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The Story of Steve – An Immigrant’s Tale
By Dan Remenyi This is a biography and a ghost story set in various parts of the world including the slums of post war Dublin and the plush life of colonial Africa. From his arrival in Ireland from Hungary as a Radio Officer on board the ship Vicia in 1941, Steve Remenyi was faced with what might have been for others, insurmountable problems. His ship was trapped in Dublin. He couldn’t speak English and he didn’t know anyone in Ireland. But Steve was both an optimist and a survivor and made the most of the challenges facing him. So he started a business. Then marrying, seeing his business go broke and having a child in war time Dublin were just a few of the adventures he faced. After the war ended he returned to the sea with Irish Shipping and became involved in the lucrative Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes operation. This changed his life dramatically. But for various reasons this new found comfortable life in Mount Merion in Dublin’s then fashionable South Side did not last long. He moved with his family to South Africa and then Rhodesia. This was during the heydays of apartheid in South Africa and the rule of the Settler Government in Rhodesia. Nonetheless it seemed that he never achieved the promised success which he had thought possible when leaving Ireland for a new life in the Southern hemisphere – or did he? He died early when just 65 years old. But his death was not the end of the story. Steve’s memory did not rest in peace. It transpired that he was a highly secretive man. This immigrant’s tale reached out from beyond the grave to touch the life of his three children – each in different ways. It led me from adventures in the pastoral Hungarian countryside to the sinister gates of Auschwitz itself. | 
