Ladislav Porjes as a child

Ladislav Porjes as a child

In this picture I'm three years old, as captured by a photographer in Zilina. I was born in the year 1921 in Zilina. At the age of three I became a complete orphan. Because I became an orphan while still a baby, they found me a wet nurse, a single mother, some Miss Balazova, whose first name was the same as my poor mother's - Ilona. She apparently had enough milk to go around and loved me perhaps more than her own child. As a little boy I was probably a beautiful child, because I even won a beauty contest in Michalovce. When I was six, the town of Michalovce held a beauty pageant, someone entered me into it, and I won in the boys' category. In the girls' category the sister of one of my friends won, her name was Litzi Goldfingerova. Back then they took our picture and our photo was published in some literary magazine. I unfortunately don't have the photo; we lost everything during the war.

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Centropa Collection acquired by USHMM

The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. 

USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.

Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC". Please contact collection [at] centropa.org.