Captain Miksa Domonkos

This is my father, Miksa Domonkos, wearing his captain's dress uniform with all his decorations. The photo was taken in Budapest in 1938. As my father told me, he served and did his duty, because he couldn't do anything else, but he never wore the uniform of the Hungarian Red Army. After the revolutions he got honorable mention from the War Office, from Horthy's bureau, and he was admitted to the reservist officer force, which was sometimes called in for practice. I remember that he was called in several times. In 1935 he obtained his captaincy from Miklos Horthy. So by the time anti-Semitism broke out he was relieved of all kinds of measures, because he had such prestigious decorations, and had this promotion from Horthy. So he was on the list, which was called Horthy exemption at that time. There were always some kinds of short marches, time by time there was some festivity, inauguration or things like that. At these occasions my father always put on his officer's uniform, he pinned on all his decorations, and sometimes he took us along, too. I remember a case like this well. He took us to the inauguration of the Rakoczi statue on Kossuth Square. We stuck a crane feather in our scholar cap, and so we stood next to our father, and he stood there in his dress uniform. He introduced us there to a general for the first time in my life. I don't know who he was; I only saw that there was a red stripe on both sides of his trousers.