Petro Z wrote:

Hi Bill,

I can try helping your big effort with foreign language documents. If my time permitting, of course. I can help with interpretation of Ukrainian/Russian/Hungarian, lesser or somewhat with German/Polish/Slovak/Czech also.

Thank you Petro!

Right now I am using  Google Translate for a first-pass,  first to make sure it is something relevant to my research and second to get an idea of the scope of detail and credibility.   I have looked at a couple dozen books so far, as well as hundreds of web pages.   I would prefer to focus on printed books, where I can determine the authenticity and accuracy of the material.

  As you know, everybody who writes about history puts their own "slant" or opinion into it, mostly not purposely.

   Once I get down to the details, I may want to pass specific pages by you.   I would not want you to read through 100 pages of material.    

With Holocaust material, there are so many sides to the story.  The criminals, the victims, the observers, the young, the old, Americans, Jews, Slovaks, Poles, Germans, Russians, Ukrainians, Hungarians.  And each person has only seen one side of it.   With so much Russian material coming available, new material is revealing new facts.

The Hungarian side of the holocaust is dreadful.  It is little known to us in the west, but it had a huge impact on our people.   Not all Rusyns were saints, sad to say.  Then again, neither were all priests.   Then again, there are 100,000 different stories too.

Thank you Petro, I will keep in touch.

Bill

Trudging onward in my quest for historical knowledge, I am presently researching those who  were killed, imprisoned or otherwise suffered from 1920 to 1989.  I am tearing into a deeper level of detail beyond regional and country wide crimes.  This includes holocaust victims, local citizens, collaborators and gulag sentences.  Rusyns and Slovaks as collaborators and as local, otherwise unknown heros.  

I am uncovering lists of names, dates and places in the hope that i can organize them in a way you can learn more about your family.

Certainly we could leave it buried and dwell on the happier times and events, but I don't think it all needs to be laid out to see.

The SK goverment has been slowly releasing documents that uncover the hidden past.

For example, I have found a list of all those executed in Czechoslovakia 1948-89 along with their accused crime, date and place. 

I've examined the Jewish Deportation lists for each village.  I cannot imagine being a witness to this.

I've found detailed information on when specific antisemetic laws went into effect in our regions and how the Jews possesions were auctioned off to the villagers.

I've located the reports on antisemetic treatment given to those who survived Auschwitz walked back to their Carpathian village and were refused their own homses.  War reparations for them?  Nada 

Seeing Each name makes me see just how brutal was punishment was and how often it occurred to the ordinary person.  It makes me understand just how much of our culture was ripped away from them, never to return.

When I'm ready, I'll publish the pieces that will be the most useful on my web page.

It weighs heavy on mre right now.  I just wanted you all to know there is much more information available.   If anyone wants to help and work with foreign language documents do let me know.

Bill