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For a lack of better termage and since someone in Brooklyn searched, I'll get one of the sensitive chapters (maybe the most-sensitive chapter) over with.
I did not find out that Great-Grandma Gaydos was a kapo until much later. I watch my Feeedjit (for Blogger) stats, by the way--so if you are who I think you are (i.e., Ally Shumack or one of the other Rusnaks in New York) and you haven't been following what I've been writing, you're in for a surprise about your cousin, or your grandaunt (if you're my great-grandaunt Agnes Rusnak Shumack's granddaughter or grandson), or whoever she (that is, Great-Grandma Gaydos) is to you--that is, in relation to you.
By the way, I may be jumping back and forth here, but this all connects--and will help you understand why my grandma Joan Czarnecki (nee Gaydos) married Jack Czarnecki. To begin, who else would marry a Crypto Jew but a Crypto Jew (with few exceptions, though--might I add--Anusim did stick together and still stick together)? Who else, also, would marry a Crypto Jew who was good at hiding secrets? I'll obviously get back to Great-Granddad Czarnecki and the Czarneckis in a minute, by the way.
Meanwhile and anyway, I'd give Dr. MaryAnn Gaydos (Grandma's surviving-oldest sister at present) credit for making up such a clever story if the situation for which it was made up wasn't as serious as it was. I have to begin with Dr. Gaydos' story because it'll show you how full of secrets and (for a lack of better termage) crap my family is.
Dr. Gaydos claimed that after the war (according to Kevin, though I've recalled during the war), relatives wrote to Great-Grandma Gaydos asking for money. Great-Grandma Gaydos, according to her daughter, then stopped writing. She, however (and as Kevin reminded me that Dr. Gaydos had stated), sent food.
To make the true story short, records on YadVashem.org (which I found while searching to see if any relatives were mentioned or noted on Yad Vashem's website)--so to speak--poke holes right in Dr. Gaydos' story. Now, is it traumatic for a 10-12-year-child to deal with her mother being a kapo? Yes. Does that excuse the cover-up for her mother years later? No, it does not.
The story (as I figured out on my own and through contacting a relative-in-law's grandnephew) is this: Great-Grandma Gaydos had Non-Messianic Jewish relatives in Kosice, Slovakia (then part of Hungary and then Czechoslovakia) who reached out to their Anusi relative as a final resort--after all, they realized that they had stayed in Europe for far too long and should have made (but regrettably did not make) aliyah or another type of exit from Europe (which, long story short, Tibor Geza Rusznyak eventually did--and after he survived the Holocaust, and by coming to Ohio and understandably never contacting our side of the family for the rest of his life).
They, like all other Orthodox P'rushi ("Rabbinate") Jews, were done with the Gyorgy Rusznak ("Gyorgy Kvetkovits"--in other words, Great-Great-Granddad Rusnak's paternal granddad)'s side of the family--with shiva having been sat for him (that is, Gyorgy "Gyorgy Kvetkovits" Rusznak) years ago. However, since Talmud Bavli states that one may break a mitzvah to save a life, they obviously broke the shiva-set boundary to save their own lives and their families' lives by reaching out to an Anusi relative.
What was at least one smuggled dollar to get Vilmosz Rusznak, Zoli Grinfeld (Vilmosz's brother in law), and their families out of Europe? What was reaching out to Jewish relatives as a (supposedly-) Jesus-believing Jew? What was helping family and exposing one's self as a Jew?
To Great-Grandma Gaydos, it was everything--and she stopped writing to Vilmosz, Zoli, and the rest of the family in Kosice--and that's how she became a kapo. By the way, I now understand the remark that Mom told me that Grandma had once made to her during a conversation about sponsoring needy children--that is, "You keep your money in your own country."
If you think that what Great-Grandma Gaydos did to Vilmosz, Zoli, and their families hit then-10-to-12-year-old MaryAnn, just imagine how it hit then 6-to-8-year-old Joan--and it must continue to hit the self-proclaimed Czechslovakian-American Catholic years later. By the way, Claims Conference Records on JewishGen.org indicate that Vilmosz survived after all. However, neither such evidence nor any other evidence indicates that Zoli and his family did--in fact, the evidences indicates the contrary. Also by the way, one of the Rusznak-Grinfeld children (Sandor) was MaryAnn's age at the time that he was murdered (The other child, Miklosz, was only 10.).
Brooklyn, New York arrived from google.com on "The Nicole Factor: Why the Non-Anusi Rusnaks Reached Out To the Anusi Ones" by searching for mary rusnak gaydos.
I did not find out that Great-Grandma Gaydos was a kapo until much later. I watch my Feeedjit (for Blogger) stats, by the way--so if you are who I think you are (i.e., Ally Shumack or one of the other Rusnaks in New York) and you haven't been following what I've been writing, you're in for a surprise about your cousin, or your grandaunt (if you're my great-grandaunt Agnes Rusnak Shumack's granddaughter or grandson), or whoever she (that is, Great-Grandma Gaydos) is to you--that is, in relation to you.
By the way, I may be jumping back and forth here, but this all connects--and will help you understand why my grandma Joan Czarnecki (nee Gaydos) married Jack Czarnecki. To begin, who else would marry a Crypto Jew but a Crypto Jew (with few exceptions, though--might I add--Anusim did stick together and still stick together)? Who else, also, would marry a Crypto Jew who was good at hiding secrets? I'll obviously get back to Great-Granddad Czarnecki and the Czarneckis in a minute, by the way.
Meanwhile and anyway, I'd give Dr. MaryAnn Gaydos (Grandma's surviving-oldest sister at present) credit for making up such a clever story if the situation for which it was made up wasn't as serious as it was. I have to begin with Dr. Gaydos' story because it'll show you how full of secrets and (for a lack of better termage) crap my family is.
Dr. Gaydos claimed that after the war (according to Kevin, though I've recalled during the war), relatives wrote to Great-Grandma Gaydos asking for money. Great-Grandma Gaydos, according to her daughter, then stopped writing. She, however (and as Kevin reminded me that Dr. Gaydos had stated), sent food.
To make the true story short, records on YadVashem.org (which I found while searching to see if any relatives were mentioned or noted on Yad Vashem's website)--so to speak--poke holes right in Dr. Gaydos' story. Now, is it traumatic for a 10-12-year-child to deal with her mother being a kapo? Yes. Does that excuse the cover-up for her mother years later? No, it does not.
The story (as I figured out on my own and through contacting a relative-in-law's grandnephew) is this: Great-Grandma Gaydos had Non-Messianic Jewish relatives in Kosice, Slovakia (then part of Hungary and then Czechoslovakia) who reached out to their Anusi relative as a final resort--after all, they realized that they had stayed in Europe for far too long and should have made (but regrettably did not make) aliyah or another type of exit from Europe (which, long story short, Tibor Geza Rusznyak eventually did--and after he survived the Holocaust, and by coming to Ohio and understandably never contacting our side of the family for the rest of his life).
They, like all other Orthodox P'rushi ("Rabbinate") Jews, were done with the Gyorgy Rusznak ("Gyorgy Kvetkovits"--in other words, Great-Great-Granddad Rusnak's paternal granddad)'s side of the family--with shiva having been sat for him (that is, Gyorgy "Gyorgy Kvetkovits" Rusznak) years ago. However, since Talmud Bavli states that one may break a mitzvah to save a life, they obviously broke the shiva-set boundary to save their own lives and their families' lives by reaching out to an Anusi relative.
What was at least one smuggled dollar to get Vilmosz Rusznak, Zoli Grinfeld (Vilmosz's brother in law), and their families out of Europe? What was reaching out to Jewish relatives as a (supposedly-) Jesus-believing Jew? What was helping family and exposing one's self as a Jew?
To Great-Grandma Gaydos, it was everything--and she stopped writing to Vilmosz, Zoli, and the rest of the family in Kosice--and that's how she became a kapo. By the way, I now understand the remark that Mom told me that Grandma had once made to her during a conversation about sponsoring needy children--that is, "You keep your money in your own country."
If you think that what Great-Grandma Gaydos did to Vilmosz, Zoli, and their families hit then-10-to-12-year-old MaryAnn, just imagine how it hit then 6-to-8-year-old Joan--and it must continue to hit the self-proclaimed Czechslovakian-American Catholic years later. By the way, Claims Conference Records on JewishGen.org indicate that Vilmosz survived after all. However, neither such evidence nor any other evidence indicates that Zoli and his family did--in fact, the evidences indicates the contrary. Also by the way, one of the Rusznak-Grinfeld children (Sandor) was MaryAnn's age at the time that he was murdered (The other child, Miklosz, was only 10.).
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