The "Nicole Factor" Is Online

Welcome to the Nicole Factor at blogspot.com.
Powered By Blogger

The Nicole Factor

Search This Blog

Stage 32

My LinkedIn Profile

About Me

TwitThis

TwitThis

Twitter

Messianic Bible (As If the Bible Isn't)

My About.Me Page

Views

Facebook and Google Page

Reach Me On Facebook!

Talk To Me on Fold3!

Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Hungary, the Holocaust, And the Russian Pale

As quite a few have requested, Hungary is hopefully starting to work on curbing or eradicating its Anti Semitism (for the time being. After all, (יהוה (ב''ה warned that all nations but for Israel and the remnants of every other nation would come to end.). After all (as at least some people have learned, and I think because of בני אנוסים like me), Hungary was a hub for אנוסים from the Warszawa, Radom, and Lodz Foc(z)kos to (as I found out recently) some Andreloviches (which surprised me) and the Trudnyaks (who, as an 1811 baptism record indicates, originally came from Krakow gubernia after they had already allegedly fled Jablunka in Moravia), to openly-Jewish Jews like the Rusznaks and Uszinskys (and the Uszinskys did indeed sneak out of the Russian Pale and/or Congress Poland into Saros megye—I just don't know exactly when or from where). Incidentally, I think that "Jablunka" was actually "Jablonka" in Nowy Targ—as Great-Great-Granddad Trudnyak (ז''ל) claimed to be born in Kacwin, and his wife (ז''ל) claimed to be born in Lapsze Nizne and resided in Nowa Biala before she left for New Jersey.

Even though Hungary forced all Jews to have surnames by 1787 and had nominal religious freedom by 1868, it was actually a hub for escaping openly-Jewish Jews and אנוסים. It was also a hub for those who became אנוסים in Hungary and stayed there. Even Wikipedia, for example, begrudges that the Hungarian city of Aranyida (now Zlata Idka, Slovakia) is "almost entirely Slovak in ethnicity". The begrudgement was written when the Wikipedia page, which was last edited on September 17th of 2013, was first written on September 15, 2006. So, even Wikipedia concedes that some Non-Slovakian ethnic groups reside there, and has done so since 2006—long before I knew who the Foczkos and Rusznaks really were—and that אנוסים and בני אנוסים resided in an "almost entirely Slovak" small town must really wrangle them, since (as I've learned from experience) they don't like אנוסים and בני אנוסים, or יהודים משיחיים (especially יהודים משיחיים  who are בני אנוסים).

By the way, Kacwin is "Kaczvin" or "Kacvin"; Lapsze Nizne is "Alsolapos"; Jablonka is just Jablonka, and Nowa Biala is Ujbela. As for Saros megye, that covered a broad range of Slovakia and Hungary. Also, notice that the Trudnyaks allegedly fled from Moravia in the Austrian Empire into Hungary (before it was a part of Austria Hungary), the Foczkos and Uszinskys fled in Hungary, and Michael and Anna Munkova Trudnyak (my Trudnyak great-great-grandparents) claimed to be born in Polish-Slovakian Hungarian small towns (and to be fair, Anna Munkova did reside in Nowa Biala and was named after her Levoca [Locse]-born and -baptized sister. Mihaly Trudnyak, however, was baptized in the Nagy hub of Terezvarosi, Budapest—and the Nagys were אנוסים who were far from Kacwin, and certainly not in the Austrian part of Austrian Hungary at any time!).

In conclusion, Hungary (at least for the time being) is hopefully becoming the country to whose dependencies and proper אנוסים and open Jews fled, and where quite a few אנוסים who became אנוסים stayed. 

Monday, January 6, 2014

Submission For Essay Contest As Sponsored By the Galilee Center for Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations

Jews, Christians, and Religious Persecution—and My Own Family
            My name is Nicole Victoria Czarnecki, and I am set to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science. I am to be counted as having graduated in December of 2013, provided that I am able to pass a class which I had trouble completing over the semester. To make a long story short, I was recovering from surgery which I had in July, and my granddad died on the weekend before the exam for the class with which I had difficulty.
            Speaking of my granddad, I had found out the fact that he is the son of a pogrom survivor, about which he was not happy. That fact bothered him, and he hid it from me and his other grandchildren for years. He also changed his story from that we are somehow related to Stefan Czarniecki, to something along the lines of “If we had any Jewish blood, I don’t know about it.” He never outrightly admitted that we are Jewish, although he did have very-Jewish wishes for when he died. His obituary reads, in part:
“Visitation with the family will be held at Singleton's Funeral Home, 1 2nd Ave. SW, Glen Burnie, MD 21061 on Wednesday, December 18, 2013 from 3:00-5:00PM and 7:00-9:00PM. Services will be held on Thursday, December 19, 2013 at 11:00AM at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, 126 Dorsey Rd., Glen Burnie, MD 21061. Private Interment at Glen Haven Cemetery, Glen Burnie, MD. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations be made to either of the following organizations: NCEON, 305 5th Avenue SE, Glen Burnie, MD 20161, or H.O.P.E. for All, P.O. Box 1548, Glen Burnie, MD 21060…”
            As I remember, having a visitation was expressly against his wishes. In fact, as my Aunt Mary recalled to me, he had expressed that he wanted to either have a funeral without calling hours beforehand or be cremated. He did, however, get to keep his wishes of having tzedekah done in his name and being buried in a non-Catholic cemetery.
            The cremation wishes, meanwhile, probably come from the fact that his wife’s—my grandmother’s—cousins were murdered in Auschwitz, and he perhaps felt guilty about that. He also may have had cousins who were murdered in the Holocaust, as an e-mail from my granduncle Tony reads:
“In mid 1960's the Polish family asked the American family to deed the farm to them since the Americans would not be returning.  One hundred twenty nine (129) signatures were required from the American family members to complete the transfer, because under Polish law, all living survivors of Julian were an heir to the property.”
            Before the mid 1960s, our side of the family was not talking to the side of the family whom stayed in what eventually became Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Russia. In fact, they were quite angry at Great-Granddad Czarnecki’s parents, Julian John “Felix” and Alexandria Alice Andrulewicz Czarnecki, for being Anusim during the pogroms. For Alexandria’s family, however, being Anusi was nothing new. This is because some Andrulevičuses had become Anusim beforehand, and Alexandria’s branch was among the last of the Andrulevičuses to become such. In fact, some Andrulevičuses—the family of whom carried variants of “Andrulevičuses” such as “Andrulewicz”, “Andralowitz”, and “Andrulevich”—continued to identify as Jewish even while they remained Catholic.
            For example, Jacob L. Androlowicz, who served in World War Two, was counted among wounded Jewish soldiers. His wounded-soldier card reads as follows:

            He was buried in a Catholic cemetery when he died in 1974, and his gravestone reads “Jacob Androlowicz”. As for his cousin Alexandria’s family (Great-Granddad Czarnecki’s branch), they were among the Andrulevičuses who were not open about being Jewish, although they did observe some minhag v’nusach. For example, there was no “Mary” among Alexandria’s daughters—they were named Regina, Alexandria Alice, and Cecelia. In fact, the first “Mary” in Alexandria’s line was my aunt Mary, who was named for her grandmothers—Mary Trudnak Czarnecki (the daughter of Anusim Mihály “Michael” and Anna Amalia Munková “Anna Monka” Trudniak) and Marysia “Mary” Elizabeth Rusnak Gaydos (the daughter of Anusim András Stef “Andrew Stephen” and Juliana Foczková “Julia Fosko” Rusnak).
Given that the Andrulewicz, Czarnecki (originally “Czernecki”), Trudnak (originally “Trudnyak”), Monka (“Munka”), Rusnak (originally “Rusznak”), Fosko (originally “Foczko”), and other families of Alexandria’s grandson and in-law daughter (Joan Adele Czarnecki née Gaydos) were Anusim Ashkenazim, how they observed some minhag Sefardi surprised me. I suspected, therefore, that the Andrulewiczes et. al. had Sefardic heritage and were well aware of what their Sefardic ancestors suffered in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Holland. I turned out to be correct, as my dad’s AncestryDNA autosomal DNA test shows that Dad has 1% Iberian Peninsular DNA:


In fact, my great-granddad Anthony Czarnecki was named for Anthony Claret of Spain when he was baptized. I suspected this—and was able to confirm my suspicion per Dad’s DNA results[1]—because, as I found out, Anthony Claret was born on October 24th, the same date (even though not in the same year) as the birthdate of my great-granddad.
As I mentioned beforehand, Great-Granddad Czarnecki was a pogrom survivor. He was born on October 24, 1904 in Cumań, Wołyn, Rusia (now Tsuman, Volyns’ka Oblast in the Ukraine). At the time, his mother was en route from or to visiting a cousin named Vil’gel’m Andrulevich. According to Hebcal.com and given Vil’gel’m lived in Buzhanka, Zvenigorodka uyezd (now Tsuman in the Ukraine’s Cherkas’ka Oblast), she was visiting Vil’gel’m to celebrate either HaRosh-HaChodesh Cheshvan 5665 (since she lived in Lipsk nad Bierbzą, Suwałki Gubernia with her husband, and she would not have been able to visit on the 1st of Cheshvan) or the 15th of Cheshvan (since Tanakh reads, “Blow the horn at the new moon, at the full moon for our feast-day.”[2]). Since she gave birth to her son on 15th Cheshvan, however, that she was visiting Vil’gelm to celebrate Rosh Chodesh seems more likely.
After all, the Andrulevičuses were originally Orthodox, and at least one branch—the Andrelewitzes—remained so throughout the 1900s. The Andrulevičuses were Litvakn Yidn who took Tanakh and Talmud seriously. In fact, one cousin—Rochla Andrelewtiz—identified herself as “Hebrew” and her dad as “Gitla Andrelewitz”. They had no aversion to identifying as Jewish or taking identifiably-Yiddish names.

Then came the times of Anti Semitism in the Russian Pale and the Congress of Poland. For Alexandria’s branch, the times were the era of the pogroms in and around Lipsk nad Biebrzą. As my granduncle Tony wrote:
“I don't know who came with the group to America.  It seems that there were only a few family members and friends.  These people mostly settled in NE PA.  Your Great Grandfather had a few cousins living within 50 miles of Wilkes-Barre…There were several "friends" in Sugar Notch and the area that would periodically return to Lisco Poland to visit family and mail was occasionally received by them from family in Poland.  One of the friends who lived in Sugar Notch would bring pictures of Great Grandpop's family to share with him.  Since he left at a young age, he didn't recognize anyone but as I recall they all had names of the people in the pictures on the back.
“The move from Poland was permanent.  There was never any talk of returning.  Not even for a visit…
“I never seen nor did anyone mention anything special brought from Poland.  A friend from Sugar Notch, Mrs. Bertha Wawrzyn, visited Poland every few years to see her family and would visit the family while there.  All she ever brought back were photos that she took of the Polish Czarnecki's…
“There was very little discussion of the Polish life and family.  Usually, when there was, it was a brief mention of the farm that was left behind.  There did not seem to be any regrets about leaving for a better life.  After all , they settled among Polish, Slavic, Hungarian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian people just like themselves.  Similar language, similar customs, similar faces, houses, churches, etc.  But life was much better than on the farm.  They were quite happy in America and much better off.  The motherland, Poland, was far off and just a memory, not to be forgotten but no regrets for leaving either.
“Periodically a church pastor would run a heritage trip back to Poland for a group.  Very few of those who immigrated would return.  Occasionally someone "in the family" in America would join a relative for the return trip, Usually meeting the Polish or Slovak relatives for the first time and occasionally maintaining a letter writing relationship afterwards.  This DID NOT happen in our family… 
“Bertha's photos which came after the trips were the only contact until they asked for the deed to be changed in the mid 1960's.
“There was no special items from Poland that were kept by the family that I know of.  They came with little and acquired everything they had in America.  Over the years all traces of Poland disappeared.  They were now AMERICANS and wanted to be known as such…..”
            The more that I researched and talked to family members, the more that what happened became quite evident: the Andrulewiczes, Czerneckis, and other families (e.g., the families of Great-Granddad’s grandmothers—the Morgiewiczes and the Daniłowiczes) were very unhappy about their family members giving up their Jewish faith at the hands of Czar Nicholas the Second and the Polish and Russian Churches. Therefore, their son Julian and their daughter Alexandria left for Sugar Notch, Pennsylvania, and blended in there by pretending to be Polish-Lithuanian Catholics.
            This did not mean the end of trouble for Great-Granddad, though. In fact, his wanting to marry a Jewish Catholic—Mary Trudnak by name—extremely upset his mother, who did not believe in anything other than shidduch or marrying fellow Yidn. Marrying who she considered to be a meshumadah—since Great-Grandma, as I remember and as Aunt Mary told me, was a genuine Jewish Catholic—was Great-Granddad’s way of asking for trouble. In fact, as Great-Grandma told Aunt Mary, Great-Granddad’s and Great-Grandma’s doctor warned them to leave Great-Great-Grandma’s house before Great-Grandma could have a mental breakdown.
            Great-Great-Grandma died of nephritis on April 6, 1936, shortly before my granddad was born. Nonetheless, the damage had already been done, and Pop-Pop was not born into a stable family or raised in a stable household. In truth, Pop-Pop became just like his grandmother, whose son became just like her. My granduncle Tony even once quoted the following about my great-granddad, my granddad, and my dad: “Like father, like son.”
            In sum, the persecution that the Poles and Russians enacted against my paternal granddad’s dad and his family affected my granddad’s family to consider their Jewishness a dark secret, and a secret that—by becoming and being kept a secret—affected much of the dysfunction in our family. As HaShem warned through Moshe, “HaShem is slow to anger, and plenteous in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.”[3] This has certainly been the case in our family, and this has caused me to do what Great-Grandma wanted to do with Aunt Mary at the end of her 93 years—“talk about it”.
            I myself will never commit a chillul HaShem by hiding my Jewish heritage and perverting my Jewish heritage into a secret that will destroy my children and grandchildren. While I myself am a Jewish Christian and will never give up Yeshua (since I became a Christian long before I knew that I am Jewish, and I believe that being a Christian is fully compatible with being Jewish), I understand why my granddad was an Anusi up until his dying day. I also know that my dad, if he was honest with himself, would be Reform Jewish (much to the chagrin of his dad’s late paternal grandma).
            I can also see the effects of Polish and Russian Anti Semitism that was committed in the name of Yeshua, and know that HaShem would have this to see about the Poles and Russians who claimed to be Christians in order to hurt my family:
“And the L-rd said: Forasmuch as this people draw near, and with their mouth and with their lips do honour Me, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their fear of Me is a commandment of men learned by rote”.[4]


Works Cited
Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957[database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
“. U.S., WWII Jewish Servicemen Cards, 1942-1947 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.
“. Web: New Jersey, Find A Grave Index, 1664-2012 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
Czarnecki, Anthony J., Jr. "RE: Family Research Project For School." Message to the author. Oct.-Nov. 2012. E-mail.
Czarnecki, Gregory M. "DNA Tests for Ethnicity & Genealogical DNA testing at AncestryDNA." DNA Tests for Ethnicity & Genealogical DNA testing at AncestryDNA. http://dna.ancestry.com/#/ethnicity/85CDAAEB-7A37-4BAF-8B86-86BA65C81CB2 (accessed January 6, 2014).
“. "Jack Czarnecki." The Capital Gazette. Legacy.com, Dec.-Jan. 2013. Web. 06 Jan. 2014. .
JewishGen.org, comp. Russia, Duma Voter Lists, 1906-1907 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008.
The JPS Tanakh. 1917 ed. N.p.: n.p., 1917. Jewish Virtual Library. The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2013. Web. 6 Jan. 2014. .
Sadinoff, Danny, and Michael J. Radwin. "Hebrew Date Converter." Hebrew Date Converter. HebCal.com, 1999. Web. 06 Jan. 2014. .




[1] Which, according to Ancestry.com, could be updated. The screenshot results come from AncestryDNA Version 2.0..
[3] Numbers 14:18, JPS. Obtained via Jewish Virtual Library.
[4] Isaiah 29:13, JPS. Obtained via Jewish Virtual Library.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

The Gajdosz Coat of Arms and Explanation


We chose our name deliberately, I realize. "Gajdosz" being a form of "Gaydosh" or "bagpipe", and bagpipes (at least at the end) look very similar to shofarot, we deliberately chose it and kept the "sz" once we escaped to Slovakian Hungary from Polish Russia. Also, Great-Granddad would brag about us being "Russian", and his mother was from an Uszinsky family as well.

"Gajdos Name Meaning Hungarian: nickname for a ribald person, from gajdolni ‘to sing in a raucous or drunken way’ (from Slavic gajda ‘bagpipe’). In some cases it may be an occupational name for a player of pipes or bagpipes.Polish and Slovak (Gajdoš): from a derivative of Gajda." Ancestry.com, "Gajdos"). Ours was never accented and we Americanized it to "Gaydosh" sometimes. We also never accented the "s", and Hungarian "sz" is just "s". On the other hand, "š" or "s" is "sh". In Polish, "sz" is "sh". 

We were very aware of our Poliyshn Yidn roots, and Dad doesn't like that. In fact, he nastily told Great-Granddad (as he told us that he told Great-Granddad), "The only reason that you say that we're Russian is because you work for the Russian Church." It was actually a Slovakian-American Catholic church, and the Rusnaks were Levi'im Anusim as well. So, Dad darned well (in his mind, damned well) knows that we're Jews—and I think that's also part of why we're estranged again—not just because I confronted him on Pop-Pop Czarnecki's obituary, but also because he was waiting to cut me off once I found out the truth and asked him about it. So, as soon as I confronted him about the obituary, he found his loophole and got as nasty and abusive with me as possible.
I had also, by the way, spoken out about the obituary and said how they conveniently skipped over Pop-Pop's Jewish heritage—and maybe that's part of why Great-Granddad Gaydos didn't like Pop-Pop (long story), as I found out—he could probably tell that Pop-Pop was a self loather.We were very aware of our Poliyshn Yidn roots, and Dad doesn't like that. In fact, he nastily told Great-Granddad (as he told us that he told Great-Granddad), "The only reason that you say that we're Russian is because you work for the Russian Church." It was actually a Slovakian-American Catholic church, and the Rusnaks were Levi'im Anusim as well. So, Dad darned well (in his mind, damned well) knows that we're Jews—and I think that's also part of why we're estranged again—not just because I confronted him on Pop-Pop Czarnecki's obituary, but also because he was waiting to cut me off once I found out the truth and asked him about it. So, as soon as I confronted him about the obituary, he found his loophole and got as nasty and abusive with me as possible.I had also, by the way, spoken out about the obituary and said how they conveniently skipped over Pop-Pop's Jewish heritage—and maybe that's part of why Great-Granddad Gaydos didn't like Pop-Pop (long story), as I found out—he could probably tell that Pop-Pop was a self loather.By the way, the long story, as Aunt Mary recalled it to me: Great-Granddad Gaydos came over for dinner and ate quietly. When he ate, he looked up and declared, "Okay; I'm ready to go now." He clearly had no time for Jack Czarnecki.