Tivadar Foldes

This is a passport photo of my father, Tivadar Foldes, and I think that it may be from 1939 when he went to London. He wanted to find out if we could emigrate but in the end we all stayed. My grandmother's father was Moric Klein, who had lots of siblings. One of them was Sandor Kellner who magyarized his name, in fact took another one and became Sir Alexander Korda. He was born in Turkeve. He was one of the outstanding personalities in the international film world; my father went to see him in London in 1939. He had two brothers - Zoltan and Vince - who got into London filmmaking. Zoltan was also a director, Vince was a set designer. Zoltan directed The Thief of Baghdad. [It was in fact directed by Ludwig Berger.] It was Sir Alexander that my father went to see in London. I don?t know if the Kordas invited him to go but they certainly had some correspondence. I think it was probably my father who wrote to them that he would like to come. They had a close relative living in Kecskemet in Hungary and i think they were in touch with us through this relative. So, my father went to London and I think he was there for three weeks or a month. But then it didn't work out and we stayed here. My father graduated from high school at the age of 18 and entered the English-Hungarian Bank. He magyarized his name to Foldes when he entered the bank in Fiume. This was about 1912. He wasn't expected to, he just did. Probably because it sounded better in the bank. He worked there until the war broke out in 1914. Then, or sometime afterwards, he went to Pest to avoid being called up and from then on he was here at the English-Hungarian Bank. A few years after he married my mother - which was in 1927 - he entered a subsidiary of the bank as a chartered accountant. In the second half of the 1930s chartered accountancy meant taking an exam. He had a certificate in it.

Photos from this interviewee