Graduation photo of Imre Lunczer

Graduation photo of Imre Lunczer

This is my graduation photo taken in 1932 in Gyor. I graduated from the higher commercial school for boys. My Jewish name is Avrom ben Jajszef Jehude. I was born in 1914 in Horvatkimle. It wasn?t a big village, only about 1000 or 1200 people. There were just two or three Jewish families. There was no asphalt in the whole village. I attended three grades of elementary school there. The Jewish community of Gyor had an elementary educational institution in Moson, and I finished the fourth year there, but we lived in Horvatkimle at that time. Horvatkimle is 12 kilometers from Mosonmagyarovar, so that's how I got to the Piarist high school of Mosonmagyarovar. I studied there for four years. In the high school in Mosonmagyarovar, which was a Catholic clerical institution, there was no explicit anti-Semitism. There were three or four of us Jewish children, in a class about fifty children strong. And I didn't notice any particular anti-Semitism. I can tell you a typical example of how they treated me. I used to ride in from Horvatkimle every day on an old beat-up bicycle. But in winter, I took the train. Horvatkimle's railway station was about one and a half kilometers from the village. I would ride a workers? train that left there for Moson at six o?clock in the morning. This meant that if I didn't go by bicycle, I had to wake up at four o?clock. At eight o?clock, I had my first class, Catholic Religion, which was taught by the headmaster of the Catholic friary. Since the train left Horvatkimle at six o?clock, I would reach Moson before seven o?clock, and spend my time in the warm railway station waiting-hall until 8 o?clock, because the school was about 10 or 15 minutes? walk from the station. In 1929 there was a memorably hard winter. The chief constable came one day and asked what I was doing there in such cold conditions. He requested the members of my class to let me know, when I appeared, that from then on I must not wander about on cold, hard winter days, but must spend my time in the classroom. They never made me feel, either as individuals, nor as a group, that I was a Jew. At the end of every week they gave out a printed statement of the marks for each class. At that time, ?1? was the top mark, and they highlighted in bold type the names of the excellent pupils who had only ?1?s. Certainly there was more than one Jewish child whose name appeared in bold type. Mine did. So that's how I can characterize the Piarists? attitude. I wouldn't say that they were absolutely semitophile but they were no anti-Semites either. Religion was obligatory in my time, and the rabbi from Moson was the one who taught Religion to the Jewish students. Well, not like a teacher, but the school accepted his marks. In the high school I learned Latin and German. Then later I took the highest level language exam in German, French and Russian. In 1929 we moved to Gyor because of the family situation. There were the two older girls, and then there were my brother and me whom they still had to send to school. My little sister was growing up. A Jewish family with three girls in a village didn't have many prospects. Evidently this played a part in this decision. Also, my mother's sister and relatives lived in Gyor. They didn't admit me to the high school of the Benedictine order. This was already 1929, pretty much during the middle of the Horthy era. And that's how I got into the higher commercial school for boys, from which I graduated in 1932.
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