Caricature of the graduating class of the Oradea Gymnasium drawn by a student, Kalman Wavrek.
Overview
- Caption
- Caricature of the graduating class of the Oradea Gymnasium drawn by a student, Kalman Wavrek.
The school was directed by the Premonstratensian Order founded in France, but many of the students were Jewish. - Date
-
1922
- Locale
- Oradea, [Transylvania; Bihor] Romania
- Variant Locale
- Oradea-Mare
Nagyvarad
Grosswardein
Hungary
Wielki Waradyn - Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Leorah Kroyanker
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Leorah Kroyanker
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Leorah Kroyanker (born Leorah Farkas) is the daughter of Ladislaus and Hannah Farkas. Ladislaus Farkas was the son of Istvan (Stefan) and Anna Farkas. He was born in Dunaszerdahely Hungary in 1904. His brother Adalbert (Belus) was born in 1906. In 1908 the family moved to Nagyvarad (Oradea Mare) where a third brother, Paul, was born in 1909. Istvan owned drugstore and served as chairman of the merchants' association. The family belonged to the Neolog (reform) synagogue. Paul also became a pharmacist and worked with father. Ladislaus attended Gymnasium in Oradea then went to Vienna to study chemistry in the Technische Hochshule where he was joined by his brother Adalbert. After graduating, Ladislaus moved to Berlin to continue his education, and he received his diploma in chemical engineering in December 1926. Nobel laureate, Fritz Haber, Director of the Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry hired Ladislaus to become his personal assistant in 1926. On April 29, 1933, owing to Nazi racial laws, Haber was forced to fire Farkas and his other Jewish employees. Though still personally unaffected by the legislation, Haber, a Jewish convert to Christianity, also tended his own resignation and set about seeking positions abroad for Farkas and his other protégées. Haber helped Farkas find work in Cambridge, England and wrote to Weizmann on his behalf to get him a position in Palestine. Haber hoped also to move to Palestine and continue to work with Farkas, but he passed away in Switzerland on January 27, 1934. Ladislaus' brother, Adalbert, joined him in Cambridge. The two brothers worked in the same laboratory and shared a living stipend from The Central British Fund for German Jewry. Ladislaus immigrated to Palestine in 1935, and Adalbert followed in 1936. Ladislaus became a professor of chemistry at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. On July 16, 1940, he married Hannah Aharoni, a microbiologist. Adalbert became a lecturer in physical chemistry but left Palestine for the United States in 1941. In addition to pursuing theoretical science, Ladislaus Farkas concentrated on developing applications of physical chemistry to facilitate economic, military and industrial growth for the nascent Jewish State. His research aided Israel's citrus fruit, potash and military industries. He also developed new materials for filling dental root canals. After the end of World War II, Ladislaus traveled to England during the summer of 1945, to meet with international colleagues and also to try to determine the fate of his relatives in Hungary. He learned that both of his parents perished in Auschwitz in1944. His youngest brother Paul and his wife Eva survived, though their five-year-old daughter Kati perished. Paul and Eva immigrated to Palestine in October 1946 and established a pharmacy in Jerusalem. After returning to Palestine, Ladislaus continued his work at Hebrew University. However, in the months preceding Israel's declaration of Independence, fighting intensified in Jerusalem, and Ladislaus had to abandon his laboratory on Mount Scopus. His wife Hannah and infant daughter Leorah fled to Tel Aviv where a second daughter Ruth was born in April 1948. In the late fall of 1948, Ladislaus accepted a commission to come to the United States to purchase equipment for Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical Center and the Israeli Air Force. Since commercial flights were not flying to Israel, he boarded a charted Pan Am flight manned by Mahal volunteers. The flight's main purpose was to bring arms to Israel and to fly Jews to Israel from Arab countries. The plane left Haifa on December 30, 1948 and encountered difficulties shortly thereafter. It crashed in a small town north of Rome, Italy killing Ladislaus and the other passengers and crew on board.
[Source: Kroyanker, Leorah and Geva, Ruth; "Prof. L. Farkas, 1904-1948, The Story of a Scientific Pioneer": Jerusalem, The Jewish National and University Library, 1998.]
- Record last modified:
- 2008-07-18 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1153995
