Joe’s ancestry was traced back to the 1700s in Germany, and included a Jewish family line there. His life began on a small farm in a suburb of Budapest, Hungary, in January of 1930. He lived with his father (the village blacksmith), his mother and an older sister. Their family had moved from Germany to Hungary in the early 1700s. At that time, the Hungarian government started a drive to push out the Ottoman Turks (who were Muslim), and bring down German nationals to take their place. To make the offer attractive, they offered people some of the land they had taken from the Turks. One of their requirements was that they had to be baptized in the Roman Catholic faith.

Times were hard in Germany because of the high taxes, so many German families put their belongings on rafts, and even built small houses on the rafts, like houseboats. They sailed down the Danube to Hungary and settled there.

Joe’s family was allowed to stay, because his father was the only blacksmith in the village.

In 1945, the Potsdam Agreement was signed by the United States, England and Russia. It required the people to declare their mother language and nationality so that the German people could be returned to Germany. Joe’s family declared their mother language as German, and their nationality as Hungarian.

The three governments, having considered the question in all its aspects, recognized that the transfer to Germany of German populations in Hungary would have to be undertaken in an orderly and humane manner. Most of the people in Joe’s village had to leave immediately, with each allowed to take only 160 pounds of belongings with them.

Family changes

Of the 3,000 or 4,000 people, only 36 families were excused from leaving Hungary and returning to Germany. Joe’s family was allowed to stay, because his father was the only blacksmith in the village. His grandparents were forced to go back, and his older sister went back to help care for them.

There was a Jewish man named Vertes who was then running for government office in Hungary. Joe’s father had helped him to get away from Hitler, and he survived the war. He said if Joe’s father wanted to stay, he could give him some papers to excuse him, and he could stay with his family. So Joe’s family was excused from being sent back to Germany.

Joe’s grandparents died in Germany, and his sister got married while there. She and her husband then went to America and settled in Chicago, while Joe and his parents stayed in Hungary.

In 1948 the Communist pressures began to get worse, and they put his father in jail on false charges so they could confiscate his property.

In 1948 the Communist pressures began to worsen, and they put Joe’s father in jail on false charges so they could confiscate his property. He was falsely accused of setting fire to a wheat field, which Joe said was impossible because of all the rain they were having at that time. His father was in the Communist jail for seven years. Joe and his mother were also put in jail for eight months.

While his father was in jail, 18-year-old Joe was the sole support for his mother. For fear of the Communists, none of his relatives or friends wanted anything to do with the family. During that time, the family was destitute. They had no home, no jobs and nowhere to turn for help. His family started off walking over the Calvary Hill (Kalvaria-domb) to the village where they had their home before the Communists confiscated it, praying as they went, not knowing where they were going to end up.

Along the way, they met a friend of Joe’s father, who was living in a bombed-out house. Joe’s mother told him about her husband’s seven-year imprisonment, that his property had been confiscated, and that they had no one to help them. The man told them to go no further, they could stay in the bombed-out house with him. It wasn’t much, but it was a roof over their heads, and a chance for a new start.

In 1949 Joe took a job as a plumber with a gas company to support his mother and himself. It wasn’t long after that the Hungarian revolution against Russia took place.

Moving to America

His experiences growing up in Europe led him to seek God and learn His will for his life

His father was released from jail in 1954, and in January of 1957, they went to Yugoslavia, where they lived for seven months in a camp. About that time, a German delegation came to the area and sent all the German nationalists back to Stuttgart, Germany. There Joe and his parents lived for two years. His father worked as a blacksmith and was able to earn enough money to travel to America. But because his father had a spot on his lung, the American Consulate watched it for five years before allowing him to come to America.

Joe said that after working under Communism for 10 years, all he had to show for it was a broken-down bike. He was paid 4 forint an hour as a plumber, which was about equal to the price of a pack of cigarettes. He had to work a whole day to afford a quart of wine or two pounds of meat, and he had to save many months to buy a pair of shoes.

Meanwhile, Joe’s sister and her husband were living in Chicago, Illinois, and they had saved $185 to send to Joe to come to America. In 1959 Joe left alone from Bremen, Germany, and arrived in New York. From there, he took a train to Chicago, where he lived with his sister for a while.

In 1963, Joe’s parents came to America, and the family was finally reunited. In 1964, Joe married Theresia and began a family of his own.

When he first began work in Chicago in 1959, he was earning $1.75 an hour, and when he got into the plumbers union, he began earning $4 an hour, which was amazing to him. In one year, he and his wife had put a down payment on a six-apartment building, and in three years paid off his part of the mortgage, which was $20,000. Joe really appreciates the opportunities he has had in America, and it has meant a great deal to him to be able to prosper after experiencing the deprivation of the past.

His experiences growing up in Europe led him to seek God and learn His will for his life. Joe had been in the Catholic Church, but had never seen a Bible. The Communists taught him about Marx and Lenin, and the two didn’t seem to fit together. Joe would ride his bicycle to work and think about life and what was really true.

Discovering the Church

At some point before 1983, Joe began getting information from the Church of God. He was also studying the Bible on his own and soon became a coworker of the Church.

Then he heard Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong on the radio and on TV, and he said it was as if a magnet was drawing him to God’s truth at last. He went through all the booklets available, and all the Bible correspondence lessons.

Joe was a diabetic. In the past, he had fallen so ill he ended up in a hospital. But in 1983, as he was coming to understand more and more of God’s way, Joe asked God to make him well again. Joe said he felt a powerful surge go through his body, and he was well from that time on. Joe found that he was completely healed of his diabetes! His doctor could not believe he was really cured—he told Joe that he was probably “misdiagnosed” and that he had never really had diabetes.

But his life almost ended abruptly that same night in 1983. Joe was a very heavy sleeper. He joked that a marching band couldn’t wake him up. He was sleeping soundly, but his wife was still awake, waiting for their daughter to return home.

Suddenly, Joe was wide-awake, and he heard a crackling in the ceiling. This wasn’t that unusual, because they had radiant heating in the concrete ceiling, and it was known to make noises when it heated up. But Joe said he felt like he was literally thrown out of bed. He shouted to his wife, “Get out! Get out!” She wrapped a blanket about her shoulders and followed Joe out of the room, but she wasn’t moving fast enough for him. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the adjoining hall. Just then, the whole concrete ceiling collapsed, crushing their furniture and driving the bedposts two inches into the floor.

Joe was determined to follow God’s way, and in 2001 he was baptized. Today, Joe is a happy, thankful man. His life began in a bleak, hopeless way. But now he and his wife have a home of their own, two daughters, a son, four grandchildren and God’s Holy Spirit.

That’s quite a story!