Mendel Farkas, Eva Marton and Jozsef Farkas

This is my father, Mendel Farkas, with my elder sister Eva and myself, Jozsef Farkas. This picture was taken probably in 1930, and I was around 1 or 2. The photo was taken by a photographer from Turda called M. Benach.

My father was born in 1889 in Jaravize, and age-wise he was somewhere in the middle among his siblings. I think Gero and two of his sisters were older than my father. But I don't know exactly, because I didn't know them. My father fought as a soldier in World War I, and after that he came home and got acquainted with my mother, but I don't know anything more about their situation.

My sister, Eva Farkas, was born in 1920. She became Eva Marton after her marriage. She finished elementary school in Torda, and then graduated from the commercial high school from Nagyvarad, because the confessional commercial high school was there. She was like my father and me: quiet and calm.

I was born on 4th October 1929 in Kolozsvar, in the Matyas Matyas clinic. I got the name Jozsef Sandor after my two grandfathers, Alexander Farkas and Jozsef Deutsch. According to our ritual, every newborn boy can adopt the name of his deceased grandfather. We lived in Torda, I grew up there. After my sister was born, my father went to work in America to make some money. This was quite common then. Many people from Transylvania went to America. Some of them remained there, and some returned. He worked there for four or five years, and when he got home, he bought the house we lived in. I was born later. Our house in Torda was on Avram Iancu Street, at No. 19.