Women of the Klein Family (Miskolc, ca. 1935)
Jozsef Klein and Maria Deutsch lived in Egerlovo (Borsod county), They had five children: Sarolta, Regina, Piroska, Rudolf, and Herman. Sarolta married Jozsef Frisch around 1906. They lived in Tszanana with their daughters Maria and Lenke [mother of Miskolc researcher Agnes Szego Orban]. Lenke and Maria married, were living in Tiszafured during World War II, and survived the Holocaust.
Regina, Piroska, and Rudolf moved to Miskolc in the early decades of the twentieth century and their children were born there. At some time during the Second World War, Herman also appears to have lived in Miskolc (see below). The photograph above (captioned "Women of the Klein Family") was taken around 1935, on Telegdi Street in Miskolc. Only three people in the photograph can be identified. In the top row (third, fourth, and fifth from the left) are Maria Frisch Klein, Lenke Frisch Szego (daughters of Sarolta Klein Frisch), and their first cousin Maria Katz (daughter of Piroska Klein). Maria and Lenke probably traveled from Tiszafured to visit their relatives in Miskolc. With the exception of Maria and Lenke, everyone in this photograph died in the Holocaust.
Regina Klein was born in 1887. She married Vilmos Kohn and they had five children: Lajos Kohn (who Hungarianized his surname to Koltai), Margit Kohn Foldes, Iren Kohn Rubinstein, Lilla Kohn Grosz, and Klara Kohn, who married Jeno Markovits. Of Regina’s family, only Lajos (a carpenter), Margit, and her daughter Eva Foldes survived the war. The two women emigrated to England in 1956.
Sarolta’s sister Piroska Klein was married to Abraham Katz. Their children were Miklos (born 1909), Imre (born 1911), and Maria (born 1912). Piroska’s family perished in 1944. The men are thought to have been deported from Miskolc and commandeered into forced-labor battalions. The rest of this branch of the family is presumed to have been murdered in Auschwitz.
Rudolf Klein
Photos on right were taken while Rudolf was in the Hungarian army during World War I.
Photo 3: Rudolf is on the right. Photo 4: Rudolf is on the left.
Sarolta’s brother Rudolf Klein (born 1894) was married to Gizella Nieder (born ca. 1896 in Munkacs), the daughter of Adolf Nieder and Leni Oberlander. They had a son Jozsef (born 1924) and a daughter Agnes. Rudolf was in the Hungarian army during World War I. After he was demobilized, he returned to Miskolc, where he worked as a shoemaker and raised his family. During the Second World War, Rudolf was forced into a labor battalion. According to the list of Hungarian Jews who perished during the war [prepared by the Hungarian branch of the World Jewish Congress in 1945-1946 and archived in Yad Vashem], Rudolf died in Camp Hoersing in June, 1945. Gizella and Agnes are believed to have died in Auschwitz. Of Rudolf’s family, only Jozsef survived. He changed his name to Kertes and was a watchmaker in Miskolc until his death in 2006.
Jozsef Klein
Sarolta’s brother Herman Klein lived in Tata with his wife and their daughters Ilona and Margit. His great-niece Agnes Orban speculates that at some time during World War II, Herman either went or was sent to Miskolc. Agnes found records in Yad Vashem that he was taken from the Miskolc ghetto to Auschwitz, where he perished in 1944. Ilona and Margit survived the war.
For more photographs of the Klein family, click here.
Credits: Text and page design copyrighted © 2010 by Helene Kenvin. Photographs copyrighted © 2010 by Agnes Szego Orban. Page created by Helene Kenvin. All rights reserved.