Emanuel “Manny” Mandel (b. 1936) was born on May 8, 1936, in Riga, Latvia to Yehudah (Lojos or Lewis, 1904-1994) and Gabriella “Ella” Mandel (nee Klein? 1908-1967?, born in Kunszentmiklós in Southern Hungary), a religious Jewish family. Yehudah served in the Czech Army from 1924-1926. Shortly after Manny’s birth, Yehudah accepted a post as one of the four chief cantors in Budapest, and the family returned to Hungary, where they had lived before 1933. Manny’s father was based at the Rumbach Street synagogue.
After the Hungarian state issued anti-Jewish laws in 1938, Jews were rigorously persecuted in Hungary. When it became mandatory for all Jews in Hungary to wear the yellow Star of David, Manny’s father wouldn’t allow his son to have a bicycle, fearing that someone would attack Manny after seeing the star badge affixed to his clothes. Even though Manny’s school was only a few blocks from their home, Yehudah often followed Manny as he walked to school. He was worried someone might push Manny into traffic, as there had been similar incidents in Budapest.
Manny was eight when the Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944. Ella heard rumors of impending deportations. Manny, Ella, and Yehudah’s brother David Mandel were among a group of Hungarian Jews whom Adolf Eichmann offered to trade for trucks and other goods in negotiations with Rezsö Kasztner, a member of the Aid and Rescue Committee (Vaada). Like many able-bodied Jewish men, Yehudah had been compelled to join a Hungarian forced labor brigade and was not able to join them. Almost 1,700 Hungarian Jews left Hungary by train on June 30, 1944, with the promise that they would be permitted to exit Nazi-occupied Europe. After difficulties in the negotiations, Manny and his mom and uncle were diverted on a train to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. After six months they were taken to Switzerland by Nazi transport, first to a Red Cross hotel near Montreux, and then to a children’s home in Heiden. Manny and his mother stayed at the Heiden children's home where Ella worked as a teacher. In 1945 Manny and Ella immigrated on a British troop ship to Palestine and were placed in Kibbutz Sha’ar HaAmakim.
Around 1941, Yehuda was conscripted into a forced labor battalion. He managed to escape from his labor brigade in November 1944 and returned to Budapest and went into hiding. There he became a runner for Raoul Wallenberg’s rescue operations, which provided Jews with false documentation papers. He continued working with underground systems until the end of the war and remained in Budapest until its liberation by the Soviet Army on February 13, 1945. Wanting to join his wife and son in Palestine, he made his way to La Spezia harbor to board an illegal immigration ship, aided by the Haganah. Once the British learned of the ship and prevented its sailing in April 1946, Yehuda helped organize a hunger strike in protest. Eventually, the British yielded and Yehuda sailed to Palestine in May 1945 on board the Eliahu Golomb or its sister ship the Dov Hos.
After reuniting, the Mandel’s settled in Haifa where Yehuda was selected as Cantor. In 1949 they immigrated to the United States where he became a cantor at Bet Juda in Philadelphia, PA in 1950. Though Manny's immediate family survived the war, many of his relatives perished including his grandmother Rosa Braun Mandel, his maternal grandparents Rabbi Aaron and Paula Klein, and his seven-year-old cousin Judit Krishaber, who was killed at Auschwitz. Settling in Philadelphia, Manny graduated from Central High School, Gratz College, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He was a practicing psychotherapist in Maryland until his retirement in 2014. Manny is a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
