Borbala Gotterer with family and friends

This is a photo taken in Hungary, in Debrecen, in the 1960s, where the living family got together to celebrate the unveiling of the memorial plate behind us, stating the names of our relatives who died in the World War II. The man first from left is my uncle, Ignac Lowi; behind him is a nephew of his, but I don’t remember his name, and I don’t know who the man third from left is. The woman second from left is Manci Markbreit, and near her there is my sister, Livia. I am the fourth from right, and the woman first from right is Iganc’s wife, and the girl next to her is her daughter, Edit. I don’t remember who the others in the photo were. The photo was taken in the Jewish cemetery there, you can’t see it here, but there was a pole written with all the names of the people in our family who died in the Holocaust.

My father, Solomon Lowi, had two brothers, Ignac and Armin. Ignac, my father's younger brother, went to high school in Vienna; he was a grain dealer, and he was a very well off man. He lived in Kalocsa, a city in Hungary, and he was married to Ella, who was a housewife; he had three children, Agneta, born in 1923, Edit, born in 1920 and who died in 2000, and Tibor.

During the Holocaust he had been in Budapest, in the ghetto. After World War II, we kept in touch with Ignac because he was all we had left, the rest of the family died. He took care of us, he helped us, he did everything he could from Hungary. When we came and didn't have as much as a nail in the walls, he helped us as much as he could. And then, after the borders were opened, after we returned from deportation, he invited us to spend each vacation with them in Hungary. And I went every year, together with my sister. After that, under communism, he was a clerk at CEC [Casa de Economii si Consemantiuni, 'The Loan Bank'] [Editor's note: Mrs. Gotterer was using CEC which is in Romania, however the identical loan bank in Hungary is called Takarekszovetkezet.]. Ignac was a kind man indeed, honest and warm-hearted like my father. I loved him very much. He was very religious, he regularly went to the temple in Budapest, where he was specially invited. He died in 1984 and his wife in 1981.