“They know everything about my history, except that I’m still alive,” Ladislav Kovac murmured with tears welling up in his eyes. “Please tell them I’m still here—we’re family.” I sat dumbfounded in my chair. I couldn’t look at him in the face. All I felt was pity and the crushing, overbearing weight of loneliness that emitted from his voice.
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The story and history of places and families always starts with people. Sometimes that history is remembered as a story of moving to a new place and the laying down of new foundations; other times, it is celebrated and remembered through the act of staying connected, rooted in the ancestral land.
In America, more often than not, we gear our minds and society around the “new”: we remember the Civil War for the unheralded nation it forged; we study about the 1960s to trace the developments of fresh cultural phenomenons; and we define our ‘Nation’ as one that is mixed; respecting the difference and finding our strength in our mutual unity and astonishing diversity.
We are always looking to ‘go west’ in search for answers, explanations, and ultimately—if were lucky—the place where our ‘heart is content’.
But, what happens when we begin to set our gaze to what happened before us, so much so before, that our family names weren’t even in this country yet? Through what eyes are we to view that? After all, isn’t there some truth in saying that America’s history is as much about those who came, as it is about those who stayed?
And, where do these two lines—the one of the immigrant cutting ties to the past and the one of the ‘old country’—cross? Do they cross when we find an old black and white picture of a long-dead ancestor tilling a field in the former Holy Roman Empire? Do they cross when we Americans are in the midst of organizing one of our many “Nationality Day” celebrations? Or do they cross when Grandmothers or Aunts (as it always seems to be them) begin to retrace the roots of the family?
Ultimately, I think all of us Americans are caught up in this battle; a battle of trying to preserve a personal/family history often older than our nation itself with little to build upon than vague recollections from aging grandparents and creased pictures hanging on a wall.
So, how can this history come back to life? And, what connections—if any—are waiting to be found?
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Two years ago my wife and were offered a position to work as pastoral assistants and community organizers in Policka , Czech Republic, a ten thousand-person town located three hours east of Prague in the Czech Highlands.
Our work took on many different forms: we planned English-language summer camps, taught over 100 students, gave cultural presentations, wrote church publications, and planned community activities for both children and adults.
In those two years, we forged relationships, learned the language and adapted to the culture: we became well-versed in understand the confusing public-transportation schedules; became acquainted to $1 drafts at lunch time; enjoyed strolling through squares bursting with baroque architecture; and finally became accustomed to the relative public ‘coldness’ of Czechs to strangers on the street.
And it was in this environment where I finally began to take seriously the past of my family, a family history very typical of many that ended up settling and building a new life in the Pittsburgh area.
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In 1918, the former Austrian-Hungarian Empire was split in the aftermath of WWI. In the wake of this reality, a new nation was founded in the former territories of both Austria and Hungary: Czechoslovakia.
The early nation of Czechoslovakia, known to both Czechs and Slovaks as “The First Republic”, was powerful and well-advanced. It boasted as having one of the strongest and most robust industrial complexes of post-war Europe; was led by a man of virtue and integrity, in Tomas Garrigue Masaryk; and had numerous theatres, museums and top-class schools.
Yet, not all was so rosy in the eastern part of the country—the region closest to modern-day Ukraine. Jobs were very scarce in the area (situated around the city of Michalovce, Slovakia), as the economy in the east was built largely upon agriculture, and few roads were built.
The eastern Slovakian connection to the cultural life, industrial wealth and political freedom of Prague was merely theoretical at best.
Consequently, the social situation and the lack of opportunity became catalysts for mass waves of emigration from the region.
The early emigrants from the area were generally young men who were hoping to make it to America, where they would work for a few years, save up money, and finally return back home to Slovakia to build homes and acquire land for their families—many of the homes that were built this way can still be seen today. However, this was all ‘theoretical’ planning, as the reality played out much differently: many of the men never returned.
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It is said that out of the 400,000 Slovak immigrants that came to America, over 200,000 of them settled in Western Pennsylvania alone. They, along with their Polish, Croatian and Hungarian brothers, became the human capital upon which Andrew Carnegie’s steel kingdom turned.
My great-grandfather, Jurej (Jiri, Yurej, George) Hostoviczak was part of the throng. On Janurary 21, 1921, he stepped off the Vedic and onto American soil through way of Ellis Island. He was 29 years old. He left his young wife Anna Kovacova and his new-born daughter, Maria (my grandmother), back in their home village of Kolibabovce.
He found work, initially, at a coke plant in Avella Pa; later moving to West Aliquippa, where he worked his way up into the J & L Steel plant. After about a year and a half of earning steady pay, Jurej sent for his wife and daughter, who together set up a household along the banks of the Ohio River; ignoring their passport visas from the Czechoslovakian government, which informed them that they were to return after one year.
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At Christmas, I was on a train to Prague when a man sat down beside me. He was very dirty and had the sweet-dingy smell of a drunk. His glasses magnified his eyes to the point that I couldn't make out their color, and his Czech was heavily accented due to the fact that he only retained about five teeth total in his mouth. I tried to make my presence small, as I did not want to give him any reason to spark up a conversation with me. But, it was in vain. He looked over at me and offered me a beer. I had never seen the golden can before in the Czech Republic, so I asked him where the beer was from. "Slovakia," he said. "I was there this past weekend. I work as a forester there." "Where in Slovakia were you, exactly?" I asked. "In Michalovce. It's as far east as you can go. I have a girlfriend who lives in a little village near there." "Oh yeah," I replied. "What's the name of the village?" "Kolibabovce," he said.
Before my grandmother died in 2003, she showed me and my brothers copies of her parents’ passports and immigration papers. I remember reading and looking over the documents to find their place of birth and residence before Aliquippa. I found the name fairly hard to read, but my Grandma was certain of its pronunciation. "Collee-ba-buff-za," she said. "It's the place where I was born." "Yeah right," I thought. "Old people are always so sure of their heritage."
After the train ride, my mind was jarred back towards that memory. The man had said a village in the eastern part of Slovakia that sounded much like the one my grandma had pronounced out seven years ago. Jamie and I pulled out the documents out and scanned them over. Sure enough, it was a match. We resolved to go.
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The village of Kolibabovce is well-hidden behind a tree-covered hill—one of many in this region, where the Western Carpathian Mountains lead into gentle rolling plains that stretch all the way to Hungary. In fact, it’s so well-hidden, that the village didn’t even have a road connection until 1968. It was, effectively, a forgotten place set dead-center in a genetically mixed border land of Ukrainians, Ruso-Carpathians, Hungarians and Slovakians.
My wife and I started our journey at the crest of the hill, which was crowned by a beautiful baby-blue Greek-Catholic church. We walked around the cemetery in an attempt to find some family names that had become familiar to us through our preliminary research. There were plenty: Hostovicaks, Kovacs, Ihnats, and Pastulaks. We were definitely in the right place.
There are a total of about sixty houses in the village, and all of them are situated along a narrow road that winds its way through a shallow hollow, alongside a rocky creek, The houses in this area distinct in that they are narrow and long: people leave in the front-half of the home, while live stalk and pets reside in the rear. It was architecture I had never seen before.
Many of the villagers came out to take a gander at the two strangers who had suddenly began aimlessly walking down the road—I’m sure we stuck out speaking English and wearing large travelling packs. This area of Europe is not exactly accustomed to seeing hoards of college-aged tourists.
Thankfully, their glances and looks were not negative, nor were they aggressive. They were more curious than anything; it was almost as if the people were inviting us for a conversation. It set us both in a good mood.
House number 33 was our intended goal, as we both knew that my grandmother’s cousin, Ladislav Kovac, was last known to reside there; however, we were unsure of this bit of information, as we had not received a reply from the letter we had sent him about a month and half before.
Upon arriving at the house, we were both shocked to find it in great condition: it had just been remodeled and was surrounded by gardens of flowers and budding grape vines that arched into a canopy over the main entrance of the house.
This is not exactly the type of home that belongs to a man of about 70 years of age (the age at which Jamie and I estimated him to be).
We were both nervous, very nervous.
I wanted to turn back and be content with just seeing the village and the house where my grandmother was born.
We waited and debated about what to do. Were we being too aggressive? Were we forcing a family connection? Will Ladislav have any interest in a long-lost connection to some “Americans” who were supposed to be family?
We didn’t have the answers.
Our fortunes turned when I saw an older man making his way up the road, coming towards us. In an instant, I stopped him and asked him where Ladislav Kovac lived. “Ladislav Kovac!?” he said speaking through a toothless mouth, making his already soft Slovak accent even more unintelligible to me. “His house is here,” he said firmly, pointing to the newly-refurbished, orange façade with the number 33. “Where are you from?” he asked. “We’re from America. We’re family.” At this moment, he turned toward the house and bellowed, “HEY! LADO, YOU HAVE AMERICANS OUT FRONT.” Then he left. We stood dumfounded.
After about five minutes a woman of short-stature and closely-cropped, brown hair came outside and greeted us with a Slovakian, “Dobry Den.” Nervously, I began speaking in rapid, heavily-accented Czech trying to apologize for the inconvenience of just ‘showing up’ and explain our family relation all in the same breath. She just smiled at me and said, “It’s Okay. We’re family. We’ve been expecting you.”
And at that moment, my wife and I took our first steps into the household my grandmother was born in and into the house from which my great-grandfather left nearly 90 years ago. I knew at this moment that the lines between my family’s history in America and my family’s history in Slovakia had finally crossed.
Ladislav came down the steps with a bottle of Czech Liquor and four shot glasses. All of us began speaking to one another, sometimes at the same time. The conversation got louder and more animated.
We all started pulling out pictures, letters, passports and immigrations papers. A mess began to build on the table. Goulash was served and tea was given, but none of us took a breath to eat.
Kamilla, Ladislav’s wife, announced that she had pictures to show. All the while, Ladislav and I gulped down our third shot. This was beginning to feel like a true reunion.
Kamilla came back and placed the bundle of photographs on the table, and immediately began asking me if I recognized any of the people in the pictures—they were all relatives living in America or Canada. I did. Then, almost unbelievably, she pulled from the pile twelve pictures of young children and new-born babies. “Who are these people?” She asked. “That is me.” I answered. Tears welled up in Ladislav’s eyes. “Really!?” Kamilla exclaimed, not believing me. “Yes. That is my dad, my mom, my grandmother and my brothers. You had pictures of me and didn’t even know it,” I said with a laugh. We drank down our fourth shot.
After this, Jamie and I were invited to take a look at Ladislav’s father’s grave. We began to hear the story of my family from the Slovak side, the stories I never heard in America.
We were introduced to Ladislav and Kamilla’s daughter and their grandson, Lukas. We were immediately offered a place to sleep for the night. We took them up on the offer. They really did welcome us in like family.
As the night wore on, and our initial excitement died down a bit, Ladislav and Kamilla began recounting for us the sadder side of our family’s story. Ladislav’s entire family (mine included in this) immigrated to America before WWII. Only his father, Pavol, and an uncle were left. In 1947, his father died in WWII fighting for the Soviet Army, leaving behind Ladislav at the age of one. He had no other family in Slovakia to take care of him. His mother left and found a new family. Consequently, Ladislav was raised by two old women who looked after him and the family house.
Kamilla explained to us that Ladislav felt abandoned not only by his mother, but by the extended family—cousins, aunts, uncles—who had left him and his father for a new life in America.
She said he cried for many years out of sheer loneliness and animosity in the fact that he had been “forgotten.”
Some time during the evening Ladislav brought out the only known picture of his father, a small black and white pocket-sized photo of his dad in military garb. He came down the steps very gingerly as he held the photo in the palm of his hand, as if it was a delicate butterfly. His emotions were overwhelming.
Kamilla looked at him and said, “You’ve cried for over thirty years that you had no family around you, and now that they are here, you’re still crying! What am I going to do to make you happy!?” We all smiled.
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Our time with Ladislav and Kamilla ended quite abruptly, as the next morning we had to take a bus back into the city. And as I waved to Ladislav out the side window, I saw him wiping his eyes, even though a wide smile creased his rough-strewn face.
When I embarked on this journey to reconnect with the past and search out my family roots, I thought that it in many ways that it would only be me who would come away affected. I was hesitant to make the situation more important than it was. I guess I guarded myself against the fact that maybe for my relatives that live in Slovakia, a relationship is not really needed. I was resolved to believe that it was only we root-starved, history-searching Americans that need to find out about our own past. Yet, I realized, especially with Ladislav, that sometimes it is the ones who stayed that also need a connection, and that they too have family to find and frayed edges to mend.
