Exploring Hungarian Roots | Linda Broennima

Stories in Our Roots

Heather Murphy: Hi, Linda. Thanks for joining me today on my podcast.

Linda Broenniman: Heather. Thank you so much for having me. This is such a wonderful opportunity to speak with you. I’m thrilled. Thank you.

Heather Murphy: So you recently published a book about your family and I’d like to talk to you about the beginnings of your wanting to learn about your family, or even maybe before you wanted to learn, but you got little snippets along the way. So can you tell us that journey that you’ve had of getting to the point where you decided, hey, I need to learn about this?

Linda Broenniman: Well, you know, I grew up in a big family, Buffalo, New York, and I always knew that my parents were Hungarian immigrants that came to the U. S. after World War II. But we grew up Catholic and I just, you know, had a normal upbringing. And then, about the age of, I think I was about 27 years old, by accident, my sister learned from her godmother that my great grandmother was Jewish, which meant that my father was Jewish. So big surprise. But, you know, at 27, I was busy with who I was and starting a new career and figuring out what to do and it didn’t really matter that I was Jewish, religion wasn’t that important to me, so I just took it in stride and didn’t really do anything.

But over time, a couple of times, I went to Hungary with my parents, and then I got to ask my mother some more questions and started to probe and so on. My mother would tell me some things. My father was completely, wouldn’t go there. Just didn’t want to talk about it.

But then a couple things happened later in life. In 2006 my mother was awarded Righteous Among Nations. And for your listeners who don’t know what that is, it’s the highest award that the Israeli government can give to Christians or non Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust. So it’s a very, very big honor, but we didn’t really know anything about that. Back when I had been in Hungary with my mother, my mother had sort of said, well, I hid a few people. And that was, you know, her humility, but to find out that she was actually honored by the government was a very big deal.

So I tried to find out more. at that point, she had Alzheimer’s so she was not a source of information, and my father would still not go there, so I tried to reach out to her friend, her best friend, who had actually saved her and put her up for the award, and a few other people, but I didn’t get very far. And a lot of people, for example, her friend just said, well, I don’t want to talk about it it’s too painful to discuss, to bring up those memories. so fast forward in 2011, my parents’ house caught fire and my sister was living in Buffalo at the time and was able to pull out a number of things and save some things and didn’t even realize that she had saved a box, a very key box, and she had put it then in a closet sort of way back, so she forgot, didn’t even know she had this box.

But then in, in about 2016, there was just something in, in me that said, it’s now time I really need to learn about my family. And the only thing I had known, way back when my brother was in medical school, I remember him coming home and telling my parents that going to go into ear, nose and throat, the ENT specialty. And I remember my mother saying, oh, well, you have a famous relative, Adam Politzer, who was very famous, he was basically considered head of otology. Otology is the study of the ear. So that’s the only thing I remembered. So I started to do some Google searches and trying to at least find out who Adam Politzer was.

you know, he has his own Wikipedia page and he’s had books written about him and lots of medical papers that, of course, I couldn’t really understand, but and a lot of things in German. But I was frustrated I wasn’t getting very far and I didn’t really understand how we were, related to Adam Politzer.

Then my sister starts cleaning out her closets and finds this box. I think it was a miracle that here was this box that, quite frankly, the contents of it had survived World War 1, World War 2, the Hungarian Revolution, and my parents house fire, and then my sister finds it.

And most of the documents were in Hungarian, so we really couldn’t understand it. I started looking for people who could help, you know, there were, there were documents, there were letters, there were documents, pictures these photographs that were just wonderful. So I wanted to know who these people were.

So it was sort of that spark that said, okay, now it’s really time and I’m going to start and dig in.

Heather Murphy: I think a lot of people have a similar thing where in their younger years they know they don’t know much, but they’re either not interested or they don’t think they have the time to go back. And so what you’re providing then for the future generations for your family is that they’re going to have these stories when they’re younger.

And I’ll touch on that a little bit later with something that you said in writing about one of your ancestors. So once you started into these documents, how did you get the help that you needed to be able to pull together the story and your history?

Linda Broenniman: it was difficult because everything was in Hungarian and, to be honest, Google Translate and all those translate programs, Hungarian is a really difficult language. So they just didn’t work. So I knew I needed to find Hungarians who could translate. But then, just by luck again, I think someone was watching over me, by luck, a friend of a friend knew somebody who was Hungarian. She was Jewish. And she’s a remarkable person. So, and she lived about a half an hour away. So I took the box. I took some of the files out and I went to her house. And we sat down and I thought, Oh, I’m just going to be there for an hour or so. I was there 6 hours and, and we could have gone on and on and on. I had to leave. But what she said is 1st of all, some of these documents, she said are very important documents and you really need to research them. But then she also, she gave me so much context around it, and that’s what I really needed. I needed to understand the history. And you think I, I knew all this history. I didn’t, I, I was, you know, 1 of the things I started doing was reading a lot of history books so I could understand the times.

She was remarkable and she introduce me to Andras Kaczynski was his name, and he was remarkable. He was a Hungarian. He was a lawyer and a sociologist, and he had also done some of his his previous work on a town called Papa that was basically wiped out during the Holocaust. But he was a remarkable person, and we worked together for six or seven years until, unfortunately, he died of colon cancer.

But he was a remarkable person, and he found things in places that you just wouldn’t believe. He started out with his own databases of various data sources, but he found newspaper articles and books and books written by family members, books written about family members. He went to marriage, death certificates and, and donation books. And some of these donation books, first of all, they’re beautiful, but there are these humongous ancient registers from that, you know, 17 and 1800s that are all handwritten and it’s, it’s just remarkable. So, yeah, he found a lot of information. Without him I could have never piece these stories together.

Heather Murphy: And I think one of the strong points of what you have put together is that historical context, because even if you did know Hungarian history, it’s completely different when you have a family that you’re following through these events. And that’s what you do in the book, is you can see the different things that are happening in Hungary, all the ups and downs and everything, and then you have the effects on your family. That you can actually see to make that just general history become real and to be able to see the real effects on people coming down to you.

Linda Broenniman: Yeah, it’s remarkable. And even there’s some things that, I’d read something and I would sort of hone in on it and then ask Andrash. And Andrash, there were some things that he didn’t know. And so we would then sort of explore together and we found out things that they’re not in the history books because of those details, those personal details. It was a wonderful, fascinating journey. It was remarkable.

Heather Murphy: Yeah, and kind of a personal touch in your writing is that when you’re going through this historical context, and you do run into those places where you can’t quite know what happened, you put in your, like, well, this could have happened, or this could have happened, or this could have happened. We don’t know.

But you’re letting that curiosity come out. And I think that helps us get to know our ancestors better when we let that curiosity come out, whether or not we find the answer, but it just connects us better.

Linda Broenniman: Absolutely, because it’s, it’s more human, right? We, you know, even when there’s, some event, you don’t know how you would react and how they would react to it and yeah, sort of the human element.

Heather Murphy: Yeah. and one of the blessings that was in your research is you found this book that was written by someone several generations back from you that gave more personal information several generations back from him that really added some of that. How did the people feel? What were their personalities?

You gave a, a really nice description of Abraham and what he exemplified in his life because you were able to find these documents that other people had written.

Linda Broenniman: Yeah. So just to give your listeners a little bit more, what I found and, the, uh, relatives name was Sigmond Pulitzer and he was the youngest of 4 or not the 2nd youngest of 14 children by Abraham’s father, Abraham and, um, mother, Caroline. And that’s what you’re referring to. He described him as the most incredible person incredible father you can see from the stories of Abraham that, yeah, he did fulfill that role. He was just a remarkable person, and unfortunately died, died a little too young when Sigmund was only 12.

Heather Murphy: Well, let’s talk a little bit more about Sigmund’s story because at one point in your writings, you say that you wish that you would have known his story as you were telling your parents who were very much hoping their children to go into medical professionals that you were choosing a different path.

Linda Broenniman: Yes. So Sigmond, and Sigmond’s so interesting because he was young when his father died, and he, as the second youngest, he had successful siblings, like Adam who we spoke about, Adam Politzer, was the famous doctor was his older brother and one of his favorite brothers. And he had another very famous doctor in the family, Illish, who was the second oldest.

So here he was, and he didn’t do that well in school, probably because his father died, and he didn’t go on to, a profession, so he became a businessman and a very, very successful businessman. He was, a banker. He was an investor. I think what you would consider sort of an investment bank these days.

And he invested in the early advent of railroads and automobiles. The one thing That Andras had found was a speech that he’d given to the stock market, I guess, you know, investors and so on about how there should be stock market transparency.

And you think about it then and here we have the same same issues. So, when I look back on him, here was this incredible person. He didn’t go into medicine. He did his own thing. He was very successful. And yes, so when my father was pressuring me to become a doctor, I wish I had known about Sigmund and I would have said, well, look at Sigmund.

Heather Murphy: And Sigmund had a rough too. He was bounced around quite a while before he found that success.

Linda Broenniman: Absolutely, and that’s part of what’s what makes that that chapter of him so interesting, right? Because his brothers tried to, I think, tried to help him, but they also used him almost like a slave doing all this manual work. But then he sort of found his own groove and became very successful.

Heather Murphy: Yeah. And used those experiences that he had in the past, even though they weren’t the greatest to,

Linda Broenniman: absolutely.

Heather Murphy: to help him to be able to do what he did excel at.

Linda Broenniman: Exactly. He’s a real inspiration. And I think what’s also might be interesting to your listeners is that he married Irma Pulitzer. When I first Read it and I was, I was trying to piece together, you know, I was trying to put together the family tree and it was such a big family tree because of those 14 children.

And I’m trying to get all the names right. And I thought, oh, this is just a spelling. Right? So, because it is spelled with an, O, and Irma was spelled with a U. And when I learned about it, Irma Pulitzer is was Joseph, you know, Joseph Pulitzer’s, cousin, and he, he married her. So Irma Pulitzer became Irma Politzer.

Heather Murphy: Yeah. And that’s where it’s important to know when you talk a little about it, about it in there, like the history of names and where they come from, because yeah, you would think that that’s just a little spelling variation, but it doesn’t mean that they’re the same family. They’re completely different.

Linda Broenniman: Right. And that was, that was a real challenge for Andrash and for both of us as we were exploring this, because the other thing about it is that back then people weren’t so particular about spelling names properly. So you might have a document that says spells Politzer 3 different ways and spells Sigmond 3 different ways. So you’ve got to make sure you’re getting the right person. So it was quite challenging.

Heather Murphy: what family legacies or commonalities can you see through the generations now that you’ve gone clear back in the 1700s? Kind of what are the themes that came out for you personally?

Linda Broenniman: Well, you know, I think the biggest thing is, that almost without exception all of these ancestors were concerned about service and being of service and helping the next generation to be better and making the world a better place. I mean, I know it sounds a little, you know, pat, but they really believed in service. And when I look at my parents, and I think that’s 1 of the biggest things that was sort of drummed into my father and my father drummed into us that, we need to use whatever talents we’ve been given and help to make the world a better place. So I think service is a is a biggie.

Heather Murphy: It may or may not, but did the way you see your father and your grandmother change after you learned what their history actually was and their experiences? Um,

Linda Broenniman: It was, and I will talk about my grandmother, especially. So my grandmother came over in 56 after the Hungarian revolution. When she came, I was a baby. So, here was this, I thought this wonderful, wonderful person who loved us and she did love us. You know, that’s, that’s completely true.

She was a wonderful person. But she was also, we thought she was sort of meek and scared of things. She never learned how to drive and so on. And, I don’t know why, but there was this reputation that she was just a party girl. She just, she loved to party. She loved to socialize and that was her and and clearly that’s true.

She loved to socialize. But what I think is what change my opinion, a couple things. One, I read, so there was another book that we had found that was written by my father’s cousin about, the years of the Holocaust and how they survived. And there’s one passage that says that she actually went to the Jewish cemetery to honor her father and she went at a time where it was extremely, it was very treacherous to go. And the Jewish cemetery, by the way, is a good 30 minutes outside of the center city, which means she had to take a bus and various, public transport. And even be on a bus as a Jew. During that time, she was taking her life into her own hands. that just struck me as, hey, she was not this scaredy cat, she was fearless.

I think the other thing that really shocked me when I went back to that Jewish cemetery was that her sister had put her name on the family crypt. Now, her sister was Very poor. They had very little money. and so to do that was a very big deal. And to learn that, here, my grandmother, you know, went to church with us every Sunday, to Catholic mass, to learn that her faith was still very important to her. And she, I believe that she really loved Hungary and, and was not very happy in the U. S. I think she loved us, but I, think she was not happy living here. So that changed me a lot. I love her. That piece didn’t change, but a lot more respect for this person who really withstood horrible, horrible times. and my father also, you know, I never knew that my father was in a labor camp. And so he was 2 different camps and to learn that what he went through. You have a whole different perspective then about why your parents react the way they react to certain things.

Heather Murphy: like, we’ve kind of touched on a little bit that those experiences shaped your parents view of the world, even though you didn’t necessarily realize at a time, like that, wanting you to go into medical field, because, as you said in the book, people can’t take away what, you know, you don’t have to have any assets to be a doctor and that was reflection of their past experience.

Linda Broenniman: Right. Because those who weren’t doctors, you know, they lost everything and most of the family were lawyers. but you they didn’t survive, but had they survived they couldn’t practice Hungarian law in the US. so they would have had to really start over

Heather Murphy: So in retrospect, you can kind of see the effects

Linda Broenniman: yes. Yes.

Heather Murphy: you mentioned toward the end of the book that there’s this Jewish statement at a person’s death, ” may their memory be for a blessing.” Can you talk about how the memory of your ancestors now that you know them has been a blessing to you?

Linda Broenniman: Oh, my goodness. it has been such a blessing to me. You know, I think before I started this, I didn’t really know I had roots, and the cover of the book is the tree with the roots. And I think when you grow up and you don’t know anyone except your parents and I knew my grandmothers, but I didn’t know my grandfathers and I didn’t know anything about them before, you feel wobbly.

I mean, literally, you feel wobbly. And I think knowing that I have these roots, that I have these people who are They lived through incredible challenges, and yet they were resilient and no matter what, no matter what cataclysm happened in their life, I sense that they maintain this positive attitude that they still believed in humanity and they still wanted to serve humanity.

I’ll give you an example. Margie was the great grandmother who we found out was Jewish. And really, I, when I started this journey, I really wanted to learn most about Margie. And here Margie had lost everything in World War 2. her, her husband had died, right after World War 1.

But then, you know, she had lost all of her homes. She was actually expelled by the communists. And when she came back, she was allowed to live in 2 rooms in her humongous house that she had. But 1 of the things she did is she gave all her furniture to another woman who was completely penniless. and actually, before the communists took it over, and right after World War 2, she gave a room with a lot of furniture to this woman so she could live.

And so here, Margaret has almost nothing left of her own and yet she gives it to this woman who I think she had a baby or something. So that’s just sort of an example about here she’s lost everything and she’s still giving to other people. So that just shows their character, I think.

Heather Murphy: Thank you so much for joining me. I will have links in the show notes to your book and website. Is there anything more that you’d like to add about this project that you’ve accomplished?

Linda Broenniman: Yeah, for your listeners, the best thing I can say is, in my home, there was this web of secrecy. I just wish that I had pierced it long before, because to be able to hear these stories, when I think about my going back to my grandmother, I think about she would have known Adam Politzer and Sigmund Politzer and all these incredible people, to have learned that firsthand from her would have been just remarkable. So I just want to tell your listeners, keep asking the questions, keep asking,

Heather Murphy: That’s good because at some point you’ll get some type of answer.

Linda Broenniman: you’re right,

Heather Murphy: At least more than you would if you didn’t try.

Linda Broenniman: Yeah, and sometimes the fact that you don’t get an answer tells you something too.

Heather Murphy: Yeah, so one more thing about your book, for those who have Hungarian, especially Hungarian Jewish ancestry, if you want to learn historical context, Linda’s book is full of historical context, and she also includes in the back a list of the secondary resources that she used to learn more about that history and what it really meant for her ancestors to live when and where they did. So thanks again, Linda.

Linda Broenniman: Thank you so much. I enjoyed our conversation. Thank you.