Edit Kovacs' parents, Katalin and Arpad Halasz

This photo was taken around the time of the marriage of my parents, Katalin Friedner and Arpad Halasz. They married in 1917 and the wedding ceremony was held in the famous Dohany Street neolog synagogue in Budapest. They had two children, Gizella, born in 1918 and me, born in 1919. My father worked as chief storer in the state-owned local train company (HEV). His original name was Fischer but he had to magyarize his name to Halasz because he could not have worked in the position he was with a non-Hungarian name. In 1925, he was fired because of his Jewish origins, and after two years of unemployment, he started trading in clothes and underwear on the market, an activity in which he was helped by his wife, Katalin, who gave up her previous job as a hat maker. They both survived the Holocaust and they lived in the same flat as before the war, first with their children and then on their own.