Medzev

I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel visiting the place where my grandad was born. In a sense it is a place I have no connection with, my grandad left shortly after the Second World War and only went back in the 1980s (I'm not even sure if he went back to Medzev itself). I've never met any of that side of the family and the impression we all had was that it was an unlucky place to be during the previous centuries' conflicts and so didn't want to push my grandparents into discussing it. What we do know is that one of my grandad's brothers, Michael, was marched off by the Russians, along with many others from the town, when they 'liberated' the area and that for part of the war my grandad was in Munich working in the BMW factory. Quite why remains a bit of a mystery, he was only 13 at the outbreak of war.

An online site had been able to provide detatls of my great grandfather Johann (1880-1952), Charlotte, my great aunt (1911-1990), Natalia (1922-1986), another great aunt and Jan, a great uncle (1921-1989). I was hoping to find their graves and if possible see if I could speak to someone in the records office who might know more about the transports to labour camps in Russia, but I knew that this was probably a bit of a shot in the dark.

When we arrived I was struck by how beautiful it was, surrounded by mountains and remebered my grandad telling me how horrified he was when he arrived at Hull harbour and saw the industrial north of England for the first time. Seeing this place I could well imagine having the same reaction. In some ways Slovakia feels very rural still, even though years of communsim sought to industrialise everything. There is a little square in the centre of the town, with the Mary Queen of Angels Catholic Church; a beautiful and traditional church and a monument to some sort of resistance in 1945. There is not much sign here of pre war buildings, except for the church and I would love to know why. The same is true of graves; I couldn't find any pre 1880.

We headed up to the graveyard hidden up at the back of the town, built into a steep hill which is presumably overflow from the more central one. Graveyards are telling about the makeup of the town, and the first thing we noticed was the number of graves which shared the same name, the second is that they were almost entirely German names: Gedeon, Gaspar, Antl, Schmiedt, Tischler, Eiben, Muller, Schuster, Tomasch, Pimzner, Friedl (Friedel), with only a few clearly Slovakian or perhaps Hungarian names. Until 1919, this was part of the Austro-Hunagarian empire. After a lot of searching, and in fact nearly missing it, I found the grave of my great grandparents, Johann and Sarlote (1988-1968). Her maiden name was Gedeon, but interestingly her first name is not spelt in the German way. Next to it was the grave of my great aunt Natalia and her husband Karol. Unfortunately my great grandparents grave was not in a particularly good state, but we couldn't find a flower shop. But I was really moved to be able to find them and see them for myself.

We tried to get into the local records office, but it was closed, although I'm hoping they'll help if I write them a very nice letter. The main graveyard at first looked too huge to be able to find anything, but Lucy found Jan's grave and that of Charlotte and their spouses and also one for a Katarina Ruzbarska (1912-1966) whose maiden name was Nohavickova (unmaried women take that ending so technically I suppose I should too.) This I think is another great aunt as there were definitely two daughters born before Johann went away to fight in WWI. The most interesting find in the graveyard however was a monument to a group of soldiers who all died 21.6.1919 in which there was a Jan Nohavica. The monument commemorates something to do with Slovakian nationalism and the Czech Legion, we checked the guidebook when we got back and it said that in 1919 the Hungarian Red Army tried to reoccupy this area and were forced out by this Czech Legion, so we think it might be related.

There were no other Nohavickas that we could find in Medzev, which leads me to suspect that it was only my family which lived here. The man who let us into the appartment in Bratislava said that Nohavicka is a Slovakian word meaning small/ children's trousers, but that it is quite an unusual surname in Slovakia. This also suggests that my grandad's side of the family weren't part of the German settlers who moved here, but were in fact Slovakian which makes sense because although my features are very German - blonde hair, blue eyes etc, my grandad and his siblings had dark hair and eyes. Much of this needs to be confirmed, but it is a very encouraging start to finding out more about this side of my family.

Interestingly, there is no mention anywhere that I could see of the citizens taken to Russian Labour Camps, although that it happened is well documented. I'd really like to find out what happened to Michael as it is something which grandad was always anxious to know about and hoped he survived. Everything else that I discovered while we were there he probably already knew about, but it would be nice to answer this question one way or the other.

We finished a lovely visit in the main square eating lunch of sardines, apples and bread before heading back to Kosice and a typical Slovakian dinner of dumplings, goulash and cabbage rolls. A very moving day for me.

(For anyone interested, I've attached a couple of websites about Medzev or Metzenseifen as it is in German.)

http://www.oldmetzenseifen.de/

http://thoey.tripod.com/hoey/stories/laborlist.html