Both my parents were born here and so were my grandparents on my mom's side. My mom's side is originally from Italy. She is 100% Italian. My dad's side is mostly from Ukraine, but because borders changed so much we recently discovered that we are Austrian because when my great grandpa was there is was Austria. Also, I'm told were a little Polish.


I am 50% Italian and the other 50% is Ukrainian, Polish, and Austrian.

Interesting side note, my grandma on my dad’s side was a slave in Auschwitz concentration camp in WWII. We are not Jewish so she was there as a slave. Her sister, who would have been my great aunt, froze/starved to death working next to my grandma. My grandma told me she was beaten for taking a bite out of and apple that they were picking because she was so hungry.

She was sleep one night when the Nazis came in an raided her home. She was 8 years old and that was the last time she saw her parents.

My grandpa was a soldier in WWII. I believe they met and married in the U.S., but how romantic it must have been to know that he was fighting to save her and people like her.

I know it’s a bit morbid, but it’s part of who I am, I felt like sharing it. I never knew a thing about it until a high school assignment came up in which we had to either write a long paper or interview a Holocaust survivor. I remember thinking how am I going to find a Holocaust survivor, and that’s when my dad told me about my grandma. I called her right away. She is still alive, but my grandpa passed away before I was born.