Biography
Magda Muller (born Magda Herzog) is the daughter of Jakub and Lilly Herzog. She was born June 20, 1910 in Hlohovec, Czechoslovakia, where her father was a respected physician. Magda had one sister, Julie, a few years older than she. Magda married Nandor Muller of nearby Sered in 1928. Nandor established a branch of his father's wholesale grain business in Hlohovec and quickly became one of the leading businessmen of the town. Magda and Nandor had two children, Heinrich (b. 1930) and Alice (b. 1932). The family led a comfortable life during the thirties. They were one of the few families in town that owned a car, and they made frequent trips to spas and other vacation spots in the former Austro-Hungarian empire. However, after the rise of the Slovak fascist movement [Hlinka Guard] and the establishment of an independent Slovakia in March 1939, the situation of the Jewish population quickly deteriorated. In Hlohovec, members of the Hlinka Guard rounded-up the prominent Jewish men, including Nandor, and beat them up. While he recuperated from a broken rib, Nandor made arrangements to leave the country. He convinced one of his brothers, Lajos, to emigrate with him, but neither his parents nor his other brother and sister felt they could leave. Nandor had initially planned to emigrate to Palestine and sent sufficient funds with a courier to establish a cigarette factory there. However, the messenger absconded with the money. Ultimately, the Mullers obtained visas to Canada, after having bribed a Canadian official to register them as farmers. (At this time of strict immigration regulations, would-be immigrants had to pledge to settle in rural areas or take up farm-based employment.) The two Muller brothers left Slovakia with their families in late August 1939. They rented a private plane to fly them from Bratislava to Vienna. From there they proceeded to London by rail and ship. In September they sailed to Canada, where they settled on a farm in Thorold, Ontario. Nandor's sister and parents did not survive the war. His older brother, however, was rescued through the efforts of his non-Jewish wife, who hid him behind a false wall in their home in Sered. Magda's sister and parents survived as well. After serving as the doctor in the Sered concentration camp, Jakub and Lilly Herzog went into hiding with a series of his former patients. They eventually emigrated to Canada in 1952.
