My Slovenian Heritage

Growing up, I never really paid a lot of attention to my heritage. Since moving to New York for school, I have noticed that family origin is much more important in the North than in the South where I grew up. In high school, it was very unusual for someone to ask me where my family was from, but during my first few years in New York, I was asked that by almost every person that I met. Unfortunately for a long time I did not know a lot about my family’s past. We believe that my Dad’s side of the family is from Ireland, although as far as I know we do not have any actual proof of that. We believe my last name- Meneilly- used to be McNeil or McNeilly and that it was changed at some point. We know very little about when they came to the United States or what caused them to leave Ireland.
We know much more about my mom’s side of the family and their immigration into the United States because she was with them when they immigrated. She was only about five years old, so she does not remember a lot of it, but she has still experienced it firsthand. Her family was originally from Austria-Hungary. Ethnically, they were German, but they lived in a Slovak area of what was at the time Yugoslavia. Their forefathers left Austria-Hungary immediately after the Protestant Reformation because they were being persecuted for their Catholic beliefs. At the beginning of World War II her parents, my grandparents, lived on a very small farm in which they were barely able to provide for themselves. The farm was part of a small village; their house had no running water and no electricity. They grew or raised most of the food that they ate; the animals stayed in the house and the field was farther away. They spent most of their time during the war on the farm because it was very dangerous to leave the area because they could be shot by either the Germans or the rebel Yugoslavians.
In 1943 after World War II had been going on around them for four years, my mom Helga Juran was born. Throughout the German occupation, the Juran family was treated very well because they spoke German. Around April 1945, the Russians began to conquer the Germans in Yugoslavia. At this time, a group of German soldiers came to the farm. To the family’s surprise, the Germans told them that they were retreating from the Russians, and that they were afraid that the Russians would kill the family because they spoke German instead of Yugoslavian. The soldiers took my grandmother, who was pregnant at the time, and my mom from the farm and put them on a train. They left my grandfather and his mother behind because they wanted to save the woman and children first. While on the train, the small amount of food that they took with them fell between the seats, and they were unable to retrieve it. They went without food for the 24 hours that they were on the train. This is one of the few vivid memories my mom has of their journey. When the train finally stopped, they found themselves in Austria where they were left with no provisions or instructions. The group that they were with began walking until they came to a deserted prisoner of war camp. They used the shelter that they found there to start their own displaced persons camp. Eventually, the British troops came to the camp, and they began using at as an official displaced persons camp. In June, my aunt, Elfrieda Juran was born.
Meanwhile, my grandfather and his mother did not know what to do. If they stayed on the farm, they might never see their family again, but if they left, they would risk their lives. Eventually, they decided to gather some supplies and hide in the forest until nightfall. Each night, they would walk west, away from the Russian troops; during the day they would hide in the forests because the Yugoslav partisans would shoot everyone that they saw. After several weeks and about 125 miles, they crossed the border to Austria and safety. They went from camp to camp asking for Hedwig and Helga. Approximately five weeks after the soldiers came to the farm, my grandmother and her two small children were standing in a food line when Helga shouted, “Daddy!” Hedwig looked up and saw her husband. The reunited family lived in the displaced persons camp for about two more months. After that, Joseph, Hedwig, and Fanny got jobs working on a large estate in Austria. My Aunt Lilly was born there in December 1946. Finally, the family was able to immigrate to the United States because my grandmother had a relative in New York that sponsored them. On July 17, 1947 they arrived on Ellis Island.
Once my mom’s family arrived in the United States they continued to struggle. My mom got sick not long after arriving and spent a couple months in the hospital. While there, the nurses taught her English, which was especially important because speaking German was extremely frowned upon at the end of World War II. My grandfather found work in a beer factory, where he continued to work until his retirement many years later. My grandmother found a job in a nearby knitting factory and also struggled with raising three small girls. After a few years, my grandparents were able to achieve the American dream. By the time I knew them, they were completely “American”. Although they were never wealthy by any means, they had bought they own house in Queens, were able to provide for themselves, and sent all three of their children to college.
“The Slovenes, a Slavic people, migrated southwestward across present-day Romania in about the sixth century A. D., and settled in the Julian Alps” (Yugoslavia: The Slovenes, p 1). The Slovene language, Slovenian, was common to the peasant people; the upper class spoke German or Italian. “The Slovene economic links with Germany and Italy strengthened in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and living conditions improved” (Yugoslavia: The Slovenes, p. 1). Over the next century, the Slovenes built themselves up to the middle class and created a true sense of pride and national identity (Yugoslavia: The Slovenes, p. 2). The Slovenes were “the most westernized but least numerous of the Slavs” and were “…the most economically advanced of the South Slavs at the close of the nineteenth century (Yugoslavia: The Slovenes, p. 1). After the dismantling of Yugoslavia, the Slovenes created Slovenia. It’s “level of prosperity remained higher than that of the other Yugoslav republics throughout the socialist era….and Slovenia had the highest proportion of its population employed in industry, the lowest rate of unemployment, and the highest value of exports per capita” (Yugoslavia: The Slovenes, p. 2). The Slovene culture that surrounded my mom and her family explains the strong will that they showed during the war. Slovenes worked hard and succeeded in their activities; my family persevered through low food supplies, gunfights, separation, and immigration to start a new life. The resilient culture that surrounded them influenced them in their lifestyle, activities, and emotional characteristics.
The Soviet Offensive that caused my mom’s family to have to move began in July 1943 and continued through May 1945. With the aid of the United States and the United Kingdom, “the Red Army…created a very large force that the Soviets were able to convert from defense at Kursk to offense almost immediately” (McDonald, 2000, p. 1). During the next two years, the Soviets systematically moved across the Eastern Front and into German territory. In 1944, “a forced march through the mountains of Yugoslavia….was completed in mid-November. On September 28, the Red Army began its liberation of Yugoslavia and marched on the capital of Belgrade on October 20” (McDonald, 2000, p. 2).
There were approximately 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 displaced persons at the end of World War II; many of them were Jews that had just been released from concentration camps. The rest of the people “…refused or could not return to their prewar homes” (Menszer, 2000, p. 1). At the end of the war there were over 45,000 displaced persons housed in Austria alone. The accommodations in each camp differed, but many “…consisted of standard prefabs or barracks…” (Milac, 2003, p. 1). Many refugees were forced to beg at nearby farms, and, in desperate situations, steal from the fields. Most camps were fenced off from the outside world. People with trades could find work on the army base, which provided a small income for families (Stabins, p. 1). Many displaced persons did not wish to return to their former lands or even to their native country; there were too many bad memories for them there. In 1948 the United States passed the Displaced Persons’ Act and “between 1945 and 1952 approximately 400,000 displaced persons immigrated to the United States” (Menszer, 2000, p. 1). The conditions that the Juran family lived through during their short stay in displaced persons camp were not easy. They fought through hunger, poorly constructed shelter, and overcrowding until they eventually began a new life living the American dream.





Library of Congress. (n.d.). Library of Congress country studies. Yugoslavia: The Slovenes. Retrieved November 14, 2008 from www.lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+yu0015).
McDonald, Jason. (2000). The soviet offensive, July 1943-May 1945. Retrieved November 15, 2008 from www.worldwar2database.com/html/sovietoffensive.htm.
Meneilly, Helga (2008) Personal communication.
Menszer, John. (2000). Encyclopedia: Displaced persons. Retrieved November 16, 2008 from www.holocaustsurvivors.org/cgi-bin/data.show.pl?di=record&da=encyclopedia&ke=51.
Milac, Metod. (2003). Displaced persons camps: St. Veit an der Glan Camp, the Kellerberg Camp, Graz, and Studentenlager Hochsteingasse. Retrieved November 18, 2008 from www.dspcamps.org/dpcamps.graz.html.
Stabins, Andrew. (n.d.). Glasenbach and Rauchenbuchler/Rachenbichl displace person camps. Retrieved November 15, 2008 from www.dpcamps.org/dpcamps/glasenbach.html.