Week 1: Vác - The bringing together of 2 Marafko lines

A lot happened in that first week. The thing is that everybody works during the weekdays and I was very aware that everyday that Feri was with me, he wasn't earning, driving his taxi. So I pre-arranged a meeting with Magdus Schulcz, a Marafko female married to Toni (Anton) Schulcz. All Feri had to do is to drive me to Vac in the morning, I would stay the night and return by train back to the West End station (Nugáti pálya). No problems.
Magdus represented the first of the Vác-Nagymaros Marafkos that stemmed from Lazarus who was born in hometown Hidaskurt - now Mostova in Slovakia in 1857. These Váci Marafkos almost forgot their origins and it was through me and some intensive work on the net that I could now physically bring both lines together.
Magdus and Toni were very gracious and took me to so many places, I quickly got lost. The GPS function in my camera and some facebook postings helped me out here. Part of this was the result of being in a stranger in an almost strange land. Although I was in Hungary in 1979, it was so long ago that my memories had faded enough. They were also the first pensioner couple I stayed with and they live in an apartment block in the city of Vác, rather than an older 'porta' or house with garden and orchard.
Some pics:

The Carpathian Church near Vác

The Turul Bird carrying man(kind).

Grassalkovich's Palace in Gödöllő - He had a few. There's another one of his in Bratislava, now being used by the President of the Slovak Republic.

Gödöllő

And of course the Cukrászda - A unique Hungarian style patisserie and coffee shop. Here we see one of my favourites - the "Francia Krémes" or French Cream slice. This particular Cukrászda had one of the best.

There are a lot more pictures and we will return to Magdus and Toni later on. As the week ended, I became eager to visit my closest cousin Gabor who lived in the SW corner of Hungary.

Week 1: Marafko Laszlo - Author, Editor and Reporter

The 3rd day in Hungary and I met another of my father's friends and relative, Marafko Laszlo or Laci as he is known to friends.

Laci is a published author now retired from the Budapest press. He has had a very full life, even reporting on the Vietnam war in North Vietnam, from the perspective of Soviet Hungary. In total I met him 3 times as we had a lot to talk about. His father began the Marafko genealogy many years ago and passed on the work to him. Independently, I began my work in 2010 and could confirm his work in late 2011 which was a reconfirmation of my work as well. The difference being that I undertook the whole of the Marafko family, whilst his work concentrated on his line only. The other difference is that he continued the tree to the present day, while I've decided to stop as far as written accessible records are available - being 1895 to be perfectly safe.

Marafko Laszlo in his younger years

Marafko Laszlo, myself with a different pug shirt and Kapus Feri.

Laci and I immediately began to discuss data, especially the phonetic transformations of the family name of Marafko from the original Moravko. We had little time together as Feri is a competitive table tennis player and had to go a few hours later. Here, I'm feeling a lot better. I had an extreme incident about 3am that morning when the pain was so severe that I woke up screaming - swearing at myself. This woke the household, but I soon calmed down and went back to sleep.
I was really glad to meet him twice more, once at his home and the other on a Budapesti street where we had a quick celebration of my birthday.
I realized that Laci and I had a connection that came from our own university disciplines. This aspect of the value of meeting the intelligentsia wasn't apparent to me until much later and almost in hindsight.

Kapus Feri's table tennis team May 2013

Week 1: Rezsnak Miki and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956

Prelude: I was born in Budapest on the 15th June 1955. On November 28th 1956, my father Robert, my mother Olga and me left Hungary during the last few weeks of the Hungarian revolution. There are many stories on the net about this and I'll make my contribution here. Although there is much more to this history, I'll write only the relevant details in specific regard to Rezsnak Miki here.

Miki is a Marafko relative who was very close to my father. His mother was a Marafko and the family lived close to the Austrian border. Once my Budapesti parents made the decision to flee as refugees, they planned their escape knowing that many others were turned back by the AVO , often with the help of Hungarian pro-Soviet sympathisers. So the route that they chose was either unknown by the AVO and Soviet forces or at least, not patrolled regularly. To put this in perspective, it was almost impossible to cross the border that late in the revolution and a week later, all borders were forcibly closed.

My Mother - Olga Martyn - Marafko Olga ne Jeges Olga in August 1956 tutoring Miki in maths.

About 10 Hungarians including my family assembled together and with the help of Miki who was about 15 at the time, were led to Agfalva, a small village near the border. There, he knew of a trusted man who led at least 6 of these 10 to a place where they were able to safely cross. This party included Holmik Imre, wife Marika and son Gabor - family friends then and for many years afterwards.

Now, in 2013 I met with Miki and his wonderful wife Teri.

Feri Rezsnak Miklos and Me (still at 82kg) looking over some old photos in the 'Pavilon' - a common outdoor structure in Hungary.

Teri with my grandmother's table cloth. It was offered to me - but I decided not to accept it.

Miki is a wonderful host, Teri an amazing cook - a Chicken Paprikas for lunch. Old memories returned with the help of many of Feri's photos and new connections made, especially between Feri and Miki.
Miki is better known as a radio star and had spent all of his life in cultural work during Soviet times in theatre, radio and television. He can be found here on YouTube although more can be found on different search engines.
I met him a week later when he came to visit my cousin Marafko Gabor - my primary relative and significant one at that.

The Plan - The Plan and Arrival

So knowing that I was somewhat disabled (eventually I need an operation), what was the plan?
Green: I accomplished
Red: No way accomplished
Blue: Somewhat accomplished

• Basically, not to waste $2500 + other expenses that I had spent in preparation for the trip.
• Use as much tech as possible: Audio, Video, Digital, Internet etc.
• Visit with all the discovered members of the Marafko family in Slovakia and Hungary.
• Visit relatives I already met in socialist Hungary, 1979 - I was 25 years old btw.
• Meet with others who knew of my family and expand my network for genealogical purposes.
• Give a talk to the Tallosi school for English students about Australia. This was pre-planned.
• Do research at the Magyar Országos Levéltár -  The Hungarian Archives in Budapest.
• Get some Soviet paraphernalia for my collection.
• Find and buy an Eastern European guitar - preferably East German make.
• Bring home some paprika, a Mak grinder and Nokedli sieve.
• Enjoy myself - And I went with the philosophy of being polite, uncomplaining and sharing.
• Experience everything I could - push myself.

Arriving May 4th: Vienna
My 2nd Cousin is Kapus Feri - or Feri who has his own business driving a Budapest Taxi. I've never met him except for calls on Skype and Facebook contact. He was so kind to my mother Olga whom he helped enormously in 2012. Olga is unstoppable - almost travelling every 2 years to someplace around the world. Ostensibly she is a dog judge and finds it exciting to go to various dog shows around the world or just visiting friends or places she finds interesting. A real wunderlust for the world, unlike me who likes to be house-bound.
In any case, he came to collect me in Vienna in his Budapest taxi!!!!

Me, Kapus Feri and his son Kristof at Vienna airport about 11pm.

By the time I get to Vienna, I'm pretty much in a waking coma. Why? Well I woke up on the morning of the 3rd, picked up by my uncle Louis who drove me to Sydney. Played darts that night and slept on his couch (the most comfortable position for me could only be on a couch with my legs at a 90 degree angle on my left side) for about 1 hour, woke at 2am on the 4th, check in at Kingsford-Smith Airport at 3am, no sleep for 23 hour trip and about 4 oxycodones + diabetic medicines + anti-inflammatories. Pretty much 40 hrs drugged up and awake.
I still managed to be coherent and communicated in my broken Hungarian till the early hours of Sunday. With about 8 hrs of relatively calm sleep I found myself here at Feri's home, suffering nothing but culture shock and a deep sense of peace.

Sometime Sunday morning in Kis Pest. Me with my pug T-shirt, a nice mug of coffee with Feri - the nicest host and the best guy ever.

A personal note: I lost 10 kg over the previous 2 months due to my illness. I was 82kg on arrival. Maybe you can tell by my thin legs. My diabetic condition does result in a bigger tummy than normal.

The Plan - Prelude

I found myself working on my father's family genealogy in 2010 thanks to the family search arm of the Mormon religion that enabled Slovak (Old Hungarian) registers on the internet. I'm not a Mormon and the resources provided by the Utah organisation are available to anyone with internet access.
Soon, I became very interested in the Marafko name and delved deeper into researching it. I'm a qualified historian and became interested in working the family genealogy within the history of Hungary over the last 300 years.
Eventually, I got my mother involved as her command of Hungarian is superior to mine. She also has a good intellect with excellent problem solving skills and soon we developed a strong working relationship.
We made contact with some Marafko family members from hometown Hidaskurt (now Mostova) in Slovakia and in 2012, my mother travelled there, staying with my father's remaining relatives for approximately 10 days. On her return, it was decided that I too should go, people contacted, plans set up and money saved for the long trip from Australia to Europe.
I bought a return ticket from Sydney to Vienna in November 2012 travelling Emirates as they have the shortest travel time. The long leg to Dubai (United Arab Emirates) was 15 hours, 3 hour wait then another 6 hours to Vienna. I booked for a 6 week trip starting May 4th 2013 with a return date June 19th.
That gave me 5 months to complete enough of my genealogical work to take something substantial to relatives and branches of the Marafko family in Hungary and Slovakia.
It didn't turn out that way as I developed 'Canal Stenosis' which is where the spinal cavity shrinks and presses on the spinal chord. This prevented me from sitting and sleeping for about 2 months. Only after 4 spinal injections and a continued course of Oxycodone did I decide not to cancel. In the end, I went unprepared, but I took enough technology with me, deciding that I could at least bring home more data to complete the Marafko family line.
I also decided to ask for wheelchair access which I recommend to anyone who has a medical condition as it makes all security and boarding extremely simple and fast.

The brilliant Panasonic TZ-30 Travel camera on a Manfrotto tripod set up to photograph documents and pictures.

Wheelchair access - Emirates Sydney.

Grin and bear it: 4 spinal injections and drugged up on Oxycodone just before I got into a wheel chair at Sydney Airport.

My biggest problem was carrying 200 oxycodone tabs - which is a commercial quantity through Dubai. Even as a transit passenger, I had no choice but to take 2 tabs before I landed in Dubai so I had nothing on me in case I got searched.