“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
– George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905. From the series Great Ideas of Western Man.
by Kathy Tretter
Members of the eighth grade class at Heritage Hills Middle School probably had no idea what was in store as they filtered into the high school auditorium on a recent Friday afternoon.
Waiting for them in front of the stage was author and professor Margaret McMullan with a powerful story to share — one she tried in many ways to resist.
McMullan is the recipient of a National Endowment of Arts Fellowship in literature and a Fulbright to teach and research in Hungary, as well as the author of nine award-winning books, the most recent titled Where the Angels Lived.
The subject of her latest book also happened to be the reason for her visit: “My family’s Holocaust story and the threats we face today.”
McMullan’s mother, Madeleine, died two years ago at the age of 92 and had, among other things, worked for the CIA. But her story — and Margaret’s — began when she was a nine-year-old child during a visit to the dentist for a filling in her native home of Vienna, Austria.
It was March of 1938 and outside the dentist’s office people were lining the streets in anticipation. A cacophony of wild cheers and shouts rose to a crescendo as a parade carrying Adolph Hitler rolled by — Madeleine cheering right along with her fellow Austrians.
But Madeleine’s father knew.
Freidrich Engel de Jánosi was an Austrian historian and a leading expert on the relationship between the Vatican and the Hapsburg monarchy. He also wrote on Italian history, the history of historiography, and on more general topics. He taught with another well-known professor, Sigmund Freud, even played tennis with Freud’s daughter.
Freidrich’s grandfather, Adolph Engel de Jánosi, was a Hungarian entrepreneur who was elevated to nobility by Emperor Franz Joseph.
Freidrich, however, was born a Jew.
So while Madeleine cheered for this purported savior of Germany, her father recognized the handwriting on the wall and despite his conversion to Catholicism, the Nazi’s considered anyone with Jewish blood to be a Jew no matter their religion. Freidrich was forced to sell his father’s wood factory in 1939 and soon went into exile, first to Switzerland. His Parisian-born wife and daughter eventually followed.
Margaret shared this information as a prelude to what was to come.
Several years ago she joined a writer’s group in Jerusalem where the focus was on writing inspirational stories. While there, she visited Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center and on a whim, typed in her mother’s maiden name. The first name that came up was Richard Engel. McMullan was the first person who ever inquired about Richard, a man from Pécs, Hungary who died in a concentration camp, but his page of testimony was virtually blank.
“I was told to find out about him. I write mostly fiction and I DID NOT want this assignment.”
Yet she could not forget him, this relative of her mother’s who no one had bothered to check on — to remember.
It may have been fate because the stars truly aligned. Margaret discovered the University of Pécs was seeking someone to teach creative writing, so she applied for a Fulbright to teach and research in Pécs. Her husband and son joined her on this mission.
Read more on this story in this week’s issue of the Spencer County Leader!
Featured Image: Dr. Margaret McMullan presented to students at Heritage Hills Middle School Friday.
Richard Engel
Hungary in 1944 while the Jews were being taken from their homes.
The prisoners packed like sardines in Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
The slide behind Margaret shows her mother’s passport, dotted with Nazi stamps.
Margaret sharing her story with Heritage Hills eighth graders.
Taking questions from the audience.
