Selected text
My father, Geza Leicht was born in 1905 in Nagyszakacsi. He had 3 sisters: Julia, who was born in Modor in 1898, Olga, who was also born in Modor in 1899, and Frida who was born in 1904 in Enying. His oldest sister Juliska [Julia] lived in Nagykanizsa and was a seamstress, and a good one. She had a fiancé when she was 20, he was called Bela Remenyi, and during the Hungarian Soviet Republic [2] he was a member of the directory, and because of that he was hanged in 1919, after the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
Juliska sunk in herself because of this, and she only got married in 1937 to a widower, Imre Hirschler, who had 2 children. All three of them were gassed later. Juliska got married again after the war, to another widower, Vilmos Balazs, whose daughter and first wife had been gassed. After the war they came to Pest, because it wasn’t a very fortunate thing to be a Jew in the countryside.
[Editor’s note: During the Holocaust almost all the Jewry from the country was deported and killed, so after World War II the communities in the country, which were flourishing before, disappeared.]
Olga remained in Somogycsurgo at first, then she came to Pest with Juliska and her husband. She had never had her own apartment or household, the poor thing was a victim of the anti-Jewish laws [3] all her life. She was a shopkeeper for 25 years, but she was fired because of the first anti-Jewish law, and in 1944 she was deported to Bergen-Belsen.
Then she was in Sweden for a year in order to recover, and when in 1954 she was of retiring age, they didn’t count in the previous years because she didn’t work for more than 5 years before, so she had to work 10 more years in order to get the minimal pension. She died at the age of 93 as a maiden.
After the war, in 1942 or 1943, Frida moved with her husband from Somogycsurgo to a big apartment in Pest, where her husband’s relatives lived. Then her husband was drafted into forced labor and was killed. I was on very good terms with their son Miklos, he was the only one of my nephews who survived the Holocaust. Frida died in 1957, Miklos in 1992.
Juliska sunk in herself because of this, and she only got married in 1937 to a widower, Imre Hirschler, who had 2 children. All three of them were gassed later. Juliska got married again after the war, to another widower, Vilmos Balazs, whose daughter and first wife had been gassed. After the war they came to Pest, because it wasn’t a very fortunate thing to be a Jew in the countryside.
[Editor’s note: During the Holocaust almost all the Jewry from the country was deported and killed, so after World War II the communities in the country, which were flourishing before, disappeared.]
Olga remained in Somogycsurgo at first, then she came to Pest with Juliska and her husband. She had never had her own apartment or household, the poor thing was a victim of the anti-Jewish laws [3] all her life. She was a shopkeeper for 25 years, but she was fired because of the first anti-Jewish law, and in 1944 she was deported to Bergen-Belsen.
Then she was in Sweden for a year in order to recover, and when in 1954 she was of retiring age, they didn’t count in the previous years because she didn’t work for more than 5 years before, so she had to work 10 more years in order to get the minimal pension. She died at the age of 93 as a maiden.
After the war, in 1942 or 1943, Frida moved with her husband from Somogycsurgo to a big apartment in Pest, where her husband’s relatives lived. Then her husband was drafted into forced labor and was killed. I was on very good terms with their son Miklos, he was the only one of my nephews who survived the Holocaust. Frida died in 1957, Miklos in 1992.
Location
Hungary
Interview
Ferenc Leicht