Trip to Győr by their niece, May 2026
Written by Emilienne Baneth-Nouailhetas
It is both an honour and a moving experience to publish these brief memoirs and trip description written in English by Emilienne Baneth, PhD, professor of the Humanities, Rennes University, France, the grandniece of Dr Emil Róth — martyred rabbi who is held in high esteem in Győr even today — and his wife, Erzsébet.
Editor
In lieu of an introduction
On a yellow kraft envelope, my aunt had written a few trembling inscriptions. The names of the members of the Hollander family, which I saw with my own eyes in May 2026, in Subotica (Serbia; Szabadka in Hungarian – ed.), on the tombstone of Samu Hollander, my great-grandfather. The names of my grandmother Olga’s family: all killed in 1944, in Auschwitz, save my grand-uncle Pál, killed in Beograd in 1941. Also survived: my granduncle Artur Hollander, who emigrated to Israel, and my grandmother Olga and her two small children, my aunt Éva and my father János – through her ingenuity, resourcefulness, and her friendship with Ferenc Barta (Bartha in some sources – ed.), a lawyer from the Portuguese legation. They ended up in France in 1948.
And on the reverse side of the same envelope, the spidery hand had traced:
“Also Dr Emil Roth (Róth in most Hungarian sources – ed.), a well-known and respected rabbi, who could have saved himself through the Jewish underground but refused to leave his congregation. His wife was my father’s sister, Elizabeth (Erzsébet in Hungarian – ed.). This wife and her mother (my grandmother) were deported together with two children:
A boy, about 10 or 12, György
And a girl, forgot her name, 7 or 8, I think.
All perished.”
My aunt Évi had written these few notes for one of my cousins enquiring about the photograph of this tombstone, inside the envelope.
“All perished”. These last two words vibrate painfully like a string tying us to the broad tragedy of the Holocaust, but also setting me on the path of recovery; the construction of my family’s history, and the recovery of those names.
My earlier discoveries
It is in the Fall of 2022 that I came across these few words detailing the names on the Hollander tombstone in the Subotica cemetery, but also naming my grandaunt on the Baneth side (Banet in other family sources – ed.), namely Erzsébet, sister of István my grandfather, and her husband, Dr Emil Roth.
I was travelling back from a short stay with my American cousins, and was gathering as much material as possible to reconstruct, piece by piece, the memory and history that had been blanked out by my own family’s silence. Not once before in my life had I heard of Dr Emil Roth; I did not even know that my grandfather István had had a sister, let alone that she had married a rabbi.
Sitting in the airport awaiting my flight back to France, I feverishly researched Dr Emil Roth on the internet; and in awe, realized what a figure he had been for the Jewish community of Győr, and how he was remembered.
Thus started my mission to build his family’s past and to revive the names of my grandaunt Erzsébet and her children György and Jutka. And piece together, while doing so, an image of my grandfather István. From my grandmother, who survived the war in Budapest with my father, I know that he was highly educated and a bit of a poet-philosopher. His sister, Erzsébet, probably shared his high intellect.
My tribulations towards Győr began.
I had done research twenty years back on family history, but at the time documents and materials were much less accessible, and much less digitized. I was floundering in the dark. This time round, even in the short space of my wait in the airport lounge, I was able to uncover so much. So many energies were combining around the world to save these traces of the past, the breadcrumbs towards truth, the fallen leaves off the family trees. I am immensely grateful to all those researchers, historians, genealogists who share their knowledge. I found traces of my grandfather István in Hungarian Army records digitized by the Klarsfeld foundation and now held in the USHMM archive.
I found the name of Erzsébet and István’s mother, Jolán Kohut, who according to my aunt Évi’s recollection had been living with Emil Roth and his family when the deportations started. If such is the case, she shared the ordeal of their ghettoization in Győr, the herding to the barracks there and the final abominable trip to Auschwitz.
I found the grave of “Banet Viktor”, recorded on Findagrave.com at the Kozma street cemetery of Budapest. The dates fit: born 1878, died 1931. He was Erzsébet and István’s father, that is Jolán Kohut’s husband.
From those days in 2022 I determined that at the earliest opportunity I would travel to Hungary and walk the streets where these families had dwelt.
Trip to Hungary
It finally happened in May 2026. To my great chagrin, however, my aunt Évi died a few weeks before the trip, in March 2026 at the age of 91, in the United States; I will not be able to share my thoughts with her. She had been a precious interlocutor who verified the accuracy of my findings and theories.
I set out to travel to Vienna from Paris by train, in order to feel the time of travel and transition more deeply, but also because I shall never see a train without a thought for those thousands, millions, who were dragged to their deaths across the tracks of Europe by the Nazis.
Budapest
My first stop in Hungary was Budapest; I wanted to start from the city where Erzsébet Baneth had been born, and where she got married to Dr Emil Roth in 1932. Earlier, I received a copy of the marriage certificate of Erzsébet and Emil who tied the knot on 25 February 1932 in Budapest. At the beginning, Dr Emil Roth was rabbi of the Eger “status quo ante” congregation (Eger is a town north-east from Budapest – ed.).
I was also trying to tread the streets that had been trodden by my great-grandmother, Jolán. My aunt told me that she recalled Jolán living with her son, Istvan Baneth, and his wife’s, Olga, family for a while, and she subsequently moved to Győr when the rabbi’s and Erzsébet’s daughter, Jutka was born.
According to the records kept in Győr, György, Emil and Erzsebet’s first child, was born on January 27, 1933. They must have been in Eger at the time.
Then in 1935 Dr Emil Roth was recruited to be chief rabbi in Győr; he must have been brilliant and charismatic, as he was only 28 at the time.
It is a turmoil of emotion, finding a place one’s family was connected to, when nothing is left of that family. The same wave of emotion overcame me when I was in the Budapest synagogue, and even in the Opera House which my father recalls going to as a child.
At the Kozma street cemetery, indeed, I found Viktor Banet’s grave, with the simplest of dedications: “Apánk”. Our father. The simplicity of the dedication and the possessive form give this word a poignant immediacy; I feel it is spoken to me by István, my grandfather, and Erzsébet, my grandaunt, reaching us through the ages.
Győr
After four nights in Budapest, we took the train once again towards the West, towards Győr. Here I met with Tünde Csendes, a historian with a passion for the past of Győr. Tünde is incredibly knowledgeable about the Jewish community in Győr and Dr Emil Roth’s impact on the community between 1935 and 1944. She did not know, however, of Erzsébet Baneth and the children – there is not a single photograph left of the Roth family together, though it is safe to assume that they must have taken some. From my grandmother’s albums, I did find one photograph of György Roth with his cousin (my aunt) Éva Baneth. When I asked her who it was with her, she recognized György spontaneously.
On the lists of the martyrs of Győr, in the column where the name of the mother is consigned, there is only a question mark for Erzsébet Baneth’s mother, Jolán Kohut. She went to her death with her daughter and grandchildren in the abominable circumstances we know.
By all accounts, Dr Emil Roth was a remarkable man, with exceptional intellect, ethics, energy, and a passion for education. So, I fill the void of information about my grandaunt, Erzsébet, with the knowledge that they chose each other and married when Erzsébet was quite young, 23 years. It seems inevitable to conclude that she must also have been an exceptional woman, and not only supportive but profoundly aware of her husband’s ideals.
This matters not a little when we reflect on the fate deliberately chosen by Dr Emil Roth, and chosen for his family, as Erzsébet must have participated closely in the decision.
It is known that Dr Emil Roth was offered an escape from the ghetto in May-June 1944, on the so-called “Kasztner train”. Somehow my aunt Évi also knew that the Roths were offered a way out, as she wrote it on that envelope. Did the Rabbi know what was awaiting hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews? It is likely that he did; yet he did not leave his flock, and Erzsébet supported him in the decision, refusing to leave him as well.
In the old cemetery of Győr the surviving community raised a pyramid in memory of those who were murdered in 1944.
Inside, the walls carry the roll of the camps that consumed the deported. The cenotaph to Emil Roth lies in the middle of this gripping monument. I wish his family could be remembered here too. On the inner wall a verse from Genesis is set: What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. I stood inside that small pyramid, speaking the names.
I thought of little György and Jutka; I thought of my grandaunt Erzsebet. I thought of my great grandmother Jolán, Erzsébet’s mother, who was with them and whose name is inscribed nowhere.
I am grateful for this opportunity to write these names here, that is also the names of my ascendants, part of Emil Roth’s brutally killed family that they may never be forgotten.
And as I walked the streets of Győr, crossed its bridges, and contemplated the majestic synagogue where Emil Roth celebrated the rites and supported his congregation, I sought to recall the beauty of the lives that had been built there, and the dynamic energy of the Roth family, still present in my mind, rather than focus solely on the murderous catastrophe that put an end to them. May I express my overwhelming feelings in poetic form:
Thanks
Thanks to Amir Livnat for sending me the marriage certificate of Dr Emil Roth and my grandaunt Erzsébet Baneth, as well as Péter Krausz, Chair, the Jewish Roots in Győr Public Charity Foundation Board of Trustees, Tünde Csendes and Olga Spitzer for their help to prepare and conduct my trip to Győr.
E. Baneth
End Note by the Editor
Reading in Emilienne Baneth’s piece that no family photo is available of Erzsébet, Dr. Róth, and their children, György and Jutka, I have tried to identify such a photo somewhere. This is how I have “discovered” the below photo on our own website which at least partially exposes the family, Emilienne’s grandaunt, Dr. Róth and their son, György. Jutka is unfortunately not seen in this image of quite poor quality. The source of the photo: The Story of my Great-grandfather
Editing and HU translation using also DeepL – P. Krausz
Cover photo: © P. Krausz