This is my father when he was a soldier during World War I. The photo was taken in Szatmarnemeti.
My father was born in 1891, in Nagybanya. He had a final examination certificate, which showed that he graduated from a school of commerce.
He was a bank clerk in Szatmar when he was young; then, when a common army was established for the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy during World War I, he enrolled there as a first lieutenant and fought throughout the World War.
He fought on all front-lines, starting from Galicia, Romania and Serbia, and they occupied Bucharest as well; there's a place to the north-west of Bucharest called Gaesti, where he was a town-mayor.
During retreat he withdrew with the Austro-Hungarian troops, which is how he got to Hungary.
Since he knew it would reflect badly on him in the eyes of the Romanian authorities that he had been a town-mayor in Gaesti, he didn’t return for a few years, and instead settled in Hungary.
My father had many medals; Franz Joseph even gave him a retirement deed, awarding him a pension which would have enabled him to live carefree.
But the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy failed, so nothing came of it.
My father had 48 wounds, he even lost one eye.
Thus he was a war invalid, so he at least received a disability pension.
