Soccer player Öcsi Puskás’ adventure with Professor Frigyes Riesz
Frigyes Riesz
Frigyes (Győr, 22 January 1880 – Budapest, 28 February 1956) Hungarian mathematician, university professor, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, brother of mathematician Marcell Riesz. The two sons were born to the Jewish doctor Ignác Riesz and Szidónia Nagel of Győr.
His key insight is that, by defining the operations of addition, multiplication by a number and scalar multiplication between functions in a suitable way, a wide class of functions behave in the same way as vectors. Recognising the importance of this idea, Riesz became, together with Maurice René Fréchet and Stefan Banach, the founder of functional analysis. Functional analysis is a comprehensive theory combining the methods of algebra, analysis and geometry. His best-known result is the Riesz-Fischer theorem, which is well known in real-valued functional theory.
He studied at the University of Zurich (1897-99), the University of Budapest (1899-1901) and the University of Göttingen (1901-02). He taught for a short time at a secondary school, then moved to the Franz Joseph University of Kolozsvár, which moved to Szeged in 1921 following the Treaty of Trianon. Riesz was head professor of the Mathematical Institute at the University of Szeged, and from 1929 to 1946 of the Bolyai Institute.
Frigyes Riesz in university regalia
János Neumann thought it would be good if the world-famous mathematical centre established in Szeged – Riesz, Alfréd Haar, Béla Kerékjártó – stayed together. There is no doubt that around 1930, Szeged was the place in the world where classical functional theory and functional analysis could be studied to the highest standards. It is no coincidence that Marshall Stone, professor at Harvard University and author of the first monograph on functional analysis, sent his colleague to Szeged to study.
Riesz also gave lectures on Functional Operations, followed by The Theory of Hilbert Spaces and Integral Equations. All these were combined into a book by the end of the 1940s, and a comprehensive textbook on functional analysis was born, with unprecedented success. Of particular importance is the journal Acta Scientiarum Mathematicarum, which he launched with Alfred Haar and which is still a world-class journal in mathematics.
When the Franz Joseph University moved back to Kolozsvár on 19 October 1940, Riesz did not go there because of his old age, but asked to be transferred to the newly founded Miklós Horthy University in Budapest and continued to head the Bolyai Institute. From 1946 until his death, he was head of department at the Budapest University of Sciences (then Pázmány Péter University, later Eötvös Loránd University as from 1950).
Even in the most difficult times, Frigyes Riesz received exceptional treatment for his outstanding scientific achievements and his high international profile. In November 1943, for example, he was granted a service passport, permission to leave the country and travel supplies for lectures in Geneva. Frigyes Riesz sewed on the humiliating yellow star, but always wore a top coat … He was forced to retire in July 1944, but in August 1944 (!) he regained his job together with several other professors of Jewish origin.
Marcell’s descendants living in Sweden were present at the unveiling of the brothers’ memorial plaque in Győr. They also visited the office of the Jewish community in Győr, where they looked up the brothers’ birth records in the register of births (according to the office).
Riesz’s life was filled with mathematics. Early spring 1954, Prague, the airport of the Czechoslovak capital. An elderly gentleman settles into one of the armchairs, two young men sit down near him. The older man is reading. In the meantime, because he hears Hungarian words, he turns to the young people with interest, wondering where they are going. We’re going to Amsterdam for a friendly match,” says one of them.
Puskás and Lóránt rejoice together
It soon becomes clear: all three are from Pest, there are no direct flights from there, so they fly on from Prague, the old man to Paris for a conference, the boys via Brussels to Amsterdam. The match will be there. “But what match?” asks the old gentleman. “Well, what else, soccer!” replies one of them, self-consciously, in a slightly raised voice, and adds, in case the uninformed questioner does not understand: football, that’ s all! Then he points to his partner: “This is Gyula Lóránt, the many times national team midfielder, you may have heard of him. And I am Puskás”.
Ferenc Puskás, the world-famous football player who did not know Frigyes Riesz
Frigyes Riesz, the world-famous mathematician who did not know Lajos Puskás
The elderly gentleman nods with a smile, introduces himself, ponders a bit, takes a puff on his pipe, and then comes another question for Puskás: “And you are a football player?”
(The story is told by János Varga, a mathematics teacher from Székesfehérvár.)
Riesz Marcell
Marcell (Győr, 16 November 1886 – Lund (Sweden), 4 September 1969), university professor, younger brother of Frigyes, also a mathematician.
Riesz Marcell professzor, Fejér Lipót tanítványa
He received his doctorate from Lipót Fejér at the University of Budapest. He moved to Sweden in 1911 and taught at Stockholm University from 1911 to 1925. From 1926 to 1952 he was professor at the University of Lund. After his retirement he spent 10 years at American universities. He returned to Lund in 1962 and died there in 1969.
He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1936.
Marcell Riesz worked on trigonometric series. He introduced the Riesz Function and, together with his brother, proved the theorem known since then as the Riesz Brothers’ Theorem. In the 1940s and 1950s Riesz worked on Clifford Algebras.
Gábor I. Kovács: The fate of Hungarian Jewish university professors and those of Jewish-origin before and during the Holocaust from 1930 to 1945 (article), 2015. Based on the Database of Hungarian university professors I. Jewish university professors and those of Jewish-origin – Historical Elite Research, Budapest, Publishing House Eötvös: 2012. p. 172
As I sit down to write a brief history of my family, I am horrified by the current daily news reports. It has been over 6 weeks since the Russians invaded Ukraine. The destruction and devastation is overwhelming! It brings back so many memories of the Hungarian uprising of 1956. I remember my seven-year-old self, looking out of our second story window on Aradi Vértanuk street in Győr, as the Russian tanks rolled by. My Mom shouting at me to get away from the window because the soldiers had guns.
Until the geopolitical events beginning in the late 1930s, my parents were proud of their Hungarian heritage. Their Jewish ancestry, as far as we can trace it, lived in the land of the Magyars for ages.
Mom, born Perl Zsuzsanna, in August 1921, was raised in Győrsövényháza. She came from a loving family consisting of her parents, two sisters and two brothers. Her father was an inn-keeper, butcher shop owner, and wheat farmer of 100 acres. He managed dozens of employees. Mom described having had a very happy childhood. Her parents were strict and had high expectations. Her family was one of only two Jewish families in their village. She attended Catholic primary school (the only school in the village) where she liked to tell us she was a top student in Catechism. Mom’s parents had to hire a Hebrew teacher from a nearby town to teach her and her siblings to read Hebrew and learn the prayers and Bible stories. Likewise, the family had to walk to another nearby village to attend High Holiday services and other religious affairs.
Mom (r) with siblings, Miklós, Gyöngyi and Sári (their half-sister), around 1926-27
Mom and her siblings had to travel even farther, to Győr, to obtain a higher education. This was an expensive project made more-so because they had to take a carriage and then a train daily. The value of education was drilled into the Perl children. But by the time Mom graduated from business college at age 19, she, (like the other 5 Jewish girls in her class) couldn’t find work. She eventually lucked out and was able to work in a laboratory and support herself in Budapest.
When the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944, Jews were compelled to wear the bright yellow star on their clothing to identify them, harass them, spit on them and loot their businesses. Within months, my mother’s family was rounded up and taken to concentration camps. Mom and her younger sister, Gyöngyi, were rounded up in Budapest and initially marched in near freezing temperatures to Lichtenwörth camp in Austria. They were held there for six miserable months. Mom described the conditions, the inhumanity, the hunger, the cruelty of those months. She also shared that they encountered some kindhearted folks from nearby villages who sneaked bits of food to the captives when they were able.
With luck, determination and spirit, Mom was able survive the Holocaust. The rest of her family was not so fortunate. She, her sister Gyöngyi and her brother, Miklós were the only ones in her family to survive. Both of her parents, her older sister and younger brother-were murdered in the gas chambers in Auschwitz, along with numerous aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. Incidentally, Mom’s Mom was taken to her death on her 46th birthday.
Liberation came to Lichtenwörth on April 2, 1944, Easter Sunday. Russians arrived at the camp with truckloads of bread and canned food. The people cheered and hugged and kissed the soldiers. The soldiers were repulsed by the starving filthy masses. Once fortified, they eventually returned to their childhood home and joyfully reunited with the other family members who survived. Their joy was tempered by their sorrow upon learning how the others had perished.
Little by little they began to rebuild their lives. Mom and her sister eventually rented a small apartment and found jobs in Győr. Some of the belongings of the Perl home were saved for them by friends after their deportation. Among the items were a watch that had become rusty in its moist hiding place. Mom asked around if anyone knew of a Jewish watchmaker who might be able to repair the watch. This is where my personal history begins.
Mom took her watch to be repaired by Egri Jenő, also a Holocaust survivor. At that time, money was scarce, so he asked for a home cooked meal as payment for the repair. He was lonely and started visiting Mom and her sister quite frequently. Their ease with each other resulted in a very short courtship and culminated in a proposal of marriage. At a Christmas gathering with Mom’s brother (who married his high school sweetheart and converted to Catholicism) Jenő (my father to be) reached into his pocket and held forth five wedding bands. “Pick one” he said to Mom, and the rest is history. On December 31, 1945, they wed under a Huppah officiated by a local Rabbi in a simple ceremony attended by very few family members and friends.
Mom and Pop in 1946
My father’s history, of which I know a lot less than Mom’s’, is in some ways even more tragic.
Born in Győr on September 2, 1908, “Pop”, as I used to call him, learned the trade of watchmaking because Jewish boys were prohibited from entering many professions. His father, a furniture craftsman, was the only family member who died a natural death of a heart attack, at the age of 57. The rest of his family—his Mother and his only sister, perished in the concentration camps.
Pop’s (2nd from r.) parents and sister
Mom was my father’s second wife. He had been married before and they had two little girls named Eva and Marika. Together with their mother, all three were victims of the gas chambers. When most of the Jews of Hungary were deported to various concentration camps, my future father was sent to Labor camps.
Pop’s little daughters, Éva and Marika, murdered in Auschwitz
He rarely talked about those times. I can think of no greater horror than to lose one’s entire family so tragically. The ‘conventional wisdom’ at that time was not to talk about painful parts of their lives; that talking about it would only make it worse. Now we know just the opposite is true. By nature, my Pop was very congenial. As a young man, he traveled all over Europe with friends on his motor bike. He was an avid reader, liked to sing and to play cards. He was a hard worker.
After the Russians liberated Hungary at the end of the war, they sent their proxies to occupy seats of government. They urged the Hungarians to join the Party. Shortly after my parents were married, they moved into a lovely large condominium above my dad’s watch store. My father was thought by the Communists to be a wealthy man who hid jewels and gold prior to the war. Since private wealth was not permitted, the Communist Police began to harass them. They banged on our door at all hours of the day and night, searching every inch of our home for their imagined loot.
Other than the political situation, Mom described pleasant social life filled with friends, strolls in parks, birthday celebrations. We lived relatively comfortably for 11 years, but my parents did not want to raise their children under that regime.
By ‘their children’, I mean my brother and me. Misi, who later became Michael, had been born in September 1947, and I arrived 15 months later. I am named Eva, after my father’s first daughter. Mike and I were very much loved, and raised with all the opportunities available.
The only thing my parents lacked was their freedom. When the Hungarian patriots revolted against the Soviets in October 1956, after careful consideration my parents decided to flee. They said goodbye to some friends and relatives, and joined another Jewish family in a rented truck and headed toward the Austrian border. That was on November 10, 1956. When the truck was allowed to go no further, together with the other family, we had to cross the border on foot—in muddy terrain, pocked with holes from excavated landmines. Exhausted, with only two pieces of luggage, having left everything else behind, we crossed into Austria. What a relief!
We were welcomed by local villagers who helped us get to the first refugee camps, where my parents joined others and tried to figure out what to do next. They knew what they were leaving but not where they were going. We eventually got to Vienna, where my father completed applications to go to Australia. As luck would have it, we met an American lady who was Hungarian by birth. The conversation my parents had with her altered their vision and their plans. The following day, my Father obtained the necessary forms to go to America!
A few days later, we were aboard the second military airplane chartered by then president Eisenhower, bound for the United States and were among the first 5,000 refugees who arrived with a permanent permit of residency. What amazing luck!
Newspaper cuts, 1956 and later
When we touched down in San Francisco on December 5, 1956, we were the first Hungarian refugees to arrive there. I still recall the amazing reception we received there—newspaper reporters, photographers, radio interviewers. Through an interpreter, our parents told the press how grateful we were to come to this land and my father, showing off his three newly learned English words pronounced “God Bless America” to their applause.
For a while we were front-page news. Thanks to the publicity, both parents found jobs, and an apartment was found for us. Mom was able to work in a children’s clothing factory and Pop was employed (temporarily) by a reputable watch and jewelry company. Michael and I were enrolled in grammar school, and treated like celebrities (mostly). We learned English quickly, and totally lost our accents. Our parents attended night school. Their progress was slower, but they could get by with Mom’s fluency in German. My parents also changed their surname from Engel to Angel, per a friend’s recommendation—more American. After a while, they bought their first car: a 1948 Packard for $50.00 (!). With the help of social workers, they were introduced to other Hungarians who had come to San Francisco years before.
After a couple of years, when Pop was laid off from his job, we moved to Los Angeles. They got new jobs and once again they developed friendships and a new community. We became American citizens in 1962. They worked hard, saving as much as they could so Mom was able to fly to Israel to see her sister for the first time after 14 years of separation.
The job in Los Angeles was a heavy burden for our father. He had to travel to downtown daily. He had heart problems. Then, he saw an ad in a trade newsletter for a Jewelry store for sale in Ontario CA. A suburban town with a population of 50 thousand, offered an opportunity for our family to lead a more relaxed lifestyle. Our parents were able to purchase the store and adjacent home. Michael and I went to High School in Ontario. We all made new friends, but kept the old. We were thriving. Life was good.
Michael and I both went to Universities (UCLA). He got a Law degree and I obtained a Master of Social Work degree. Our parents were proud, they achieved a lot in a short time.
Mom and Pop dancing their 25th wedding anniversary, 1974
Michael and I both married and each have two children, now adults and parents themselves. I worked as a medical social worker most of my adult life, but only part time when my girls were young. I retired when I was 65 years old. My daughters, now 44 and 46 years old, were wonderful children and are wonderful adults and parents. Parenting them has been my greatest joy.
Now at age 75, Michael still enjoys working. In his spare time, he rides his horses. He claims that his love of horses and riding began in his early childhood years when we spent summers in our uncle’s ‘falu’ (village) Sövényháza.
My brother, Misi, the “cowboy”, around 2010
Sadly, my father died of a heart attack in 1976 at the age of 67. I have no doubt that his life experiences contributed to his early demise. He was able to be a part of both Mike’s and my weddings, but he died just 6 weeks before his first grandchildren were born. It saddens me to this day that he missed out on that joy!
A friend of mine introduced me to my would-be husband, a doctor from Argentina. After we married in Los Angeles, we moved to Laguna Hills CA, and lived in a lovely community called Nellie Gail Ranch—where we raised our daughters, Nicole (1976) and Danielle (1978). Mom moved from Ontario to a retirement community called Casta del Sol in Mission Viejo, a town just a few miles from ours. Recently widowed, Mom was a major part of our lives as our family grew. We had an active family life which included membership in our large Reform Jewish Congregation. Both daughters went on to get their Master’s degrees, both in the San Francisco Bay area.
Mom and grandchildren, around 1990
Mom was always a very important part of our family! As a widow, she made new friends and traveled extensively, often visiting friends and relatives in all corners of the world, including Győr. She loved to cook and entertain. She had a fantastic relationship with our children and they admired her, respected her and loved her very much! At the age of 74, Mom joined our father in death in 1995. She is missed every single day. We have our precious memories and that is a blessing!
Mom’s last birthday with Michael and me, 1995
My daughters are both married and each of them have blessed me with two wonderful grandchildren. Now I am able to have a close relationship with my 4 grands, just as my Mom had with hers…
Zoe’s (my eldest granddaughter) Bat Mitzvah, August 2021
My Grandfather “Sándor” or “Sanyi” moved to the west-Hungarian town of Győr at the end of the XIXth century – he was the son of Jacob and Julia – and I do not know whether he moved straight from Burgenland or some other intermediate place. He married a Caroline Unger “Lina” and eventually built or occupied the house at 8 Batthyányi tér (square) in Győr. They had over ten children in the following order approximately:
Mihály (Max), Charlotte (Sari), Armin, Emil, Imre (Emery), Eugen (Jenő), Flóra, Margit, Jolán, Laci, Feri.
Possibly, I am missing some and I think there were some who died young.
Uncle Mihály
They all grew up in the family house in Győr – the same place where I spent many summers as a youngster up to the outbreak of the War when I was about 14. It was an old, old house probably built for a landowner before the city of Győr expanded to that spot – it was one story high and dissected in the middle by a tunnel-looking big entrance way through which in old times you could drive a wagon through. It was more like a “country house”. After you walked through this coach entrance you arrived at a yard and saw that there was a terrace and another smaller entrance to the left where our family lived – while on the other side of the yard the house had a wing rented to tenants.
The family house
At the back of the yard there was a huge formal garden, about two acres in size, with lovely flowerbeds, walks and a stone paved sitting area under an old chestnut tree. There were several chestnut trees in the garden.
In the garden: me,my Father Laci, Uncle Imre, Uncle Emil, Cousin Pali Varga and sitting Aunt Margit
As you entered the house you were immediately aware of the importance of food and cooking in this place as the largest single room right behind the entrance terrace was a huge kitchen from where at all times great aroma of meals in the making emerged. There was always great stuff to nibble on usually laid out on a large wooden table. The kitchen was presided over by the peasant-cook-maid Erzsike – she had been with the family since times immemorial and always appeared to me as another of my many aunts who ran the house.
By the time I arrived at the Győr scene the house was occupied by my father’s favourite older brother: Imre or Emery – a very distinguished looking, quiet nice man, a lawyer and local community leader. He was the vice-president of the Jewish Community in Győr. Aunts Jolán and Margit lived there too, Jolán was a widow and Margit never married. They spoiled me to death, while Uncle Emery would try to instil in me some of his convictions many of which he picked up in schools ran by the “Bencés” (Benedictines), a Catholic order. It did not have anything to do with Christianity – it was more universal about the need of controlling one’s body to let the spirit rule … and he looked at sports as a spiritual exercise to show the body who is the boss… Uncle Imre was an avid rower and we belonged to the local Rowing Club on the Little Danube that is flowing through the city. Győr, an old industrial town was criss-crossed by rivers, the Little Danube, Rába and Rábca, so water sports were on everybody’s mind.
Uncle Imre
My summers at Győr were great and I looked forward to going there on the train by myself as I was growing to be a bigger boy – it took less than two hours on the fast electric trains. This must have been the beginning of my fascination with trains, locomotives in particular and I remember writing something of a thesis on electric locomotives at a much later time. When in Győr, I usually slept in Uncle Emery’s room, in an old bed with huge soft eiderdowns. It was very cosy…
Let me show you an excerpt of my family tree:
Excerpt of my family tree
Finally, let me remember my Cousin Vica and his little son, Péterke, both killed in Auschwitz:
The Raoul Wallenberg Association in Hungary has been organising Holocaust-related quizzes for secondary school students in Hungary for several decades. It had run under the title “It was a long time ago, how was it?” some ten years, but about five years ago this was changed to the more specific name “In the footsteps of Wallenberg”.
For a long time, I myself did not know about the existence of this competition, although as a history teacher I always motivated my students to take part in competitions. I once accompanied a team from my school to the regional round in Győr, which I had not been in charge yet, but the teacher who had been coaching the team could not make it and asked me to take his place. Thus began “my story”.
In the mid-2010s, I was teaching history to a very dedicated, hard-working class. Towards the end of Year 10, I told the students that there had been an announcement for a competition called ” In the footsteps of Wallenberg”, which would be exciting and require a lot of creativity. Three students entered: Luca Felhalmi, Norbert Mester and Marcell Pollreisz. They called themselves “Time Travellers”. In June 2017, some preliminary tasks were already known. For example, they had to visit local Jewish memorial sites, take photos, or post about anything related to Jewish culture and events on Facebook popular among the students. My students didn’t delay, they threw themselves into the task with great enthusiasm. They photographed synagogues, memorial plaques and visited Jewish cemeteries, not only in Győr, but also in the city’s surroundings. They also visited Budapest several times, and searched for Jewish memories during their family holidays, although, as far as I know, none of them belonged to the Israelite community.
One of the important tasks was to interview a Holocaust survivor or someone who had been a rescuer. We did all of them. A relative of mine recommended Mrs. Kati Sági Pálné from Celldömölk, who was over 90-years old but had a vivid spirit. We went to her and did the interview. At the same time, we asked for help from Mr. Tibor Villányi, the President of the Jewish Community of Győr. This led to another thread of the story. Mr. Villányi took us to the nearby village Kimle, where we met the Láber family, whose ancestors hid Jewish youth during the Holocaust. Each story made a deep impression on us. The young people were impressed by Mrs. Kati Sági’s will to live and the heroism of the family in Kimle. We produced some excellent interviews, which were presented at the Wallenberg competition and at school commemorations.
The team prepared diligently for the regional round, which it won in November 2017 in Nagymegyer (Slovakia), the first regional final to be held outside our borders. Two months later, there was the national final in Budapest, for which we were given a special task. Our students had to present a concept in collaboration with two other teams. I can’t remember the concept itself, but it was great to work with the team from Vojvodina (Serbia) and the team from Nagyszalonta (Romania). We even did a shadow play; the youngsters were indeed very clever!
The “Time Travellers”: Marcell Pollreisz, Norbert Mester, Luca Felhalmi and Dr Attila Tar, teacher (lr), 2017-18
In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building on Bem Square in Budapest, the team took the obstacles one after the other and finally finished in a tie for the third place! We were very happy, especially when we found out that our prize was a trip to the Felvidék (Slovakia). (This trip took place in June 2018).
A year later, the “Time Travellers” team wanted to compete again and I didn’t say no. Now a year more mature and learned, they were up to the task. We confidently won the regional final in Veszprém in autumn 2018. As a preliminary task, we again had to make a film on someone who had rescued lives. This time it was a short film about Bishop Vilmos Apor of Győr. We visited the Saint László Visitor Centre in Győr, where Mr. Renátó Kovács guided us through the exhibition of Vilmos Apor.
As usual, the finals took place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before the finals in the afternoon, the organisers made it possible to visit the Dohány Street Synagogue, just as in the previous year. I would like to mention here that my students used the opportunity of the competitions to visit the largest synagogue in Europe (Dohány Street) or the Holocaust Memorial Centre in Páva Street. Our second attempt did not do so well in the competition, this time we came sixth, but it was not about the ranking, but about the participation, the programmes and the team.
In 2019, I had to say goodbye to my “winning” team because its members graduated from school. I had planned to take a year or two off anyway, but due to the coronavirus epidemic, it ended up being a 3-year break. But for the 2021/2022 “In the footsteps of Wallenberg” contest, I managed to get three determined and experienced team members back on stage again. Blanka Erdős, Tünde Pálfi and Virág Vida from class 10.K of our school agreed to participate. They chose the name “Győr Triumvirate”.
Again, we asked Mr Tibor Villányi for help. He recommended visiting the Jewish cemeteries in Győr and its surroundings. He said that there were hardly any Holocaust survivors left. So, on a stormy afternoon in late January, we set out and toured several sites. We visited the memorial to the child victims in the courtyard of the Győr synagogue, the cemetery in Győr-Siget, the synagogue in Pannonhalma, the Jewish cemetery in Győrasszonyfa and the memorial to Miklós Radnóti, the poet, in Abda. The girls made a great film of what they saw, which we presented at the regional round in Veszprém on 21 February 2022. Many other tasks followed that day, and by the evening it turned out that we had come second, which meant qualifying for the final.
The “Győr Triumvirate” team: Virág Vida, Blanka Erdős, Dr Attila Tar, teacher, and Tünde Pálfi (lr), 2022
The finals took place in Budapest, on the border of Terézváros and Erzsébetváros, in the parish of the church St Teresa the Great of Avila. Ten teams competed against each other, and the competition consisted of several rounds. My students were very much prepared for the “live” production: a dramatised portrayal of a period in the life of Hanna Szenes (one of the heroes of the Holocaust). In addition, there were several worksheets, a walk through the city centre and a visit to the Jewish Historical Museum in Erzsébetváros. All very interesting and thought-provoking, and of course we were most excited about the live performance.
There was not much to be nervous about, the dramatic production was well done, but the performances of the others were also impressive. So, the competition was very tight indeed. In the end, there was only 1-2 points between the top teams. We finished in 4th place. Overall, we were happy, this is a very good result. We missed out on the trip abroad this time, but we won a valuable book prize.
We didn’t really do it for the prizes, and that’s not why I do it. The students got into these contests to gain extra knowledge and experience. Before they knew little about Hungarian Jewry and the Holocaust, now they know a lot more. They have become much more sensitive to the subject and are willing to share their knowledge with their peers and classmates. As a teacher, I am happy that my students are gaining knowledge and experience, as well as life-changing experiences. In the meantime, I meet my fellow teachers and the dedicated organisers of the competition, and we agree that, barring another pandemic, we will meet again next year.
Communicated by Dr. Attila Szilárd Tar, teacher, Baksa Kálmán Bilingual Highschool, Győr
The competition “In the footsteps of Wallenberg”, The short movie “How I survived”, Exhibitions
We were pleased to read in a recent information material we received from the Pattantyús-Ábrahám Géza Technical Highschool in Győr that young people, at least some of them, are striving not to forget.
Tell it to your sons, tell it to everyone’s sons.
Young generations growing up should know the historical traumas, failures and sins of this country and the world, as well as its great deeds and outstanding successes.
Among many other things, they need to remember what happened in 1944, how the terrible tragedy of the Jews, the Holocaust took place, and how, in the midst of inhumanity, some saviours of humanity bravely acted to save lives in Győr, Hungary and the world at large.
This is the theme of an annual, national competition for secondary schools named “In the footsteps of Raul Wallenberg”.
It is gratifying to see that schools from Győr also participate successfully in this contest, in which students from the Pattantyús-Ábrahám Géza Technical Highschool among others, have been active participants for years.
In 2017, the school’s 3-member student team led by history teacher Melinda Kazóné Kardos reached the regional finals in Veszprém. In addition to the Holocaust and examples of rescuing designated victims, the students dealt with issues of anti-Semitism, tolerance, racism and xenophobia. Before the competition, they had to create a profile on a social network site, where they posted pictures and entries about Imre Pattantyús-Ábrahám, one of the leaders of the Győr-based Waggon and Machine Factory who is considered by Yad Vashem to be one of the “Righteous Among the Nations”. The team of Bence Haász, Tamás Horváth, Márk Jakus achieved great success with, among other things, a five-minute film about the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor, Mrs. Joli Stern, entitled “How I survived”.
The team: Bence Haász, Tamás Horváth and Márk Jakus, 2017 and 2018
In 2018, this time the team named after Imre Pattantyús-Ábrahám, the rescuer, reached the final in Budapest with an unchanged line-up. The 86 teams included ones from neighbouring countries such as Slovakia, Romania and Serbia. They had to create a Facebook profile where they had to post pictures and entries until the final of the competition. The team from Győr also solved tasks on the Győr aspects of the Roma Holocaust. The final competition took place at the Holocaust Documentation Centre and Memorial Site in Páva Street, where they completed a test on the centre’s exhibition, followed by a quiz on the Holocaust and the rescue of people. Afterwards, the participants visited the Dohány Street Synagogue.
The Pattantyús-Ábrahám Géza Technical Highschool has also organised a number of exhibitions on the subject.
In 2017, an exhibition entitled “Explorers, Scientists, Magicians – Hungarian Inventions” was presented at the school with the help of the Budapest Holocaust Documentation Centre and Memorial Site as well as private collections of the school’s teachers. The exhibition presented Hungarian inventors and scientists of Jewish origin who made significant contribution to the development of a particular field of science. Visitors were able to learn about Gedeon Richter’s role in the pharmaceutical industry, the important contribution to the development of physics by Leó Szilárd and Ede Teller, and the work of many other renowned scientists, as well as gaining insight into the world of art through the work of the photographer Robert Capa, and even learning about the escape artist Harry Houdini and the magician Rezső Gross (Rodolfo). The exhibition was complemented by archive film footage. Over two weeks, nearly 500 students from Győr visited the exhibition.
In 2018, 600 students took part in a historical journey through time in the framework of an exhibition entitled “The State of Deception: the power of Nazi propaganda”, which was again compiled using materials from the Holocaust Documentation Centre and Memorial Site, also under the guidance of Melinda Kazóné Kardos, history teacher. This time, the pupils were given an unconventional history lesson and looked at former Nazi propaganda posters. Then they filled in worksheets and “experimented with mass manipulation” to “prove” the absurd thesis that people should be afraid of the – non-existent – Martians.
In addition to the Highschool’s own students, the extraordinary history lesson was attended by pupils from the Győr Krúdy Gyula Technical Highschool, the Gárdonyi Géza and Kölcsey Ferenc primary schools, as well as from Győrújbarát and Ikrény. Ten history teachers from schools in and around Győr also visited the exhibition.
Pictures from the exhibition “The State of Deception: the power of Nazi propaganda”, 2018
How did the students like this special lesson? They told the Győr daily Kisalföld: “It was like turning the pages of a giant history book.”
In 2019, the Pattantyús-Ábrahám Géza Technical Highschool organised an Anne Frank Memorial Exhibition called “If I can be who I am”. The exhibition material was provided by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Over a three-week period, nearly 900 students and 27 teachers from Győr and the surrounding area visited the exhibition, which aimed to help young people to better understand the dangers of discrimination and exclusion, to learn more about human rights, to appreciate democracy and the main features of an inclusive, tolerant, multicultural society.
Flyer for the Anne Frank Memorial Exhibition “If I can be who I am”, 2019
It is heart-warming and encouraging to see enterprising teachers and open-minded students who are receptive to “difficult issues” such as exclusion, racism, rejection of otherness, anti-Semitism, but also responsible action against these phenomena, even self-sacrifice. Only the expansion of historical knowledge, the recognition and acceptance of the historical choices and responsibilities of the individual and the masses, can gradually lead to the peaceful coexistence in society that is so much desired.
Based on a communication by Melinda Kazóné Kardos, history teacher
I was born in the wrong year, 1942, and in the wrong place, Budapest. But by a miracle of luck, we survived the war years, I was released from the Great Ghetto in Pest with my mother and grandfather, and my father survived in Mauthausen.
In the fifties, all I knew about Győr was that an aunt of mine lived there, at 18 Arany János Street, whom we called “Mariska of Győr”. We visited the Éliás family at least once a year: Mariska, her tailor husband and their little boys. I knew nothing more about the Győr relatives. In 1955, they had their daughter was born, and in November 1956 they left the country, stopping in Melbourne, Australia, only, where they could make a good living as tailors. Our relationship was severed.
There was also a rumour in the family that an uncle of mine, surnamed Feit, was involved in the founding of the Győr synagogue, and his name is on a plaque there.
I must have been 65 when, by chance, I found a cousin of mine in Melbourne, who was born there, on the internet. There was a renewed connection with the branch of the family there.
In the meantime, I learned more and more about my family through Jewish search portals on the Internet, even finding a few documents. By that time, I really regretted that as a small child I had not asked my grandparents to tell me at least a little about their parents and grandparents.
To my surprise, I learned that one branch of my family came from the Győr-Nyitra-Komárom triangle, i.e. from the Jewish population there. Many of them settled and lived in the Sziget district of Győr. Sziget was just an intermediary station towards Budapest and, unfortunately, later also towards the concentration camps.
My great-grandfather Jakab Feit was a master shoemaker. According to the documents found, he lived at 4, later 11 Híd Street in Győr, later on at Országút and at Vásártér Street. His wife, Száli (Fáni) Kuttner, gave birth to five children (including my maternal grandmother at 4 Híd utca), one of whom died at the age of three months.
At the age of 31, on 2 July 1886, at 7 o’clock in the morning, Fáni drowned in the Rába river. A strange death – I don’t know if she didn’t knowingly try to escape his difficult fate. She left behind her husband and four children, including a one-year-old girl. The master shoemaker immediately remarried, marrying a young girl from the König family, whom he also called Fáni for simplicity’s sake. The second Fáni gave her husband four more children, while one of the girls died of measles at the age of two.
Cousin marriages were common in the extended family. Therefore, my maternal grandfather and grandmother were related to each other, and other relatives married also within the family. They all lived in the same block, preferably in Győr and later in Budapest.
Part of the family moved to Budapest, but some of the girls stayed in Győr because they got married there. One husband was Lajos Láng. A similar thing happened to him as to my great-grandfather. His first wife, Rózsa Reich, had three children, Maria, Sándor and Irén, and then she died young. Lajos quickly remarried, marrying an aunt of mine, Maria Feit. She and her son József were deported to Auschwitz, where they died in 1944.
The three children of the previous wife, Rózsa, survived the war, although one of them, Mária Láng, was sent to the Buchenwald camp. She survived. After liberation she married Miklós Éliás, a master tailor, and they lived in Győr until 1956. She was the “Mariska of Győr” whom I visited as a child. She died in 2010 surrounded by her loving family in Australia. The other two children were in hiding. One of them, Sándor Láng, eventually died in Canada, the other, Irén Láng, still lives in Melbourne, aged over 90.
The third child, Erzsébet married Sándor Keitner; they moved to Újpest, and from there they were sent to Auschwitz, with their children, on their final journey. The fourth, my aunt Sarolta, married Nándor Friedenstein in Győr, but the young husband was killed in the First World War, and then the widow and her daughter moved to Pest. This little girl, Stefi, born in Győr, was taken from the same ghetto apartment in Dob Street, Budapest, to Dachau, where our family was also housed. She came back safely.
“Award for the Jewish People of Hungary” to Dr. Erzsébet Nagy
On 24 March 2022, the Award for the Jews of Hungary was presented at a formal function in the ceremonial hall of the Association of Jewish Communities in Hungary (Mazsihisz) in Síp Street, Budapest. This year, the prestigious award, founded in 2005, was given to Dr. Erzsébet Nagy, Hungarian history teacher, local historian, among others.
“With this award, the Mazsihisz expresses its appreciation to Dr. Erzsébet Nagy, Hungarian history teacher, local history researcher, for her devoted and humane work, through which she explores and makes known the Hungarian Jewish community – including in the Győr-Moson-Sopron county, Győr and Gyömöre – even beyond the borders of Hungary, making an exemplary contribution to the preservation of the memory of the martyrs who were exterminated during the Holocaust” – reads the decorative diploma awarded to Dr. Erzsébet Nagy as presented in the banquet hall of the Mazsihisz headquarters.
Dr. Erzsébet Nagy’s work was praised by András Heisler, President of the Mazsihisz, who said: the awardee was born in Gyömöre, Győr-Moson-Sopron County, in a simple Christian Hungarian peasant family, which should be emphasized now because her origins have fundamentally determined, and still determine, her way of thinking and her world view.
“Her childhood experiences in the small village, her experience of the humane behaviour of simple peasants, have accompanied her throughout her life: their example of standing up for others has taught her to persevere in her studies, work and profession with hard work and humanity,” said the President.
In the laudation it was said that Dr. Erzsébet Nagy began to research local history of the Jewish community in parallel with her work as a teacher. Her research into the history of the Popper family in Győr, and then into the local history of her home village of Gyömöre, was interwoven from the very beginning with the nearly two hundred-years history of local Jewry.
For years, she collected local memoirs of Jews killed in the Holocaust from elderly people in the village, and regularly visited archives and libraries to gather the necessary material. She published her research in a book entitled “The Memory of the Jews of Gyömöre”, the publication of which was supported by the family of Tibor Villányi of Győr, said András Heisler. “We are happy to present her with this award, because she deserves it, even though we know that she is a selfless woman who works not for rewards, not for prizes, but for humanity, and humanity that she brought with her from her home village.”
Without roots we can become strangers, without roots there is no spiritual or physical freshness. Man is rooted in his past. He who forgets his past becomes rootless. With the past we carry all its good and bad moments, the joy of our wise decisions and happy moments, but we also carry with us our mistakes and the burden of the sins committed against us. Both the guilty and the victim must cherish the memory of the past, so that some of the bad pages of history may not be repeated. Erzsébet Nagy’s local historical writing evokes Jewish people and Jewish families – in a completely objective way.
She wrote a book of remembrance of the Jewish inhabitants of Gyömöre, also known as ‘Little Palestine’, where 25-30% of the souls living there belonged to Judaism, and where not only an Israelite school but also a separate yeshiva, a school of religious studies, operated from 1851 until the end of 1943. Erzsébet Nagy took the trouble to search the archives and talk to the people of Gyömöre who were willing to help with their personal recollections to write her work. (The book’s blurb)
For our compilation we used the websites mazsihisz.hu; antikvarium.hu; wikipedia.org and the book “The memory of the Jews of Gyömöre” by Dr. Erzsébet Nagy. Ed. Péter Krausz
Károly Spitzer was born on 29 September 1882 in the village of Szabadi, near Győr, to Illés Spitzer and Róza Neufeld. The large family moved to Révfalu at the turn of the 20th century. (At that time Révfalu was still an independent village, annexed to Győr in 1905.) They bought a house in the Erzsébet királyné street, today’s Ady Endre street, where they ran a pub.
Károly Spitzer chose another trade and opened a butcher’s shop at 4 Czuczor Gergely u. in Győr.
In 1910 he married Vilma Kellner, born in Ács. Vilma was half an orphan at the time, her father, Hermann Kellner, a master tailor, died prematurely. Her mother, Hermann Kellner, née Antónia Berger, lived a long widowhood until her death in Auschwitz.
Károly Spitzer bought his own house, also in Révfalu, in Báthory Street. They had two children, Ferenc in 1911 and Olga in 1913. They lived the life of an honest, hard-working merchant-industrial family. They prospered financially, employed a helper in the shop, and had a servant in the household. On weekdays, they worked hard in the shop, and on Sundays, as was the custom of the time, Károly went to the café, where he discussed business and the world with his friends.
They had their children educated, Ferenc at the Miklós Révai Grammar School, and Olga at the Count Albert Apponyi (now Ferenc Kazinczy) Girls’ Grammar School. Ferenc was not admitted to the Technical University, where he wanted to study architecture, because of the numerus clausus. So he studied at the textile college in Brünn (now Brno in the Czech Republic). On his return home, he was unable to find a job in the textile industry, so he learned the trade of a butcher alongside his father.
In 1933, Olga married Lajos Kohn, born in Bezi, who was engaged in cattle trade. He sold the cattle in Vienna and Italy. He was a good citizen. They had two sons, Lacika (1934) and Ferike (1938).
In 1942, Ferenc Spitzer married Lilla Lovas, who was born in Bátorkeszi in the Felvidék. His father was Sándor Lovas (Lőwinger) from Galanta. His mother, Sarolta Wetzler from Komarno. His maternal grandfather, Mór Wetzler, was a wine merchant in Komarno.
Lilla Lovas and her mother were expelled from Bratislava by the Slovak authorities because of Slovak Jewish laws. So in 1939, they came to Győr, where they were declared stateless. Lilla did not get a work permit, but fortunately, thanks to her language skills, she was able to work as a governess for the family of the then master tailor Nándor Lőwi, who was working on Baross út. After her marriage, her husband was called up for forced labour service. The young married couple kept in touch through frequent correspondence. In these letters, Lilla gave a detailed account of the increasingly difficult daily life for the Jews. Ferenc managed to preserve the letters, which are now considered historic documents.
The family, along with their relatives near and far, were forced into a ghetto in 1944 and deported to Auschwitz. Lajos Kohn, a forced labourer, froze to death in the Don Bend.
Ferenc Spitzer was liberated in Mauthausen. First, Lilla was held prisoner for six weeks in Auschwitz, then for ten months in Lippstadt, where she worked as a slave in a war factory, twelve hours a day, on a grinding machine, without protective goggles. He was freed by American soldiers on 1 April 1945 and moved to a place called Kaunitz.
Of the narrow family, only Lilla and Ferenc survived the Holocaust, the others fell all victims of Nazi madness.
Life after World War II
Miraculously, my later parents, Lilla Lovas and Ferenc Spitzer, having lost parents and siblings, in failing health but surviving the horrors, tried to start life together again. The family house in Báthory Street survived, where a foreign family had moved in. My father managed to get the house back, so at least they had somewhere to live. Yes, many people of return did not have that.
My father tried to continue the independent animal trade business, but he was not allowed to do so for long. After that he had several jobs. He remained true to his social democratic political principles and refused to join the communist party. According to him, when he entered the recruitment centre, he was greeted by former Arrow Cross members, so he thanked them for the invitation but did not seek membership. He could therefore not expect any promotion. Until his retirement, he remained a junior officer on a modest salary.
For seventy-five years, at the bottom of the cupboard, lay notebooks and a letter, the last memories of our father’s first family, the innocent and senselessly destroyed, sweet little girl Veronka and her equally sweet little sister Mártika and their mother Natalka.
In 1944, human evil and hatred destroyed the Hungarian Jewish community in our home town Győr, which had raised with loving care, honest, educated, hard-working and successful generations, whose members considered Hungary their homeland. Between the First and the Second World War, however, they were gradually marginalised in the most despicable way and eventually even deprived of their bare lives.
Our father, having survived the loss of his daughters and wife, returned home from labour service and a Russian camp of prisoners of war and, after a few years, remarried. We were born into his second family, so his first children, Veronka and Mártika, who were killed in Auschwitz, became our older siblings. What a dramatic twist.
The cover page of the sketchbook of the 2nd grade, 1942
The three miraculously preserved family documents, following their print publication, is made public also in this way to preserve the memory of our murdered sisters.
Flower garden, 1942
My room, 1942
Eight-year-old Veronka’s sketchbook faithfully reflects the high quality of education and upbringing in the Israelite People’s School of the time and confirms the statements made in the school’s 1942-43 yearbook.
Mom, Natal, 1942
It’s me, Veronka, 1942
My little sister, Márti, 1942
The yearbook is not only a simple annual report, but also a summary monograph on the local patriotism of the Jewish community of Győr, the history, functioning and significance of the school.
The yearbook, 1943
The book also tells about the teachers, the prestigious school board consisting of notables of the Jewish community, and the geographical and natural features of the city of Győr. However, in the lines of the headmaster’s report, the ominous shadows of an impending tragedy are already looming.
Veronka (no. 15) among the best, 1943
Natalka’s last letter, sent to her husband, our future father, the day before she was forced into the Győr ghetto with Veronka, Mártika and five thousand of their fellow citizens of Győr, already indicates the imminent arrival of the deadly threat. The letter radiates endless loyalty, love and still hope, but in vain.
Natalka’s last letter to her labour camp conscript husband Berci (later our father), 28 May 1944
Transcript of the letter:
Sunday, 28 May 1944
My dear Berci!
I was going to write an exhaustive letter today, but fate has arranged it differently.
We had a terrible awakening this morning, there will be a ghetto in Győr too. We must go to Sziget. For the time being, there is no decree that the Christians there must move out, only existing Jewish flats (which are already fully taken under previous regulations) can be occupied or exchanged for Christian ones. Few people are willing to exchange because everyone insists on staying in their old dwellings. I rushed out to the Horváths at 7 o’clock, fixed an arranged transfer of the apartment whereby they would get Kato Opitz’s apartment with a nice street view. You can imagine how happy I was. Then the woman appears in the afternoon and says that they won’t change because they are afraid of being bombed. In the meantime, I ran to the Elemérs, where I found out that the Horváth family would get Elemér’s flat and that the Horváths’ flat would be taken by the Mérős, Böhms and Rózsi Krausz. I have a feeling that something happened behind my back. Sári came to us in a rush to say that she would do what she can for me to get an apartment.
Is everyone selfish and ruthless now, or is this the right thing to do? I have to move out by 8pm on May 31st, until then the good Lord will just help us find a place to live. Margit’s family is going to Zoli, Aranka to Ilonka, Mama and …. to the old Bakonyi’s, while Böske has no place yet, he may go to Ilonka as a last resort.
My dear Berci, it hurts me so much to write this and to cause you pain, but is it possible to hide it?
I waited until this afternoon to write something more positive, but perhaps I will have better news tomorrow.
I’m in a hurry, because I mustn’t go out after 8 o’clock.
My darling Berci, pray for us. I promise to be strong; I am fighting in the strong faith that one day I will be with my dear husband and our two sweet little girls.
God bless you! (?)
With warm love, hugs and kisses from your faithful wife,
Natal
They leave Győr in cattle wagons for their final journey. Among those deported is also our future mother, who later becomes one of the few survivors of Auschwitz.
These written testimonies found in 2018 encourage us to preserve the memory of our loved ones and to do our utmost to ensure that their tragedy is never repeated.
Non omnis moriar … I will not die completely…
Their immortality depends on us.
Girls, parents and children, 1942-1944
Their names with the ones of other murdered adult and child family members on a cemetery memorial plaque today
Stolpersteine, or stumbling stones have been defined by Wikipedia as follows:
“The works of the German sculptor Günter Demnig; 10×10 cm copper plaques in cobblestone, placed as a tribute to the victims of National Socialism in front of their former dwelling homes. These stones will make history visible and tangible in the everyday life of the residents.”
The inscription on each plaque begins with the words “He lived here”, followed by the name, date of birth and a brief description of the person’s fate.
Günter Demnig is responsible for the complete arrangement of the stone installations throughout Europe, including Hungary.
In Győr, the Spitzer family laid the first stones in 2016. MAZSIKE supported the project, covered part of the costs with state funding and organised Mr Demnig’s trip. In 2019, the Spiegel, Winkler, Klein (Quittner) and Adler families also laid stones in the city. Memorial stones for the Neuwirth family are still to be placed.
As of September 2019, a total of 446 stumbling blocks have been laid in Hungary, 150 of which were in Budapest.
On the occasion of the placement of the memorial stones in the honour of her family, Olga Spitzer said, “It was not an easy decision because I was afraid, but my defiance was greater than my fear of anti-Semitism.”
The following link provides information on the stumbling stones deposited in Hungary: https://mazsike.hu/projektek/botlatokovek/ The (not fully up-to-date) map also shows the stones of Győr.
If you want to have a memorial stone placed today, please contact MAZSIKE. You must be able to provide all the information needed for a standardised inscription, including the last freely chosen place of residence of the victim. These should be sent to mazsike@gmail.com with any questions for clarification.
Confronting the 20th century in the Hungarian-Austrian borderlands
Book written by Frank N. Schubert
What is the book about?
How do we remember the past? What do we choose to remember? And, just as important, what has been erased from public memory? Where do we find these erasures, the “forgotten” remnants of the wrenching events that defined the 20th century? The Past is not Past (A múlt nem múlt el) examines the ways that Hungarians and Austrians on both sides of their common border remember, distort, forget, and ignore the wrenching events that mark the generally horrible century.
These episodes and developments include World War I, the collapse of the Habsburg empire and postwar political instability, the Treaty of Trianon, World War II and the Holocaust, removal of ethnic Germans, the Iron Curtain and the 1956 revolution, the end of Soviet rule, and the post-1989 migration crisis.
Based on fifteen years of travel throughout the borderlands from the author’s home in Győr, the largest city in the region, as well as on published sources and conversations with residents, the book – part travel guide, part social history, and part memoir – addresses these questions.
Fifteen maps and more than 140 illustrations help readers find the answers.
I had the opportunity to read two chapters of Mick Schubert’s book before its publication. The ones entitled „Győr – the Wonders of It All” and the „Reverberations of 1944”. It is an absorbing and fascinating read. Mick raises points of view, shares insights with the reader that have been surprising and/or unfamiliar to me, having grown up in Győr long ago. He takes us, with a touch of irony, through the twisting and often shocking transformations of many well-known Győr landmarks from the early 20th century to the present day.
He shows how people of the recent past and present try to cover up and deny the past, to one-sidedly present the truth of the time, to forget and make other people forget the inglorious and criminal deeds of those who took part in the extermination of the Jews, among others. Mick points out on almost every page that the past always reappears; the fate of the victims, their persecutors and descendants is intertwined in one way or another. Some reconciliation is possible only by uncovering the truth.
Yes, the past is not past and it can certainly repeat itself if we do not care. For each other. (Note by the site editor.)
The quote
Based on revelations of this book, and my own experiences, I say, Mick, you are right, the past is still walking among us. We all must face up to it sometime. (Note by the site editor.)
With Mick’s consent, I am publishing a few paragraphs about the Révai gimnázium , which made a profound impression on me as a former student of this institution. I attended the school for four years and my former class still meets every five years. I had never heard before that a part of the school building played a miserable role in the tragic fate of mixed Jewish-Christian couples from Győr in 1944. The full details of this stunning historical moment should be revealed though it would not change the poignant fate of the people concerned. Under the influence of the book, I myself tried to make some modest initial steps to clarify the issue and learned from archival sources in Győr that documents of the district’s chief magistrate appointed by the Arrow Cross government contain dozens of petitions from mixed couples kept in the Révai gimnázium , which only confirms the book’s claim.
Quote from Chapter 7. Győr – The Wonders of It All
“…
The Révai gimnázium or high school on the west side of the park was adapted early in the war for use as a military hospital because of its proximity to the railroad station. It also continued to function as a school through the academic year of 1942-1943, when Jewish students were dismissed en masse. The building survived the wartime air raids, though with considerable damage. At war’s end, the Russian occupiers also used it as a hospital.
When the ghetto was established in May 1944 across the Rába in the Sziget neighborhood that contained three Jewish houses of prayer, part of the Révai building became the “mixed” ghetto, where Jewish-Aryan couples were confined. Those people numbered somewhere between thirty and forty. They survived longer than residents of the general ghetto. In fact, they almost made it through the war. At around nine o’clock on the night of 26 March 1945 they were taken to the Moson Duna and shot into the river, called by some locals the “moving ghetto,” from the Medve Bridge, now the Széchenyi Bridge. Soviet forces arrived just hours later.[1]
[1] The moving ghetto should not be confused with the floating ghetto. The latter name was given to boats bringing more than 3,000 Jews fleeing east from Austria in the wake of the 1938 Anschluss. The vessels tied up at places like Ásványráró, sometimes for months, before the refugees were allowed to debark.
The Révai bears no markers to indicate its wartime use or the fate of those taken away to be killed. Nor is there a marker at the murder site, either at the bridge or along the river. All that appears to be known is the approximate number of victims. And while there are no markers for this catastrophe, the park in front of the school has two marble plaques embedded in the grass in front of newly planted trees, both within twenty meters of the building itself. The local natural gas company planted the first in 2009, in celebration of reaching 800,000 customers. Members of the Lions Club International placed the other one in remembrance of their international convention, held at Győr in 2015. As far as the victims of Arrow Cross murder are concerned, they—and their killers–might just as well have never existed. A sense that something is missing is missing.[2]
[2] The massacre of the Révai prisoners is actually mentioned in the text of the exhibit concerning the life of Bishop Apor Vilmos at the bishop’s palace. With phrasing adapted directly from Randolph Braham’s encyclopedia of the Holocaust (volume I, p.- 482), the exhibit identifies the site of their incarceration as ”egy győri iskolaépület,” a Győr school building, without specifying which one.
The Hungarian and English editions are expected to be published together by the Holocaust Memorial Center (HDKE) in Hungary later this year.
Jakab Neuwirth was born in 1844 in Alistal (now Dolny Stal, Slovakia). The family later moved to Győr, where the father, Salamon Neuwirth, and later Jakab, worked as hauliers.
It was in 1920, well before the Holocaust, that Jakab Neuwirth was beaten to death by two men wearing crane-feathered berets, the symbol of antisemitic counter-revolutionary gangs supporting governor Horthy, and his money as well as pocket watch were stolen. The pocket watch and the chain that came with it had been given to him by the Habsburg King Charles because his seven sons had served in the First World War.
Jakab Neuwirth had 16 children who lived to adulthood, the age difference between the oldest and the youngest being almost 42 years. Imre is the eleventh in this line.
Imre Neuwirth was born in 1894 in Győr. After graduating from school, he became a master printer. His printing house, the Kisfaludy Printing House, was named after the Kisfaludy statue, behind which it was located. He worked not only as a printer, but also as a book and newspaper publisher. The newspaper, the magazine and the books he wrote, edited and published all dealt with Jewish social issues. He published his first journal, ‘Somer Yisrael’ (Guardian of Israel), when he was 21. However, the newspaper and the magazine ceased publication after a few issues due to a lack of subscribers. The bound copies of the books were deposited in the stock of the National Széchenyi Library, but in 1944 most of them were crushed.
Imre’s wife, Margit Kóth (Győr, 1894) was a midwife, who had already graduated as an adult. She is said to have been one of the best midwives in Győr. One of his two brothers was killed at Isonzo in World War I, and his sister and her family ended up in Auschwitz.
Imre had five children in his family. Jolán (1916), Jenő (1919), Sándor (1921), Sára (1923) and Miklós (1925). The family lived in modest but secure financial circumstances. They belonged to the Győr Orthodox Community, but the children were also involved in the Zionist movement.
The difficulties began in 1938 after the first law on Jews was passed.
Jenő, one of the sons, emigrated to what was then Palestine in 1938, started a family there and lived in Israel until his death in 2015. At the same time, a large group also left Győr for Palestine and they have remained in touch even today.
The rest of the family stayed in Hungary. After the outbreak of World War II, the men were called up for forced labour. The women, in 1944, were sent to a ghetto and then to Auschwitz, which neither of them survived. The “extended family” – descendants of Jakab Neuwirth – lost more than 50 men, women and children in the Shoah.
Imre Neuwirth and his sons, Sándor and Miklós, returned to Győr in 1945, after the liberation of the country, and tried to start a new life there. Soon it became obvious and was made clear to them that there was no need for their printing house and no possibility of keeping it going.
So, Imre Neuwirth left the country in 1946. His ship was sunk by the British and the rescued passengers were deported to Cyprus. From there, he was transferred to Israel and worked in Tel Aviv until his death in 1955.
Sándor moved from Győr to Budapest. He got married and became a mechanical engineer and later an engineer-economist. He had two sons (including the undersigned), three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He deceased in 2009.
Miklós, the other son of Imre Neuwirth, also moved to Budapest, where he became a paper industry engineer. In 1956, the family left Hungary and started a new life in Sweden. They had one son, three grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Miklós died in 2011.
Imre’s eldest son Jenő, mentioned above, died in Israel in 2015, aged 95. He is survived by a daughter, four grandchildren and 18 (!) great-grandchildren.
The whole “extended family”, i.e. the descendants of Jakab Neuwirth, today about 240, are scattered all over the world, most of them living in Israel.
This “extended family” has been holding family reunions every two or three years since 2006. In 2008, around 100 people visited Győr in the framework of such an encounter.
The UN General Assembly declared 27 January as International Holocaust Remembrance Day by a resolution of 1 November 2005. It marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp, the largest Nazi extermination camp, in 1945.
It is with pleasure that we publish the short summary of a conversation we had with Tibor Villányi, the President of the Jewish Community of Győr, in the first days of January 2022. The general question we put to Tibor concerned the past, present and future of the Jewish community in Győr. Read his answer below.
Past and present of the Jewry in Győr
I can’t say much good about the present of the Jewish community in Győr.
Religious life has shrunk to a minimum, while for me it is the most important measure of the existence of Jewish life. Unfortunately, this is the consequence of the Holocaust, and is typical of many communities in the countryside. We erected a memorial column in the courtyard of the Győr Community and the Synagogue with the names of 400 child victims deported from Győr and its neighborhood, then killed. They were all under 14-years old. They and their unborn children would now be members of a classically functioning community.
Nevertheless, I have a lot to do and I do everything I can to ensure that the great tradition of the once significant community does not disappear without a trace. Our ancestors played a prominent role in the industrialization of Győr, think of Ágoston Léderer and his peers, who were the founding owners of very successful factories as well as prominent actors of the public life in Győr. As a result, Győr has developed into a dynamic industrial city, think of the milling industry, the wagon manufacturing factory, the distillery, the electrification of the city, the multitude of textile factories, the establishment of vegetable oil factories and many other plants. These factories and plants have provided employment and livelihood for tens of thousands of Győr citizens since the end of the 19th century.
During my presidency alone, we buried more than one hundred people in the cemetery in Sziget while hardly a Jewish toddler was born in Győr during this period. So, the process of shrinkage that began with the 1944 massacre, and which has been exacerbated by further emigration, continues unabated.
The level of interest in community affairs that goes beyond religious life is also extremely low. Regrettably, this was already typical of the generation that survived the devastation and unfortunately, they were the ones who sold and even donated the Synagogue building and the former Home of poor and elderly to the state. The Home has already been repurchased by the community from town ownership. The heavily dilapidated building has partially been renovated. On the ground floor, we set up an exhibition on Jewish religious life and the local history of Jews as well as the Holocaust. In one of the rooms, photo boards have been set up on the life of former Győr families. We have also furnished an 80-seat theater, which is suitable for cultural events. With all this, our goal is to spread knowledge, remember and retell.
As said, the great Synagogue is not in our property any more, we can only use one prayer room. Saturday reception and religious holidays are celebrated there. We have a synagogue clerk and everysecond week a rabbi coming from Budapest to perform the Saturday service and educate community members. In August 2021, together with the Széchenyi István University, we commemorated the 150 + 1 – years anniversary of the Synagogue’s anointment in an honorable way. We had to postpone the event for a year because of the outbreak of the Covid epidemic.
It is most important to me that we preserve what we have today. To this end, I nurture our relations with the leadership of the city of Győr and the relevant governmental bodies.
The World meeting scheduled for 2024
In principle, I support the organization of the meeting and ensure that Jewish institutions such as the prayer room, the former Home for poor and elderly as well as the cemetery can be visited on this occasion.Of course, I will attend the reunion. (Note by KP: The University has already authorized the use of the great Synagogue as one of the venues for the planned events.)
The international nature of the initiative is also commendable, but unfortunately my experience with the survivors of Győr and their descendants living abroad is not very positive. A few years ago, I tried to arouse interest abroad for Győr with announcements published in the paper Israeli Új Kelet, but there was no reaction whatsoever. Many of these people have ancestors buried in the cemetery, which has been painstakingly tidied up and maintained, but a great number of those living abroad, although they visit the graves from time to time, does not see that the cemetery should be maintained and the graves should be taken care of. This is sad. It should be understood that, as the Hungarian state does not finance the maintenance of the cemetery, the relatives would have to pay an annual maintenance fee on a regular basis, which is not a large amount. From January 1, 2022, HUF 5,000 (USD 16) for single graves and HUF 10,000 (USD 32) for double graves. It should be noted here that this amount is a general cemetery maintenance fee, not covering the cost of repairing individual gravestones. In the last two years, we have re-erected, for memorial and accident prevention reasons, six hundred fallen gravestones without living relatives at great expense.
We are in contact with the Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defense and, thanks to a grant received, graves of 18 WW1 heroes have also been restored.
Plans for the future
I cannot see into the future.
Of course, we will continue with our current work, such as organizing the religious activities, maintaining the cemetery, running the former Home for poor and elderly as well as ensuring our participation in the cultural life of the city of Győr.
My plans include the creation of an interactive database on Jewish life in Győr including the necessary computer infrastructure in the basement of the former Home for poor and elderly, which needs to be completely renovated. All this will cost a lot of money. I have asked for government help in this respect. The Museum of Győr would take over the running of this new, modern section of the Jewish local history exhibition already established there.
Furthermore, we will organize occasional exhibitions, such as one on Jewish weddings as supported by the Museum mentioned.
As soon as the two-year-long epidemic subsides and the situation returns to normal, we will relaunch the lecture series of the Győr Jewish Free University.
To sum up, despite the current difficult situation, we are working, and I myself, as I said, am actively trying to fulfil my plans in a neat order, within the limits of my possibilities, in order to preserve the traces of Judaism in the life of this beautiful, historic city with great traditions.
So far, Tibor’s reply, for which we are grateful and hope that the expected success of the international reunion to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust in July 2024, already in preparation, will have a positive impact on fostering and preserving Jewish traditions in Győr and will contribute to the enrichment of Jewish community life here. In this way, the initiators and organizers of the reunion will strengthen the effectiveness of the current activities and the implementation of the plans of the local Jewish Community’s leadership.
Szabolcs Szunyogh was born in Budapest in 1950. He graduated as a teacher, but worked mainly as a journalist, newspaper editor and radio journalist. He is also known as an author of books and audio plays for young people as well as an author of educational books. He has been awarded the Radnóti Prize and the György Várhegyi Prize for his work. (The book blurb of “Hungarian Menorah”)
HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF GYŐR
In 1490, a Jew named Simon moved from Győr to Sopron, this is our oldest record of Győr Jewry. In the 18th century, a city decree informs posterity of the existence of the Jews in a special way: in 1748, the magistrate decided to expel the them. The first news about the Jews of Győr after the Middle Ages, referring to a larger community, dates from 1795: it was then that the first house of worship was built in Győr. The first rabbi we know of was Abraham Schick, who served as a rabbi in Győr between 1803 and 1818.
During the war of independence, the Jews of Győr fought in the army of György Klapka, so the Austrians blackmailed the community, arrested the rabbi and executed a boy. In 1851, the Jews of Győr and Győr-Sziget established a common community of faith, and a school was founded in the same year. (Teaching has been in Hungarian since 1864.) In 1866, a tender was issued for a modern synagogue, which was built according to the plans of Károly Benkó and Vilmos Fränkel (Fraenkel), and was inaugurated on September 15, 1870. (The church was renovated and expanded in 1925-26 according to the plans of Arnold Bachrach.)
The great rift did not escape Győr either: in 1870, the traditional Jews separated from the congressional community open to reform and established the Orthodox community.
The congressional, and therefore neolog community has become one of the most important congregations in the country. Its president is Ignác Schreiber, royal adviser, knight of the Order of the Iron Crown, governor of the Austro-Hungarian bank. He supported not only the education of poor children but also improved the livelihood of underprivileged teachers with huge donations. If a merchant became impoverished or went bankrupt, he could turn to him for help. With his support, the home of the Jewish elders, as it was called at the time, was also built. His successor was a doctor named Fülöp Pfeiffer, who performed philanthropic work worthy of his predecessor. From then on (until the Holocaust) it became a tradition in Győr to perform exemplary charitable work from the personal property of the community’s president.
Jews in Győr largely contributed to the development of industry. Adolf Schlesinger founded a distillery, Károly Neubauer set up a match factory, Adolf Kohn started a vegetable oil factory, Hermann Back built a rolling mill, and Illés Keppich founded a steamship company on the Danube.
The community was devoted to the country, its members participated enthusiastically in World War I, during which 85 young people from the Győr community lost their lives.
The book describes many Jewish sites in the country
In her dissertation, an ORZSE (= National Rabbinical Training – Jewish University) student, Enikő Lőrinczi, reports on the history of the synagogue: “The school connected to the synagogue building was opened on October 17, 1869. The costs were covered by the community from the purchase of seats at an eternal price, interest-free loans from community members and donations. In 1927, a winter church was added to the building. After the war, the church remained unused, so its condition gradually deteriorated. The synagogue became state property in 1968 that turned into city ownership in 1993. A total renovation of this property was completed in 2003. The more than 140-year-old synagogue was refurbished by August 2006. The former synagogue in Győr now serves as a museum building and hosts cultural events. The art collection of János Vasilescu can be seen in a permanent exhibition on its galleries. The former school wing houses the College of Music. The Jewish community, very much decreased in membership due to the Holocaust, now uses a separate prayer room in a side wing of the synagogue.”
Today there are 1444 Hungarian towns and villages in which there was once, but for more than seven decades now there has not been a Jewish community. Fortunately, Győr is in a different situation, although about five thousand people were actually killed during the Holocaust. (Of the community in Győr, which previously numbered 5,700, 780 remained after the war.)
The ghetto was set up in a part of the city called Sziget, from where Jews were driven into the slum barracks of the factory district while subjecting them to humiliating and rude searches. It is important to mention that the bishop of Győr, Vilmos Apor, who was later shot by drunken Russian soldiers, tried to prevent deportation and went to see the Jews in the slums in person, but was chased away by the gendarmes.
For the first time in Hungary, a granite block was erected in Győr in memory of the Jewish children abducted and killed during the Holocaust. Since the former synagogue is being managed by the Széchenyi István University, chief rabbi József Schweitzer and University rector Tamás Szekeres inaugurated a memorial in the courtyard to honour the memory of five hundred children in 2007. On behalf of the Hungarian Jewish Cultural Association, five stumbling blocks were also placed in the town in memory of the abducted Jews of Győr in 2016.
Perhaps it is teachers who preserve the memory of the martyrs to the utmost in the hearts of their pupils and students. On the website of the Mihály Vörösmarty High School in Érd, for example, we can read the touching lines of an eleven-year-old girl: “On April 16, 2015, the day of the Holocaust Remembrance Day in Hungary, we made a trip to Győr. We visited the Synagogue and Holocaust memorial exhibition. From the interesting lecture we heard, we got a comprehensive picture of the architectural features and functions of the Hungarian synagogues. Then, on the upper levels, we could see paintings by Holocaust survivors and Jewish artists. We then walked through the nearby Memorial Museum, which served as a refuge for the persecuted during the war. Today, it helps visitors learn about Jewish culture. It was about religious holidays and traditions, but also about everyday life. The most emblematic part of the visit for me was the Holocaust Memorial Room, where the guide lady told us about the horrors her family had experienced. Thank you so much for the opportunity, it was a moving and instructive journey.”
THE NEOLOG SYNAGOGUE OF GYŐR
The building that can be seen today, which was once the synagogue of Győr, is located in Győr Újváros, Petőfi Square, more precisely at Kossuth Lajos street 5. The detailed construction plans of the synagogue, which shows stylistic features of historicism and Art Nouveau, were developed by the Pest design bureau Örömy, Hencz and Bergh, while the architect was Vilmos Fränkel (Fraenkel), a Viennese architect, but the real designer was Károly Benkó.
This is a very imposing building. Its external size is 22.25 by 35.30 meters.
The six hundred square meters of land were purchased by the community in 1866 to build a school and a synagogue there. A total of 33 bids were received, of which the one by architect Benkó was accepted. The costs were covered from public donations and loans. First – this is a characteristic Jewish feature – the school was completed, and only then the synagogue itself.
The floor plan of the synagogue is rectangular, but since towers are attached to the corners, the central space is ultimately reminiscent of an octagon. The towers and the prayer room are covered with domes placed on light cast iron columns, the twin windows have curved closures, and the light entering through the huge rose window makes the interior of the synagogue elevated. The dome rises more than 33 meters above ground level. The ark, the Torah cabinet, and the bima in front of them are, according to neolog customs, positioned at the eastern end of the building. The Hebrew text above the ark means, “Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth.” (This is a biblical quote from Joshua chapter 3, verse 11.) Inside, a two-story gallery decorated with the stars of David runs around along the walls.
This is one of our first neolog synagogues. It is reminiscent of Christian basilicas in that its verticality expresses a religious sentiment towards the sky, although not as clearly as the neo-Gothic Frankel Synagogue in Budapest. The interior of the building is richly decorated, and the exterior with its huge dome and spherical tower helmets provides for one of the ornaments of the city.
Originally, the synagogue had seating for four hundred believers, but during the renovation, which began in 1926 and was completed on November 20, 1927, the church was expanded. After the war, on March 15, 1946, the synagogue was rededicated, but the Győr congregation, which had been reduced to a fraction of its population, could neither fill it nor maintain it. The school wings were nationalized as early as 1950, and the remainder of the building became state-owned “as a gift” in 1966, with offices of a grain trading company and a warehouse for scrapped furniture. In 1973, the Liszt Ferenc College of Music received the school wing. There was still a community office in the Kossuth Street wing, and there was also a prayer hall upstairs (both the community and the prayer hall are still operational today – website editor). Between 1994 and 1999, partly with the support of the European Union, the building was renovated, which, although not shining in all its old beauty, at least does not deteriorate further. It is currently run by the Széchenyi University and the Rómer Flóris Museum of Art and History of Győr, and concerts are held in the main prayer space thanks to its excellent acoustics.
Interview with Zsuzsanna Lorand (Győr, 1921 – Boston, 2006) in the local paper, Lexington, Massachusetts, USA, 1987
There were times during the Nazi persecution of Hungarian Jews that Zsuzsanna Lorand wanted to give up, commit suicide – anything to escape the horrors she was experiencing. Without her mother’s love and determination, Dr Zsuzsanna Lorand (born in Győr in 1921) admitted that she would not be alive today.
The scars of those days ran so deep that for 40 years Zsuzsanna suppressed the horror of her experiences during the Holocaust. “Lately I’ve been thinking more and more of the nightmare. Soon there won’t be any survivors left, and the world may forget,” she said. As a result, she felt obligated to come forward, as a way of keeping the memory alive and honoring her mother. She related some of her memories to about 200 people at the Yom HaShoah Remembrance Day Memorial Service at Temple Emanuel in Lexington (Massachusetts, United States). This was the first time she had ever spoken to a group about those painful memories.
Interview with Zsuzsanna Lorand, Lexington, Massachusetts, USA, 1987
“There were many occasions as a young adult when I was ready to give up,” she said, with a slight Hungarian accent. But her mother, who is now 91 and lives with her was the key to survival.
Margit Klein, Zsuzsanna’s mother in 1960, passed away at the age of one hundred and one
Zsuzsanna explained that until March 1944, when the Germans began their occupation of Hungary, she, her father, who was a doctor, her mother and her brother had never been physically harmed. However, those conditions would slowly change. It began with new regulations each day, she said. “First any Jew with a weapon should hand it over to German authorities. My father had a rusted gun from World War 1. He threw it into the Danube,” Zsuzsanna said. Then radios were confiscated, then bicycles. “Day-by-day they degraded us more and more,” she said. “Someone once asked me why I didn’t fight. They diminished us gradually,” she replied. “Little by little.”
With her parents and younger brother, László, born in Győr, 1923
Finally, the Nazis transported all the Jews to a “district” centre. They left their homes to live in an overcrowded ghetto where they were forced to wear the yellow Star of David. Then one day, they were herded into barracks where they stayed for several days. During that time, the Nazis shaved figures on the rabbi’s head to mock him. A few days later they were all herded to a railway station heading for Auschwitz. Her brother was headed toward a labor camp.
“I don’t know if we were naïve or they were just clever, because we thought we were being sent to an orchard in Hungary to pick fruit,” Zsuzsanna said, recalling the moment. “We were crammed in cattle wagons like sardines, penned in. They put a pail in the center which served as a toilet…” she said. There were little windows high up in the railroad car, which she used one day to watch Hungarian soldiers exit the train and German SS soldiers board.
At one point, the family considered a permanent way to escape: suicide. “My father had enough morphine in his bag that the three of us could have committed suicide,” Zsuzsanna said. “I was ready to do it, but my mother intervened. She said if my brother survived, he would never forgive us.” Zsuzsanna paused a moment that in retrospect “it would have been better for my father to commit suicide. He was gassed who months after getting to Auschwitz.”
Upon their arrival at Auschwitz, they were told to get undressed and the men and women were separated. Before he left, Zsuzsanna’s father told her mother not to leave their daughter. Then the Nazis shaved all the hair of each Jew’s body. Zsuzsanna and her mother stood near one another but did not recognize each other until they called out their names.
They were issued ill-fitting clothes that were open in the back. Then they were told to stand in line and were counted all night. Zsuzsanna developed a bad ear infection and a high fever. She was weak when the Nazis made all the Jews kneel in a line, holding their hands up in the air with a brick in each hand. When she was too weak to hold her hands up any longer “I was slapped on the face, and blood trickled from my mouth,” she said.
“My mother knew I wouldn’t survive” in the clothing she had on, Zsuzsanna said. So, her mother stole a man’s jacket from a pile near where an SS officer was standing. “If he had seen her,” Zsuzsanna said, “she would have been shot on the spot.”
They had been in Auschwitz for two months when the women were ordered to march naked “like horses” in front of SS officers. “This was for selection. They were short of laborers,” she said. Zsuzsanna and her mother were separated.
“She was 48 years old,” Zsuzsanna said of her mother. She was a nice, “little” woman, she added. But her mother took her father’s mandate “very seriously”, so when the Nazis herded the group, her daughter was in to the barracks. “She climbed through the window of the barracks,” Zsuzsanna said. Since there were no names being recorded, Zsuzsanna’s mother blended in. This group of women had been selected to go to a small town in Germany to work in a factory for 12 hours a day, six days a week. Although the food and living conditions were “somewhat better”, she became ill with pneumonia. When her mother came to visit her in the infirmary, the Polish doctor recommended that Zsuzsanna return to work the next day. “The next day anyone in the infirmary was brought back to Auschwitz,” Zsuzsanna said.
ID card after liberation, 1945
Then one evening the Nazis lined them all up and told them to start walking. “If you sat down,” Zsuzsanna said, “you would be shot.”
“We started walking at dusk, and walked 35 kilometers because American troops were approaching. “They wanted to get rid of us,” she continued. “They wanted to machine gun us in a valley.” During the march, Zsuzsanna became so weak that her mother had to drag her along. Another woman also would have stopped if Zsuzsanna’s mother had not dragged her as well. “This 48-year-old woman dragged two people all night,” she said.
What saved the group was that one of the German guards wanted to say goodbye to his family, so they marched a longer route. “This was to our advantage,” Zsuzsanna said, because American troops intercepted the group. “I’ll never forget that Sunday morning,” she said when they marched into a village and saw children with braided hair and people wearing white blouses.
ID card after liberation, 1945
Suddenly an alarm rang, and the Jews were herded onto a hilltop. “We heard a lot of planes and a lot of shooting,” she said. When dawn came, the German guards were gone. As Zsuzsanna and her mother went down, they saw a tall man standing there. The man was wearing a white helmet and a white armband with the letters “MP”. Her first taste of freedom was the chocolate candy bar the soldier gave her.
Eight years following liberation, with Peter Dallos’ elder brother, George, born in 1953
Quote from one of the messages of Peter Dallos, Zsuzsanna’s second son (born in 1956) to the site editor:
“I wish she were still alive, but she passed away 15 years ago … on June 17, 2006.
Although she was already in a coma for two weeks, my dad was sitting by her bedside every day and continued telling her that “Peter will be coming to see you.” (My parents were living in the Boston area, but I was living in New York). Around noon on June 17, 2006, I finally arrived … and two minutes later my mom breathed her last.
Since she was a passionate fan of opera and, particularly Verdi’s music, I made sure that this excerpt from Verdi’s “Requiem” was played during her funeral service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UENK70U6Lk”
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Send us a concise history of your family or other writings about Jewish Győr. Please do not exceed 2 pages, with a 1.5 line spacing. Use Word format. Attach 2-3 photos.
Ágoston Léderer, economist, chemist, factory founder and art collector (Böhmisch-Leipa, Czech Republic, 1857 – Vienna, 1936), founder of the Győr Distillery and Refinery Ltd. (early 1890) and the Hungarian Waggon and Machine Factory in Győr (1896), was also the owner of the largest art collection in the Monarchy. He also founded the Austrian Railway Traffic Ltd. and the Hungarian Railway Traffic Ltd.
Ágoston Léderer, by Egon Schiele
He had so many ties to Győr that his wedding to Serena Pulitzer (Budapest, 1867 – Budapest, 1943) took place in Győr in 1892. The ceremony was presided over by the Chief Rabbi of the Dohány Street Synagogue, and in 1911 he moved to Győr with his family and acquired Hungarian citizenship. After the First World War they moved back to Vienna and lived in Vienna at Bartensteingasse 8 and had a castle (Ledererschlössel) in Wien-Weidlingau.
During the World War, Léderer gave large sums of money to refugees, the poor and the institutions set up to help them. In 1915, he himself set up a foundation to help disabled soldiers, with a sum of 200,000 crowns.
He was not only a factory founder and art collector, but also an artist patron. The family were close friends with many of the most famous Viennese artists of the time, including Gustav Klimt. One room in their Vienna apartment was dedicated to Klimt’s paintings. Klimt painted a full-length portrait of Serena, considered a famous beauty of the time, but also of Serena’s mother and daughter, Elisabeth. In 1912, on Klimt’s recommendation, the family also met Egon Schiele, who stayed with them for an extended period in Győr. During this time Schiele painted several pictures of the youngest son, Erik Léderer, but a fine portrait of the master of the house is also known. It was during this time that he painted the then still-standing wooden bridge “Goat’s Feet” in Győr (the painting, thought to have been destroyed, turned up by chance a few years ago).
“Goat’s Feet” bridge, by Egon Schiele
Here you can listen to the podcast of the Győr-based daily newspaper Kisalföld, in which Zalán Biczó, university librarian and local historian from Győr, reports on his latest research into Egon Schiele’s stay in Győr, his work there, and his friendships with the Léderer family: https://www.kisalfold.hu/helyi-kultura/2025/10/egon-schiele-gyor-biczo-zalan (produced in October 2025).
Here are a few more Schiele depictions of members of the Léderer family:
Egon Schiele: Erich Léderer in front of a window, 1912; source: Kunstkopie
Egon Schiele: Elisabeth Léderer, 1914; source: Wikipedia
Egon Schiele: Serena Léderer, 1917; source: Wikiart
