Although I am specializing on tours around Slovakia, I received a request for a tour in Ukraine (and later in Slovakia too). Because I am based in Eastern Slovakia it was not my first journey to Ukraine. Erika was born in Mukachevo (UA) 80 years ago and her grandparents lived in Berehovo (around 30 km south from Mukachevo). Both of these towns were for almost 20 years part of former Czechoslovakia, now they are part of Zakarpattia Oblast (province) in western Ukraine, near the border with Hungary and Slovakia. Before Erika moved with her family to United States, she spent some years in Košice (Slovakia) too.
I met Erika with her pleasant family in the early morning in Košice. We needed to drive app. 2,5 hours to Berehovo and maybe more if there is a big traffic on the border. If you want to travel to Ukraine, you should know some facts before: you need to change some money to their currency (they use Ukrainian hryvnia), then you need to set your watch (there is one hour minus) and you need to be very patient at the border. Because the border between Slovakia and Ukraine is also the border of the Schengen Area of the European Union, you can spend there waiting a half day very easily. When we arrived to the border, there was no car except ours. What a luck! But anyway we spent there almost 20 minutes: many questions from customs officers, several times giving and taking our passports, opening and checking the car, insincere smiling at the officers etc. Finally we passed through all controls and made a short stop just some meters after. We changed our money to their currency and continued our drive to Berehovo.
Berehovo or Beregovo is a small city located in Zakarpattia province in western Ukraine, near the border with Hungary. It is the cultural centre of the Hungarian ethnicity living in Ukraine. Residents of Berehovo voted in 2010 in a referendum on renaming the town to Beregszász, its Hungarian-language name. So now the official name of the city is Beregszász (but I will use the previous Czecho-Slovak version Berehovo because of its easier spelling). This cozy town was in the past home for the parents of Nobel Prize–winning economist Milton Friedman who was also advisor to American president Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Some days before our arrival I was communicating with a historian Erika Togyeriska a local resident of Berehovo and I arranged a personal meeting with her too (so we have already two Erikas in our story). Together with second Erika we explored the historical downtown of Berehovo, the restored and very cosy synagogue, the Kesztenbaum brick factory which was also owned by Erika´s (Nr. 1) family and the cherry on the cake was finding the former house of Erika´s (Nr. 1) grandparents! Thank you Erika Nr. 2 for your time!
Some days before our arrival I was communicating with a historian Erika Togyeriska a local resident of Berehovo and I arranged a personal meeting with her too (so we have already two Erikas in our story). Together with second Erika we explored the historical downtown of Berehovo, the restored and very cosy synagogue, the Kesztenbaum brick factory which was also owned by Erika´s (Nr. 1) family and the cherry on the cake was finding the former house of Erika´s (Nr. 1) grandparents! Thank you Erika Nr. 2 for your time!
Because of my meticulous time management we needed to leave Berehovo and move to another city - Mukachevo. Mukachevo is 4-times bigger than Berehovo and it is the administrative center of Mukachevo district. Up until World War II it was primarily a Jewish town, and half the population was Jewish. Formerly in Czechoslovakia, and before that in Hungary, it was incorporated into Soviet Ukraine after World War II. Today Mukachevo is a traditional stronghold of the Rusyn language. The city is a rail terminus and highway junction, and has beer, wine, tobacco, food, textile, timber and furniture industries. We loved its city center where we found a great restaurant and made some shopping too. I forgot to tell you, people in Ukraine are using different writing, they use Cyrillic. So, sometimes it was quite difficult to find the right place. And sometimes even English didn´t work, so we were using Google Translator too (see the picture).
After visiting Mukachevo there was a great challenge ahead of us - crossing the border with Slovakia/European Union again. I was shocked when I saw at least 40 cars waiting at the border in front of us. I remembered the morning experience: no car at the border in front of us = 20 minutes of waiting. But now there were 40 cars at the border in front of us = 800 minutes (13 hours) of waiting?!!! But no worries please! Dr. Branislav has always a plan B! I made a call to an important person who made an another call... Finally, our car was allowed to drive on another road (line) using different gate reserved only for diplomats... (-:
Next day we wanted to explore the Jewish heritage of the city of Košice. We started in the new orthodox synagogue built in 1927. Its interior is in the modernist style with a domed central hall and a women's gallery with a metal mechitzah. The central bimah faces a Torah ark made of wonderful red marble. When Erika was talking with the current synagogue administrator she found out they have many friends in common living in Los Angeles. What a small world! It was amazing to watch them speaking like old friends. There is a small room in the synagogue which is dedicated to the art of Ludovit Feld. Mr. Feld was a famous Jewish painter who survived Holocaust thanks to his monumental talent which was used in the concentration camp by infamous doctor Josef Mengele.
The second part of our day and at the same time the most important part was visit of the Jewish cemetery in Košice. We wanted to find the grave of Erika´s father who died in very young age when Erika was just a small baby. Because I did my research and preparation before we already had a map of the cemetery with the old picture of the grave. We needed just to find it in person. Even today Murphy's law was in force and the grave was on a hill at the very end of the cemetery. Just some minutes after we discovered the family grave a young roe deer appeared. Do you believe in coincidences? I don't!
Maybe you are asking why is the title of my article "Lady from the Roosvelt Street"? On this street in Košice was once Erika´s home (the picture on the top of my article). There was an apartment in which Erika might still have lived if the life would not been full of unforeseen events. Thank you Erika I could spend these days together with your wonderful family exploring your family story.