| Petra: Re: Pajtas | Here is what I can tell you about the family name. I among a couple of other people in the US sport it (my name is Petra Eszter Pajtas). I moved from the Transylvanian region of Romania to the States just about 6 yrs. ago. My ethnicity is Hungarian. However, I know for a fact that people I DO NOT KNOW, who bear the same name, live in the Michigan area. I was curious to find out what they had to do me, but never had the guts to call.
As far as my name is concerned, my father is Sandor Pajtas, who lives in Oradea, Romania (Nagyvarad in Hungarian). My grandfather, also Sandor Pajtas, was a Jew who married a Christian girl, my grandma, right before WWII. He wasn't deported, but I know that a lot of members of the family were, and my great aunt and great grandma died in Dachau, or so everyone believes. After the end of the war there was no news of them except for some myths and stories of those who survived/returned, who mentioned that it is possible that both my great aunt and great grandma were shot, among the first to die. If I am correct, my great grandma's name was Eszter (like mine) and my great aunt was Maria, both Pajtas. However, I don't know my great grandpa's name, my grandparents died young (my grandpa in 1975, way before I was born) so I wasn't old enough to hear the whole story and I am sure that a lot of it got lost somewhere from mouth to mouth storytelling. There are a couple of books about the life of Jews in the Hungary before the redistribution of land after the war (back when Transylvania was still part of Hungary). I think one of them is called Varad a Viharban, but I believe it's a very rare book and probably very hard to find. Sorry that I wasn't much help, but the elderly don't reminisce anymore or they passed away and there's noone else to retell the story of the lost family from Nagyvarad. However, considering the rarity of the name, I would guess all of the people from those regions could be related.
However, I know that in my line of the family, I am the last to bear the name. |
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