Dear Maxim and forum friends,
My grandfather, Michal Gonda, emigrated to Australia in the 1950s from Germany. He was born in Drugethaza according to him, spoke Czech and considered himself Czech through and through. He had a brother called Andrej and his father was also called Andrej. His brother was apparently sent to an uncle in Vienna (we have no idea which side or even if this was an actual relative) and my grandfather was sent to Pelhmirov and Mislotin in what is now the Czech Republic (he always said for school but we have no evidence of this).
What we have evidence of is him being there in 1939 at the outbreak of war, in the form of German occupying police checks, which show him as holding a Hungarian passport issued in Prague in 1940. We also have a police report detailing his daring escape on a tractor and subsequent admittance to Allied Occupied Germany at the end of the war.
I recently went to Drugethaza (now Zarichovo) to try to find some information but it was very difficult. I am very keen to find some birth, marriage or death records of the family, particularly, his birth certificate, that of his parents and their marriage certificate. On some of the documents he is listed as Greek Catholic, on others not.
The particulars:
Michal Gonda
DOB 4th March 1922
Drugethaza/Zarici
Parents -
Andrej Gonda
Julie/Julia Gericz/Gerich/Gondova (various spellings on the documents)
Thank you everyone!
Jillian