Grandpa Molnar
Agi's grandfather (her Mom's father) is a great guy and has led an amazing life. He is 90 years old and, among other things, fought in WWII. Unfortunately for him and Hungary as a nation, the Hungarian politicians in power in the 1940's decided to join up with Hitler and so he was sent off to fight against the Allies.
Agi has heard some amazing stories from him over the years and she wanted to get it all down in writing at some point. So last week she interviewed him out on the porch. It took about two hours a day for two days and I'm looking forward to hearing the details. A few highlights:
- he was captured in Austria at the end of WWII by a group of Americans as he was walking with his fellow soldiers through a field. The Americans didn't treat them too badly; they were given food in captivity, but the soldier who he surrendered to took his gun, and then also took his leather jacket and his watch...
- after the war he, along with many other college-educated Hungarians as members of the "bourgeoisie", was turned over to the Russians for "re-education" at several different labor camp for just under 4 years. The conditions were pretty bad and you had to be very smart and disciplined to survive and not get sick. He pulled through, came back to Hungary and married Agi's grandmother.
There's much more to learn about Grandpa Molnar and I'll read Agi's transcript as soon as my Hungarian gets good enough!... Here's some pictures and one of them is the car he still drives around. The last picture is of Agi's brother Miki and Grandpa. He's in great shape and works out in the garden for a couple hours every day. Another thing I love about him is that he will NEVER let any food go to waste (and he's not a fat guy obviously). After experiencing what he did in the labor camp--and living through the rise and fall of communism--he doesn't take good things in life for granted.
