Magyar News, 2000. szeptember-2001. augusztus (11. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2000-09-01 / 1. szám

Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. According to the 1980 census, 1.7 million people in the U.S. claimed to be of Hungarian descent and 178,995 reported that they were speaking Hungarian at home.

Public opinion and the facts are not in accord: the Hungarian language in Europe is not a small language, and for historic reasons it still serves as a lingua franca and communication link in the Carpathian Basin and in Central-Europe.

A Hungarian ethnographer at the end of the 19th century put it very well when he said: "Hungary is Europe in miniature. " It could even be said that Hungary was Eurasia in miniature.

Hungarian popular culture is a link between East and West. The Carpathian Basin and the history of the Hungarians living therein are a veritable treasure house of all conceivable linguistic-cultural connections, from incidental contacts, through a symbiotic exchange of influences, to complete assimilation. This is shown by the traditions of Hungarian music, folklore, architecture, agriculture, and even cuisine. The Hungarians absorbed the culturally similar and genetically not distinguishable Avars and western and southern Slavs. They also assimilated the Saxons, the northern Italian Walloons, the eastern Alanian-Jazygians, the Cumanians and other Turkic fragments and, later, the Germans and the Slovakians and the majority of the Gypsies and of the Jews.

The Hungarians are the largest Finno- Ugrian people, having the oldest written language, and living farthest south. At the same time, they are the farthest northern people with traces of Turkish culture They are also the farthest west from both their genetic-cultural “progenitors” (parents). Among the manifold cultural streams, changes and linguistic influences, the Hungarians have lost neither their identity, nor their language (a number of Finno-Ugrian, Turkic and Indo- European people and languages have died out). To accomplish this, they required openness, flexibility, and considerable adaptability.

The mementos of the early ages of the Carpathian Basin constitute a museum of collections, rich in archeologic, physiologic and ethnographic findings which all indicate a common Carpathian or Carpathian-Basin heritage.

In spite of, or because of this multiplicity of shades, the Hungarian language is unique in Europe. It is remarkably kinship-free, ancient, and unified. People living at any two most distant points of the Hungarian language area (as much as 600- 700 km.) whose primaiy language may be different, can communicate with each other in Hungarian easily and without hindrance.

THE HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN was published by the Corvina Publishing Company in Budapest. We thank the author and the publisher for their permission to use it.

“My Life in Spinach Green”

Judging from the title, we can guess that this is an artist's autobiography. But the subtitle, “Life of a War-Tom Family, the Némeths” indicates that it's not your run-of-the-mill life story. For Sr. M. Edith Németh, a Daughter of the Divine Redeemer, has lived in - and survived! — the most turbulent time of our century. She describes it all calmly and without fanfare.

Bom in Cegléd, she, her sister and two brothers lived a happy and comfortable life in Pestszenlerzsébet, where both her parents were teachers. Comfortable, that is, until April 4, 1944, when American bombers leveled the city that had nothing military about it, and killed

12,000 innocent civilians.

That was the start of Hungary's Calvary, and the Calvary of the Németh family as well. Although they all survived the raid (her older brother was in the army and away from home), their house was damaged beyond repair and it was unsafe to stay amidst the crumbling walls and ceilings. First moved to the relatively safer countryside around Sopron, they had to move on when that city was also fiercely bombed.

Sister Edith describes the nightmarish 3-week train trip to Austria, when American planes several times daily strafed the civilians, including the women and children, in encounters so close she could clearly see the pilot's face.

Finally "settled" in a little town near Augsburg, Germany, the family barely survived those terrible first post-War years. For those of us who also ended up in Germany, Sr. Edith's story is very familiar: the most uncertain of jobs, the constant hunger and hunt for food, the crowding of entire families into rooms never intended to serve as bedroom, living room, dining room, bathroom and kitchen all in one. These are details mostly unknown to the rest of the world, but unforgettable to those who lived through them.

Through her life story, we get a glimpse of the multifaceted artistry of Sister Edith who paints, weaves, sculpts, and does every other form of art known to man. She also teaches these subjects at Penn View Art Center, in Elizabeth, PA. The Center is Sister's own project. She had even done all the physical work in landscaping the park around it. For some reason she does not explain, the park was forcibly destroyed by tearing out her freshly planted trees and bushes, pouring chemicals all over the ground to exterminate all growth, and trapping and killing any of the small animals and birds that remained. It broke Sister's heart, and she couldn't do a thing about it.

However, nothing could, or will ever be able to destroy Sister Edith's artistic drive, nor her attachment to her Hungarian roots and culture. For she has inherited an indomitable spirit, instilled in her by her parents, whose love and example carried the Németh family through the horrors of war and hunger.

Sister Edith has done us a great service in focusing her spotlight on the “receiving end” of World War II and the post-War years. But more importantly, her book “My Life in Spinach Green” is a monument to the invincibility of the family, when it is imbued with mutual love and self-sacrifice. These are examples today's generations could take to heart! It is a book well worth reading.

“My Life in Spinach Green ” is available from Penn View Art Center, 999 Rock Run Road, Elizabeth, PA 15037. Phone: 412-751-7,821.

(reviewed by Erika Papp Faber)

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