#and they worked with the Mennonites to get everyone even tangentially related sponsored to come over as refugees | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rebeccabobecca · 2 years ago

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Grandpa was drafted by the nazis (they literally kidnapped him bc he spoke German, Russian and ukrainian), and then when the Russians beat back the nazis, he was sent to a prison camp in Siberia, and then when the Russians were told in the 50s to let their pows go, they just, opened the doors, so he walked over 1000km back to Crimea.

The best part of my “humans are so cool my grandma’s heart healed itself my great grandma survived tetanus” post is the people in the tags telling me the remarkable things their relatives survived. They range from things like ‘great grandpa was shot in WW1 and then gassed while crawling away and then he stumbled blind into a farm house which was hit by a mortar shell but my French great grandmother found him and saved him and nursed him back to health’ to ‘my uncle got drunk and passed out in the snow in North Dakota in -10° weather while trying to take a piss and got frostbite on his dick but he was ok and I have cousins so I guess it wasn’t that bad’ we all have our crosses to bear.

#my ggrandma came over to escape the Russian revolution #and they worked with the Mennonites to get everyone even tangentially related sponsored to come over as refugees #so after he made it back to ukraine he came over to canada and worked on my grandmothers farm #my other grandparents were hungarian jews who were both in concentration camps and lost most of their families #after they made it back to budapest they ended up having to escape during the hungarian revolution #they drugged my dad who was 6 to keep him quiet and walked from Budapest to the austrian border and came to canada #my dad almost died from chicken pox on the boat ride over #family history

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