family history? interesting!
I always knew that my Granny and her siblings were quite active fighters against the fascist regime during the World War II. I kept hearing random stories from those times but I always took them just as my Granny's memories.Today, unexpectedly, I got a bit more details on what kind of people my ancestors were. A professional Slovak historian collected materials about my Granny's brother, Karol Pajer and prepared a proper exhibition about his life.
Why?
Because Karol Pajer managed to escape from occupied Slovakia after being persecuted for distributing anti-fascist leaflets. With his fiancé, they fled to Yugoslavia over Hungary and then he continued alone to France over Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and a couple of North African countries. But that was a typical story of those times. That doesn't make him so special.
In France, together with a friend of his, they set up a Christian Centre for Children in Vence (Central France). Over almost a year, they saved 552 children, mostly Jewish or orphans and around 182 adults. If that was not enough, he joined the French partisan army and unfortunately died in the biggest Nazi army vs. partisans battle while protecting his camarades on retreat.
Besides that, he wrote and published beautiful poetry about his love to life, to his fiancé and their little son he never met in person and to his home country. His letters to his beloved Janka were full of hope for peace and reflection on the brutality of war.
Sounds enough for a whole life, right?
He managed all of this by the time he was my age!!!!
Imagine...
when you hear this, things get a different perspective...
Knowing the kind of people in my family
Seeing proofs of such a strong moral character
Reading his poetry expressing the depth of his feelings, there is a big question coming to my mind:
What is going to be my life about - What will be my contribution and legacy?
Karol managed everything by the time he was 24.
Shit, and I feel I haven't started real life yet...
Zuzka, you'd better start figuring out how you want to spend your life in a meaningful way!
Well, there is some homework to be done ;)
PS: ...and there is absolutely NO information about Karol Pajer on the web!
1 Comments:
Wow - that sounds really exciting and inspiring. Usually such things are so far away from us, but having a family member like this brings things closer...
Post a Comment
<< Home