(A story from F.H.)

My grandmother was a truly beautiful woman, like a film-star. She always wore this ring as several old photographs testify. When she died, I inherited the ring, without knowing anything much of its history. When I visited my aunt in Israel a few years ago, she noticed the ring on my finger and she recounted its tale. It turns out that the ring was originally my great-grandmother’s, more precisely my grandfather’s mother-in-law who had two daughters-in-law. This jewel was originally a pair of ear-rings that my great-grandmother turned into two rings for her daughters-in-law this is how one  them was given to my grandmother, Zsofia Gruenwald.

This photo was taken of my grandparents in Belgrade – my grandmother is wearing the ring.

This is a photo from Sabotica with my grandmother, her mother-in-law, and the ring.

And this is the same ring on my finger.

(A story from M.Sz.)

My friends would know that I am fond of paintings. Until recently, when I had the means to do so, I was a regular bidder at auctions, although I never thought of myself as a collector. I would rather say that I have more paintings than an average household. At such auctions I often met a distant relative of mine – someone we don’t exactly keep up with, but once in a while he would emerge in conversation or even in person. At one point this relative called me asking if I were to attend a certain auction. He asked me to bid for a certain item for him as he could not make it to the event. Having discussed necessary details, I accepted the mission.

The day after the auction we caught up: he was very happy to learn that I had “bagged” three out of his list of four items, two of them at a really good bargain. He asked me politely if I had also acquired something myself. I proudly told him about my successful bid for a Schonberger Armand portrait. Total silence on the other end of the line… On my repeated hallo’s, he finally told me that he had actually put that portrait on the auction. Following my initial shock, I posed the question: “If you have something like this for sale, how come you don’t come to me first?? Also, how could anyone put such a treasure for sale?” He meekly replied that it had never crossed his mind that I would have been interested, and that he had sold the painting because this older guy in spectacles had been looking sternly at him from the wall ever since he was a child. He got fed up with that look by now. We agreed that although we could have saved 20% commission each, but at least it all stays withing the family…

This letter was written to my father’s who, by that time, had been living in Budapest’s Nepszinhaz utca. It was thrown out of the window of the train taking them to Auschwitz. The letter instructs them how to get prepared should they also get entrained. I was six months old when this letter was written. 

 Someone actually found the letter and brought it to us in Nepszinhaz utca. Only some fragments remain readable: “…By all means try to leave the child at home – if you must bring him along, bring also a pram…” “I am writing from Komarom, my dear, we are on a train that takes us to an unknown destination.” “… Magdi and Jan … are also with us…, Marta is ill…” “Bring some food and water with you because are not given anything…”

1936. The book was my mother’s. She received it from my father as a wedding gift. She took it to synagogue with her. Now it’s on my book-shelf, sometimes I take it off, browsing it through.

It stood on top of my father’s enormous desk at his surgery in Nepszinhaz utca. The desk was a “sacred place”. Now it is in my home. 

— We had lost so many of our objects, furniture – we had only two days to move from a 120sqm apartmant to a tiny bed-sitter. My mother’s family owned several houses in Banhida and Tata. Paintings, objects, furniture, rugs: all lost. So if anything remained with us it’s all the more valuable.

My father worked in the dentist’s surgery developed in our apartment. I was also trained as a dentist, so when my poor father suddenly died on a Tuesday evening, I got to attend his patients on Wednesday.

— When I moved to my present surgery some decades later, I brought the old dentist’s chair with me. It is not in use any more, but it is nice to think of my father’s presence.

Grandma, the head of the extended family was a true grand dame. Her husband died young and she supported her three children alone: Magda (Duci), Erzsi (Bozsi) and Gyuri. She also managed her late husband’s cabinet-marker shop in Budapest. The best friend of the late husband helped the family wherever he could, soon becoming the saviour of their lives during the Holocaust. He was Antal Nagy, member of the Upper House.

When the Germans invaded Hungary, Ct Nagy provided Grandma with his own family documents as well as his villa in Budapest’s elegant Rozsadomb. Thus, Grandma became Countess Nagy, living in a sumptuous  villa with her two daughters, aka the two Miss Nagys. Duci’s husband was taken to the Bor deathcamp which he survived. Bozsi’s husband and Gyuri were both taken to forced labor – they both escaped.

Bozsi herself needed to be rescued from one of the “starred houses” for Jews. Everyone was called to the courtyard when the gendarme called Bozsi’s name. Shivering, she followed the officer to the street. Grandma was waiting for them on the corner, paying the gendarme with Napoleon gold coins and taking Bozsi “home” to Rozsadomb.

The villa was later shared with German officers with whom Grandma became friendly. She baked cake for them. The Germans became fond of the “Nagy family” – little did they know that they were not so much of a Count or of the Upper House… Bozsi needed large dark glasses to wear, hiding her Jewish features. Fairer Grandma and Duci looked aryan enough.

The two men escaping forced labor (Gyuri and Bozsi’s husband) were hiding in the cabinet marker shop on the Pest side. Grandma, knowing no fear, took the car and driver of the German officers to bring them food.

By the time Russian troops approached Budapest, the Germans tired to push through the front line. Affectionate of their “hosts”, they sent back a military car for Grandma and her family to “save” them from the Red Army. Grandma thankfully declined…

Just a few years later, the communists relocated their saviour, Antal Nagy. On weekends, Grandma took the black train and took her home cooking and other goods to the Nagys.

Grandma believed that, to be on the safe side, one always needs to keep a few Napoleon gold coins and some dollars close by. She hid her remaining treasures in highly complicated ways in her apartment. In the 1970s, she was proved right once again. She fell and broke her hip. The hip-prothesis was bought for the last remaining dollars.

Emil Lindenfeld visited Hungary in 1979 for the last time. He spent some time in his hometown, Hodmezovasarhely and visited his relatives living in Budapest. He gave the paintings displayed here as a present to his cousin and his wife. On the back of the paintings he wrote in Hungarian with characteristic scratchy letters: “For Eva and Bela with much love – Emil and Gizi Lindenfeld” (Gizi was the name of Emil’s wife, a painter herself)

 A young lawyer started buying copper engravings from young art-dealers in the 1970′s. Works from talented contemporary Hungarian artists gradually became a small collection. The dealers regularly offered drawings, engravings from Arnold Gross, Vladimir Szabo, Miklos Borsos, Endre Szasz  for sale. Then the dealers slowly withered away from the lawyer’s life. More than 30 years passed before they met again. Neither the lawyer, nor the dealers were young any more and the roles almost turned: “I recall you bought Gross’ works from us – I’d be happy to buy them back now, or you could exchange them for anything you fancy in the shop.” “I got used to them over the years. They have their own place on the walls. It’s too late now for changes” – replied the lawyer. Sometimes attachment overrides return on investments with a prolonged maturity date…  

Physician Bela L and lawyer Eva V met in 1945. Numerus Clausus laws had forced Bela to leave for Italy in the 1930s to study medicine in Bologna. Upon his return to Hungary he was taken to forced labor on the Russian front, Eva was deported to Terezin. They both survived. Both art lovers, Bela was an amateur painter, Eva studied painting when young. While talented, she thought not talented enough to pursue a professional career in art.

They had married and lived in proverbial harmony for fifty years. 

Bela spent his childhood in Hodmezovasarhely, Eva was born in neighboring Szeged. Although spending most of their lives together in Budapest, they had always remained attached to the atmosphere, art and local history of the two towns in Hungary’s Great Plain. Several works of Vasarhely painters hang on their walls.

Eva especially enjoyed Margit Kovacs’s joyful, blue-eyed, folkish ceramic figurines. Bela presented her a Margit Kovacs  sculpture for every 10-year wedding anniversary. They celebrated five such decennials together. In just three weeks of each other, they both passed away in 1998.