Sandor Gunst and his wife Erzsebet

Sandor Gunst and his wife Erzsebet

This is the wedding photo of my parents, Sandor Gunst and Erzsebet Gunst, nee Kohn. The photo was taken in Hodmezovasarhely, where they had their wedding, in 1909.

My mother, Erzsebet Kohn, was born in 1887, in her birth certificate she appears as Orzsike and her Jewish name was Eszter. I know that my mother, after completing four years of civil school went to school in Temesvar there were higher girls' schools at that time, where they learned housekeeping and community skills. I think it was for two or three years, and my mother graduated from it.

My father got together with my mother in the following way: Aunt Maca was married in Hodmezovasarhely and my father, as a young man, used to visit her and met my mother there. It might have been arranged, but of course, I don't know that. I had an older sister who died before I was born, at the age of two and a half, of yellow fever. She was born in 1912, her name was Eva.

When World War I broke out, my father was already 34, but he was still immediately called up. I remember that he went into the Lugos regiment - Lugos is now part of Romania - then they were sent to Serbia. He spent the entire war there, in Dalmatia and its environs, right up until the final retreat. He was constantly away for four years, though he got leave time by time. I wasn't conceived at home, but in Belgrade. My father was given leave, but a very short one, and they knew in advance when it would be, so my mother traveled down to Belgrade. They met there in the officers' wing of the barracks - my father had joined up as an ensign officer and was a captain when discharged - and they spent a few days there, and I was conceived there in February 1916.

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