Broken By Silence and Breaking the Silence: Part of What One Mixed-Blooded Jew Carries Due To Intergenerational Trauma, And How She Needs To “Talk About It”
Edited by Bita Makarachi
(In Memory of Mary Trudnak Czarnecki)
I wrote the following in reply to a Facebook comment that I read:
“My great-grandfather Anthony Czarnecki had a similar life. Being the oldest and the only known one to be born in Russia-occupied Poland for certain, he may have witnessed firsthand as his mother was raped. Whoever his sibling just before Regina was keeps going in and out of the record. Regina herself died in 1925 of RHF-caused Chorea, three years after their father died in a mine accident. Then an uncle died three years later of Lobar Pneumonia, and two of that uncle’s daughters died of cancer while Great-Granddad was still living — and one of those cousins was also his in-law sister. He also lost his firstborn child due to premature birth, his mother of Nephritis just before my grandfather was born, and probably at least a score of relatives (including in-law relatives) due to various causes (including Antisemitism that his mother never really escaped all those years before). A day short of the anniversary of his cousin/in-law sister Lillie’s death, he was buried at the age of 60 because Depression and PTSD completely broke him — and Lillie herself died of Myeloma just before she would have turned 51.”
Absolutely none of that was discussed before I was 18 years old. I did not even know that I am Jewish and a descendent of program survivors until I was 18 years old. In fact, I did not exactly know that I am the descendent of program survivors until quite a bit after I was 18 years old. The first confirmation that I received of my Jewishness was when I saw the name “Katarzyna Danilowicz” on the death certificate of her son Julian (Yehudah/Leib; sometimes calqued as “Ludwick”). Much later was when I would see that his brother Felix deliberately had that omitted from his own death certificate, as “Danilowicz” seemed quite clearly known as Jewish.
When I saw what were pill bottles on the bedroom-side table in my dad’s apartment hallway, I did not know the story behind those pills. I assumed that they were vitamin B12 pills. Only when I had to start taking Zoloft for myself and began to find out our real family history did I figure out that those were not pill bottles for his Crohn’s Disease (By the way, in light of that concern, I requested to undergo a colonoscopy in my 30s. I did not completely dismissed a Crohn’s Disease, especially when I found out about my family history).
Of course, my paternal grandfather was not happy that I even found out part of the story before he died in 2013. By the way, like his cousin-aunt Lillie, he had blood-related cancer. I did not find this out until long after he died of Myelodysplasia and leukemia. In fact, I just assumed that the Colon Cancer came back as another form of cancer. I had no idea that we particularly and/or strongly carried the genes that put Ashkenazi Jews at risk for certain types of cancer — let alone that the reason that I would later have to worry (and still worry) about a uterine fibroid that I have (and that I will insist on getting biopsied at some point) is that Lillie’s sisters Katherine (at the age of 51 in 1949) and Wanda (at the age of 54 in 1965) died of gynecological cancers (and Wanda actually died of Ovarian Cancer).
In our final phone call, my grandfather begrudgingly admitted that we are Jewish. If you knew my grandfather, you would know that the following was a begrudging admission: “If we had any Jewish blood, I don’t know about it.”
He nonetheless left out the parts about his uncle Felix’s daughters dying of cancer and his father’s distress in watching as two cousins of his died. He also left out both other parts that I would come to find out and parts which I had already come to find out — or at least he certainly did not bring them up.
I was the one whom would bring up Great-Granddad’s suicide, for example, and I was also the one whom confronted my dad about hiding it. After all, the story that they gave was that Great-Granddad came over here as an adult, married Mary Trudnak, served in Korea, and died of Black Lung. Even when I ended up in Sheppard Pratt in Ellicott City due to a suicide threat, neither of them bothered to tell me part of why I ended up there. The mixed-blooded Jew that I am, I had no idea that my great-grandfather would have probably done even worse than jump into a river if he foresaw what his mother might have taken as her worst nightmares realized — and I would not even be aware for a few more years that child immigrant and Crypto-Jewish Anthony Czarnecki succumbed to the Depression that he passed down to me.
I subsequently became aware that he passed down that Depression to my grandfather after my own Depression flareup that caused me to not get out of bed in the morning. Another one of my grandfather’s begrudging admissions later resonated with me: “If I can get out of bed in the morning…”
I additionally became aware that PTSD also did not skip any generations. Once I myself got the courage to bring up with my counselor that I might have PTSD, I was diagnosed with PTSD. This is either notwithstanding that or precisely because of how I initially felt afraid to bring up the idea just because I did not want to diminish the pain of others, and I had not been diagnosed with PTSD beforehand (even though another family member told me that I had in fact been diagnosed with PTSD when I was 13).
I say “notwithstanding” because I thought that I might not be diagnosed with it. Besides, as far as I remember, I had not been sexually abused. I also say “precisely because of” in light of the fact that the non-sexual and primarily non-physical abuse possibly gaslit me into diminishing my own pain. In any case (as even family members — whether intentionally or unintentionally, and whether directly or indirectly — tell me):
- Who cares that (as my granduncle Tony heard of her) “tough cookie” and “holy terror” Alexandria Czarnecki would not want me to exist? Who cares that she flipped out when her son Tony married the Jewish Catholic Mary Trudnak (whom his mother considered a complete apostate — as my great-grandmother did actually believe in Jesus)? Who cares that one of the few relatives who actually treated me and my cousin Jamie just as any of her any descendants was despised to (according to what Great-Grandma told my aunt) a near “mental breakdown”?
- Who cares that I ended up being part of the “She’s Irish!” that both Great-Granddad and Great-Grandma ended up dreading? Fine to marry a fellow Crypto Jew, they implicitly told my granduncle Tony, and to marry a Lenahan was unacceptable (and they were not impressed by any gentile political royalty being a part of their family). At least Great-Grandma did not object to me myself being of some other Irish admixture, and that she treated me well in spite of my Cerebral Palsy was refreshing enough.
- Who cares that being a mixed-blooded Jew (including through Irish lines in my maternal family) can tear me apart because I know that I would have been seen as not Jewish enough to even exist (let alone identify as Jewish) in the eyes of some of my own ancestors
There are also other “Who cares?” questions that I face. All of those questions exacerbate my comorbid OCD/Anxiety, Depression with suicidal ideation, ADD, PTSD, and IBS-like symptoms that result from what is apparently a uterine fibroid. In turn, all of those conditions get into a vicious exacerbation cycle with my Cerebral Palsy. By the way, I am not even scratching the surface of it all — and just what I mentioned is nowhere near the surface of it.
In conclusion, then, I have to be for myself and B’nei Anusim (children of Crypto Jews) like me (and Ashkenazi and Ashkenazi-Sefardi Crypto Jews count as well. My dad is actually Ashkenazi and Sefardi; and as I stated, I did not scratch anywhere near the surface with what I mentioned). I cannot just “want to talk about it” like my great-grandma finally did before she died.
Unlike Great-Grandma, I have to talk about it. Besides, whatever is in the dark will indeed come to light.
Therefore, if I want to heal and help others heal, I have to talk about my own pain — including the pain that I carry in my DNA, and in the brain for which I receive treatment with Zoloft, BuSpar, and intravenous baclofen (the latter of which controls my neonatal-stroke-affected spasticity).
[No works cited page is needed. At the time of the reading of the article, all of what I had written was prior knowledge and double checked against documents themselves.]
