famous trio performed all over the country and Europe.
New Trio Image
Formal photo of my father when he began performing as a solo
cellist with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra circa 1938.
Love’s Orphan
Chapter
Last picture of my father with two arms immediately after arriving at the labor camp. He is smiling for the camera, not really knowing what to expect.
Formal photo of my father when he began performing as a solo cellist with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra circa 1938.
Love’s Orphan
Chapter
The back side of the tombstone shows the list of the names of my father’s family killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
The tombstone of my paternal grandfather; the only member of the Kalman family who passed away right before the family was taken to the gas chambers. Our son, Nathan, is in the foreground.
Love’s Orphan
Chapter
Fred Balazs and my father: A lifetime of unbreakable friendship.
Last picture of my father with two arms immediately after arriving to labor camp. He is smiling, not really knowing what to expect.
Fred Balazs and my Father: a life time of unbreakable friendship.
Love’s Orphan
Chapter
Love’s Orphan
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
My Mother
Gabriella Molnar, my mother, was born on March 18, 1929 in Debrecen, Hungary. She was the third child out of six. When she was born her parents already had two girls, and soon after her, they had two boys and another girl. Mom never had anything new, only hand-me-downs from her two older sisters. She was closest with the firstborn, Aranyka, and oddly enough both of them married much older men and then divorced, and then married twice more. They also shared the similar trait that their lives were primarily focused on men. It seemed they were unable to live their lives alone.
Mom’s birth seemed a prophecy of hard times to come. My grandmother was on her way home from the outdoor village market when she could tell that her baby was coming and there was no stopping it. Grandfather was at work, but fortunately the two older girls, Aranyka and Mandi, were there to help. They were close to the famous Nine Arch bridge when my grandmother could not go any farther, and she lay down under one of the arches where there was shade and some privacy. It was not an easy birth, but it was quick. At that point some good-hearted women came with my two young aunts, and they cut the cord and wrapped my mother in some warm towels. Then somebody came back with a wagon to take grandmother home. The next day, the village doctor paid her a visit, but she was already up taking care of her family. Grandmother used to say that the birth was just the forewarning that there wasn’t going to be anything easy about raising my mother.
I know Mom got into trouble a lot for not minding, or not telling the truth, or just generally misbehaving. Grandmother always had to be there to rescue her, and the other children often felt that Mom got more attention than they did. It sometimes makes me think of the story of the Prodigal Son in the Bible, who caused so much heartache and pain for his father, yet was still loved and welcomed home regardless of what he had done in the past.
My grandmother, Margit Jassinger, came from a very poor Orthodox Jewish family in Debrecen, Hungary. There she met my grandfather, Miklos Molnar, who was a university graduate and an engineer by profession. He came from a very prominent Roman Catholic Family. Their worlds could not have been more different, but as they say, love is blind and nothing could come between them. They fell in love, and then broke with tradition by getting married without the approval of their families. In the early 1900 it was simply unheard of for an orthodox Jewish girl to date or be even in the same room with a man of Roman Catholic faith
While there had always been a tenuous relationship between Jews and Christians in Europe, the divide grew to its most dangerous level during the twentieth century. “Blood libel” accusations (the baseless claim that Jews were murdering Christians and using their blood in religious rituals) led to the immigration of approximately 175,000 European Jews to America in the mid-twentieth century. Unfortunately, anti-Semitism was also peaking in the United States during these years, with prominent American heroes like Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh openly supporting fascism and espousing the moral inferiority of the Jewish race. It was even worse, though, in Europe, and the rise of the Nazism brought the hatred between Christians and Jews to a fever pitch.
During these years in Hungary, it was unacceptable that an Orthodox Jewish girl with only an eighth-grade education would marry a well-educated, well-to-do Roman Catholic gentleman. Both were immediately disowned, and they never saw or heard from their parents again. I could never get my grandparents to talk about their parents or the families they had lost.
My grandmother converted to Catholicism long before the war, and my grandfather’s family was Roman Catholic going back several generations. Since she had had no contact with her family for so many years and had become such a devout Christian, nobody knew of her Jewish background. This likely saved her life during the Holocaust.
For the first five years of their marriage, Grandma and Grandpa didn’t have children. Grandmother started attending church with Grandpa on Sundays but didn’t convert to Christianity at that time. Then, one night, she had a very unusual dream. Here is how she told it to me:
One Sunday we did what we always do; we went to church, and then I was preparing our noon dinner. It was a quiet, ordinary day. I had been feeling something stirring inside of me after years of attending the Catholic Church services. I began to question my Jewish faith, and I wanted to know more about this Jesus person whom the Christians worshipped and the Jewish people denied. Your grandpa and I had long talks about our faiths, but he never pushed me to convert. He was waiting patiently for me to come around.
That particular Sunday night we went to bed and I had the most unusual dream, one as real as anything I ever experienced. In the dream, I was on my way home from our church and it was a very stormy night. I got so lost and I just could not find my way home. It was completely dark and all I could think about was my children waiting for me at home with Grandpa probably worrying about my whereabouts. The more I tried to find my way home, the more lost I got.
I was frantic with fear and the rain was coming down very hard. I was soaking wet, my feet sinking in the muddy road, which slowed me down and made me even more desperate. In my exhausted state, I finally just dropped down on my knees and cried out to Jesus for his help! I vaguely remember saying something like, ‘Jesus, if you really exist, please take my hand and help me to get home!’ I was sobbing so hard that I thought I was going to die. And then out of nowhere there was this soft light coming from behind me, and in that moment I knew that somehow I was going to be okay. Jesus had heard my plea! I was afraid to turn my head around, but felt a hand touch me and lift me up out of the mud. When I looked up, I saw our house with the lights on right ahead of me, and I just walked straight toward our door.
Grandpa was already standing at the door, waiting for me anxiously.