Educational Media Reviews Online

This is a heartwarming story, told simply, with a happy ending. What more could one ask? Starting with home movie scenes of the filmmaker as a young girl, viewers are quickly introduced to her subject - discovering where Ms. Marcinkus’s grandmother came from and why she emigrated to America. Ms. Marcinkus wanted to know why her grandmother whispered in a strange language to her parents late at night - a language that sounded to Ms. Marcinkus’s friends suspiciously like Russian. Was Grandma really a Communist spy?

After her grandmother’s death, Ms. Marcinkus, now a college graduate and filmmaker, seeks the answers. All she has to go on is the name of the town where her grandmother was born. The quest takes her first to Prague, then Bratislava, and eventually to the small town of St. Martin and the village, now part of it, where her grandmother was raised. With the help of Slovak librarians, museum curators, a genealogist, colleagues, professors, and an intrepid translator, Ms. Marcinkus locates the family who remained in the Old Country - descendants of her grandmother’s sisters - and meets with them in a joyful reunion, complete with toasts of Slovakia’s sparkling pink wine and stronger spirits.

As members of the family relate the events leading up to the grandmother’s departure for America, Ms. Marcinkus learns a little about Slovakia’s early history and the formation and post-Communist break-up of Czechoslovakia. She observes what life is like, now. One is struck that, despite modern buildings, trains, cars, and other familiar sights of contemporary life visible in St. Martin, the Slovakian family members and their surroundings still resemble the kinds of images of mid-20th century Europe one sees in films set in that period.

Ms. Marcinkus discovers that life was harsh for Slovakians under Hungarian rule. Efforts to speak Slovak and gain independence were thwarted. In 1912, Ms. Marcinkus’s grandmother, a skilled seamstress, was sent to America in hopes of finding a better life. The grandmother did so, working hard all her life, but making a good marriage and raising a loving family in Kenosha, Wisconsin. She kept in touch with her Slovakian sisters, sending them gifts, until the Iron Curtain cut off communication between the continents. In a touching scene, Ms. Marcinkus is given a photograph of her grandmother’s wedding taken in Kenosha - final proof that she has, indeed, found her roots.

Technical aspects of the piece - sound, color, video, editing, pace - are exceptionally fine. The story is beautifully told, well illustrated, and documented. Audiences, particularly of young people accustomed to educational videos that take great effort to absorb, are in for a treat. They will learn something about Slovakia with ease while they enjoy the tale.

Recommended.