As some of you know, I’ve been in the process of researching the life of my grandfather, John Santo, whom I’ve written about before on the blog. As I engage in this process I’m getting a unique opportunity to experience history in an a new and somewhat more personal lens, and recently had the opportunity to reflect on how personally impactful events that happened years ago can be when taken in the small context of a small family’s history.
In short, my grandfather was an Hungarian American Communist who was one of the founders of the Transport Workers Union, became a high level official in the Hungarian Communist Government, and eventually defected from said government for a host of reasons not least of which was total disillusionment with Communism as it manifested in its brutal and paranoid form in cold war Hungary.
As I conducted initial research about his life, one of the key books that I found was called In Transit, a great read that documents the history of the TWU. It’s by a labor historian, Josh Freeman, who teaches here in New York at the City University of New York Graduate Center. I figured that since he was so close, literally blocks from my office, I’d try to contact him and see if we could meet to chat and possibly fill in some blanks I had in the story of my grandfather’s life. Luckily, Josh is a really wonderful man and sat down with me for a long conversation where he was able to give me some historical context within which I could better understand what I’m coming to realize is an even more fascinating and complex political and personal history than I imagined. Continue reading ‘Family History, Communist Show Trials, and How I Almost Didn’t Exist’
Empathetics: Integral Life 