The RITSCHER family originated in Körmend. A complete
family tree can be viewed on the Körmend
KehilaLinks website.
Cornelia/Nella/Nelli RITSCHER , daughter of József RITSCHER (youngest son of Moses RITSCHER and Roza nee FRITZ) and Mari nee SPIEGEL, married Lajos ELKAN
and the family moved to Hödmezővásárhely. Lajos owned a factory and made shoes for the Hungarian Army during WWI; at the end of the war in 1918 the family moved to Budapest. They had three children--Edit, Rudolf and László.
Edit married Lajos ÓLAH, a Catholic from Kunszentmarton who served in the Hungarian military in WWI. He was in show business, like Nelli's father, József. Edit is the grandmother of the woman who submitted the information for this page. Edit's mother was born in Budapest, and in 1947 married an American serviceman.
Rudolf married and had a son, but died in 1944 in Budapest. His wife Loni lived into the 1990s. Their son, who is still alive, was a nationally ranked tennis player and track star in Hungary who moved to the US after he finished his PhD. He met his first wife, a Chinese woman, while studying in Switzerland shortly after leaving Hungary after the 1956 revolution. They had two children. Rudolf and Loni's son is currently married to his second wife.
László was active in sports, music and the trade union movement. After moving to Paris, he became a fashion designer and joined the Communist party but was expelled in 1938. He then became a photojournalist and became an army photographer after being drafted into the French Fifth Infantry Regiment. He was taken prisoner by the Germans during the Battle of Dunkirk, but managed to escape and reach Vichy France, where he joined the Resistance and adopted the name Lucien HERVE. After the war he had a very illustrative life and career and died in 2007 at the age of 96. More about his life can be found in this wikipedia article. Lucien HERVE received the posthumous "Hódmezővásárhely Honorary Citizen" designation in 2011, awarded by the Mayor to his widow, Judith.
Cornelia's younger sister Hermina/Johanna married Armin GUNZ and lived in Pecs. Their daughter Erzsebet married her second cousin Dr. Gyozo BALAZS (changed from BLAU), a dentist. They had two children, András and Jozsef. Hermina died in 1943, before the rest of her family was sent to concentration camps, where Erzsebet and her sons were murdered. Gyozo survived Mauthausen, but died before he could return home.
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Cornelia/Nella/Nelli RITSCHER , daughter of József RITSCHER (youngest son of Moses RITSCHER and Roza nee FRITZ) and Mari nee SPIEGEL, married Lajos ELKAN
and the family moved to Hödmezővásárhely. Lajos owned a factory and made shoes for the Hungarian Army during WWI; at the end of the war in 1918 the family moved to Budapest. They had three children--Edit, Rudolf and László.
Edit married Lajos ÓLAH, a Catholic from Kunszentmarton who served in the Hungarian military in WWI. He was in show business, like Nelli's father, József. Edit is the grandmother of the woman who submitted the information for this page. Edit's mother was born in Budapest, and in 1947 married an American serviceman.
Rudolf married and had a son, but died in 1944 in Budapest. His wife Loni lived into the 1990s. Their son, who is still alive, was a nationally ranked tennis player and track star in Hungary who moved to the US after he finished his PhD. He met his first wife, a Chinese woman, while studying in Switzerland shortly after leaving Hungary after the 1956 revolution. They had two children. Rudolf and Loni's son is currently married to his second wife.
László was active in sports, music and the trade union movement. After moving to Paris, he became a fashion designer and joined the Communist party but was expelled in 1938. He then became a photojournalist and became an army photographer after being drafted into the French Fifth Infantry Regiment. He was taken prisoner by the Germans during the Battle of Dunkirk, but managed to escape and reach Vichy France, where he joined the Resistance and adopted the name Lucien HERVE. After the war he had a very illustrative life and career and died in 2007 at the age of 96. More about his life can be found in this wikipedia article. Lucien HERVE received the posthumous "Hódmezővásárhely Honorary Citizen" designation in 2011, awarded by the Mayor to his widow, Judith.
Cornelia's younger sister Hermina/Johanna married Armin GUNZ and lived in Pecs. Their daughter Erzsebet married her second cousin Dr. Gyozo BALAZS (changed from BLAU), a dentist. They had two children, András and Jozsef. Hermina died in 1943, before the rest of her family was sent to concentration camps, where Erzsebet and her sons were murdered. Gyozo survived Mauthausen, but died before he could return home.
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2nd from right: Nelli (nee RITSCHER) ELKAN far right: Nelli's daughter Edit ELKAN seated on right: son Rudolf ELKAN seated on bench with arm around Nelli: Laszlo ELKAN (Lucien HERVE) |
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| Lajos and Nelli (nee
RITSCHER) ELKAN in undated photograph |
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the ELKAN and RITSCHER families vacationing on the Baltic coast, 1914 |
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| Judith HERVE (wife of
Lucien HERVE) went to Budapest in 2012 to find and clean the grave of her father-in-law Lajos ELKAN. You can read an article (in Hungarian, but can be translated adequately on google translate) here. |
Lucien and Judith HERVE
had a son, Daniel Rudolf Elkan HERVE, who died in 2000, without any children. |
Judith HERVE was born in
Oradea, Romania, and was a survivor of Auschwitz.
She recorded a 4 1/2 hour interview for the USC Shoah
Foundation. |
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| Lucien HERVE,
self-portrait, 1938 |
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© 2015 by Judy Petersen
