Kisvarda Zsinagoga / Shoshanna's Story

This is a Synagogue located very close to the village where my father was born in Kisvarda. If it wasn't for a curious cousin of mine, who has made it his hobby to dwell into the past, I would not have even noticed it. This building is currently used as a museum, and is very beautiful. I have just learned that there used to be over 3,000 Jewish people living in this town up till the second world war. All of a sudden during the holocaust, the families were exterminated in the concentration camps. One family who was trecherously murdered, the Rochlitz  provided work for most of Nagyvarsany's population in the nearby city. Only one child survived a girl by the name of (Zsuzsanna) Shoshanna Rochlitz from a very large family. She is the only holocaust survivor from this family and is currently age 90 and living a very full life back in eastern Canada. Her story is facsinating to me, as she is from the same vacinity as my father is from, Fenyeslitke. My cousin brought her story to my attention through a book called, Shoshannas - story by Elaine Kalman.

Shoshanna's Story: A Mother, A Daughter and the Shadows of History

At the end of the Second World War, a survivor of Auschwitz makes her way home to Hungary. Of all her family, only she and one sister have survived the camps; her young officer husband disappeared into Russia years before. Believing herself a widow, Shoshanna falls under the protection of an older man who, like her, lost everything in the Holocaust. She gives birth to this man’s child by the time her beloved soldier returns, and she has to make a choice that will cloud her life – and her daughter’s – ever after.
Elaine Kalman Naves is the daughter whose earliest memories are of growing up with the consequences of that decision. Shoshanna raised Elaine with a torrent of family lore and all-too-vivid memories: the glamorous and eccentric aunts; handsome suitors and faithless husbands; death by order of the state and murder at the hand of a lover.
Shoshanna’s stories, haunting and vivid, were both a gift and a burden to her daughter. This is a lush and exotic family memoir set against momentous events yet timeless in its truth-telling lessons.

http://www.elainekalmannaves.com/menu/shoshannas-story

I hope everyone gets a copy. I brought two from Amazon, and will be sending them to Hungary. Most of the people who survived the holocaust, converted to christianity, and took on different surnames. Others have kept their faith, and practice the traditional Jewish feasts and festivals. I have over 30 first cousins in Hungary, but many do not even know the history of their towns and cities. This is sad in my opinion, so I hope to bring some light to the past.