This version was probably in Hungarian. Well, I suppose I could buy it and translate it using my English copy! NAH!!! And it fits right in with this town! (But Baudolino, the theif, lived around 1200. It’s actually Eco’s attempt at humor.)

All of this religious beauty makes we wonder if I could live through visiting Auvignon, France, or Vatican City! And I haven’t even discussed the churches!

Tomorrow we visit some of the Borczi clan in Nemesladony, the little part of Hungary which pokes into Austria. If you are family, you may have known Kalman and Monica Keszei, the couple who escaped in 1956 and lived with us. They were from this area. I think we are connected to them by one of Grandpa Borczi’s brothers. I have a picture of Ferenc (pronounced “fair-ents”), I think, with his wife and “Kalman’s mother.”

If your are not family, you may wonder “who in the heck are these folks in the Borczi clan?” Mom was born a Balazs (ball-lodge sort of) but her dad died when Mom was 4. Grandma was then widowed at the ripe old age of 25 with three little children in a country with a language which she didn’t speak. Her community of ethnic Hungarians in Beaver Falls could only do so much to help her. The family tale, which is probably close to true, is that Grandma advertised herself in a Hungarian language newspaper and a man wrote to her. They exchanged pictures, which I have, he came up to Beaver Falls, met her and the kids, and they got married. I have an electonic copy of their marriage license. Exactly what part is true and what is not is up to the imagination but regardless of the truth, Janos (yah-nush) Borczi (bur-see), Grandma, and the kids (Gaza, Julia, and Leonard) ended up in St. Louis where, I suppose you could say, they lived happily ever after. Except it was the Great Depression. I suppose they were as happy as anyone then.

Finding my natural grandfather has been damn near impossible but I haven’t tried all that much. The elder Geza (the actual spelling) Balazs was from Transylvania in Romania. The transcribed copy of their marriage record says that he was from “Haromsek” which means “3rd chair.” (I knew the “harom” part but not the “sek” part.) That makes me think it’s more like the third district of something. When I return home, I want to look at more of his documents.

More later about the awesome churches here!

Mass at the Family Church

This event was far more emotional for me than I had anticipated.  Let me back up a bit.  Several months ago when I first “met” Szeman Viktor (Hungarian names are traditionally last name first name with no punctuation in between), he told me that the church, Sts. Peter and Paul, in Debrod, was built in 1834. 

I was stunned when I realized that most of those names on my family tree going back to the the 1800’s were baptized, married, or buried from this church. I think I asked him about like 10 times because I was so excited to know that someday I could visit the very same church as generations of my Hungarian Catholic (redundant in my case) family!  Viktor kept assuring me that, yes, this was the same church.  I’m sure he was annoyed with me!

We did get to visit the church yesterday for a bit.  My cousin, Terezia, helps the priest with stuff around the parish and he gave her permission to open the church for us to have a tour.  It’s lovely!  They have a picture of Szent (Saint) Laszlo (Leslie) near the altar which was painted in the 1500’s and more recently restored.  I think Tom has it on his phone.  They have a list of the parish priests going back as far as the records I’ve been able to get on the Family History Library films but have had difficulty reading.  We have a photo of that to help get most of the names right on the sacramental records.

Everyone was stunned when I told them that I have films of the actual parish records saying that this guy or that guy was born, baptised, married, and/or buried, who the priest was, who the Godparent or sponsors were, etc.  They had no idea that, shortly after Slovakia became its own country, the LDS folks came in and filmed the church records.  They stop in October, 1895, because the Hungarian government at that time decided that civil registration would replace church records as the official documents.  When the LDS folks asked to film the official records, they were given them, all the church records up to 1895; although, the church has retained their own records since then.  There is an index to the records which starts around 1680 and goes through 1944 (when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia) but the actual records go from around 1790 to 1895.  I have access to all of this on two films which are now in the main library in downtown Albuquerque.

Back to the church and today’s Mass.  Of course, it was in Hungarian but we expected that.  Instead of adult readers, they had 2 cute little girls, about 10 year old, who read excellently without stumbling over their words.  Very nice!  Mass is Mass the world over.  The language may  be different, so just be quiet and whisper in your language.  Of course, you can recognize “Amen” or at least I hope you can!

When we say the Our Father, we lift our arms, some hold hands, and we raise them higher at the very end.  They keep their hands folded through the entire prayer.  At Holy Communion they go from the back of the church first but we’ve seen that elsewhere.  Now this is where it gets emotional and I feel as if this is a confession of sorts.

I wasn’t always a practicing Catholic.  I fell away and had to jump through hoops after Thomas (then called “Tom” or “Tommy”) entered a Catholic school.  We had prayed sort of ecumenically as a family but he had not been “churched” because I was kicked out of Catholicism because of a long ago marriage and subsequent divorce. The Catholic school accepted Tommy as a student (the public schools in Bethel Park, PA, were awful.) and I thought he might just need to understand Mass.

He began school and all 3 of us were going to Mass.  Then Thomas came home from school one day and said, “I want to be a Catholic.”  Well, I had thought about returning but was frightened of all that entailed.  Let’s just say that Thomas was baptized at the Easter Vigil that next year and I was working on an annullment.  After 3 long years, I got what I saught, Big Tom was baptized, and we were married in the Church.  Now, we are regulars and Big Tom is even a new Knight of Columbus!

Because of all this, in my Communion prayer, I always thank God for all the people who made this possible and I have a little near litany of people.  Today, I broke down at the very beginning which is usually something like, “Thank you, God for making me Catholic . . . Thank you for all the Catholics in my family who came before me, especially . . . ”  That’s when “it” happened.  I was right there where all those Catholics who came before me received their sacrament!  RIGHT THERE!!!  I couldn’t take it and the tears of joy poured down my cheeks.

I don’t know if everyone has this tremendous emotional release but I sure had it today.  Walking out, I thought, “I completed the journey.  Now I am content to die.”  I had accomplished a goal I never really knew I had.

The folks here said that my great grandmother, 4’11” Szeman Julianna, later known as Szakacs Andrasne (like Mrs. Andras Szakacs) always wondered why no one from the US ever came to see her.  Well, I said “Hello” to her at her grave yesterday.  I hope Great Grandma Julianna is now resting contentedly.  One of us returned to a place we had never been before.  This was in her honor and in the honor of my wonderful grandmother who was born here as Szakacs Katalin in 1902.

Dateline: Debrad’, Moldava nad Bodvou, Slovakia

We arrived here on Thursday afternoon.  We met my cousins at a gas station just across the border.  It sounded like a spy novel.

They helped us find our pension, which is gorgeous and quiet, and then it was off to meet the Szeman (SEH-mon) side.  Remember that these folks are ethnic Hungarians living in Slovakia thanks to World War I and the Treaty of Trianon when “big Hungary” was chopped up in pieces.  Hungarian is the language of choice by my family; although, they do speak Slovak.

We walked through Debrad’, the ancestral home village, and met a long lost cousin, Terezia, granddaughter of my grandmother’s sister.  We hugged, kissed, and I cried.  If you want to see her, go to Google Earth and look for Debrad’, Moldava nad Bodvou, Slovakia; she is the lady standing in her garden looking rather startled at the Google truck going by.  (I, too, would be startled!)

Kathy, Laura, Bryan: we have 2 cousins here close to my age, Terezia and Maria, daughters of Terezia Somodi, daughter of Tereszi Szakacs and Ferenc Somodi.  We are going to Mass with them today and will spend much time with them today.  Terezia Szakacs was sister to Miklos, Maria, Katalin, and Janos.  We want to  look at some pictures and records I have found and scan some photos they have.  I had intended to do a lot of posting while here but our time is really being occupied!  Also, I’m using a little netbook and I’m finding it hard to navigate WordPress on this thing–tiny screen.  We both have pictures on our phones and I may get to post them later today.  I have seen some of the pics but not what was on the back of them.  The backs can reveal a lot.

Message to people taking pictures for posterity:  do not say the piture is “me.”  We have seen many “me” pictures and, regardless of the language, 50 years or more later, no one knows who “me” is.  Use your real name!!

Geza Szeman is going to pick us up in a few minutes; so, this is it for now.  Let’s just say that palinka rocks!  You drink just a bit and there are several types.  The one made from rose hips is excellent and very expensive.  Ours has been home made.  I had to stop blogging this morning because it was time to leave.  I will resume in another post.

We went to

WE WALKED OUR FEET OFF

We set out this morning for the Terror House. The guide book says that a person should allow an hour to visit this. Well, I suppose you could get through it in an hour but we emerged from the building after 3 and one-half hours. Needless to say, we liked it.

The terror house is about 3 events in modern Hungarian history:the Nazis in World War II, the Russian occupation, and the 1956 Revolution. My mom is 100% Hungarian and she hosted refugee families after the Revolution. I was only 8 then and didn’t quite understand what happened other than some of my step grandfathers relatives, Freedom Fighters, left Hungary and came to the US. I knew they fled Communism but I sure didn’t know what all of that entailed.

After read THE BRIDGE AT ANDAU, I had a much better appreciation for the Freedom Fighters and the struggle to shed the Russian Communist mantle.

After visiting the Terror House (60 Andrassy Utca), I have a much better appreciation of what happened. Briefly, the Nazis, especially Adolph Eichmann (and his little henchman, Gyorgy Schwarts, the guy we know and despise as George Soros) were killing off the Hungarian Jews. When the Russian Communists came in, they stopped that depravity and the Hungarians felt as if they had been liberated.

Instead, the Communists made their lives a living hell.

For a good look at what Communist regimes can do to people, I suggest reading about the Communist Chinese and the Great Leap Forward. Several folks have written about that–collective farming, the appropriation of the crops leaving the peasants with nothing, forcing educated professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.) to work as farmers when they had absolutely no farming experience.

When we return, I may write an editorial about Communism and “modern” American teaching methods. I may also write about Hillary Clinton’s H logo which has taken on an entirely new meaning for Tom and me. Let’s just say that I am so proud to be a Republican working to elect Republicans to office!

There were horrors such as starvation, which I had recently learned about from a letter written to some long dead relative in American in May, 1948. The author, a Hungarian woman living in Pest, told of her personal horrors–a lack of food, clothing, how the roof collapsed and they lived in the basement, people jumping from windows and bridges to their deaths.

But seeing the pictures and hearing the stories of survivors was something for which I wasn’t wholly prepared. There were many TVs showing clips of the survivors telling their stories. One was a woman who looked so much like my mother that they could have been sisters. (Mom’s parents came to the US in the early part of the 20th century.) I have the same eye folds as my mom and this lady had the exact same ones! (When you work with genealogy for awhile, you start to notice things like that.) This kind lady told a horrible story of her own personal terrors that I cried. I know that she was not my mother but, damn, she looked just like her.

The basement of the building is where some of the terrors actually took place. You get to see the torture instruments and the cells in which prisoners were held. I treat my dog better than the way these people were treated.

This was all a very moving experience. And there are names of those still missing. The list encompasses the perimeter of a room–and these are only those known to be missing. What about all the families who were entirely wiped out? Are they on the list?
In some of my genealogical research of my step-grandfather’s town, Nemesladony, I came across men who died in the 40’s, 1945 I think, of what translates to “terrors”; their deaths were recorded in the 1960’s. I had thought the word may have been a synonym for “war” but now I have learned that they just may have died of terrors. I don’t know but I may be able to find out.

After we left the Terror House, completely drained emotionally, we went to a very nice and very small restaurant for a nice garlic soup in a bread bowl. Great soup! Great bread!

We walked some more and visited the Basilica of St. Stephen, the first Catholic king of Hungary. Beautiful cathedral! We had intended to stay for Mass but changed our minds. We were tired and needed to sit (museums are hard on the back and feet) but those pew were some of the most uncomfortable pews we’ve been in for a long time. We took some nice pictures and walked some more.

Dinner was in the Anna Cafe where I had my first Hungarian wine, a Takaj, which was very dry. Tom had a Chardonnay which he said was good. We both ate salads.

We left there and walked some more window shopping along Vaci Utca. You know how language learning books use local places to teach you how to find a location? Well, for me, it’s Vaci Utca and Verosmarty Ter. Been to the former; haven’t yet gone to the latter.
Tom is lying in bed waiting for me to finish. Time to call it quits!

Viszont ladasra.

WE ARRIVED!!!

We arrived in Budpest yesterday afternoon. Most of the trip was uneventful. The flight from Houston to Frankfurt was on Lufthansa and very nice.  We sprung a few extra bucks for and upgraded to economy plus (or something like that) which was much better than cattle car class.  Business class looks wonderful but we didn’t want to pay that much.

Our biggest issue yesterday was that the shuttle driver was a  tad late getting us at the airport.  He finally came and we shared the shuttle with a couple from New Jersey who were truly out to lunch.  First of all, I was joyous to be in the home of my family–even though  my blood relatives came from countries which are no longer in Hungary.  But they were all ethnic Hungarians. We explained that we were going to Slovakia after a few days to meet the family there and about wonderful young Viktor with whom I have been corresponding and who is the young man responsible for us making this trip.  I explained that after nearly 100 years, I am the first of my clan to return to the village in Slovakia.  I was crying for joy!

Well, the couple from New Jersey made certain to tell me that, “Well, we’re Jewish and, of course, there is no one left here.”  I can truly understand that sorrow; although, this was an American couple; so, obviously, someone made it out alive.  On the shuttle we talked about the James Michner book, THE BRIDGE AT ANDAU, which Tom and I both read to prepare for this trip and recommended it to them.  The guy said something about how bad “they” were to “his people back then” and sounded as if the Hungarians were the bad guys.  I said that my family took in refugees and he shrugged it off as if we were bad.  IMHO this guy should get a grip and read a bit of history.

It was the Russian communists who were killing off just about everyone who disagreed with them and it was a Catholic cardinal who lived but truly suffered, Joseph Mindszenty.  After his trial for practicing his faith, he fled to the US Embassy where he would have been imprisoned had he left the embassy!  Yes, Jews died then–along with anyone else who indicated anything at all in disagreement with the Russian communist regime.

So much for seemingly educated people.  UGH!  But, gosh, they were staying in a posh American hotel and we were staying with Hungarians in a Hungarian hotel.  I don’t care how much money I have, I would still stay in a Hungarian hotel.

We walked around town quite a bit last night.  It felt great to be using our legs after being on a plane so long.  We had a nice dinner–we both ate fish dishes–and walked across the Chain Bridge.  Engineer Tom had to explain to me that the construction technique was a “chain” type of construction.  That helped a lot!

We saw so many churches!  We are glad so many survived. 

Eventually we made it back to the hotel where we crashed fairly early.  We were dog tired.  BTW: it seems as if half the dogs we see here are beagles!

       

DOE – a Few Hours

Packing.  Setting up electronics to work abroad.  More packing.  UGH!    I just want to be magically teleported to Hungary with tons of money to buy stuff as I need it.  Doesn’t work that way.  Back t0 packing.

DOE – 1

We leave tomorrow.  Today is the gathering day, the day during which we gather all the stuff we must pack tonight.  I’m not doing too poorly but I have misplaced my swimsuit.  I have a substitute; so, I am unconcerned about this.

Yesterday the young man who made this all possible texted me to tell me to text him as we approach the Hungarian-Slovak border and he will meet us their to take us to our hotel and to his village.  I can’t wait to meet this guy!  He’s only 23 and a bundle of engery.  He insists that his English is not very good and that his brother’s is better.  That may be so but my Hungarian is far worse.  But at least I can say some common greatings.

I probably won’t have an entry tomorrow because we’ll be on the road.  There isn’t much to say today except I AM EXCITED!!!

The 2 pictures are my grandfathers.  The top one is JJános Börczi, my grandmother’s second husband and the grandfather I knew.  The smaller picture is my natural born grandfather, Géza Balázs.  I will get to meet some of Grandpa Börczi‘s relatives who live in the Nemesládony, Hungary, area.  Unfortunately the Romanian government has not yet made publicly available enough records to learn much about Grandpa Balázs.  I have been in touch with some of his relatives here in the States but we have not yet made contact in Romania.  Perhaps that will be my next great adventure!

HOW THIS JOURNEY BEGAN: Date of Embarkation Minus 4

When I was a little girl, we lived in St. Louis, Missouri in a two family flat owned by my Hungarian grandmother (born Katalin Szakács in Debrőd, Hungary) and her second husband,  Jánós Börczi (from Nemesládony, Hungary).  Both grandparents attained US citizenship before World War II and were known as Katie and John Borczi. My grandmother married Géza Balázs, a very hansome man from Barath Romania who died in 1928 leaving her as a widow with three small children.  I would love to learn more about Grandpa Géza but it is difficult to get records from Romania right now.

I was raised speaking a bit of Hungarian but lost most of that as I grew older.  My mother, on the other hand, spoke, read, and wrote in Hungarian because it was her first language.  Some people, like my father’s family, found Mom’s family odd because Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa conversed in a language other than English.  (As an adult, I can appreciate the fact that these three people could speak one language to a stranger, turn to one another and speak in Hungarian.  They could switch it on and off at will!  I was so little that I didn’t know what to think!)  All I knew was that Grandma sure was a good cook!  She loved me and took care of me when Mom went to work when I was quite small.  I like to call Grandma Borczi “my first best friend.”  It is in her memory and the memory of the two men who made me love mathematics that I decided to pursue my Hungarian roots.  (I tried briefly to investigate the German side but, as typical of some members of that clan, was constantly derided by a younger cousin who knew much more about the family–especially after they abandoned my brother and me after our parents’ divorce.  I gave up; she can pursue that line if she wishes.)

Grandma Borczi often told me about raising things to eat.  When I was little, I had carrots and radishes which were mine to tend.  Grandma raised peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  I think we had peas and green beans sometimes, too.  She was an awesome cook and baker.  She made some plum dumplings which were fantastic.  Then there was this thing she did with dough, rolling it out paper thin.  She stuffed the little dough things with a fruit filling which I dearly loved.  I had no idea at the time, but I think Grandma was making filo dough which we now buy in frozen sheets.

Grandpa Borczi worked in the NESCO plant in Granite City, IL, when I was preschool age.  At some point he quit working because he was losing his eyesight.  Mom and her family often said that Grandpa had a plate in his head from World War I.  Because I was so small, I envisioned a dinner plate in his head!  Grandpa was hospitalized when I was 2 and I’m uncertain if he returned to work after that.  He would sit with me in the basement and teach me my numbers in both English and Hungarian.  Until recently I had forgotten all those Hungarian numbers!  He taught me my ABC’s, how to print my numbers and letters and then how to add, subtract, and multiply those numbers.  He made me an abacus with a wooden frame and wires strung with nuts for the beads.  I had to visualize 2 + 2, not just memorize it.

Mom and Grandma worked with me to read a bit, too.  By that time, Grandpa was almost completely blind.  Life was pretty good and I was a decent student in the primary grades.  Sometime in second grade Grandma got sick.  She had cancer of some sort.  (From her death certificate I have learned that she had uterine and colon cancer.)  She was hospitalized for what seemed like and eternity but I’m sure it wasn’t that long.  She returned to our house for a few months and Mom and her brother, Gaza, took care of her until she died.

In October, 1956, about a month before Grandma died, the Hungarians revolted.  As a child, I didn’t hear specifics, only that they wanted to overthrow the Communists who were ruling Hungary.  As a student in a Catholic elementary school, this was incredible stuff.  We were constantly being warned of Communists and now my people in the Old Country were actually resisting them!  We all know the outcome of that revolt: the Hungarians lost and many fled their homeland.

Grandma died on November 22, 1956, Thanksgiving Day.  In her final days, Grandma spoke only Hungarian, not the English which she was so proud to have learned.  The day she died, Uncle Gaza drove across town to get the Hungarian priest who heard Grandma’s final Confession, gave her Holy Communion, and administered the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.  From our upstairs outdoor front balcony, I watched the priest arrive and leave .  I saw Grandma’s doctor drive up and great the priest as the doctor walked toward the house.  I also heard Mom scream, “Mom!  Mom!  Are you there!” as the priest left.  Grandma’s false teeth fell out when the priest left and Mom believed that her mother died at that moment.  She may have been right because the doctor pronounced her dead when he arrived.

It was in memory of this little 4’11” dynamo that I began searching for my Hungarian family.  And I found them.  These are the people I will soon meet.  There is a lot more to this story but I think I’ll save it for a later day.  This is the intro: day of embarkation – 4 or DOE – 4.