Fulop Riegelhaupt

My father Fulop Riegelhaupt is in this picture, in 1913 in Kassa. It was taken in the studio of Bela Bram. He was probably there on military duty, but as far as I know he had no rank, nor any special education. He sent his picture to his uncle to Hatszeg. I didn't know him personally, I only know his wife was my father's aunt, I even was in their house, it was a very nice house. He too was a timber merchant.

On the back of the picture postcard it stays: 'I'm looking good, aren't I, but I hope I will get my normal, complete freedom soon. Best regards: Fulop. Kassa - 3rd June 1913.' I think I got this picture from my uncle, my father's brother, Sandor, who during the Holocaust was in Romania.

My father, Fulop Riegelhaupt, was born in 1887, near Olublo. My uncle Sandor related that an educator came to their home, I don't know whether one or more, but they learned to write, and in the meantime they also attended the elementary school in the village, but I don't know exactly how they finished school. Anyhow, both of them were very educated, even though they didn't had any higher education. I don't know in which language they studied then, most probably in German or Hungarian, but they had a beautiful writing. I wish the children of today could write as my father (I have one of his letters) or my uncle. My uncle was very cultured, he owned a big library later when he established in the Zsil valley, and he founded a family.

My grandmother's siblings, the Goldmans, built a lumber factory in Lonya, Lonea in Romanian. This is a coal mine settlement in the county of Hunyad. Lonya is near Petrozseny, a few kms away, then comes Petrilla [the distance between Petrozseny and Petrilla is 5kms]. These are all coal mine settlements in the Zsil valley. There was this lumber-mill and this is how my uncle Sandor ended up there at the age of 15 to learn timbering. I don't know exactly how their life went on, but it is a fact that they got to the Zsil valley [together with my father] when they were already adults, and it was still a Hungarian world then [Editor's note: Zsuzsa Diamantstein refers to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy] and so they remained here, in Romania [Editor's note: that is Lonya got under Romanian authority after the Trianon Peace Treaty] My father was the manager of the lumber-mill and my uncle did the business part, he traveled, he was a timber merchant. The timber merchants had to bargain all the time, but this was only for a short period, because my father got sick and slowly the mill was closed down.