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I also remember that he had a son who was studying in Budapest who eventually became a notorious character. His legal predicaments appeared in the press during 1936 and 1937.
The story of Kaufman’s son is unfortunate. The young man had a degree in engineering, and, due to certain circumstances, he became involved with the daughter of Admiral Horthy [10]. The leader’s family was in Budapest when their car broke down in the middle of the city. By chance Kaufman’s son was at the scene. As he was a skilled engineer, he repaired the automobile and thus inadvertently began a romance with Horthy’s daughter. The main impediment was that the boy was Jewish, and he thus couldn’t become part of the state leader’s social circle. I think both out of love and out of the wish to become somebody important, Kaufman’s son changed his name from Kaufman to Kenyeres. That’s how he started to have a new life. Horthy eventually made him a deputy in a rightist nationalist party. In order to deny or further hide his origins, Kaufman’s son started to propose anti-Semitic laws within the Hungarian parliament. The opposition party initiated an investigation and soon discovered that Kenyeres was Jewish and that his father was a rabbi.
I remember that the whole affair caused quite a stir, and some well-dressed people came to Beliu to take the rabbi to Budapest and expose Kenyeres. They managed to fool the rabbi and brought him by car to Budapest. I seem to remember that they went by car to Arad, and from there they took the train. When they arrived to Budapest they were met at the train station by a lot of reporters and journalists, who peppered the rabbi with questions.
Back then, just as it is today, the last word regarding such issues lay with the state leader, who had absolute power. In order to clarify the issue, Horthy brought the rabbi and his son together, face-to-face. When the rabbi came home, he told me with tears in his eyes that he had had to declare that Kenyeres wasn’t his son. I don’t know anymore what happened after that, but I do know that the boy sent a lot of money to his father, both before and after this incident. Before being taken away with us during the evacuation, I remember the rabbi dug some holes in the yard of the synagogue and buried several kilograms of gold. It is very interesting that, on one hand, Kenyeres denied his father, while on the other hand he clearly helped him a lot financially. I must tell you that the rabbi did not survive the war, as he was already quite old at the time.
[Editor’s note: The story of Kenyeres contains some real facts, but it is essentially a legend. In a letter from Istvan Bibo to Gyula Borbandi – Istvan Bibo: Valogatott muvek, III. Magveto, Budapest – one of the notes states that during the 1935 Parliamentary elections a swindler politician called Miklos Kenyeres was nominated as a result of pressure from the local administration in Talpan in Szabolcs-Szatmar County and subsequently elected by fraud. The election court was forced to deprive Kenyeres of his mandate because of various protests against him. Peter Sipos, in “Orsegvaltas szavazocedulakkal”, or “Guard Change by Ballots”, also mentions that Kenyeres claimed to be a Lutheran engineer, though in fact he was neither Lutheran nor an engineer. His original name was Jakab Mozes Kahan, the son of the rabbi of Beliu. It is worth mentioning that Horthy’s daughter Paula would have been alive at this time, as she did not die until 1940.
The story of Kaufman’s son is unfortunate. The young man had a degree in engineering, and, due to certain circumstances, he became involved with the daughter of Admiral Horthy [10]. The leader’s family was in Budapest when their car broke down in the middle of the city. By chance Kaufman’s son was at the scene. As he was a skilled engineer, he repaired the automobile and thus inadvertently began a romance with Horthy’s daughter. The main impediment was that the boy was Jewish, and he thus couldn’t become part of the state leader’s social circle. I think both out of love and out of the wish to become somebody important, Kaufman’s son changed his name from Kaufman to Kenyeres. That’s how he started to have a new life. Horthy eventually made him a deputy in a rightist nationalist party. In order to deny or further hide his origins, Kaufman’s son started to propose anti-Semitic laws within the Hungarian parliament. The opposition party initiated an investigation and soon discovered that Kenyeres was Jewish and that his father was a rabbi.
I remember that the whole affair caused quite a stir, and some well-dressed people came to Beliu to take the rabbi to Budapest and expose Kenyeres. They managed to fool the rabbi and brought him by car to Budapest. I seem to remember that they went by car to Arad, and from there they took the train. When they arrived to Budapest they were met at the train station by a lot of reporters and journalists, who peppered the rabbi with questions.
Back then, just as it is today, the last word regarding such issues lay with the state leader, who had absolute power. In order to clarify the issue, Horthy brought the rabbi and his son together, face-to-face. When the rabbi came home, he told me with tears in his eyes that he had had to declare that Kenyeres wasn’t his son. I don’t know anymore what happened after that, but I do know that the boy sent a lot of money to his father, both before and after this incident. Before being taken away with us during the evacuation, I remember the rabbi dug some holes in the yard of the synagogue and buried several kilograms of gold. It is very interesting that, on one hand, Kenyeres denied his father, while on the other hand he clearly helped him a lot financially. I must tell you that the rabbi did not survive the war, as he was already quite old at the time.
[Editor’s note: The story of Kenyeres contains some real facts, but it is essentially a legend. In a letter from Istvan Bibo to Gyula Borbandi – Istvan Bibo: Valogatott muvek, III. Magveto, Budapest – one of the notes states that during the 1935 Parliamentary elections a swindler politician called Miklos Kenyeres was nominated as a result of pressure from the local administration in Talpan in Szabolcs-Szatmar County and subsequently elected by fraud. The election court was forced to deprive Kenyeres of his mandate because of various protests against him. Peter Sipos, in “Orsegvaltas szavazocedulakkal”, or “Guard Change by Ballots”, also mentions that Kenyeres claimed to be a Lutheran engineer, though in fact he was neither Lutheran nor an engineer. His original name was Jakab Mozes Kahan, the son of the rabbi of Beliu. It is worth mentioning that Horthy’s daughter Paula would have been alive at this time, as she did not die until 1940.
Period
Location
Budapest
Hungary
Interview
Alexandru Kohn