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12 10 124 https://www.memory.ctevans.net/files/original/8c3e9f5914398c8856e8b01648db1fcc.pdf 114aea2b5d7e31acdc23a21e681d0581 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Susanna S. Description An account of the resource With roots in Eastern Europe, both World War Ii and the subsequent advance of the Red Army and the establishment of communist regimes had a dramatic impact on the family. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Susanna S. PDF Search This element set enables searching on PDF files. Text Text extracted from PDF files belonging to this item. Susanna * My name is Susanna and my family’s roots and my family background encompasses the time of World War II and a civil war in Yugoslavia and the countries of Austria, Czechoslovakia and the former Yugoslavia and with the roots of my kids, also Turkey. This is the time and country frame I know. My knowledge of the time before goes back to World War II on my mother’s side. I don’t have any knowledge of the time before, but I plan to do more research and maybe I can add more to the story later. I was born in Vienna, Austria 1959 and lived there for 46 years until I met my husband in 2006, and became an American citizen in 2007. My mother, Hildegard, was also born and raised in Vienna, Austria, and lived there her whole life. Her family roots reach back to her parents’ arrival from Czechoslovakia (former Bohemia) to Vienna. She was their only child. Her parents owned a tailor shop and I believe they were pretty wealthy since they had an apartment in the inner city of Vienna as well as a house with a big garden near Vienna. My mother told me that my grandmother was the owner of a small business, a tailor shop with a few employees. She was the businesswoman in the family which was very unusual for that time and era in respect of the position of a woman. I am not sure what role my grandfather had, but I heard he opened a few businesses; one of them was a bowling alley. They came from Prague, Czechoslovakia to Vienna. They were from the German-speaking part, the “Sudeten Germans” (Sudeten Deutsche) and came to create a better economic future for their family in Vienna. My mother was their only child and they lived in this two-family-house with big garden near Vienna. My mother went to school there and successfully achieved a certificate in a special fashion institute (“Modeschule Hetzendorf”). The students of this school went out in the world and made fashion in sophisticated cities like Paris and Rome. Unfortunately when my mother got caught up in World War II in 1945, when she was 18 years old she had to escape from Vienna in a big hurry together with my grandmother in a truck from Vienna. They only could grab a few fabrics and throw them on the truck. The rest of the whole business was lost when they were able to come back later. They were alone, because my grandfather died in World War II. I can only imagine how frightened out of their minds they must have been both escaping from the oncoming Russians. I don’t know in which direction they escaped but my mother told me that they stayed overnight in abandoned houses and even an old castle and that she had a romantic crush on an American soldier who helped them along the way. When they finally were able to come back, the business was lost but they still owned the apartment in the inner city and the house. �My grandmother had to go to prison after they returned because she was accused by her Jewish bookkeeper of having said something insulting to her. Although my grandmother was rehabilitated, she was not the same person anymore after that. My mother said the loss of her business that she lived for broke my grandmother’s heart. My grandmother lost her will to live and fell in a deep depression. Finally my mom found her lying dead on the kitchen floor soon after my grandma was released from prison. She died from a stroke. Now my mother was alone, her parents were dead and she had no siblings. She had to sell the apartment in the inner city of Vienna and rented a very small apartment in a much cheaper district. She started to work as a tailor and she was glad to find any work at all at this time. Vienna after World War II was a tough place to live for a young and beautiful woman, which my mother was. Her certificate from the fashion school did not put bread on her table but sewing did. In fact, my mother never really used her certificate from the fashion school and worked as a tailor in a big company (Tlapa) for 27 years, her entire working life. I often asked myself why she never tried to change the job or start her own business like my grandmother, why she never traveled to other countries in Europe or why she never tried to change to a better apartment. I believe my mother was, after witnessing the disaster of World War II, the horrible escape from Vienna and the loss of practically all their belongings plus the business, very anxious and did not want to risk anything anymore. The most important thing for her was safety and her job was safe. She also never looked for a better apartment and never traveled outside of Austria, except one very short trip to Germany. My father – his name was Danilo – came to Vienna, I believe, in 1955. From what he told my mom he escaped and deserted from a civil war in the former Yugoslavia. He said that they fought partisans in the mountains. As a Yugoslavian, living in Belgrade, he was drafted in the war when he was less than 20 years young. My father was not a military type, he was a teacher, very smart, handsome and educated, and he spoke four languages. He got very scared when he was a soldier and the stories about that time of his life up in the mountains with one of his uncles, who was drafted as well, were scary and horrible. It was so cold, he said, that the toes of his uncle froze (frostbite) and his comrades around him got shot, died or were wounded and often died from their wounds. I don’t know which war it was, it was not World War II, it must have been a civil war with partisans in the mountains of former Yugoslavia. Finally he could not deal with it anymore and escaped with a few other soldiers to Austria. He came to Vienna without a passport and there he met my mother at the train station. My mom told me that he only had one �shabby suitcase in his hand and looked terribly thin and sick. Since he was a deserter, he could not return to Yugoslavia anymore. My mom had recently divorced from her first husband and had a four-year-old son, my half -brother Gerhard. Gerhard still lives in Austria today, but we did not grow up together. Three years after they met they married – my father was 23 years old then and my mother was 31– and I was born one year after that in 1959. My half- brother grew up with his grandmother and his father but they lived near us. My father tried to stay in touch with his family, many brothers and sisters and his mother, in Yugoslavia, but his brother Milan rarely answered his long letters. Finally his brother wrote him that he does not have time to read his long letters and my father suspected that this was his way to say that he did not want to have contact with him anymore because he was a deserter. That was a big disappointment for my father as he still had hoped to be able to return some day and take his little family, me and my mom, with him. I suspect that my father had PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from his involvement in the war because he exhibited the sure symptoms I read later about. One moment he was very nice and pleasant, and the next he was triggered by something small that my mom or I did and broke out in destructive and violent behavior. He also often had flashbacks from the time he was in the mountains of Yugoslavia with his uncle which prompted him to drink too much. There was no name or treatment back then for it but the result was that he did not find work, although his German was very good and he was smart and wanted to work. When I was one and a half year old my father disappeared from one day to the other to – what my mom later found out – Holland and lived there with another woman, who later (when he returned one year after) wrote him letters in French. I believe that was after he learned that his family back in Yugoslavia did not want to stay in touch with him anymore. My mom did not know where he was and she had a policeman come over who suspected that she killed her husband and started to look around in the apartment. When my father came back, he did cross the border without a passport, was caught by the Austrian police and brought to my mom because that was the only address he could name in Vienna. After that my mom filed for a divorce. During all this problems my mom kept working as a tailor and I was being taken care of by a nanny who lived next door. I called her “aunt Resi” (Tante Resi) but she was not related to us. She should become a second mom to me and a very important person in my life. She practically raised me, since my mom had to work a lot to support us �both. My aunt Resi was the housekeeper of the house next door and responsible for keeping the house clean and collecting the monthly rent from all people living there. Therefore she was at home all day and everybody in the house was my friend. I was “little Susi” and was really happy there, playing in the grass of the backyard or accompanying when she ran errands. However, both women had a different sociological background and upbringing and therefore different positions towards the Nazi regime. My mom was born and raised in a wealthy Viennese family. When she was in school she was very good in sports and mathematic so she became the leader of a sports group at her school and that was at that time of the “Hitler Jugend” (Hitler Youth). My mom was not actively involved nor was she enthusiastic about what Hitler said, but it was very difficult and dangerous to keep yourself out of it. When I grew older and learned more about history this was surely a topic we talked about sometimes and when I asked her what her opinion was at this time she said that she was very young back then. She was only seven years old when Hitler became Germany’s head of state with the title of Fuehrer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor of the Reich). She said she did not have a choice but also the people around her were not in open opposition to the ideology. Although they were not actively involved, they also did not dare to oppose Hitler openly. My aunt Resi on the other side was about 10 years younger and she grew up in a farmer’s family near Vienna. She had many siblings. Farmers, she told me later, were much more independent because they grew their food themselves and once the economy went down they were not that much influenced by it because they could become self-sufficient and live off their land. My aunt Resi’s family opposed Hitler and the children or her parents did not participate in any of the groups. Then again that was much easier for my aunt since she was much younger and not yet in school and their farm and small town was not much of a focus of any of these activities of the Nazi’s. Nevertheless they had to escape too from the Russians at the end of the war and my aunt told me that she will never forget that people screamed: “Run, run for your life, the Russians nail people with their tongues to the doors of the houses.” Hearing that, I also never forgot this sentence. Many people who lived around me in my house or in my aunt Resi’s house had witnessed World War II and therefore I heard many of their stories when I grew up there. This left a deep impression in me to hate Hitler and reject everything that had to do with him. I know that Austria and Germany dealt very differently with their Nazi past and since I was interested in the reasons I recently read a very �comprehensive book about it: “The Politics of the Nazi Past in Germany and Austria” by David Art. My father died when I was four years old in a train accident. My parents were already divorced by then. I went to Kindergarten and school in the nearby catholic school and the nuns tried to provide a racism-free and peaceful environment for us kids. Nevertheless, although I was born in Vienna and had a Viennese mother, I and a few other kids got harassed because we looked “foreign”. I had black hair and black eyes and a Yugoslavian name which the other kids made fun of endlessly. I heard later from my husband John, who grew up in the Bronx in New York City and had Romanian-born parents, that he suffered the same fate with his German-sounding name in his childhood. When I was 30 years old I married a Turk. By this time, the part of Vienna where I grew up was already flooded with immigrants from Yugoslavia, Turkey, Poland, Romania and many others. On one side it was difficult, on the other side it was interesting too because now there were many shops and restaurants with items and food from those countries which were much cheaper than the Austrian shops. I know there are many unsolved problems rooting in this development but I always found that Viennese life got much more interesting and colorful with this melting pot of cultures compared to the Vienna of my early childhood. However, we had many difficulties related to our very different understanding of the role of a man and a woman in a marriage and I divorced him five years later. Therefore I practically raised my two kids – which are now 21 and 23 years old and also live and study in the United States – alone. 2006 I met my husband who is an American Foreign Service Officer and we married the same year in Switzerland where my kids and I moved from Vienna. Since then we lived in Switzerland, Mexico City and in the United States. � Austria World War II Yugolsavia https://www.memory.ctevans.net/files/original/4cb71b257bac448566f1a6de7921c5ea.pdf 0a4f1daa3c9c05ec36e957198ec583aa Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Susan R. Description An account of the resource While drawing roots back to World War II, the family really lived through the 60s and the youth culture that flourished then. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Susan R. PDF Search This element set enables searching on PDF files. Text Text extracted from PDF files belonging to this item. Sue * History is not only a study of the past; history influences and shapes our present and our future. I was born in the years following the end of World War II; my life and the lives of my parents, my ex-husband, my former mother-in-law, and my step-son have been impacted by world events. World War II greatly influenced my father and my mother. My father enlisted in the army at the age of 18, after his first year in college. He never spoke of the war and yet I read his thoughts in a scrapbook my grandmother gave me. It is not the anti-war father that I know now. His letters were filled with the hope of conquering the Germans and preventing further racist actions by the Nazis. Because of an injury in basic training, he was not sent overseas with the rest of his group, and they all perished in combat the first week there. I feel that the war and the emphasis on human rights impacted my father greatly. He was the first in the family to vote for a member of the Democratic party-for John F. Kennedy. He was always an advocate for those less fortunate and believed in being “his brother’s keeper”. My mother met my father in college and remained faithful to him during the 5 years he was gone. She told me that it did not seem fair that she would date someone else when he was so far away. She went to Bates College, in Maine. Because of the war she could not travel to France for the semester abroad and had to stay on campus. There she met Bobby Kennedy, as many of the navy boys were housed there. She married my father soon after he returned from France. She and my father expressed recently how they feel they lived during the “best of times”. Life after the war was a period of marriage, raising children, buying a home and living the “American Dream”. They are still together after 60 years of marriage and still live by the values of the time period in which they grew up. Marriage is about companionship, friendship and working together for a common goal; it is not about self-actualization and individual freedom. �My ex-husband and I grew up during the 50s and 60s; our lives were impacted by the “Generation Gap”, the Vietnam War, and the “Summer of Love”. As a member of the 60’s generation, we experienced the trauma of four assassinations, a war overseas which we witnessed on TV in front of our eyes, the drafting and deaths of our classmates for a war we did not believe in, and the invasion of the Beatles. We questioned everything and we fiercely wanted our independence. I grew up in Ohio and was buying my prom dress when the students at Kent State were shot and killed and I watched the rioting on TV after the assassination of Martin Luther King. The advent of PBS led to me being able to experience the lives of other cultures, as I grew up in an all-white community. Both Joe, who is a musician and I, a teacher, have remained the “hippie-like” kids from the 60s, advocating for social justice, respecting all cultures and lifestyles, and questioning everything the government does. Joe’s mother is a well-known playwright; she has written such plays as Funnyhouse of a Negro and A Movie Star has to Star in Black and White. When she attended Ohio State University in the early 1950s, as an African-American, she was not allowed to major in English but had to major in education. Later, she wrote a play called Ohio State Murders, starring Ruby Dee and taught theater classes at Berkeley and Harvard Universities. My mother-in-law was severely impacted by the racism of her day and it is reflected in her one act surrealistic plays where black female characters pull out their hair and commit suicide. Her stays in Africa introduced characters like Patrice Lumumba into her works. When she left Africa for a stay in London, she collaborated on a one act play with John Lennon. Later this event became a theater piece, My Life With the Beatles. The racism in America made it impossible for my mother-in- law to truly ever accept me or what she called my “white confidence”. In one of her plays, I was drowned and in another, the character Beowulf killed me. �My step-son was born in the post-Civil Rights era and did not experience the same America as his grandmother. He remarked to me once that if he had lived during the period of segregation, he would not have been able to go to school with his friend, Jeremy, who is black. I then had to tell him that indeed, he would have been going to school with Jeremy and that most would still call him Black, even though his mother was white. His heritage enabled him to get a lot of scholarship money and he was pursued by many colleges looking to increase their minority population. He was born on September 11th. I can still remember trying to find a restaurant which was open on the evening following the horrific events of that day. Each of the members of my family has been impacted by the history of our lives. Our parents lived in the period of the “Greatest-Generation”, yet a generation embroiled in the midst of segregation and racial hatred. Joe and I lived in the period of the “Generation- Gap”, a period of individual freedom, a struggle for civil rights, a war which divided a nation, and a period of new music- which seemed to change everything. Eitra was born into a different world, a world of accepted multiculturalism, a world of globalization, and yet, a world where the threat of terrorism prevails. � 1960s World War II https://www.memory.ctevans.net/files/original/608baca0ffcddb9e814e326708373c88.pdf e40fed74bcbcdd8415538e040c65ed01 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Savrigul M. Description An account of the resource The family in Central Asia has lived through the collapse and breakup of the Soviet Union. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Savrigul M. PDF Search This element set enables searching on PDF files. Text Text extracted from PDF files belonging to this item. Savrigul The collapse of the Soviet Union, Civil War and 9/11 attack were the major events that happened during and since WWII. WW II was one of the deadliest military conflict in the history that effected the whole world. I am from Tajikistan which used to be part of the Soviet Union and researches show that the estimated death during that war just for Tajik people is close to 70,000 people. My grandfather M* (whose name I carry as my last name) was a soldier in War War II, who lost his leg and never was able to walk after that. The war ended more than fifty years ago and the world has faced to many changes both positive and negative. One of the biggest and most important even that happened in the world since the WW2 is the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since Tajikistan was part of the Soviet Union, my family and I faced tremendous changes, again both negative and positive. Positive part of it was that Tajikistan was an independent country with its own rules and currency and free under the Soviets control. On the other hand, it was not ready to be all on its own. Once Tajikistan got its independence, people started suffering. Hunger, unemployment and facing the new rules and control lead to civil war which started 1991. Thousands and thousands of people were killed, children were left orphans and everyone tried to get out of Tajikistan as soon as they could. My family itself suffered from every side. We didn’t have any food, my father couldn’t find a job, we used to go to school with no books or even proper clothes. My uncle died during that period of the time, which is still the most unforgettable even in my family’s history. A new president was elected and things started to get better. Yes, things are still hard, but with the help of all the international organizations like Red Cross and the UN, �life is getting easier back home. Tajikistan is a Muslim country and on the map it is very close to Afghanistan. After the 9/11 horrible event, non-Muslim people around the world stereotypically started to think that every Muslim person is a terrorist. When the 9/11 event happened, Tajikistan just started to have internet in the country, so we had no access to up to date information unless the Russian television informed us. When we finally heard it, I remember looking at my mother like I was expecting some explanation. We were raised as true Muslims that would never heard another human being with guns or words. And when we heard that the terrorists were Muslims and were from our very close neighbor Afghanistan, we were completely shocked. My family and I till this day don’t understand why those people are doing what they are doing and their actions are very ugly to us. Those are the three big events happened after WW2 and as you can see , we can find negative and positive part on all those changes and we can only hope for the positive from now on. � 9/11 Tajikistan https://www.memory.ctevans.net/files/original/240ab21148ea0cf8566bba418b6ab2de.pdf 75f888660868d83ffa4928baa8bf6bd0 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Rebekah D. Description An account of the resource Her family comes from a rather unique religious background in rural Virginia. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rebekah D. PDF Search This element set enables searching on PDF files. Text Text extracted from PDF files belonging to this item.         Rebekah *    My family history has always been very important to me, and I am glad to have the  opportunity to write a little bit about it. My grandfather had the greatest influence on me  when it came to world history and our family history alone.  I learned through my grandfather  that I should preserve and cherish family history, how world history has affected my family,  and to continue to make my own history.    First, I would like to state that my grandpa, Asa * was born in Purcellville, Virginia in 1908.   He lived to the ripe age of 94; so needless to say, he witnessed a lot of world history.  Most of  my knowledge on history, and especially my family history comes from my grandpa.  Some of  this history is now carried on through the books he wrote with my great uncle, Werner.  Their  collaborations are full of rich history, they wrote, "The Composition Book," "Ye Meetg Hous  Smal" and "A Medieval Virginia Town, 1914‐1919."  Among these books, they edited and  published "The Ledgers of Israel Janney" and "John Jay Janney's Virginia." My grandpa did an  amazing job preserving history, and greatly influenced me to not only preserve it, but enjoy it.    In addition, my family comes from a Quaker background, which made their condition  fairly different than most during the years after World War II.  I would like to point out that my  grandpa managed to avoid the draft as he stated were for two plain reasons, flat feet and  webbed toes.  It took me years to learn that these were not the only reasons, and that my  grandpa was a very complex man.  During the time of the Cold War, my grandpa had a local  store in Lincoln VA, and ran a farm in Purcellville VA.  Living in a Quaker village it was obvious    �        that the Cold War was not the most important topic.  Quakers do not believe in fighting, but  they believe in peace and balance.  My grandpa made a strong point that our history was here,  in Lincoln VA.  His other point was that what was going on around the world was important,  but everyone’s business is their own.  When my grandma and grandpa would address any  hardships they went through during those years to present, they never mentioned it having to  do with the wars or worldly issues.  With all the chaos that was surrounding my family at the  time, the most important thing was to preserve our family’s history, right where we were.        Lastly, after learning and witnessing the level of importance history had on my family I  am inclined to carry on what my family has started.  Although my grandpa was more interested  in local and early American history, I find more of my calling to be in world history and  international relations.  I will carry on the family history that I have learned, and relate it  strongly to how our history is now mingled worldwide.    Where and what I do with my life will  be strongly reflected by what is going on in the world around me.  I don’t know if I will do as  much as writing books on history like my grandpa and great uncle, but I’ll do my best to  preserve it in other ways.      In conclusion, history and my family go hand in hand, we cannot have one without the  other.  Some of the greatest history I have learned is through the stories told by my grandpa,  which has now been passed on to the current generation.  I’ll do my best to remember how  important preservation is, how my family maintained stable during all the hard times after  WWII, and how it is now my job to continue my own family history.      � https://www.memory.ctevans.net/files/original/32fd45222a167ed038e817b545d9d9b0.pdf f2f4d0f60142bd97a74ad3fd0b8b3c60 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Megan G. Description An account of the resource The family's roots are from Northern Virginia, which is rather rare considering how many millions of people who have moved here since the 1960s. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Megan G. PDF Search This element set enables searching on PDF files. Text Text extracted from PDF files belonging to this item. Megan * During the time frame after World War II, my family was able to recover from the depression and war, and managed to create a prosperous foundation for our family to grow. While some of the family has moved across the United States, we have remained connected because of a strong family history. My maternal grandfather was born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia. While his family was somewhat cushioned from the Great Depression, my maternal grandmother was not. She was born in West Virginia and was deeply affected by the Depression which caused a deep-set desire to save later in life. After the war, my grandmother moved to DC and worked as a secretary for the CIA. She met my grandfather who, after the war, worked for the city of Alexandria and the naval reserves. As the economy started improving, my grandparents were able to buy property in Arlington Virginia and build a house on it, which is where my grandfather resides still. When my grandparent started their family, my grandmother left her job with the CIA to become a nanny until 1961 when she left the workforce to raise her then 3 children, followed by a 4th. My grandfather, who was the first in his family to graduate from college retired from the city of Alexandria in his late 40’s and soon after became a tax preparer which he still is today. Because he made wise investments and bought stock in major companies, they were able to take many family trips to historical sights across the U.S., build a second vacation home at Lake Anna in Mineral, VA and he was also able to put all of his children through college. My grandparents’ children have scattered across the states, two still live in Northern Virginia, including my mom, one aunt lives in Washington State, and the other aunt lives in Colorado. All in all, my maternal grandparents prospered after World War II and for the most part, their children have followed in their footsteps, making wise financial decisions and enjoying the ability to provide for their own families in the same way and pursue their passions in life. My immediate family history has gone through harder times on occasion, but we have never suffered the inability of affording the necessities of life. �After World War II, on my paternal side, my grandfather worked for the US Mint while my grandmother stayed home with her 3 children in Arlington, VA. When my grandfather retired, they moved to Fredericksburg and lived on a farm. After my grandmother passed in 1985, my grandfather stayed in the area for a while, but then retired to Florida. Their three children including my father, all stayed fairly local to the Northern Virginia Area, my father lived in Arlington, my Aunt lived in Fairfax, which she still does, and my other aunt lived in Arlington for a while before moving to Greensboro, NC. Recent history, my paternal grandfather and grandmother are buried in King George County, VA, while my maternal grandmother is buried at Arlington National Cemetery where my grandfather will be placed. Both sides of my family try to gather as frequently as our calendars permit. We take large family vacations with my paternal side every year in October, and since we live so close in proximity with my maternal grandfather, we often get together for dinners and outings at Lake Anna. We don’t get to see my two aunts and their families who live in the west, but we stay in touch to the best of our abilities. Because my families were able to prosper after the war, it has had a direct affect on my life. Having two sets of grandparents that worked for the Government, both City and Federal helped to cushion my family from the negative effects of the Great Depression and World War II. Thanks to my grandparents being able to support my mom, she was able to raise me and my sister in a nice home and provide for us. Learning more about the struggles and triumphs my family went through has made me appreciate what I have and what I am able to do more. After World War II, times changed, the economy got better, families bloomed, and my family was no exception. Both sides of my family were able to thrive and create strong foundations for our families which has remained strong and will continue to grow as our families grow. � Alexandria Great Depression https://www.memory.ctevans.net/files/original/70fa22e74f0c24acb8baa691c538b1a6.pdf c6a658874d3d59119ef3f91e79cdba06 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Kristen R. Description An account of the resource Living in northeastern Pennsylvania, this family lived through the economic depression that swept the area in the 1970s (along with the destruction of Hurricane Agnes). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kristen R. PDF Search This element set enables searching on PDF files. Text Text extracted from PDF files belonging to this item. Kristen *  Before I start my family’s short timeline of events I would like to explain some gaps, in  our family tree. I believe that this will give you better insight as to why I am choosing to write  about some key family members that although they have had a direct affect on my life, they  would not necessarily be seen as a direct linage (ei: my great uncle).  My mother and her siblings were separated when they were very young; my mother  was left in the care of her grandparents because of her tender age of nine months old. Her two  older siblings were said to be in care of my grandfather, an alcoholic, who later returned only to  leave the older two children in the care of my great grandmother. My maternal grandmother  was said to have had a mental break and after leaving my grandfather did not return or make  any further contact. So for the purposes of this report, please understand that those who have  information seem unwilling to diverge more than the fact that my grandfather James Pryce was  a vet of the Korean War and had an issue with alcohol. Though it may sound sad, it is what it is,  as they say.   Originally from the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, both my maternal and paternal  sides have long and extensive roots in business and family. With both families immigrating pre‐  World War II the ability to track family members during this time was quite simple. I have only  one direct relative who was a participant in World War II that returned home to Wilkes‐Barre,  Pa. my grandfather Joseph *. He enlisted at the age of seventeen and was assigned as a cook  for a naval ship. Upon his return to Wilkes‐Barre, he opened his first restaurant with help from  a cousin. Coming from an Italian American family they worked off of general family receipts and  �opened strictly for breakfast and lunch, providing a deli like environment for the department  stores and local companies of the main business square. In 1951 my grandfather married a first  generation Russian‐ American Sofia O*, together they would go on to open three restaurants  and have three children one of which is my father Richard *.  During this same time frame my maternal family, of Welsh decent, was making their pre  and post war contributions by working in the ever slowing coal mines of Northeastern  Pennsylvania. In the late 1800's and early 1900's thousands of immigrants relocated to the  region to work the anthracite coal mines. This transformed the Wyoming Valley from a small  farming area to a metropolis, but after the war, the industry slowed and many workers needed  to redirect their employment efforts. Bertram *, though not quite of retirement age was  relieved of his duties in the early 1950’s from the mines; from here I do not have an accurate  account of his working history.  In 1970 he passed away of a heart attack in his sleep, leaving his  wife Loretta and oldest son Bertram Jr. to financial support the three young children. Bertram  was able to help support his mother with financial affairs by the running of a local gas station  which later purchased and ran for twenty years. My mother the youngest of the three children  would continue to have these two family members be her support system till she married.  On June 23, 1972, tropical storm Agnes swept through the area. In her path, the storm  left nothing but destruction. A total of eighteen inches of rain left 25,000 homes nearly  destroyed, and $1 billion in damages. The river rose to 40.9 feet, 18.9 feet above flood stage,  although 2,278 businesses in Wilkes‐Barre were damaged by the 9 feet of water that flooded  the square, may areas where able to rebound. Unfortunately the family’s restaurants were not  �one of them. Without the proper insurance for the businesses the family had to start over. The  new concept was to keep things simple and The Hut was opened. This location catered to the  Wilkes and King’s College students providing burgers and light fare.  This location later closed in  the late 1988, putting them out of the restaurant business again. On quite literally the other  side of town the * family worked at rebuilding their gas station. The building set slightly higher  and inland did not receive as much damage and was opened back to full capacity rather quickly.   My parents meet in the early 1980’s, my father became the owner and operator of the  Wyoming Valley’s first gym that later expanded to a fitness center and health club. With the  growing demand for a health country and awareness on the rise for health matters my father  had a very successful thirty‐one years in the industry before selling his establishment this year.  My mother left college at the age of twenty to pursue a family life, though she did not complete  her degree she made great advancements in the medical field.   I often think our lives on paper are quit boring. For me it is the makeup of our family  dynamic that must truly be seen in person that makes for the best stories. It is our dramas, our  ups and downs and personal hardships that just could not fit in the confines of a few pages. The  best I can give you here are the mile stones to which we reached, and our most notable  through our work ethic. I hope this provides you with some insight in to a family that stems  from a small area where most people have lived died and never really left.   � https://www.memory.ctevans.net/files/original/955f326c727098c681dfac643b0c0618.pdf d8d9d4c9fe475705b6cdbd37cc595c30 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Kawsar P. Description An account of the resource Bangladesh has seen its share of turmoil since Britain left the sub-continent in 1948, and this family has seen those events first hand. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kawsar P. PDF Search This element set enables searching on PDF files. Text Text extracted from PDF files belonging to this item. Kawsar * I am American Muslim citizen who was born in Bangladesh, to couple from India and Pakistan. The last three generations of my family before me have live through three wars. My family has been a part of the Indian Independence War, Pakistani Independence War and the Bangladeshi Independence War. It is always the survivors who gain or lose the most in the war, same had happened to my family. During 1915-1945 these three countries were all part of a British Colony. With the help of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and many others India was led to its freedom. But within India there were issues; the Indian citizens. India’s population was, and still is, very diverse; there were Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Sikh, and many other. Diversity in a nation is good, but it wasn’t the case here. Muslims in India didn’t want to be a part of India they wanted their own nation. And when this war broke out my family lost a lot, they were resided in Hindu dominated area in middle of India. Hindus and Muslims just jumped out on the streets and robbed, abused, raped, and killed anyone they would. When it became absolutely unsafe my grandparent, who lived with their parents, all had to relocated to find safer ground. They left behind their home, land, farmland, and farm animals. Many people were killed in this time, including few of my family members. My father’s aunt saw her own son being slaughter and thrown in the well along with many other young males. To find refuge, my family members were all over the Indian map. Some found safe ground in Karachi, West Pakistan and some in Bihar, India and some in Calcutta, India and some in Dhaka, East Pakistan. The ones who moved to Dhaka, which is now the capital of Bangladesh, little did they know, that violent will follow them there too. �In 1971, another war broke out between East and West Pakistan, it was a fight for the national language. Since my family was from India and we spoke Urdu, we are once again on the minority. Once again killing began, this time it was worst. My father’s family was well established at this point, but that didn’t matter because they could speak the Bengali language. Once again everyone moved around trying to find safer place. Again they had to leave their land and house, and everything. Some were able to sell their properties and manage to escape to India or Pakistan; my father’s family was able to do that. But my mother side of the family couldn’t afford to escape, they were forcefully kick out of their own home. They found shelter in a three roomed house, they lived there with seven other family. There would be few days in a row when no one ate anything. My mother’s youngest sister died out of hunger at the age of nine months and her oldest brother was killed at the age of 20. It was a very tough time for them, no one know when they were going to eat the next meal or if they would see the new dawn of the morning. Thankfully the war ended in March 26, 1971, and East Pakistan wasn’t East Pakistan anymore; it was Bangladesh. There were some refugee camps in Bangladesh, for the Urdu speakers. Since my mother’s family lost everything in the war, there we living in refugee camps for few years. Even after the war, for many years Urdu speaks were discriminated against. In 1989, when my mother took my brother to enroll in an elementary school, he was denied admission because we didn’t speak proper Bengali. My parents went though the discrimination, and they didn’t want us to face the same thing, and that is why we moved to American to get better education and get a fair chance at life that they didn’t get. � https://www.memory.ctevans.net/files/original/2456bb17bb02f52a64ce5fe31ca6e49e.pdf 124b3ebb416778e83e46b5f269f9cd0a Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Erin G. Description An account of the resource Family has Turkish roots, but older grandparents were Russian who escaped after 1917. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Erin G. PDF Search This element set enables searching on PDF files. Text Text extracted from PDF files belonging to this item. Erin *      My family is Turkish on both sides and I am proud to say that I was the first child born in  the US out of my entire family. My mother’s side is quite complicated, however. Her mother is  Russian, but relocated to Istanbul during the Russian Revolution. My grandmother had to  convert to Islam from her Christian roots; while it was difficult to hide that she looked different  than the other Turkish women. My mother was one of five children and the only one of those  five children to move to America. She moved here in her twenties to go to the University of  Michigan and begin a new life in a new country. That’s where she met my father, who is also  Turkish‐American, but far more Americanized than my mother was.    My father’s side of the family is extremely small, which is unusual in Turkey. He was  born in Istanbul and his parents left him with his grandparents to be taken care of until he was  five years old. During that time, my grandparents from my father’s side moved to the US to  make a new life for themselves. Also during this time was when immigration was starting to  become much more diverse in the US, which my family was a part of.    It’s interesting that regardless of all the shocking events going on in America and the  world at large, during the past fifty years, my family has taken from it to focus on school and  getting the best job possible. In Turkey, it is very highly looked upon if you have a college  degree, especially from a well‐known school. It was not always like that, however. Going to  college and getting a good job in Turkey is very competitive since high‐paying jobs are very  scarce.  �  My mother is the only one out of all of her siblings to have a high‐paying job in society.  My mother’s father was a very successful steel producing factory owner in the early 1940s in  Istanbul. He generated enough money for his family, before his death, which still supports them  to this day. His family came from one of the villages in northern Turkey and he grew up on a  farm and was considered to be low class.    My grandmother came from a very wealthy Russian family but married my grandfather  for love. My grandmother’s grandfather was a very high general in the Tsar’s army. All of their  relatives from that side of the family were killed and the family wealth was looted and lost. My  grandmother was just a baby when her family moved to Turkey and she never met any of her  Russian relatives. Her parents were on their honeymoon in Eastern Europe when the revolts  broke out in Russia, forcing them to never return to their homes or see their families again. It’s  interesting how my grandmother, now suffering from Alzheimer’s, can still remember how to  speak Russian.    Today, my family has every religion in it. My mother was Christian, but converted to  Islam and is still practicing Islam today. My aunt married into a Jewish family and has also  converted to Judaism while my great aunt has maintained her Christian religion. My family does  not practice any religion and we are the only ones who live in America, but whenever we go to  Istanbul, it always feels like our second home. My aunt and I are planning a trip to St.  Petersburg to research information on our lost ancestors in Russia since my grandmother has  never spoken of them or of our family from that side because she was afraid of standing out too  much in Turkish society.   �  Since my father’s family is completely Turkish, dating all the way back to Mongolia, my  mother’s side of the family gives a touch of flavor with my Russian grandmother. It’s so  interesting to learn new things about my ancestors since my grandmother refused to tell us  anything. There are still things we do not know today about her family’s past, but the only thing  we are aware of is that they definitely had strong ties with the Tsar family and were among the  highest officials in Russia during that time.   � https://www.memory.ctevans.net/files/original/1164005b5728a8d9a6ed47c67c2e881d.pdf 9225bbb772bf2c229a0519502e73cc7b Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cheryl W. Description An account of the resource Extended family originated in Germany and many relatives were involved in both world wars. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cheryl W. PDF Search This element set enables searching on PDF files. Text Text extracted from PDF files belonging to this item. Cheryl *      When I married my husband we created a mix of family histories to pass down to our  children.  One branch of my family tree comes from Germany following World War 1 and my  husband has a branch of his family that comes from Germany after participating in World War  2.  Although our families share a similar cultural heritage as Germans they had very different  experiences as German citizens.    My great‐grandmother lived in Wiesbaden, Germany until 1926.  Wiesbaden is situated  a little over 100 miles from the French border.  Her experience during World War 1 would have  been one of great hardship.  Although Wiesbaden did not receive any damage during the war,  all of Germany was unable to get supplies due to a naval blockade held by Britain for the  duration of the war.  German families were asked to give up materials that could be used in the  war effort.  My family was not of great means and would have been very hard hit by the  shortage of food and supplies.    After World War 1, my great‐grandmother married an allied soldier and returned with  him to the states.  They became farmers in Maryland and unfortunately for them they soon  were in the great depression that began in 1929 with the stock market crash.  They were able  to maintain their farm throughout those hard times and even became a family of modest  means.  My great‐grandparents were very hard working and I feel the struggles that my great‐ grandmother lived through helped to create her resilient nature and indomitable spirit.      My grandfather was raised with a sense of "American pride" as he called it.  They were  not allowed to speak German in their household because of concern for the opinions of others  and my great‐grandmother's desire to fit in with other American families.  My grandfather even  �enlisted to fight in World War 2, although he was denied for medical reasons.  So much of our  German heritage was taken from my family when my great‐grandmother left Germany with so  little of her belongings and then even more so when she attempted to assimilate into American  society.  She did not talk about Germany and said it brought back sad memories.  All that has  been left to us are pictures in old photo albums.    My husband's grandmother lived in Bayreuth, Germany until 1950. Bayreuth is located  on the eastern side of Germany near the Czech Republic.  Bayreuth was the capital of the Nazi  Gau of Bavarian Ostmark during the war.  Both my husband's grandfather and great‐uncle  fought as Nazi Soldiers.  His grandfather was an SS officer who was killed during a weapons  malfunction in his initial training and his great‐uncle was killed in Russia as a tank operator. The  hardship of being a widowed mother to a small child in the war and losing her only brother  must have been very hard on the family.   A few years later after re‐marrying the son of an  Ukrainian officer, who was in a relocation camp in Bayreuth, the family relocated to the United  States and became small business owners in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My husband's mother  joined them in 1958 after finishing her education in Europe and they had developed a very  successful and profitable business.    Their experience during World War 1 was very much the same as my great‐ grandmother.  During World War 2, however, the food supplies were not limited in the same  way and Germany began the war as a military powerhouse.  Germans, at that time,  were fed a  steady diet of Nazi propaganda that created a euphoria in favor of the war.  It seems like it was  a misplaced sense of German pride that embraced the hope for a new and better life for the  German people.       �  My husband's grandmother, until her death, did not believe that the version of facts  told by the Allies about World War 2 were true. Whether it was a sense of guilt or loyalty to her  German roots, she chose to believe the best of what she was told during her life in Germany.   My mother‐in‐law said she did not know many details about Nazi Germany until she left  because they were not spoken of in her history classes.  The history of my husband's family has  left him with a strong sense of German heritage.  America became a chance for their family to  make a new life when things became hard in Germany after the war.  Their family had lived  through bombings and Nazi propaganda and came out with a resilience and strength that  brought them through the hardship of two world wars.    I trust my children will be able to learn from our family history and the lessons that  history affords all of us.  I hope I can teach them how to avoid the mistakes of those who came  before us and create a world and history their children can be proud of.     � Great Depression World War I World War II https://www.memory.ctevans.net/files/original/b1eee8b850b39851da0249815d1a84bc.pdf 304a3fb9f7ef713f69d935b041fcf6a4 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ashley T. Description An account of the resource Part of her grandparents and family fought in World War II; while the other side of her family perished in the Holocaust. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Ashley T. PDF Search This element set enables searching on PDF files. Text Text extracted from PDF files belonging to this item. Ashley * Due to the draft, almost all families, including mine were involved and affected by World War II in some way, shape or form. My grandparents on my father’s side are not alive today, but I do know my grandmother was at Pearl Harbor the day it was bombed and had to evacuate at the age of 12 and her father was in the Navy. My Jewish grandparents on my mother’s side is where I accumulated most of my information about the country’s state after the War and how did it personally affect them. During World War II my grandfather, who was a Sergeant in the Army-Air Force and served until he was separated from the military a year after the War had ended. He then traveled to Florida to live out his dream as being a Meteorologist and was hired by the weather bureau. A year later he met my grandmother who was greatly affected by the War. During the War my grandmother worked at a Buick war plant manufacturing buses for the army in Chicago. She had four brothers who were all drafted into the military at that time. The oldest died in 1944 in Italy. The others survived and after the war, left the military and all were involved in the family’s used car business, which did not have much business after the war due to a lack of inventory. My great great-grandmother and 7 of her children (6 brothers the youngest was a two week old, and one sister) to include all their families who lived on a farm in Lithuania were killed during the Holocaust. They were marched out of their houses early morning, �stripped of all their clothes and belongings, were told to dig a mass graves and shot to death. Basically, my great great-grandmother’s entire family except for her was killed that day. This was very devastating, but my grandmother did not receive verification until 1960 after contacting the Red Cross because their letters kept getting returned. My family, since then have tried to recover all the land in Lithuanian that my great great-randfather owned, but they stated that unless my grandmother became a resident they could not receive the land. Even then, their records were not that accurate so I do not even know if she would receive all that was owed to her. After the War there was a lot of racism towards the Jews in America for a long time. My grandparents live in Montgomery County in Maryland and when they first moved there in 1950 there would be signs stating No Jews allowed in some places and parks. My grandfather states that the unemployment rate for the veterans after World War II were very high, the government introduced the GI Bill so soldiers were able to go back to school and get their degree, which a lot of veterans utilized. In conclusion, my entire family was involved in War World II and was affected by the aftermath just like millions of other families. It was a sad and desperate time for a lot of people trying to digest what was left over from War World II and all the missing people and deaths. Though, World War II greatly impacted our country and brought on social, cultural, and economic movements that would change history and lead us in the right direction. �