K Alexander Kardos – författare

This memoir contains a remarkable life''s journey of Maria Banfi from her childhood in Communist Yugoslavia, "Land of the South Slavs," to marriage, to a failed escape attempt to free Austria. Our second attempt had Maria and her husband Karl leaving their first child behind. It was heart-wrenching set of events that intertwined with the reality after World War II that was present as the cold war in the mid-1950s in Southeastern Europe. The Balkan region throughout history was full of conflicts and conquest with World War I, beginning with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on the twenty-eighth of July 1914 in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. World War II was the traumatic aftereffect of World War I. The losing nations led by Nazi Germany and the kingdom of Italy were poor, in such disarray, and the collapse of their societies. It was only a short amount of time that they would rise against the victors. My Karl led me through the most harrowing, unpredictable, and challenging scenarios after we married and traveled northward to Austria. Escape for my generation and previous generations from our region of Slovenia was commonplace as they emigrated in search of a better life away from the oppressive, impoverished, and destitute in Northern Yugoslavia. Every decision my Karl made were solely based on "our survival" as no reflection, doubt, or second-guessing was allowed. Life was extremely difficult living out of an American-run displaced-persons camp No. 100 called Asten Lager in Linz, Austria, and both of us being day laborers with meager pay. Read through my accounts, thoughts, memories, and feelings as my Karl and I work through the many challenges to achieve our ultimate goal of being able to immigrate to the United States of America. Future volumes will contain our progress, frustrations, and setbacks we encountered while forging our futures and destiny under God.

This book is the second Volume of the memoirs'' story of Maria Banfi Kardos. This volume gives an insight into the experiences. challenges, and hardships that the Kardos family faced on their legal immigration to America. They arrived in New York in 1956 just like many foreigners that "Wanted to have an "Opportunity to achieve The American Dream."

We were sponsored by a farmer in Patton Missouri but decided to go off on our own. The Lutheran Organization had flight tickets ready for us, but we respectfully declined. With our eyes wide open and our hopes running high we ventured out into New York City, being disappointed on a few levels. The first one had me actually had me thinking of reversing course and if we had the money we would have returned to Europe. The other was our contact person, family in New Jersey that we came to see somehow conspicuously fell through, "Yes come see us when you arrive in the states." Not to be deterred by these setbacks, we had no choice but to push forward. And the New York taxi driver that drove us all around the city only to take Eighty Dollars of the One Hundred Dollars we were given by US Customs. By Gods saving grace we found a contact who spoke Hungarian in massive New York that My Karl met in the displaces persons camp in Austria and stayed in his apartment.

We then rode the train to Philadelphia and then boarded one to Cleveland. By chance we ran into a man that spoke Slovenian and coincidently he was traveling to Cleveland. We arrived in Cleveland Ohio with a mere few dollars to our name and three very sleepy and exhausted children. Noe our lives really start, no practice runs, no going back, this is it where we make our successes and chart our destiny with the help of God Almighty.