Dezso was from a Jewish family in Hungary's capital, Budapest. His father had been a violinist. Dezso earned a university degree in English, and became a language teacher. He wrote a number of high school grammar textbooks. In 1914 he married Iren Hajdu, who was a mathematician. The couple had two children; a daughter, Eva, born in 1918, and a son, Pal, born seven years later.
1933-39: Dezso fears for the worst now that the antisemitic Prime Minister Teleki has taken power again. Nineteen years ago, in 1920, he pushed through a law to reduce Jewish admissions to high schools and universities to 6 percent--Dezso's children have always felt pressured to earn top grades. Now Teleki and other right-wingers have passed a new law that obliges Jewish public school teachers to leave their jobs: Dezso is being forced to retire early.
1940-44: Today is Dezso's 59th birthday and Dezso and Pal went to visit Eva. Last year, in 1943, Eva was arrested as a communist and sent to prison, but she contracted tuberculosis there and was sent to a sanatorium outside Budapest. When they arrived, Eva told them the news she'd just heard--the Germans have invaded! Eva insisted Dezso and Pal leave right away, and that they take the path through the woods. She was worried that if they took the bus on the main road they might get shot by the Germans. They said goodbye and made a beeline for the woods.
Later that year, the Hungarian fascists drafted Dezso into a forced-labor unit. He died sometime before the end of the war during a forced march out of Budapest.
Item ViewKornelia was known as Nelly. She was the older of two daughters raised by Jewish parents in the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Her father fought in the Hungarian army during World War I. Kornelia attended public school and later worked as a bookkeeper for a soap factory. In 1928 she married Miksa Deutsch, a businessman who sold matches.
1933-39: Kornelia's husband was religious and the Deutsches' three children attended Jewish schools. Miksa and his brother were the sole distributors in Hungary of Swedish-made matches, and the business prospered. In May 1939 the Hungarian government began to limit the number of Jews who could be employed in a business, forcing the Deutsches to fire some of their Jewish employees.
1940-44: In 1940 Miksa was conscripted into the Hungarian army's labor service. Later, he was forced to surrender control of the family business to a brother of the Hungarian prime minister. After Germany occupied Budapest in March 1944, Jews were ordered to move to special houses marked with a Jewish star. In October 1944, Hungarian fascists began rounding up Jews from these houses. Kornelia was offered a job at an orphanage through the Swiss embassy. But on November 15, before she could take the job, she was rounded up.
Kornelia escaped detention, but was recaptured and deported to the Ravensbrueck concentration camp in Germany, where she perished. Her three children survived the war.
Item ViewWhen Agnes was a teenager, she attended Budapest's prestigious Baar Madas private school, run by the Hungarian Reformed Church. Although she was the only Jewish student there, Agnes' parents believed that the superior education at the school was important for their daughter. Agnes' father, a textile importer, encouraged his daughter to think for herself.
1933-39: In 1936 Agnes studied educational techniques with Signora Maria Montessori in Italy and earned a diploma so she could teach. Hoping to improve her French, Agnes traveled to Switzerland in 1939. On September 9, while swimming with friends at Lake Geneva, she met some Polish Jews attending a Zionist Congress. Suddenly, news blared that Germany had overrun Poland. Frightened and still in swimsuits, the Poles ran to try to call their families.
1940-44: In Budapest in 1944 Agnes worked for Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat working to save Jews. That December, the fascists ordered Jews executed at the banks of the Danube River. The Jews were tied in groups of three, and the person in the center was shot so all three fell in and drowned. Wallenberg asked his staff, "Who can swim?" Agnes said that she could. They rushed to the water's edge, and when a group fell in they would plunge into the icy river. They rescued 50 people. Later, Agnes got sick and fell into a coma for a day and a half.
After the war, Agnes went to Sweden and Australia, and moved to America in 1951. Later, she dedicated herself to writing and teaching about Wallenberg and his actions.
Item ViewEva was little affected by the war until 1944, when the Germans occupied Budapest. Eva's father was prominent in the Jewish community, and the family was able to retain their apartment in a Jewish star house (a house designated for Jews). In October Eva's parents secured protective papers from Raoul Wallenberg, but the family decided not to stay in a Swedish safe house. They hid in and near Budapest until the Soviet liberation of Budapest in 1945.
Item ViewAgnes was in Switzerland in 1939 to study French. She returned to Budapest in 1940. After the Germans occupied Hungary in 1944, Agnes was given refuge in the Swedish embassy. She then began to work for Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg in his efforts to save the Jews of Budapest, including the distribution of protective passes (Schutzpaesse). When the Soviets entered Budapest, Agnes decided to go to Romania. After the war, she went to Sweden and Australia before moving to the United States.
Item View
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