Amritas’s post about “octolingual Michel Thomas” reminded me of my paternal grandmother. She spoke five languages when she emigrated to the United States, none of them English. Her first language was Yiddish, often referred to as Mama Loshen by native speakers. (“Loshen” comes from Hebrew “lashon” – tongue, language. I presume you can guess what “mama” means.) She also spoke Ukrainian, the local language of the non-Jews; Hungarian, the official language of the area at the time; Hebrew, which she learned in Hebrew school; and German, the prestige language of Eastern Europe at the time.
She came from the town of Yasina (here called Jasinja), in what is now called Transcarpathia. This area was part of Hungary before World War I, when my grandmother lived there. After World War I it became part of Czechoslovakia, though it was neither Czech nor Slovak. After World War II it became part of the Ukraine. I found a remarkable interview on Teen Ink, by “Lindsay K.,” of a man from the same town. Though a generation younger than my grandmother, his description of Yasina corroborates hers.
We used to have to chop wood for the stove in the winter to heat the house. Most of the time we didn't have enough wood, so the only room with heat was the kitchen.
One of my grandmother’s stories told how in the winter, they would close down most of the house and live in the one heated room.
In the winter, it was very dangerous to walk at night. There were no lights, and there were wolves.
Another story told how in the winter, the wolves would come down from the mountains, into town.
The bulk of the interview tells the harrowing story of the interviewee during World War II. Transcarpathia was taken back by Hungary, though its Jews weren’t given Hungarian citizenship. Ironically, because Hungary was an ally of the Nazis, Hungary’s Jews were spared deportation to the concentration camps until fairly late in the war. As a result 25% of them survived, a relatively high proportion. My grandmother’s parents, and many brothers and sisters were not among the lucky. The interview gives me an idea of their probable end.
The morning after our lamp was taken, we heard screaming outside. When we went into the street, we saw German and Hungarian soldiers throwing Jews out of their homes and herding them with sticks. The Jews lived in the main part of town, and the peasants, who lived up in the mountains, came down. The soldiers herded us with the rest of the Jews. My mother was wearing a thin dress and wanted to go back to get her coat, but they made her leave without it. They beat her because she asked to get it.They took us to the Jewish cemetery and shaved off the rabbis' beards. We were there for several days, guarded by the Hungarian townspeople who had been our neighbors and friends. There was a lot of screaming. They were going to kill us all with machine guns.
The interviewee, however, survived, and was able to tell his story:
We ran through the woods all night, hearing dogs barking and knowing that we were being chased. Eventually, tired and hungry and still in our striped uniforms, we heard the Russians at their front. We ran toward them with our hands up yelling, "Jew."Posted by David Boxenhorn at May 2, 2004 12:59 PMThe Russians put us up against a wall to shoot us, but one officer who was Jewish stopped them. He told us not to say we were Jewish, because the Russians hated us.
We were on our way again, cold, frightened and starving. We came to a farm and hid in the hayloft. At another deserted house, I found a black coat, hat and cane with a silver handle for the rabbi. He looked like a real rabbi again.
I wanted to get as far away as possible. We came to a railroad crossing and saw the engine coming. I told the rabbi to jump on the engine and hold on tight. When the train came, I jumped on but the rabbi did not make it.
Although we were both very weak, at 19, I could make the jump. The train traveled about two kilometers, and when I realized he was not there, I jumped off and walked back. I found the old man sitting in the grass, crying like a baby.
I never left him until we made it to Czechoslovakia. He was reunited with his oldest son in a small town there. We parted and he gave me a blessing. The year was 1945.