Jakab Bacher

Jakab Bacher

This is my uncle. It must have been taken in Maramaros if that’s written on the photo’s back. He is a soldier here. He addressed the picture postcard to Pinkasz Bacher, he wrote a few lines on it in German.

There were six siblings in my father's family. The rich uncle, who established a family in Torokszentmiklos was called Jakab Bacher. He was younger than my father.

My father had holidays in winter, he visited my grandfather in Maramarossziget for about three or four days, from there he went to Torokszentmiklos, to his younger brother. He was very rich, he had two huge factories in Torokszentmiklos. They adored each other. They went to Pest together, and had fun, they went together to the theatre, but mainly to clubs. Commercial Club was its name. It was a very elegant club - a huge house in downtown, with marble stairs, - where transactions took place too. I was with them once. And people were playing cards, but not the 'here's the red, where is the red' type, but it was funny, and they were playing five or six hours long. In the meantime my uncle established business connections. He didn't have any children, and he was always trying to persuade daddy to give me to him, so that he adopted me, saying that daddy had a son too. 'You're completely nuts! Have you ever heard about a Jew who had two children and gave one for adoption? You're not in your right mind.' They didn't talk to each other for days, but then in today words he sponsored me, he invested a lot of money in me.

I went to Pest for the first time when I was 17 years old, and since then every year. I stayed at one of the sister-in-laws of my uncle from Torokszentmiklos, as I wasn't old enough at the age of 17. I was at my uncle for three or four days, I picked up the money, then I went to Pest, and I was enjoying myself. My uncle had a sister-in-law, the sister of his wife, she had a student son, he was studying law, and I made friends from his society in Budapest. His [the student's] parents lived in Pest, his father was a teacher. Thus I got more education too if I needed.

Open this page