Grandma Karolina

My great-grandmother, Karolina Temető, née Petrás Józsefné, was born in Nagybégány (Velyka Beihan) on June 12, 1881. Even as a child, she was a hard-working, industrious soul. She worked in the kitchen as an assistant, and later became the family cook, at the manor of the Nemes family, who lived in our village.

The Nemes family grew very fond of her, and when she got married, they gave her the plot of land where we still live today as a gift. In 1905, they built a neat little house on it, the blueprints of which we still keep.

Later, my great-grandparents decided that the head of the family would go to California to work, to secure a livelihood for the family. He succeeded in this, but the heavy burden of raising four children and managing the farm fell upon Grandma Linka.

Then came World War I, the years of which she lived through alone with her children. Following that was the Treaty of Trianon. I remember her speaking tearfully about the day the villagers prayed together that they wouldn’t be separated from their homeland, but sadly, not even prayer saved Subcarpathia (Kárpátalja). The evil force unleashed in the 20th century was stronger than anything.

Then came the family tragedies. Of their four children, they tragically and suddenly lost one of their sons in an accident.

Not long after, World War II broke out, and then in 1944, the village’s more prosperous families were declared kulaks. Our family was betrayed by their own farmhands. Even though my great-grandmother provided them with generous wages and dinner for their families at home, the next morning the farmhands arrived with Soviet soldiers, red armbands on their arms, and dragged away my great-grandparents’ son, Pál, for “three days of work”—malenkij robot (forced labor). They took everything: machinery, tools, livestock, and even swept the attic clean. They left behind an empty yard and the empty bed of my great-grandparents’ son. But of all this, my great-grandmother only mourned her child. She later received him back alive but disabled; my Uncle Pali was bedridden and immobile for 22 years.

A short time later, her grandson, my father, was also taken from her to the Donbas. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was released five years later, having lost the sight in one eye. Meanwhile, a Soviet military officer was billeted in our home. His wife plowed up the yard to plant potatoes there. Grandma Linka—setting aside her pride—knelt before her and begged them to leave the flowers, as she needed them for her son’s grave. The officer pointed a pistol at her and shouted: “Get out or I’ll shoot you!”