Uncovering Family Secrets and Discovering Hungarian Jewish Roots

Linda Ambrus Broenniman grew up thinking her entire family was Catholic. That all changed one day, when her older sister was visiting her godmother and casually inquired what her great grandmother Margit was like.

“Her godmother answered that Margit was a strong Jewish woman,” said Linda. “A slip of the tongue, a secret revealed.”

Although the secret was out, no one would answer questions about her family. “The truth was nowhere to be found,” Linda said. “It was protected by an impenetrable web of secrecy. And at age 27, I didn’t have the courage to penetrate that web.”

Many years later, in 2011, a fire almost destroyed her parents’ house and a box miraculously wasn’t engulfed in the flames. In it, Linda found documents, letters, and photographs that depicted her hidden Jewish family, ancestors she never knew.

The discovery of that box gave Linda the courage she needed to embark on a journey to learn more about where she came from and discover who she really was.

Finding her Jewish family

Linda worked together with András Gyekiczki, a Hungarian sociologist and gifted sleuth, and they pieced together the story of eight generations of Jewish ancestors, the Politzers, on her father’s side. With all this new information, she created a family tree that dated back to 18^th century Hungary.

“Each discovery was a revelation,” Linda said. “Each story was a window into my family and the grace with which they navigated unimaginable hardship.”

Linda’s parents

Linda, who lives in Virginia, was the middle child of seven and born to Hungarian physicians. She grew up practicing Catholicism and never had any inkling that she had Jewish family members, until the incident with her sister occurred.

“Looking back, I realize that my parents’ silence made me question my place in the world and where I belonged.”

Among the stories she unearthed, Linda found out that Eisik Politzer, her great-great grandfather, was a violin virtuoso who refused to play for his landlord on Shabbat.

“In the ensuing argument, he used the Lord’s name in vain,” she said. “Learning that Church elders were summoned to burn him at the stake as punishment, he fled Politz, his hometown.”

After 40 years of wandering through eastern Hungary, Eisik returned home.

“When in 1782 Jews were forced to acquire surnames for tax purposes, the authorities gave Eisik the name Politzer – after his hometown of Politz in northern Bohemia, currently part of the Czech Republic,” Linda said. “It is the same town where Joseph Pulitzer’s family originated.”

Another ancestor, Adam Politzer, Eisik’s great-grandson, became a world-famous doctor. Today he is recognized as the “Father of Otology.”

Adam Politzer with his wife and two grandchildren

“He treated the poor and the wealthy alike, including Emperor Franz Joseph, King Leopold of Belgium, and Tsar Nicholas of Russia,” Linda said. “A talented artist and passionate art collector, Adam was part of the golden era of Vienna when artists, writers, musicians, philosophers, and scientists flourished and transformed cultural life. Adam was painted by Klimt and Charlemont. His daughter took piano lessons from Brahms.”

Linda’s great-great-grandfather, Ignácz Misner, was 9 years old when he was orphaned in the cholera epidemic of 1855. He overcame poverty and became a prominent lawyer and founder of the Budapest Bar. The Nazis stripped him of his home and possessions.

Ignácz with his treasured pocket watch (At age 98, he insisted on delivering this personally to the Nazis when they had to turn in all their valuables)

“He refused to take off the yellow star, wearing it with great pride,” Linda said. “He died of starvation at age 99 in the ghetto in Budapest.”

During the Holocaust, Linda’s mother, Clara Ambrus, a Catholic, hid Jews. Clara had moved to a factory complex where she hid the man who was to become her husband, Linda’s father, as well as her future mother-in-law. Years later, Yad Vashem honored Clara as a Righteous Gentile.

Linda's mother being honored as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, at the Israeli consulate in New York City

“I learned how she risked her life helping my father’s cousin’s family escape from the Jewish ghetto, and how she regularly delivered messages between his family members who were in various hiding places throughout the city,” Linda said.

Linda ended up writing a book about her family called, “The Politzer Saga”. The Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives mounted a permanent exhibit based on the stories in her book in the newly renovated Rumbach Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary.

“Finding my family brought me face-to-face with a dark history I had only read about, removed in time and place from the reality of my life – a history I thought was safely in the past,” said Linda, who does not identify as being religious.

However, by knowing her family history, she said, “antisemitic events touch me differently now. The pain of such horror is palpable, personal. It is no longer about other people. In a different time and place, those events might have happened to me.”

Jews hiding their identities

While Linda’s story is astonishing, it’s more common than people may realize. Many European Jews, including Hungarians, hid their Jewish identities.

In 2010, a leader of Hungary’s Jobbik Party, which was considered antisemitic, discovered that he was a Jew. His grandmother and grandfather served in labor camps during the Holocaust, and his Jewish mother kept their real identity a secret.

Csanad Szegedi had called Israeli Jews “lice-infested, dirty murderers,” but then a prisoner presented evidence that Szegedi himself was Jewish. Though Szegedi tried to bribe the prisoner into silence, word got out and he lost his political positions. He then ended up visiting Auschwitz and reconnecting with his Jewish roots; today, he is a practicing Orthodox Jew.

The late author Christopher Hitchens, the most prominent atheist of his time, discovered his English mother had hidden her family’s Jewish identity from him. His grandmother, Dorothy Levin, was born into an Orthodox Jewish family with German roots. Hitchens said that when he discovered that he was Jewish he was “pleased to find that I was pleased.”

Linda Ambrus Broenniman

Linda has had a similar experience in her journey to uncover her own Jewish roots.

“For me, the rewards have been many and varied,” she said. “A certain peace came from knowing the truth. I was able to let go of the fear and doubt that had been lifetime companions and replace them with strength and a new confidence,” she said. “Knowing that I had deep roots beyond my parents and grandparents helped me feel more connected to this world. The weight of not knowing had lifted. I felt lighter.”

Linda continued, “To understand where I came from, multiple generations before my parents, has banished the haunting weight I felt, but didn’t understand. I feel blessed to have this extraordinary Jewish history and legacy.”