Komarom County

2. Komárom County We move now some 300 miles westward and find ourselves in Komárom County. The city of Komárom is located at the confluence of the Danube and Vág rivers, on the left bank of the Danube, approximately halfway between Budapest and Pozsony (Bratislava). The city is now called Komarno and it is the southernmost location in Slovakia. King Béla IV founded Komárom in 1265. As it was established by royal charter, it was officially recognized as a city. King Károly Róbert confirmed these privileges in 1331, expanding the importance and influence of the city. There was also a famous castle overlooking the city. The autonomous status of the city caused constant tension with the castle’s commanders appointed by the king, who attempted to exercise their presumed authority over the city. As a result of these conflicts, the city attempted to join the community of free kingdom cities, thereby extricating itself from the authority of the castle. Queen Maria Theresia eventually granted this privilege in 1745. During the 1848-49 Hungarian War of Independence, György Klapka defended Komárom for two months, and finally surrendered on honorable terms. Komárom is an important cultural center. Mór Jókai (1825-1904), the most important Hungarian novelist of the 19th century, was born here. In the second half of the 19th century we find a poor Jewish family nearby, in Tata-Tóváros, “the town of waters” which is not far from Komárom but on the other side of the Danube. The town and its beautiful lakes attracted nobility from all over the country, including Count Miklós Esterházy, who built a castle here in the 18th century. There were horse races here every fall, drawing participants from as far away as England.

Ignátz Weiner and his wife, Johanna Lőwinger, however, did not live in the castle. They lived in a one-room and kitchen apartment with tiny little windows in an adobe house on the banks of the Metsző creek. They had several children, but some of them died in childhood. 2

Two girls and two boys survived. The parents went to work early in the morning, but the family frequently went to bed without eating anything for supper. Mr. Weiner was a common carrier who transported sugar beets from the farmers to the sugar factory with his horse carriage. Once his horse kicked him; from then on, he limped but had good spirits and tried to avoid the problems of life. He had a moustache and a full beard. He loved his children very much; he liked talking to them and listening to their imaginations. “Tell me what happened and how you feel about it; not only one or the other but both” – he used to say to his children. He died in 1907, leaving his wife and four children behind. He had a nephew, Pál Weiner, a young man who looked like a hawk and worked as a tailor in a theater. We will meet him again in 1945. Johanna’s father fought in the Hungarian War of Independence and was killed in the Pákozd battle in 1848. Johanna was born in the same year. After the Hungarian defeat, her mother had to flee her village and ended up in Tata where she spent the rest of her life. Johanna was a proud woman who after the death of her husband carried the burden of the family on herself without complaining, usually dressed in black, and her voice was like that of a bird. She died in 1926, at the age of 78. Johanna’s brother Ludwig was an influential government official who had no contact with his family besides weddings and funerals. Henrik, Johanna and Ignátz’s older boy, became a tile stove builder. He went abroad soon after he became a journeyman. He worked in Austria and Germany for many years. After he came back, he started to deal in second-hand goods. Commerce brought him some wealth; he started a family and forgot about his poor parents. Márton, the younger son, was a mild-mannered boy with blue eyes. He learned the trade of printing and moved to a little town in the middle of Hungary where he met his wife, a nice, quiet girl. Later he established a printing shop in a nearby village. His wife, Ilma, went from village to village to sell lace tablecloths at local markets. This was an exemplary family. However, being far away from Tata, they also lived their own life without too much contact with their mother. Ida Adél (born May 25, 1879) remained in Tata-Tóváros. She was her father’s favorite child, not very tall, an ordinary girl with blue 3

eyes, majestic bluish black hair, and a very beautiful voice. She was a bit of a romantic, and she had a tendency to call everything in diminutive terms. She was not religious but feared God and spoke the dialect of Western Hungary with some charm (kényér, nékéd, csén légyén, alunnyi kő má, etc). She used only her middle name (Adél) and nobody ever called her Ida. She was fascinated by the beautiful dresses worn by the ladies who accompanied their cavaliers at the horse races and tried to create such dresses herself. When she was 14 years old, her father bought her an old Singer sewing machine, and eventually she became a seamstress who went from house to house with her machine to repair old dresses and sew new ones. Instead of working with her Singer machine she could have become a singer herself. She liked to sing during her work in the dressmaker’s shop where she was an apprentice. Once a rich couple walking on the street heard her voice. The man happened to be an impresario with a foreign opera company. He was quite impressed and offered to take the girl abroad to teach her music. Johanna angrily rejected the offer: “Who do you think my daughter is to make her an actress?” Adél was too scared to utter a word. Adél’s younger sister, Katica (born in 1887) was like Adél with the exception that she had blonde hair and a thinner figure. She earned her bread by combing rich ladies’ hair. She spoke good German which opened the door to the richest houses in town. She married another Mr. Lőwinger, a relatively well-to-do merchant in Komárom, and they eventually became quite affluent. They had three children, Edit, Éva, and László; their fourth child died in infancy. They had a maid and could even afford to hire a big-bodied blond Sudeten German fraulein to take care of the children and teach them German while their parents attended to the shop.

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