Posted on 03/11/2021 11:39:06 AM PST by Twotone
Enid Zentelis thought she knew everything about her grandmother, Bella Vital-Tihanyi — a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, mother of two and late-in-life avowed nudist who died in 1998.
“She was my rock,” said Zentelis, who traveled the world with Bella and even lived with her for a time.
Zentelis believed that Bella, born in 1915, had a straightforward war story. A neighbor turned in Bella as a Jew, and she spent several months in a Budapest prison. She survived the Nazi regime thanks to fake papers claiming she was a Swedish citizen waiting to go home.
But Zentelis’ view changed in 2017 when the filmmaker and NYU professor, now 49, was going through her grandmother’s effects and came across a letter dated November 1945. It was from the wartime Allied Control Commission, thanking Bella for her “highly confidential work … at great risk to yourself” for British Special Operations. Zentelis couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Had my grandmother been a spy? I needed to know what this letter meant,” said Zentelis, who went on a global investigation into her grandmother’s past — a four-year odyssey that led to the podcast “How My Grandmother Won WWII,” which concluded this week.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Interesting
Yes it is. Thank you for posting it.
She probably sorted through her grandma’s effects dozens of times and overlooked that one piece. What a rescue before someone burned the whole shebang st once, somewhere down the time line.
“late-in-life avowed nudist”
Some things are better left unsaid.
And most certainly unseen.
My father survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald and when he liberated by the magnificent US Military he was given a job by the OSS because he spoke 8 languages. He was then given sponsorship here and here am I:-)
+1.
Just another way for the New York Post to equate President Trump with Nazis.
I didn’t bother with the podcast. Now I’m glad I skipped it.
The Holocaust was, in the first place, a tragedy for those who died and their families, but in a way for the whole world. How many brilliant scholars and scientists (or people who would have become such if they had lived longer) had their lives snuffed out because of the senseless hatred of Hitler and the Nazis? We will never know what contributions they would have made.
Three of my professors in graduate school were German- or Austrian-born Jews who were lucky enough to get to a safe country in time--all brilliant scholars.
As I've posted occasionally, had Hitler not have a Jewish problem, the core of the Manhattan project probably would have worked in Berlin and a site out in the woods instead of Chicago/NewMexico. And amongst the non Jews were people like Enrico Fermi, who fled because of his Jewish wife. Big brain drain.
I found out later that one of my teachers was a spy in WWII. He spoke perfect English and German.
I love stories like this. They always make me feel inadequate in the courage department, which only exposes my potential.
One never knows what one is capable of in times of trial.
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