Pogany tells family's Holocaust story
Nat Curiel
Issue date: 5/4/06 Section: News
The brothers experienced the Holocaust and the rampant anti-Semitism of those years in vastly different ways. Gyuri lived a cloistered life. The secret of his background was well-guarded by the sympathetic Italian villagers, while he served as the personal secretary of the revered friar Padre Pio. In fact, before the war had even broken out, Padre Pio warned Gyuri to stay in Italy, saying that he would be "in grave danger" if he were to return. In Hungary, the government had all but facilitated the Nazis' swift internment of the nation's half million Jews in labor camps and their subsequent deportation to Auschwitz and other camps. Miklos and his wife were separately shipped to Bergen-Belsen. It was there that Pogany's father, Miklos, rejected the Christianity of his youth. His nascent Jewish awareness solidified during an achingly barren Passover observance among the camp's inmates, during which he came in touch with traditions he had never really known. From that day on, he resolved to raise his children as Jewish, should he survive.
The Pogany family was shattered by the Holocaust, and even afterwards. Because of their different experiences, the twins had vastly different perspectives that they could never discuss, much less reconcile. The brothers were warm and affectionate with each other, living close by in New Jersey. But beneath the fraternal warmth lay "blunted animosity" and mutual recrimination until the time of Gyuri's death.
Pogany's talk, in addition to telling his family's unique story, highlighted the need to cast out the painful silence of all those years. According to Pogany, his story, and others like it, merit telling not only "to heal the broken past, but also to remind ourselves who we are and what matters."
The talk was followed by a multi-faith vigil behind the Student Center with representatives of four student religious organizations in attendance.
The Pogany family was shattered by the Holocaust, and even afterwards. Because of their different experiences, the twins had vastly different perspectives that they could never discuss, much less reconcile. The brothers were warm and affectionate with each other, living close by in New Jersey. But beneath the fraternal warmth lay "blunted animosity" and mutual recrimination until the time of Gyuri's death.
Pogany's talk, in addition to telling his family's unique story, highlighted the need to cast out the painful silence of all those years. According to Pogany, his story, and others like it, merit telling not only "to heal the broken past, but also to remind ourselves who we are and what matters."
The talk was followed by a multi-faith vigil behind the Student Center with representatives of four student religious organizations in attendance.
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