Occasionally a good television program comes along. One we're enjoying now is Who Do You Think You Are? It helps people find their deep family roots. Two weeks ago the actress Helen Hunt followed trails of family history that researchers on the show helped her trace. Last Friday Rita Wilson, wife of Tom Hanks, traveled to Greece and Bulgaria to discover her father's story.
She said that her father had always been very quiet about his background, so much so that she knew almost nothing except that he was Greek. When he was young, his family migrated to Bulgaria for economic reasons, but his life there was not pleasant. The army drafted him, and as they did to many conscripts, found him guilty of some misdemeanor and jailed him for three years to hard labor. When he got out, he married and had a child who was half-brother to Ms. Wilson, a brother who she never knew she had. The wife and child both died, and for undetermined reasons he got sent to a labor camp for a long stay.
Finally he gained his freedom, made his way to America, and lived a much happier life. It turned out that he left family there in Bulgaria who never saw him again. And he never talked about his past life. My wife, who is deeply engrossed in researching her family history, told me that was a very typical reaction. They didn't talk so as to protect the family from cruel treatment who remained in the old country. It seems as if the dictators had a diabolical inclination to punish family who did not escape the regimes.
I found a couple of short stories on the internet that speak of the harshness these people encountered. One, written by Cynthia Ozick, was titled "The Shawl" and follows a starving mother whose nursing baby received no milk, its only pacifier was sucking a corner of her mother's shawl. They were being forced along with throngs of other prisoners who knew not where they were going. Of course, it does not end happily.
The other story, only two pages long, is Isaac Babel's "Crossing into Poland." It had to do with quartering soldiers amongst the peasantry of the region they occupied. He slept in a room with others. He dreamt a nightmare, thrashed about, and was woken by the lady of the house saying he was pushing her father about. It turned out he was dead, killed by the Russian army. She said he pled with his killers "Kill me in the yard so that my daughter shan't see me die." But they did as they pleased and she saw them murder her father.
She said that her father had always been very quiet about his background, so much so that she knew almost nothing except that he was Greek. When he was young, his family migrated to Bulgaria for economic reasons, but his life there was not pleasant. The army drafted him, and as they did to many conscripts, found him guilty of some misdemeanor and jailed him for three years to hard labor. When he got out, he married and had a child who was half-brother to Ms. Wilson, a brother who she never knew she had. The wife and child both died, and for undetermined reasons he got sent to a labor camp for a long stay.
Finally he gained his freedom, made his way to America, and lived a much happier life. It turned out that he left family there in Bulgaria who never saw him again. And he never talked about his past life. My wife, who is deeply engrossed in researching her family history, told me that was a very typical reaction. They didn't talk so as to protect the family from cruel treatment who remained in the old country. It seems as if the dictators had a diabolical inclination to punish family who did not escape the regimes.
I found a couple of short stories on the internet that speak of the harshness these people encountered. One, written by Cynthia Ozick, was titled "The Shawl" and follows a starving mother whose nursing baby received no milk, its only pacifier was sucking a corner of her mother's shawl. They were being forced along with throngs of other prisoners who knew not where they were going. Of course, it does not end happily.
The other story, only two pages long, is Isaac Babel's "Crossing into Poland." It had to do with quartering soldiers amongst the peasantry of the region they occupied. He slept in a room with others. He dreamt a nightmare, thrashed about, and was woken by the lady of the house saying he was pushing her father about. It turned out he was dead, killed by the Russian army. She said he pled with his killers "Kill me in the yard so that my daughter shan't see me die." But they did as they pleased and she saw them murder her father.
