Matthew Gnezda
Andrea Gnezda
Mr. Thomas
U.S. History, Period 5
15 May 2005
Matthew Gnezda Interview
Q: What country were you in during the war and when did it begin?
A: I still remember the very beginning of the start of the war in Slovenia, Yugoslavia as it was on Palm Sunday April of 1941.
Q: What were you doing as the war began?
A: We could hear the Luftwaffe bombing the radio stations and I remember my father telling us all to get in the house and stay inside. The bombing went on for hours and it was clear to everyone in my family that this would not end in a good way.
Q: What were your thoughts about the war when it first began?
A: I can’t really remember how I felt when all this started but I think everyone deals with what they have to and I was no different. You can only hope and pray that this would end soon and we could all go back to living our lives as they were intended. You learn that life is not always a happy place but often times it requires us to be diligent and persistent in times of despair and when hope seems forlorn. You ask of yourself to be strong and pray that God gives you that strength to overcome everything that is about to come.
Q:Did those opinions change after the war? If so, what were your new thoughts after the war?
A: You ask me what my thoughts were after the war? Unlike people living in the United States when the war ended it truly ended for most but for me it really was just beginning. For many people FDR and Churchill were great leaders helping to free the world from Nazi and Japanese oppression. That may very well have been the case but really all they did was exchange one totalitarian regime for another. Appeasement begets more of the same; in this case appeasing Stalin at Yalta only meant death for millions of Eastern Europeans. Whatever could not be assimilated by the communists was destroyed by the communists. Thousands of repatriated soldiers who were sent back from England after the war were slaughtered by the communists in an effort to control the militaries in Eastern Europe. The Nazi’s waged war in Europe for six years the Communists waged war for half a century. If anything should have been learned from the war it is that it is better to kill one or ten or even a hundred than it is for that one or those ten or hundred to kill hundreds, thousands or millions.Unfortunately, we have learned little since then as millions of lives today are lost to the recklessness of a few. I t would be hard to separate world war II from the war that was waged in the years that followed, as I said the war never ended the enemy just changed uniforms. My service ended 1949 when machine gun fire caught me in several places, fortunately the good Lord and his Mother made sure I would survive.
Q: How did the war affect you personally?
A: My father had a farm about seventy acres or so and the people in the villages around us were farmers for the most part as well. I would spend much of my time working on the farm, as did most children at that time, Helping out was just part of growing up, with nine other brothers and sisters was also something at the time that was not unusual, large families were very much apart of the culture, unlike today. School was important and my parents saw to it that we all receive an education. War changes all that and what is most devastating is the loss of life. Towns, cities, buildings can all be rebuilt but families and human tragedies are seldom remedied. My family was entirely broken apart by the war I lost my oldest brother Frank. He was killed by the German army because he did not want to serve as a soldier for the Germans because he did not agree with their penchant for destruction. My Uncle John, who was a priest, was sent to a concentration camp as the Germans were opposed to any religious clergy practicing their religion. There seems to be always such an emphasis on the extermination of the Jews in Europe while we seem to think that other religions and religious went untouched buy the Nazi’s. I can assure you that was not the case, the persecution and purging of all religion and religious was a practice widely carried out throughout Europe.
Q: How old were you when the war began?
A: I was born in 1924 so I was 17 years old when war broke out. I too was drafted by the German Army. I spent months training under the Germans before I too left them. I was extremely scared for my family, after leaving so abruptly, and knew they would come searching for me, so I could never really go home. I stayed in the woods for months before joining the white army. The tragedy of the war for me did not end when the war ended to be honest there was no choice between the lesser of evils when it came to the Nazi’s or communists. The communists killed my father and I was soon fighting another war, nothing changed. When the Nazis took Yugoslavia I remember the tens of miles of columns of soldiers and equipment the Germans war machine brought with it, it was impressive to say the least in terms of sheer numbers. When the communists took over I can remember the tens of miles of equipment and machinery leaving the country taking everything leaving nothing. The war really never ended it just went from bad to worse. As the war ended my service did not as I worked for the United States in branch of service known as the OSS.
Q: When did you arrive in the United States?
A: I arrived in the United States in September of 1949. I was escorted from the ship and stayed with my aunt and uncle in Gowanda, New York. Within a few days of my arrival here I got my first job at tannery, needless to say that job was not for me and within a few months I made my way to Cleveland. It is here that I met the love of my life, my wife and your grandmother.