Apprentice certificate of Janos’s father as a trainee

My father’s apprentice certificate from uncle Vilmos’ trade shop.

My father was born in 1893 in Nagyvarad [today Oradea, in Romania]. My father went to high-school for four years in Nagyvarad, and then to a trade college for three years. He graduated from there. Uncle Vilmos, who wanted my father to work in the trade business, sent him to Pest for a year to learn banking, and in Marosvasarhely [today Tirgu Mures, in Romania] he sent him to work with an agent who would buy a trainload of, say, coffee or tea for the business. Uncle Vilmos had my father educated. But in the meanwhile the war began. My father was a volunteer then, with the rank of Captain. They took him to the Russian front, and he got shot so badly in the arm in '17 that his right arm was paralyzed.

Right after the war my father got into the Association of War Invalids, and worked there for two years. At the start of the '20s the Rico Bandage Factory was established. My father became the Assistant Director there. Then in '28 he got into the Hungaria Rubber Factory, which had 10 workers at the time. By the time of the Second World War it had 1,200 workers, and was a very modern factory. And my father was there until December 2, 1944.

Photos from this interviewee