Mor Kohn

This is the only picture I still have of my maternal grandfather, Mor Kohn. It was taken in Budapest in 1910.

My grandfather was a textile merchant, he had his own textile shop. My grandmother, Netti Heitler was always ill. When I met her she was already bedridden, I don't know anything about her illness. She died when I was seven, in 1923. My grandfather must have lived seven years longer, so he died around 1930. He was pretty old, at least 80, so he must have been born sometime around 1850. I don't know where they were born. They lived in Hodmezovasarhely, but since they needed care, my father had them move to Szentes sometime in the 1920s and they both died there. I have never been at my grandparents' original residence, and I don't know how they lived. They were Neolog. They observed the high holidays now and then, perhaps they even ate kosher.

They had three daughters, one was my mother, and then there was Aunt Olga and Aunt Mariska. My mother, Erzsebet Kohn, was born in 1887, in her birth certificate she appears as Orzsike and her Jewish name was Eszter. Her sisters were older than her, I don't know exactly, perhaps four-five years older, and they were both housewives. I know that my mother, after completing four years of civil school went to school in Temesvar there were higher girls' schools at that time, where they learned housekeeping and community skills. I think it was for two or three years, and my mother graduated from it. I don't know about the schooling of her two sisters.