Sponsored An Emigrant - 1951

[Back to topic list] [Back to Romy & Dorothy - "Any Level Of Success Is Not Success Unless You Give Back" Topic]

Anna, Rozalia Nemeth
On June 3, 2002 Anna isited in the Minnetonka home of R. Gracza, where she related the events of her family's immigration to the United States. It was exerpted and translated as follows:

Anna was born in Rakospalota on December 3, 1936 to No� Jozsef, 43 and Alexi Maria, 28 as the first daughter of the family. Her siblings, Maria was born in 1938, Terezia in 1941, Jozsef in 1940 and Janos in 1946. Anna started her education in the 1944-45 schoolyear in Pestujhely in a restaurant, because the school building was bombed out in the raging WWII. With the front nearby, families were to be evacuated to the country side and the Noe family with others was entrained in a box car, that was rambling westward on the tracks that were still in useful condition. After two weeks they arrived to Austria (Overburg?) and were housed in a school on straw with blankets, where in 1944 at eight, Anna spent the Christmas eve. The families were shifted around twice before they arrived to Landshut, Bavaria. Here they were distributed to farms in Hub, Kirchberg, Trindorf, Kongd etc. The Noes with nine other families were crammed into an ancient dancehall in Hub above the cow barn of the Gasthaus Schwab. In November 1945 the group of about 45 persons were conscripted to be sent back to Hungary. Packed up they were waiting outside in the rain and snow for trucks to be transported to Landshut. But the trucks did not come. After 9.00 pm. an American jeep showed up with the message to the Burgermeister to place them into closeby farmhouses. About 30 people including the Noes were placed into the Ohnersdorf farmhouse of the Kaspar family, who had to share their kitchen with the refugees. - Years before the Kaspars produced pottery, some of them on display in the Landshut Museum. - The Noes lived there for 6 years, from 1945 to1951. This is where the youngest, Janos was born.

Father Jozsef at 57 did not think he had a chance to emigrate, but he registered in the Munich and was accepted as a displaced person. Starting on November 23, 1951 his family boarded the Liberty ship, USS Taylor, a former troup carrier and on Dcember 7 they docked in New Orleans. Next day they disembarked and the Noes "invaded the US". Their sponsor in New Orleans declined to receive them, so the National Catholic Welfare Conference entrained them with others and sent them to Chicago and New York to be placed. The punishment handed out to the butt of misbehaving little Janos attracted the attention of father Kloos, who asked from the Seminary for a Hungarian interpreter to talk with the parents of the family.They became sponsored by the church of Romy Hammes a cardealer in Kankekee, Illinois.Here father Consineau's church eventually found work for Jozsef with A.0. Smith, Hot water heater manufacturer, from where he eventually retired.

In 1956 Anna finished her highschool in Kankekee. She registered into the Champagne Urbana engineering school, but because of the frequent need to interpet for the '56-er refugees she abandoned her studies. Her sister, Maria went to school in Minneapolis to study for clerical work and ticketing. She lured Anna to make use of the better employment opportumnities in the Twin City area. So Anna relocated; met Nemeth Istvan and in 1958, March 30th they got married.

Click Here For Details. And it's #22
www1.minn.net/~graczar/FTR-214_InterviewsMinnHung.htm