The Koves family

The Koves family in 1961. The father Kalman Koves, my mother's brother, his wife Gabriella, nee Schneitzer, their son Tamas and daughter Judit. Tamas was born in 1951, Judit in 1953. Kalman was a furrier; he had a prospering shop on Kossuth Lajos Street. The shop is still there, now his daughter runs it. Kalman magyarized his name to Koves sometime in the 1930s. He was first drafted into forced labor in 1939, and they let him home at the end of 1940. Then in 1941 they drafted him again. In 1942 he was wounded at the Don Bend, the Hungarians left him there. The Russians saved his life; they took him to the hospital. They healed him, and then they took him to Siberia, from where he came home at the end of 1947. He continued the furrier trade. He opened a shop again. In 1950 he married Gabriella Schneitzer. Gabriella, her sister and mother spent the Holocaust partly in a Swiss protected house, partly in hiding, but her father died in Mauthausen. They had two children, Tamas Koves and Judit Koves. Tamas has a daughter, who is called Sandra, and Judit has two daughters, Andrea and Szilvi. They live here in Hungary. They observe Jewish traditions just the way we do. The grandchildren even less. They know that they are Jews, and that's all. I don't know what I am either. I think about this very much. What on earth am I? Hungarian? Australian? Jewish? I don't know.

Photos from this interviewee