Wedding of Imre Kinszki and Ilona Gardonyi

My parents on their wedding. They got married in 1925. The wedding was beautiful. They rented outfits from a costume store; my father was in a morning jacket, on my mother was a wonderful myrtle wreath and all; they recorded it on film. One of the highlights of my childhood was watching my parents' wedding on a small film-projector. I have no idea where the wedding was, but one can see on the film that they are going in an open car all the way down Rakoczi Street. 

I think that when my parents met each other, it was so that my mother got a job where my father worked, at GYOSZ [National Association of Industrialists], more precisely, at the Association of Textile Manufacturers. She was in the same room as my father. My father started throwing little paper aeroplanes onto [my mother's] desk; this made her mad, and she told him off, saying "You stupid little kid", but my father didn't stop throwing them. On one of the aeroplanes he wrote that he'd like to meet her. They met up at the Farkasret Cemetery. 

At home my father announced that he was going to marry Ilona Gardonyi, and this caused a hell of a scandal; how could an educated young man, who spoke five languages, marry such a lowly girl? My father was born in a family where it was a natural thing that they spoke German and English and French, while my mother couldn't learn German all her life. 

The family council gathered together, and discussed that the solution to the problem was that [my mother] had to be discharged. So uncle Otto called her and told her that they were very satisfied with her work, but unfortunately there was to be a reduction in the work force. She was very angry, as she loved this good job. Of course she could establish herself in another job immediately, but my father didn't get lost. He waited for her on the very next day, and went after her. My mother was not in love with him, but [my father] persevered  and her sisters badgered her continually, saying that in a Jewish family they couldn't get married unless the eldest sister was wedded. Well, she said that then she would marry him. Then she became greatly enamoured of my father. 

Photos from this interviewee