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A Journey Home
In Remembrance of My Parents
With the loss of my parents came an
intense curiosity to know more about the land where they had spent their
youth and early adult years: the
Slovene Raba area. I wondered what it had been like
growing up in the small villages of Szakonyfalu and
Harasztifalu in the 1920's and 1930's before emmigrating to the U.S. A few old photos and letters gave me
some clues, and so began my journey of discovery.
My parents were both born in the U.S.; my
mother of Windish parents (Bajzek/Grebenár),
my father of Croatian ancestors (Czvitkovics/Szabó). They lived for a few years in the Chicago area. In the early 1920's they were taken
back as young children to Hungary
by their parents. My mother grew
up in Szakonyfalu, my father in Harasztifalu,
near Körmend. Many years later, as young adults,
they emmigrated to the U.S. where they met for the first
time and married. They never
returned to Hungary
or saw their families again.
I decided to plan a trip to find my
parents' villages, houses (if they were still standing), cemeteries,
churches, and possibly any relatives still living in the area. But I did not want to visit as a
tourist merely passing through. I
needed to find some personal connections. I begin to research my families. Ellis Island records provided key information. The most
valuable resource was this Vendvidek website
(www.vendvidek.com), created by Tibor Horváth and Joël
Gerber. Here I learned about the
history, culture, traditions and language of my people. I drew a family-tree, which at the
start had many more empty branches than full ones, since I knew of very few
relatives. Within a couple of
months the tree blossomed, thanks to the personal help of Tibor
Horváth and a first cousin of my mother's
living in Chicago, whom I had not seen in many years. From old church records, paintakingly read by Tibor and Joël, we learned that my maternal great-grandparents
came from Felsõszölnök and Szakonyfalu.
From my mother's cousin, I heard that some cousins were still living
today in Szakonyfalu. On my father's side, we discovered
that he had two siblings and one nephew living today outside of Vienna, Austria.
Excitement was beginning to grow.
I would be returning "home" to meet family that I had never
known.
The trip itself began in mid-May. Three
of my Amercian cousins and my husband joined
me. Our first stop was VIenna. Before we did any sightseeing, I would
take the train to a town outside Vienna
to visit my father's nephew (my only Hungarian first cousin). My anxiety about being a stranger to
him soon faded as I was welcomed like a family member returning home after a
long absence. It was a wonderful day of sharing memories, experiences, and
photos over a forty-year period. A week later, I would visit the village
where he and my father grew up - Harasztifalu.
After a few days in Vienna, it was time to begin the most
important part of the journey -- visiting Szakonyfalu,
my mother's village. The day
began with visits to the homes of three elderly cousins. In the "pink house" my
grandmother and her six siblings had been born and raised. Today, a Bajzek first cousin of my mother still lives in the
house. Just down the road live
two Grebenár cousins, one of whom had lived
with and cared for my grandmother in her last years. They were excited to
tell me about the grandmother that I had never known. They spoke lovingly as
my cousin translated between Windish, Hungarian and
English. It had been many years since I had heard the Windish
dialect of Slovenian spoken. They recognized family members from old photos I
had brought along. Later, they
would show me photos of myself as a child and of other American family
members. These photos were sent to them by my mother from the U.S. Next we visited the Grebenár house, where my mother grew up, the
cemetery, and the village church.
This was the most poignant moment of the trip -- to see and touch the
tombstone of my grandmother and uncles whom I never was able to meet. We
searched the cemetery and found tombstones of many other family members, long
deceased. From this cemetery on the hill, we could see the village church
where we would find a memorial to soldiers from Szakonyfalu
killed in WWII. My young uncle's
name was etched in the granite memorial:
Grebenár Ferenc.
The next day we travelled through the Solvene/Raba villages by car and foot, crossing into
Austrian and Slovenia.
We saw beautiful countryside, majestic old churches, historical sights,
iron-curtain border regions, and nesting storks and ostriches just off the
road. We sampled pumpkin seed
oil, local honey schnapps, and enjoyed a variety of Slovenian/Hungarian
dishes.
Saturday morning we joined the villagers
at the Szakonyfalu festival to watch traditional
folk dancers in village costumes and listened to Slovenian songs. That
evening, we hosted a dinner for our new friends and relatives at the Székely Tanya, a traditional village
restaurant/farm just outside of Szentgotthárd.
We feasted on suckling pig, pickled vegetables, strudel and palacsintas. The group was large and merry. It will be an evening long-remembered
by all.
On our last day, we drove north to my
father's village - a tiny Croatian village just outside of Körmend.
After visiting the cemetery and family gravesites, we had a chance encounter
with a village couple. They had both gone to school with my father's nephews
and knew the Czvitkovics family well. They spoke of
my grandmother and aunt and gave me some insight into what they had been
like. They showed us my father's
house, which had been renovated and is today a small restaurant. The next day we left the villages by
train to visit Budapest.
My heart was filled with sadness to leave, but also with joy to have met my
relatives, seen the homeland of my ancestors, and to have reconnected with my
Slovene heritage.
Jeanne Czvitkovics Brown
June 2007
* With
special thanks to Tibor Horváth
and Joël Gerber, without whose help this
journey would never have been possible *
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