Peter Reisz's father, Imre Reisz, at work

Peter Reisz's father, Imre Reisz, at work

This is my father at work. He was a zincographer in the Atheneum Printing House. His job was to make plates from the pictures that were to go into newspapers, journals and books. This photo was taken in Budapest in the beginning of the 1940s. My father, Imre Reisz, was born in 1888 in Budapest. He was a man skilled with his hands. After graduating from high school, he would have liked to study more, but he couldn't because of the Numerus Clausus. Since he didn't have work here in Budapest, and he wasn't allowed to study, he went to Paris, or perhaps Lyons, and worked in a silk-factory there, drawing Hungarian motifs which were incorporated into necktie designs. He was abroad from about 1925-30. Then he came home, and married my mother in 1930. I don't know exactly where my parents met, but it could be that they got together because both their families came from Slovakia. They had a proper wedding in the synagogue in Obuda. After their marriage, my father couldn't find work, so they went to Holland. My father was a zincographer, and the printers' trade union was very powerful, so he was able to get a job in Rotterdam through the union. My parents returned home before I was born, and my father found a job here in the Atheneum Printing House. His job was to make plates from the pictures that were to go into newspapers, journals and books. The Printers' Trade Union was part of the Social Democratic Party. My father was a member of some board, if I remember correctly, in the Social Democratic Party. That's why when the Germans came into Budapest in 1944 they came to our flat right away for my father. But he wasn't at home, as he had already escaped from forced labor and was in hiding. He obtained false papers, and hid here in Pest. The Social Democrats helped him. There was a shoemaker, a fellow with leftist sympathies, who supported him. After the War he continued his zincographic work.
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