Co-founders Uliks Fehmiuand and Bane Stamenkovic. (Tatsiana Moon for American Essence)
Can friendship survive a war, migration to another country, and life’s ups and downs? One group of friends from former Yugoslavia has demonstrated that a strong friendship bond can overcome any tribulation.
There’s Uliks Fehmiu, an Albanian who loves acting and still participates in film projects in Serbian and Bosnian; Bane Stamenkovic, whom Mr. Fehmiu first met when he was 7, then going through high school and later mandatory military service together; Igor Ivanovic, who played a pivotal role in Pain d’Avignon’s founding but later left to start his own bakery; and Vojin Vujosevic, who was always the cool kid in the group.
Pain d’Avignon was among the first in the Northeast to offer artisanal bread. (Ed Anderson)
They all eventually made their way to New York to escape getting drafted into the war and, incidentally, fell into the world of baking. Together, they formed Pain d’Avignon, a boutique wholesale bakery for high-end restaurants and hotels in New York. In 2009, the bakery expanded to offer their selections to ordinary New Yorkers via cafes, opening four retail stores alongside pop-ups within hotels across the city.
The path to success wasn’t easy, but every step was buoyed by the knowledge that there was no turning back to the violence and hatred back home. Whatever hardships they would go through, they would go through them together as friends.
“Our story can never be only about the bread and its technical aspect, because to us, it represents this odyssey, this journey, this element of survival, this moment of adaptation … into a new country, new environment,” said Mr. Fehmiu in an interview.
A Friendship Forged
Growing up in Yugoslavia before the Yugoslav Wars broke up the Balkan Peninsula, the group of friends lived in a place not unlike New York: Different cultures and religions intersected in a region bordered by Italy, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Albania. “It’s where Austro-Hungarian and Oriental architecture clash beautifully. Where one could ski in the Alps in the morning and swim in the Adriatic that afternoon. Where, in the same pastry shop, one could find baklava by way of Turkey or Greece and Sachertorte compliments of the Viennese,” wrote Mr. Fehmiu in the bakery’s 2022 cookbook, “The Pain d’Avignon Baking Book.” It was an idyllic time filled with beautiful memories for the four childhood friends.
(L to R) Cofounders Tole Zurovac, Mr. Stamenkovic, and Mr. Fehmiu, with Mr. Fehmiu’s wife, Snezana Bogdanovic. (Ed Anderson)
When, in the late 1980s, tensions ran high and war seemed imminent, the friends each found ways to escape the draft. Mr. Ivanovic became the reason they ended up in baking. After he got discharged from mandatory military service, he headed straight to New York. While there, he hung out with fellow Serbs, some of whom worked for Eli Zabar, a popular bakery and supermarket in the city. He soon found a job delivering bread at Eli’s.
Mr. Stamenkovic joined his family in New York (his father was a textile executive and moved there for business) as soon as he finished military service, while Mr. Vujosevic returned to America for studies at the persuasion of his parents, who saw an increasingly volatile situation back home and wanted him to stay away. For several years, Mr. Fehmiu was the only one remaining in Belgrade, hoping to develop his acting career. But by spring 1992, things came to a head. The military police came looking for him. With his mother’s warning, he was able to stay at a friend’s house and later flee to Macedonia. From there, he made his way to New York.
Chef Lidia Bastianich cooks up a quick pasta at her home in Queens, New York. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)
At her home in Queens, New York, Lidia Bastianich cooks with a view of the water. Opposite her sprawling kitchen and dining table, wall-to-wall windows look out over her garden to the idyllic Little Neck Bay, where sailboats bob serenely under blue skies.
Here is where the Italian refugee turned James Beard and Emmy Award-winning chef, restaurateur, TV personality, and author raised her children and her grandchildren; where she taught Julia Child how to make risotto; where she filmed the PBS shows that introduced millions of Americans to traditional Italian home cooking, inviting them around her table with her signature phrase: “Tutti a tavola a mangiare!” “Everyone to the table to eat!”
“I feel very American, and I feel very Italian here,” Ms. Bastianich told American Essence on a recent visit. There’s the proximity to the water, what drew her to buy the house in the first place 38 years ago—“since I came from the Adriatic, my dream was always water,” she said—and the garden lined with Italian fig and lemon trees, rosemary and wild fennel, grape trellises, and potted tomatoes—all echoes of the Mediterranean. “And at the same time,” she said, “I see the Empire State Building from my house.”
A perfectly ripe fig from Ms. Bastianich’s backyard. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)
It’s a dual identity that she’s embraced from a young age. When she was 10, she and her family fled their home in communist-occupied Istria, a peninsula in northeastern Italy handed over to Yugoslavia in the aftermath of World War II. They waited two years in a refugee camp in Trieste, Italy, before finding freedom in America in 1958.
Since then, Ms. Bastianich has built her own version of the American Dream: a veritable culinary empire dedicated to sharing her cultural heritage with her new home. It has spanned several restaurants with her former husband, Felice, and now her children, Joe and Tanya; 25 years on air with more than a dozen companion cookbooks; a partnership in opening Eataly, an Italian food emporium, in New York and locations across the United States; and her own lines of pastas, sauces, and cookware.
She’s also made it her mission to champion the place that took her in and gave her the opportunity to succeed: “There’s no better country in the whole world,” she said. For an ongoing series of annual, hour-long specials, “Lidia Celebrates America,” she travels to meet, cook with, and share the stories of inspiring people across the country.
And at 76, Ms. Bastianich has hardly slowed down. Her latest cookbook, “Lidia’s From Our Family Table to Yours,” was released in September. The 11th season of her PBS show “Lidia’s Kitchen” premiered in October, and a special, “25 Years With Lidia: A Culinary Jubilee,” will premiere nationally on December 18 at 8 p.m. EST. Squeezing in our interview on a brief day home between travels—next, to Canada, for her book tour—she talks at the confident, no-nonsense clip of a matriarch and businesswoman who knows how to get things done, and fast.
What keeps her going? “I love what I do,” she said matter-of-factly. And indeed, she softens, both tone and expression taking on a grandmotherly warmth, when she speaks about her passions: food, family, and how the two have always been intertwined in her work and life. She spoke with American Essence about her immigrant journey, her sense of responsibility to her adopted home, and the extraordinary power of sharing a meal.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Ms. Bastianich harvests her homegrown fennel. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)
American Essence: What are your strongest food memories associated with the different places in your life’s journey—from your birthplace of Pola, Istria [now Pula, Croatia], to the refugee camp in Trieste, and finally, to America?
Lidia Bastianich: I have to go back to when I was born: 1947, after the war. The Paris Treaty was in the same month, February, and the border came down: Trieste was given to Italy, and Istria and Dalmatia were given to the newly formed communist Yugoslavia.
We grew up in a country of radical change. Once the communists came, you could not speak Italian, they changed our name, we couldn’t go to church. My mother was a schoolteacher; my father was a mechanic, and he had two trucks. They took the trucks and deemed him a capitalist; they put him in jail for it. So life wasn’t that easy. Even food was scarce. My grandmother, who was in a little town, Busoler, outside of Pola, she raised food and animals to feed the whole family, so my mother took my brother and me out of the city and put us with Grandma. And I think that’s where my first basic food connections happened.
Ms. Bastianich around age 5. (Courtesy of Lidia Bastianich)
With my grandmother, we had chickens, we had ducks, we had geese, we had rabbits, we had goats, we had pigs, we had pigeons. Now and then it was a chicken that went into the pot, then it was a rabbit, then it was a pigeon. I would be feeding these animals. In the springtime, the rabbits loved clover, so I would go and harvest clover in the woods. We would milk the goats, make ricotta. We had two pigs every year, and slaughter was in November, so you had to feed them to get them nice and fat. After the slaughter, we made the sausages, the prosciutto, the bacon.
The garden was the extension of the house—we had the immediate vegetable garden, and then we had a little wheat field. We had olive trees. I was involved in harvesting the olives in November when the olive oil was made; I remember I would dip the bread in there and taste it. The wheat didn’t get all milled at once; Grandma kept the wheat kernels in a cantina, and she would go to the mill every month or two. We would brine the vegetables and the fruits for the winter; we’d pickle cabbage.
Everything had a season: the wild asparagus in spring, the nettles, and then, in the fall, the mushrooms and the squash. I helped my grandmother work the land, so I was aware when things would blossom. I was in tune. The small baby peas, Grandma let them grow because she would get more when it’s a mature pea, but as I would go and collect them, I ate them. I used to chew on the pods; they’re sweet, too. The figs, in August when they were plentiful, we would dry them in the sun so we would have them in the winter. I was involved in all of this—and not because she wanted to teach me, but because I was there as a little helper, that’s just the way it was. My grandmother would say, “Go get some rosemary,” and I would run to the rosemary bush, or to the bay leaves. I grew up with all of that. I knew all the smells, and that stayed with me. When you’re in your formative years, that stays with you.
Ms. Bastianich harvests sprigs of fresh rosemary from her garden. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)
But the real recall moment for me came in 1956. I was 10 years old. When the border went down in Trieste, some of my family was left on the Italian side. Supposedly, my aunt [in Trieste] wasn’t feeling well, so my mother and my brother and I went to visit her. They wouldn’t let the whole family go; they held someone as hostage because they knew we wouldn’t come back [otherwise]. The three of us went. The aunt was fine. But two weeks later, at night, my father appeared: He’d escaped the border. Then I realized that I’m not going to go back to see my grandmother. That’s when I really felt that need: I wanted to be connected, and food and smell built that connection. I think that my love and passion for food, my connection with food, goes back to those memories of wanting to be connected with Grandma, who I didn’t know when I was going to see. So I would cook things that I remembered with my aunt, the flavors that my grandmother was cooking.
We didn’t have Italian papers because we were under communism, so my parents went to the police and asked for asylum. For two years, we were in a political refugee camp, awaiting where to go. I remember in camp, we had a little cubby hole, and we had beds on top of each other.
I would recall all the beautiful times I had with Grandma that I maybe couldn’t have anymore, and I think that’s why it’s so embedded; it’s so vivid even to this day. People say, “Gee, Lidia, you remember the details.” I do, because I recalled them so many times in those years. Even when I came to the United States, the excitement of being free and having your own home and the greatness of America—still, your roots are your roots.
Family photos line the walls of Ms. Bastianich’s New York home of 38 years. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)
AE: After you came to America, how did your experiences with food change?
Ms. Bastianich: [I remember] the excitement of American food. The Twinkies. Hostess. Jell-O. I’d never had a grapefruit. All these foods—they’re delicious! When we settled, my mother worked late, so she would leave me to do the dinner, and every night [I made] a cake. Those pre-mixes—I couldn’t get enough of them! I was watching the Ed Sullivan show, Elvis Presley, all of that. I wanted every single thing that was American; I wanted to become American as soon as I could. We didn’t speak English when we came, but my brother and I, within a year, we began to.
Then, of course, as I went on into my profession, I realized that maybe the connection to real food was the way it’s supposed to be. Big industry took a lot of liberties with creating our foods. What is amazing is that from my formative years to my professional years, I reverted back to what we did [in Busoler] and how important it was. It’s like 360 degrees, now and then. I think us chefs, we have a big role to play, and I think that’s why with my show and my books, I feel that I share the authenticity that I grew up with.
AE: In addition to your regular show, your series of specials celebrates America. How did the idea for these specials come about?
Ms. Bastianich: I wanted to share my gratitude and my curiosity in understanding America better from my point of view, having been a young immigrant, having been given the opportunity to come to America. America has been sort of knocked down. You’ve got to rally against this. So it’s my way, as an immigrant, of telling Americans, “Listen, there’s no better country, I can tell you that.”
Food opens all the doors. Food is a common denominator, no matter what culture you are: You sit at the table, you begin to cook together, and you become friends. And when you talk with food, the conversation is mellow. So I use food to sort of penetrate messages.
I did two veteran specials, because I don’t think people realize how our soldiers are out there giving their lives to protect our freedom. I visited with veterans, and we cooked together. I did one thanking all the first responders.
The last one was on immigrants, because I think immigrants are maligned now, but we’re all immigrants. I went around to different ethnic communities: I went to South Carolina, to a Ukrainian son and mother; then I went to Houston, to the Afghan community. My Vietnamese friend Christine Ha, she’s a blind chef, she was born here but her parents were from Vietnam. She says, “At home, I was Vietnamese, but outside, I was American.” As an immigrant, you’re lucky enough to have these cultures on top of being an American.
America is made out of different ethnicities: It’s like a quilt, and it’s beautiful, and it’s strong. And what’s amazing about this is that within this context, we can all be who we are culturally: We can practice our religion, speak our language, sing our songs, have our social gatherings.
A scene from Ms. Bastianich’s latest PBS special, “Lidia Celebrates America: Flavors That Define Us.” (Meredith Nierman for GBH/Tavola Productions)
But what immigrants need to also understand is that they’re given this great opportunity, and you need to take opportunities that you think fit, and you need to work hard at that. You need to make it happen, and really be responsible, and at the end, you need to give back to this country. [In the special] there’s this family from Bhutan, where they were persecuted, so they were in Nepal as immigrants for over 18 years. When they came here, he [Bhuwan Pyakurel] was still a young man. He ultimately became an assemblyman for his community [in Reynoldsburg, Ohio].
You have to become part of society, and you have to appreciate it. Certainly, I feel that way: As an immigrant, I feel very grateful for the opportunities that my family was given. In turn, I had my children here, my grandchildren, and I never stopped telling them that. I took them back to the refugee camp and the trip that I took—and not just I, but many other people, whether from Europe, from Africa, from Asia, to escape dire conditions. What parents do to better the lives of their children! Kids need to know, immigrants need to understand the gifts that they’ve been given and make the most of it.
AE: You’ve written a new cookbook of your own family’s favorite recipes, in part a tribute to your late mother, Erminia Motika, known to your family and fans as “Grandma.” Can you talk about who she was to you?
Ms. Bastianich: My mother passed away two years ago at 100. We lived together; she lived upstairs, I lived down. She was matriarch. She helped me raise my children, and in turn, we helped to raise my children’s children. They all remember her vividly—we all do.
When you think about this woman, 30-some years old with two young children, going into the world not speaking the language, not having anybody in the States, not having money—how much strength it took for her and my father to do that so that our lives could be better. She was a strong woman who appreciated, loved America. She realized what America could be to her family. She was the pole that held everything together.
Nothing was done without Grandma, so she automatically came right into the shows and articles; the viewers loved her. People said, “She’s my grandma, she’s the grandma I lost.” She became kind of everyone’s grandma. We still give her a tribute, I want her in the show: At the end, we have little clips where we sing together, and people love that.
(L–R) Ms. Bastianich; her mother’s companion, Giovanni Bencina; her former husband, Felice Bastianich; her mother, Erminia Motika; and her daughter, Tanya Bastianich Manuali gather in her home kitchen in this old photo. (Courtesy of Lidia Bastianich)
AE: What upcoming projects are you most excited about?
Ms. Bastianich: The continuation of my show. I pulled back a little bit from the restaurants—my kids are running the restaurants, and I have new projects going on. I have more freedom. We’re just finishing my 25-year special, and then I’m working on another book. The next one is all about pasta: fresh pasta, dried pasta, making it, cooking it. I’m excited about it.
AE: What is the most important life advice you want to pass on to your grandchildren, and other young people?
Ms. Bastianich: Eating together at the table is an extraordinary place to be. Because when you’re eating, your defenses are down, you can talk. As human beings, we’re smart, we’re defensive, we are protective. But when we’re eating, that’s one of the few things that we take into our bodies—food—and our defenses are going to be down to take it in. Especially when parents want to talk to children about life, the table is the ideal place because children are open, are receptive, and they’re taking in what you’re saying, too. You don’t need to make a festive meal. A nice plate of pasta, it’ll get people to the table.
Thanksgiving 2017 at Ms. Bastianich’s home, with all of her grandchildren. (Courtesy of Lidia Bastianich)
Lidia’s Loves
Three ingredients you’d bring to a deserted island: Olive oil, pasta, and garlic
One thing you do every morning: Make a cappuccino
Someone you’d most like to cook with: My maternal grandmother
Favorite hobby when you’re not cooking: Sailing
Favorite way to relax: Listening to classical music
Best advice you’ve ever received: Be humble, listen well, and take a pause before responding
Thanksgiving at Lidia’s
For Lidia Bastianich, Thanksgiving is a holiday about “celebrating the country that took us in,” she said. Her family gathers in her New York home, joined by a few regulars who have no family of their own and have been part of the Bastianich holiday celebrations for years.
“We fill the whole house,” Ms. Bastianich said—and of course, she does the cooking. “For me, cooking for 20, 30 people? Not a big deal.”
The meal starts with a “never-ending” antipasto buffet: “We like fish, so it’s octopus, it’s mussels, it’s calamari, it’s baccala. … And then, of course, all the cold cuts—mortadella, prosciutto, gorgonzola, parmigiana. Then all the cured olives and roasted peppers, lots of roasted vegetables, salads, a lot of greens, cured anchovies, mozzarella.”
Then comes a soup or pasta course (“We make it a little Italian,” Ms. Bastianich said) followed by the turkey with all the fixings, served family-style at the dining table. Dessert is again buffet-style: The kids usually bring pumpkin pie and bread pudding, while Ms. Bastianich makes an apple strudel or cheesecake.
Tips for Home Cooks
Use your oven space wisely: The turkey gets priority, with some sides delegated to cook on the stovetop instead. “Us Italians, we do a lot of garlic-and-oil vegetables in the pan.”
Glaze your bird: Ms. Bastianich simmers balsamic vinegar with bay leaves, rosemary, a couple of garlic cloves, and honey in a pan on the stovetop until reduced by about half, then strains the resulting syrup and brushes it on the turkey in the last half hour of roasting. “That gives it a nice Italian touch and some sweetness.”
Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave, photographed at her Washington, D.C., home in 2001. (Photo credit: Philip Bermingham)
Her name alone is nearly poetic, but it is history and grandeur that give Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave her befitting nomenclature.
She is the great-granddaughter of Henry Villard, a Bavarian native who came to America with only 20 borrowed dollars in his pocket—only to make groundbreaking financial ventures and become president of the Northern Pacific Railroad and owner of the New York Evening Post. He also built what has become one of Manhattan’s most recognizable architectural landmarks: the Villard Houses, a Gilded Age mansion that today houses the luxurious Lotte New York Palace hotel.
He believed so much in the greatness of America that he put his whole soul into the railway company—allowing it to complete the country’s second transcontinental railroad—and funded Thomas Edison’s early experiments in electricity, Alexandra reflected. Meanwhile, the Villard Houses remain one of the few surviving examples of stunning design by the acclaimed architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White.
Villard de Borchgrave attends the American Ballet Theater Gala in Washington, D.C., circa 1985, when she served as the chairwoman. (Photo credit: Joan Marcus)
The American Story
Villard immigrated to the United States in 1853 from Germany at the age of 18. Within five years of arriving in America, he mastered the English language and began working for leading daily newspapers at the time. Villard covered the famous presidential debates between Abraham Lincoln and Democratic Illinois senator Stephen Douglas over the issue of slavery. Lincoln took a shine to him, and included him in his entourage. Villard was the only correspondent, then working for the Associated Press, to accompany the president-elect on his inaugural train from Springfield, Illinois to the nation’s capital. Then, during the Civil War, he was a war correspondent for The New York Herald and later for the New-York Tribune. In his coverage, he made sure black soldiers were properly commemorated for their service.
Henry Villard was a man of grit and determination. Portrait taken circa 1881. (Photo credit: Corbis Images/ Courtesy of Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave)Henry Villard (R) with his wife, Fanny Garrison Villard, and daughter, Helen, at their Dobbs Ferry estate in New York state, circa 1898. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave)
He was there when Thomas Edison famously lit up the first incandescent light bulb at Menlo Park, New Jersey in 1879. Villard would later hire Edison to install lighting aboard his new steamship, the S.S. Columbia. That was the first commercial installation of Edison’s invented light bulb. The installation was successful as the ship made its trip around South America. “Ofall of my patrons,” Edison said, “Henry Villard believed in the light with all his heart.”
In 1881, Villard secured control of the Northern Pacific Railroad company through what modern-day finance would call a leveraged buyout. At the time, Villard was the president of major railway companies operating in the Pacific Northwest. But one major competitor, Northern Pacific Railroad, stood in the way. He started buying shares of the company quietly. But it was not enough to gain control. He came up with the idea, known as the ”blind pool,” of raising money for the venture by asking his friends to invest in a secret opportunity. By not revealing the plan, the investors became eager to get in on the novelty. Meanwhile, his intentions would be hidden from the competitor company. The tactic worked, and he became president of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
Later, he bought two of Edison’s electric utility companies, Edison Lamp Company and Edison Machine Works, and formed them into the Edison General Electric Company in 1889. He served as president until its reorganization in 1893 into the General Electric Company.
A horde of visitors attends the “last spike” ceremony announcing the opening of the Northern Pacific Railroad, September 1883. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave)
Villard built his wealth from the ground up and was generous with it, paying off debts for universities and financing some of America’s most iconic colleges and architectural preserves, including Harvard University, the University of Oregon, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He was so inspiring to his great-granddaughter, Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave, that she honored his legacy in a 2001 biography co-authored with John Cullen called “VILLARD: The Life and Times of an American Titan.” The book tells of his remarkable rise from humble beginnings, eventually becoming a powerful financier and befriending luminaries like then-general Ulysses S. Grant (while covering the Civil War), and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, among many others.
The Descendant
As a photojournalist, Villard de Borchgrave built a reputation on the merits of her own talents, with her work appearing on the covers of international magazines such as Newsweek and Paris Match. The late president of Egypt Anwar Sadat, Henry Kissinger, and the late U.S. president George H.W. Bush are among the many world leaders she photographed, and her portraits hang in government offices around the world.
Villard de Borchgrave covers the October War in Egypt as a photojournalist, 1973. (Photo credit: J.R. Bonnotte)Villard de Borchgrave greets Anwar Sadat, the third president of Egypt. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave)
She went on to establish a charitable organization called the Light of Healing Hope Foundation, which gifted books of hope to comfort patients receiving treatment at hospitals and hospices. With an eye toward helping those in the military, her foundation donated thousands of gifts to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Navy Seal Foundation, Wounded Warrior Project, and American Gold Star Mothers. During its 12 years of activities, her organization also provided uplifting books and journals to several children’s facilities, including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the Ronald McDonald House Charities, and the Wendt Center for Loss and Healing. Villard de Borchgrave donated over 70,000 gifts which included her books of poetry and musical DVDs, for those who could not read, to over 100 medical centers nationwide. She developed and shared a total of eight inspirational publications including her first book, “Healing Light: Thirty Messages of Love, Hope, & Courage.”
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, United Nations secretary-general during the 1990s, wrote the foreword for “Healing Light.” Villard de Borchgrave and her husband Arnaud, who enjoyed a long career as chief foreign correspondent for Newsweek, had become friends with Boutros and his wife Leia while in Cairo in the 1960s. The couples were having dinner together in Paris when Villard de Borchgrave asked him to write the foreword, and so he did. “He just took a paper napkin on the table,” she recalled, and “penned it.”
Villard (R) holds his first grandson, Henry Serrano, with his son Harold beside them. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave)
Despite her many accomplishments, Villard de Borchgrave is most proud of her long marriage. She and her husband Arnaud, who passed away in 2015, were bonded for more than 45 years by their love of adventure and for each other. “In the 47 years since the first moment we met, Arnaud never failed to inspire me with his courage and determination,” Villard de Borchgrave passionately professed.
She also humbly pays homage to her parents, describing her mother as “a warm and giving person” and her father as someone who instilled a good work ethic in her, having worked on the U.S. Marshall Plan that helped rebuild European countries after World War II. Most of all, Villard de Borchgrave said, she draws inspirational humility from those who have been forced to overcome unspeakable tragedies. “I’m most inspired by the ability of those who are suffering,” she said, “to find a way to express gratitude despite the pain and hardship they are experiencing.”
Alexandra at the launch party for her book of poetry “Love & Wisdom,” at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., 2018. (Photo credit: Colleen Dugan)
Not only has Villard de Borchgrave honored her great-grandfather’s legacy through her biography about him, but has also, through her own work, continued to carry forth the same message of hope, courage, and resilience that he displayed throughout his life. “Henry Villard believed in America,” she said. “To this day, our country offers unique opportunities to anyone with the courage and determination to realize a dream, just as he did.”
This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.
Tiberiu and Sandra Czentye outside their South Carolina home. (SAM)
Parting from his wife and two sons was the hardest thing Tiberiu Czentye had ever done—harder than the upcoming 40-mile trek that would end with him crawling on the ground as he tried to evade armed guards near the Romanian–Yugoslavian border, harder than what would be months of hard labor in a Yugoslavian prison after he was captured anyway, and harder than the two years he would spend as either prisoner or refugee while crossing five countries before he finally won his freedom. “Family—that is why I left; I escaped Romania for the future of my kids,” Czentye said. “The biggest, toughest, most painful moment of my life was when I turned off the lights and kissed my kids and my wife goodbye, because I did not know if I would ever see them again.”
Tiberiu’s wife, Sandra Czentye, and their two sons. (Courtesy of Tiberiu Czentye)
Even now, from the safety of his own home in a free country, when he speaks of it—when he remembers those goodbyes—he’s moved to tears. Czentye and his family lived in communist Romania, during the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. From the beginning of this plan, he was clear about his goal: America. There, his family would have freedom and the opportunity for a better life and future for generations to come. “I studied. Many people leave and they don’t know what they’re doing or why,” he said. “If I make this sacrifice, at least I want to leave my family in one safe place for many generations. So I studied: the population of the US, the economy, the states, the two parties, the political power, the military power, the power of the dollar and how strong is the economy, and all these things put together.”
America’s history as a country built by immigrants was crucial for Czentye. He was migrating for his sons’ futures, and he didn’t want to bring them all the way to a new country where they would be looked down upon—and that didn’t happen in America. “I bring them here for their futures, and to feel good, not to be hurt,” he said. “I had a very strong reason to risk my life.”
He knew he was risking his family’s future as well, but he had a strong feeling that he would make it—throughout his journey, he said he must have been blessed. Man alone can only do so much, he said, but perhaps God played a part too.
A young Tiberiu and Sandra Czentye. (Courtesy of Tiberiu Czentye)
The Value of Human Dignity
Circumstances were bleak under Communist Party rule in 1989 socialist Romania, when Czentye set out on his mission to escape: schools were brainwashing centers, hard work was penalized, and his sons’ futures were almost certainly shaping up to be worse than his own. But Romanians didn’t always equate socialism with dictatorship—many people in the world still don’t. First, came the promises of free stuff, allowing socialism to take hold, Czentye said.
However, once the Communist Party had power, it quickly became clear that it couldn’t keep its promises. Then, the regime closed the borders, morphed into a dictatorship, and its unrealistic goals ended up impoverishing the nation. “Under these restrictions and these political things, there started to be a shortage of food, shortage of gas—shortage of almost everything,” Czentye said. “People were dying.”
That hit too close to home when his younger son got sick and ended up severely dehydrated. At the hospital, Czentye learned of a treatment for the virus, three daily doses of which could help his son to recover. But the medicine was produced outside of Romanian borders, and the regime refused to buy foreign pharmaceuticals. Upset, Czentye checked his son out of the hospital, despite widespread accusations that he was sentencing his boy to death. Instead, he hired a nurse and purchased the medicine on the black market—and his son got better. His enterprising spirit was clearly at odds with socialist culture.
Tiberiu Czentye in South Carolina on June 2, 2021. (SAM)
People in Romania had three options, he said: they could work hard and do their best while remaining unable to distinguish themselves or see the fruits of their labors, they could become lazy and collect the same pay as everyone else, or they could get out. The material side of things was only one concern.
Communist schooling, from kindergarten through college, focuses on brainwashing students while glorifying the Communist Party, Czentye explained. History is rewritten, all the media is state-run, private property disappears, and your movements are monitored and restricted. “Once they have power, they tell you what to do and how to do it,” he said. But there are always people like him, Czentye noted—people who want to make their own way and show their own worth.
In order for the regime to keep up its ruse, it doesn’t stop with lies and brainwashing. The secret police turn neighbors into informants, in a country where no one is allowed to criticize the party. “If somebody, just one neighbor, tells them, ‘Well, Tibi said that …’ in the morning they break down the door, take you from there, and you just disappear forever,” he said. That’s the worst part, he said: first, people turn on each other, society loses trust and faith in fellow humans, and people lose their dignity.
“People start to give you up. It starts to lose the quality and the value of the human being. I don’t want to say it because it’s not so fair, but they start to be more [like] animals, and just bend to the power.”
In contrast, family values were deeply ingrained for Czentye—growing up, he witnessed commitment between his grandparents and between his parents. As such, he didn’t just want a nicer life for himself: He wanted a future where his sons could flourish. Like his parents and grandparents had done before him, he wanted to lead by example and live out values worth imitating.
“That is why I left home, and left by myself. They have guns on the border and they used to shoot people—they don’t allow you to leave. I thought, ‘Please, they kill me, but they don’t kill my family,’” he said. From Czentye’s home in Timisoara, Romania, he crossed the border into Yugoslavia, where he was caught and sentenced to what amounted to slave labor, digging holes for electrical cables. After three months, he made his escape, traveling through Austria, through West Germany, and to the Netherlands, where he was placed in a refugee camp.
While in the Netherlands, Czentye sought political asylum in the United States and petitioned Romania to let his family visit him. The timing was fortunate—the regime had been overthrown and a new government was working to establish its legitimacy—and Czentye’s petition was granted. Being reunited with his family was unforgettable. He still remembers his trip to the airport, the suspense, and the first moment when he saw his family’s faces. With tears of joy streaming down his cheeks, Czentye was finally able to hug his loved ones again. It took a total of two years for Czentye to gain asylum, and in 1991, he moved to the United States.
“I had two luggages, two kids, my wife, and God,” Czentye said. He landed in Portland, Maine, where his family was entitled to a year of government assistance. After three weeks, he turned it down, and the family packed up and hopped on a Greyhound headed across the country. They had their eyes set on San Francisco, a hub of opportunity and industry.
The Czentyes in San Francisco in 1991. (Courtesy of Tiberiu Czentye)
His Grandchildren’s Future
In San Francisco, Czentye worked three jobs at once, taking neither vacation nor sick leave for five full years before starting his own business. But things in California—and many parts of America—have changed since then, he said. From 2007 to 2009, Czentye would spend time traveling up and down the Southeast, looking for a new place for his family. He found it in South Carolina, and after his youngest son graduated from college—both sons studied in California, one at UCLA and the other at Menlo College—they made the move cross-country. Still, even after seeing changes firsthand in California, Czentye was appalled when socialism became a popular movement in the United States.
“I was shocked. Shocked! And very upset,” said Czentye, who today is CEO of a digital archiving company and a happy grandfather of five. “I really believe it is my duty to share my story and tell these crazy guys who like socialism that it’s not like that.” Inspired to do more, he got involved in local politics and was recently elected executive committeeman for his county, and is looking for more opportunities to share the truth still.
However, Czentye acknowledges that it’s not all these young people’s faults that they’re endorsing socialism; rather, their parents may have failed them by not teaching them to mind their character. The schools may have also failed them by pushing them toward expensive degrees in oversaturated industries, racking up loans they now struggle to pay off. Even before Czentye set foot in America, he studied the culture, and from day one his wife and he were clear with their sons: Parents are the foremost teachers in life. Police and schoolteachers have roles to play as well, but those should never supersede parental guidance. He spoke openly about socialism, communism, what happened in Romania, and the follies of human nature.
Tiberiu and Sandra Czentye with their sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. (Courtesy of Tiberiu Czentye)
Czentye and his wife wanted to give their boys good lives, and they made clear their expectations: that the boys should use the good manners they were taught and strive for excellence—and they did, doing well in school and sports. Their sons are now raising their own families with these same traditional values. But Czentye saw that many of his sons’ friends in grade school weren’t brought up this way; without good values, a person’s character can slip, laziness creeps in, and the mentality of blaming others provides an easy out. These resentful souls take readily to socialism and its promise of free things, he warned.
A second warning sign, a tactic reminiscent of what Czentye experienced in Romania, is the divisive culture attempting to take hold in America. “The socialists, they work very hard to divide us: to divide us by nationalities, to divide us by blue-collar workers [versus] white-collar workers, if you are a member of a political party—all of these things,” he said. But Czentye believes that truth will prevail, and if people can recognize socialism for what it is, America can stay free.
“I’ve had the chance to go [traveling] in many countries since I’m here, and since I had my company, I went back to Europe, I was in South America, I was in China, I was in Africa, [and] Japan. I can tell you, America is not perfect, but it is the best,” he said. “And from here, I’m not going to run anymore. I’m going to fight and do what I can against socialism and for a free society.”
Tiberiu and Sandra Czentye outside their South Carolina home. (SAM)
