Vera Farkas with her mother’s family in Kallosemjen

Some members of my mother’s family in Kallosemjen. Maternal grandfather's name was Jakab Strausz, grandmother's name was Betti Weisz.

They lived in Kallosemjen. It was a typical Szabolcs county Hungarian village: a small, dirty village, with wooden fences. They [the Jews] didn't live separately, but there was quite a Jewish life, they came together in the synagogue.

The synagogue was very nice, and it was on the main square. There were quite a lot of Jews, and they came in from the neighboring farms. Just like my aunt and her husband.

My mother had eight siblings: four boys and four girls. The eldest girl, Fanni, lived in Balkany. Auntie Gizi got married. Her husband was a tailor, he couldn't get employment here and in 1938 they left for Paris. The children were born there.

Her daughter, Anna got married, and her children are in Israel. Her son, Laci took part in the French resistance movement. I think he was executed as a resistance fighter.

Hella got married and their parents opened a village general store for them in Kallosemjen. But it seems that they weren't good merchants, because they couldn't make a fortune from it.

They had a son, Tibor, who became a sacker. And then the whole family was deported [in 1944]. The youngest, Aranka was a very pretty girl. Her husband was a farmer; the ranch was near Kallosemjen and he was some kind of a farm manager there.

Erno got married in Nyiregyhaza. He studied, and he was something like a lawyer but not exactly that because he couldn't make it to that level. He had two daughters, who adored my father.

One of them, a niece of mine named Eva, corresponded with dad, and dad told her: I will find you a husband.

That was in 1944. And in 1944 Eva wrote a letter, and she signed it: "kisses with love from a future grandmother". She was dead half a year later. T

he other three brothers, Artur, Lajos, and Misi all lived there with their parents [in Kallosemjen]. They passed themselves off as farmers, but they didn't actually do anything.

Then they were deported [in 1944], they all died in Auschwitz.

Photos from this interviewee