Sunday, April 4, 2010

A piece of family history

65 years ago today the war officially ended for my great-grandmother who was hiding in Western Hungary with her children's former nanny's family. On April 4, 1945 the Red Army completed the liberation of Hungary. 

At this point my great-grandma did not know what became of her husband, children, children-in-law, brothers, sisters, grandchildren. She did not know that her only surviving daughter and youngest son were liberated in Auschwitz in January, nor did she know that her husband and two sons-in-law would still be alive 11 days later when liberation came to Bergen Belsen. She didn't know that it would be 5 years before she would see either of her 2 surviving children.

65 years ago today the young soldiers of the Red Army were the heroes who gave her back a chance at life. These young Soviet soldiers were the ones who helped to turn the old stables into a temporary school where this little Jewish teacher, standing only 152 cm tall, gathered the village children together, to try to finish the school year that was cut short earlier in the year due to the war, the Germans invading the village, and both of the teachers being killed during the last month of the war. She stayed in this village for nearly two years, with the beloved nanny's family, before returning to Budapest to be reunited with her husband. 

65 years ago today the war ended for a country, and in that country a small Jewish woman.

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