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A brown, leather-tooled folio belonging to the Gondos family, who took it with them when they left Budapest aboard the Kasztner rescue train.

Photograph | Photograph Number: N09726
A brown, leather-tooled folio belonging to the Gondos family, who took it with them when they left Budapest aboard the Kasztner rescue train. Anna Ilona Gondas made this and other hand-tooled leather objects during the war to supplement the family income while her husband was serving in the Hungarian Labor Service. The monogram suggests that this was a custom-made item that the owner never took possession of.

A brown, leather-tooled folio belonging to the Gondos family, who took it with them when they left Budapest aboard the Kasztner rescue train.

Anna Ilona Gondas made this and other hand-tooled leather objects during the war to supplement the family income while her husband was serving in the Hungarian Labor Service. The monogram suggests that this was a custom-made item that the owner never took possession of.

Date
Circa 1942
Locale
Budapest, [Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun] Hungary
Photo Designation
ARTIFACTS -- Objects -- Suitcases/Handbags/Valises
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Judy Gondos Jacobs

About This Photograph

Biography
Judy Jacobs (born Judit Gondos) is the only child of Bela and Anna Ilona Gondos. She was born April 27, 1937 in Budapest, where her father was a physician and her mother, an interior designer. Bela came from an orthodox family, and as an adult became a member of a Zionist organization. Anna came from an assimilated family. Around 1942 Bela was conscripted for the Hungarian Labor Service. His forced departure from his practice resulted in the family's loss of almost all its income. Within a few months of the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, the Jews of Budapest were forced to move to specially designated Yellow Star apartment houses that were scattered around the city. The Gondos' happened to live in a building that was so designated, and several of their relatives soon moved in with them. In June 1944 the Gondos' were one of the families selected by the Jewish Rescue Committee to leave Hungary on the Kasztner rescue train. They departed from the Eastern railway station in Budapest on June 30, thinking they were bound for neutral Spain or Portugal. Instead they were taken to Bergen-Belsen, which was then still largely a detention camp for persons designated for exchange with German nationals in Allied countries. The Gondos were placed with the rest of the transport in the Ungarnlager (Hungarian camp). Here the prisoners wore their own clothing but were forced to display the Jewish badge. They were finally released in December 1944 and taken to Switzerland with the assistance of the International Red Cross. The Gondos settled in Zurich, where Bela worked as a volunteer radiologist at the university, and Anna cleaned vegetables at the Canton hospital. Judit attended a boarding school. From Zurich, the family moved to Geneva, where they remained until immigrating to the U.S. in the fall of 1946. They sailed aboard an empty coal vessel called the SS Mathew O'Brien that departed from Genoa. The Gondos eventually settled in Brookline, MA.

Keywords and Subjects

Administrative History

Artifact Photographer
Max Reid

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Judy Gondos Jacobs
Source Record ID: Collections: 2003.198
 
Record last modified: 2004-02-03 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1148734