Transylvania 2012

As our honeymoon continued in Romania, Jenifer and I met up with my parents, siblings, two nephews, a niece, and some cousins. There were 15 of us in total, and using Oradea, Romania as a base, we spent two days touring a section of Transylvania where my Deutsch and Lichtman ancestors lived. When they lived there, it was part of Hungary. Now it is part of Romania.

One day we visited Huedin, Almasu (marked by the A), and Cluj. The other we visited Marghita and Simleu Silvaniei. My maternal grandfather, Martin Deutsch, was born in Almasu. The nearest train station from which the family likely departed in 1913 was in Huedin. My great grandfather's passport was issued in Kolozsvár (Cluj). In 1977 my great-uncle Ted Deutsch was recorded singing a song in part-Hungarian and part-Romanian about Kolozsvár. My great grandmother, Helen Lichtman Deutsch, was born in Marghita. Two nieces of Helen's, who remained in Romania, survived the concentration camps, but returned post-war, and settled in Simleu Silvaniei. They weren't allowed to leave under Communist rule until the 1960s. A daughter of one of the survivors, who grew up in Simleu Silvaniei, now lives near Tel Aviv. She joined us and acted as a tour guide.  

Almasu, Romania (Varalmas, Hungary)



About all we know about the home my grandfather was raised in until age 7 is that it was situated by the river. The Valea Babiu runs through Almasu. My parents took a photograph of a different house when they visited previously back in 2000. Either could be 100 years old; both have clearly seen better days. My great-grandfather was a tenant-farmer, so even if some depository had land records, his name wouldn't likely be on them.

Huedin, Romania (Bánffyhunyad, Hungary)



I like that the train station still has the Hungarian version of the town's name on it in addition to the Romanian. I also took photographs of two old benches that theoretically could have been there in 1913. One of the two benches isn't very useful anymore.  The sign on the red box says, "Pastrati Curatenia," which means, "Keep Clean" in Romanian. (There were newer benches at the train station, in addition to the chairs which can be seen in the first photograph.

Marghita, Romania (Margitta, Hungary)



We know the exact address in Margitta where my great-grandmother, Helen (Lichtman) Deutsch, was raised. However, sometimes streets get renumbered. There's a photograph of the Lichtmann leather shop prior to WW2. Is this the same building? While the front has been remodeled somewhat over the years, I believe it is.  While the building is occupied, we didn't knock on the door.

Update

Here's another archival image of the Lichtmann leather store, obviously taken at a different time than the one above because the sign above the door is different. The similarities between it and the current building are more noticeable.

Cluj, Romania (Kolozsvár, Hungary)

While in Cluj, I took a photograph of a monument. I couldn't read what it said at the base, but I figured I could look it up later.

It is a quote from Ioan Raţiu, one of several Romanians who petitioned Emperor-King Franz Joseph in 1892 for equal rights for Romanians.

Existenţa unui popor nu se discută, se afirmă!

which translates to:

The existence of a people is not for discussion, but rather for affirmation!
Photo Credits: 
John Newmark - June 2012 
Lichtman Leather Shop: Unknown photographer, Unknown date

Central Database of Shoah Victims Names

The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names is a unique international undertaking led by Yad Vashem. It is the endeavor to recover the names and reconstruct the life stories of each individual Jew murdered in the Shoah. It is our moral duty to respect their last behest and remember them. We estimate that the number of Jews commemorated in the database to date is 4 million. The database is comprised of Pages of Testimony, historical documentation and additional sources.

"The online Names Database creates a link not only with the dead but also among the living, within the Jewish people," said Nobel Laureate Prof. Elie Wiesel after filling out a Page of Testimony for his father, Shlomo. "It strengthens the connections between families, between cities, between communities. Furthermore, it brings a heightened awareness and a deepened sense of remembrance."

More information

Yad Vashem is the Israeli Holocaust Memorial and its name derives from the Biblical verse, Isaiah 56:5: "and to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name that shall not be cut off." Yad Vashem means: a memorial and a name.

Their database of names was initially put online in 2004, and has grown since then. It's easy to search.  The basic search function has three input fields.  You can enter data in only one, or all of the fields, though the search results will only provide the first 1000 records, so searching by first name alone is likely only useful for unusual first names.

The Advanced Search provides several more input fields

You're also able to specify the accuracy level of each input field (The defaults are shown above, and the four choices below)

For Year of Birth, or Year of Death, you have an option of +-2 or +-5.

Here's what the results page looks like if you search for every individual born in Almasu. (The town where my maternal grandfather was born.) I didn't specify a country, as it varied depending upon the year. If I specified Romania or Hungary, I'd only get about half the results.  However, the synonyms option yields many variations of the town name (Almasu, Almas, Almasz, Nagyalmas, Varalmas).  For those entries below with a different town, the other town was their residence in 1938.  The actual record indicates Almasu as their place of birth.

My grandfather, Martin Deutsch, was the son of Samuel Deutsch and Helen Lichtmann.  So a few entries in these results were of great interest:

Szeren Serena Deutsch
Laszlo Lichtmann
David Lichtmann

Helen had a half-brother named David, and all the information I have on his birth was "After 1882" as I knew Helen was the oldest. Helen was born in a different Transylvanian town (Margitta), but they're not too far apart. I thought all the Lichtmann children were born in Margitta, but since David was in his 40s by the time of his death, birth place and residence prior to the war could have been confused.


The information on the David Lichtman in the database, unfortunately, doesn't include parents.

Original Record No.:	BU-1/2.
Last Name:	Lichtmann
First Name:	David
Gender:	Male
Date of Birth:	14/08/1892
Place of Birth:	Varalmas, Cluj, Transylvania, Romania
Place during the war:	Buchenwald, Camp
Place of Death:	Buchenwald, Camp
Date of Death:	03/11/1945
Victims' status end WWII:	murdered/perished

Note: Clicking on the magnifying glass image searches by that input field, and clicking on the green image shows you the location on the map.  The links above work, however, the search for all those born in Varalmas, Cluj, Transylvania, Romania yields only 4 results, as it searches for no synonyms.

This could be my great grandmother's half-brother, or someone else with the same name. There's no way for me to be certain yet.

My guess is that the Laszlo Lichtmann in the results was David's son. It doesn't indicate this as a fact, but both are indicated as having died at Buchenwald.  Laszlo on Feb 22, 1945 and David on November 3. (It's important to be careful when reading dates - they are presented in the European Date-Month-Year format.)

***
There are two pages of testimony for Serena Deutsch, which appear to have been submitted by two different daughters.  Scanned images of the testimony are viewable, though the documents are in Hebrew. Szeren appears to have been the daughter of Simon and Betti Tantzos, and she married Mor Deutsch.  I do not know if or how Mor was related to my great grandfather, Samuel Deutsch.
***

I searched for several other family names at the website, and will share some of the results in future posts.

Part II

Amanuensis Monday: Of Sewing Machines, Sóska, and Squealing Pigs

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

Two weeks ago I posted the first 10 minutes of a tape my grandfather Martin Deutsch recorded with his brother, Ted in 1977. Below are the next ten minutes. They're still talking about their life in the village of Almasu/Varalmas in Transylvania in the first decade of the 20th century.

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10:00

Martin: Ted, I’m going to stop it here and go back just to check and see if we’re doing OK. All right I’m getting back to earning a living. Mother used to sew, what did she sew, did she have a sewing machine?
Ted: She had a sewing machine
Martin: Of course, a treadle, we didn’t have any electricity there I don’t suppose, and she used to sew and probably bake, she was a smart cookie, she was a smart baker
Ted: She was a baker, but I don’t recall her baking for anybody. But she did sew because we had neighbors, and they brought in their clothes for repairs, alterations, fittings, and she would fit their children’s clothes, women’s clothes.
Martin: So she was a seamstress in a way
Ted: In a way she was a seamstress, and they would pay her in form of milk, or whatever else she wanted they would bring it to her.
Martin: I was talking to Bert yesterday and she was telling me that she remembered from discussions with you or anybody that there were a lot of goats being raised, and I do recall myself that there were goats for goat milk and cheese
Ted: We had goats at one time I remember we had about three goats
Martin: I thought we had a real flock of them.
Ted: No, not more. I don’t remember more than three, for if we had young ones we used to sell them to somebody else. You have to feed goats.
Martin: I know we didn’t have any pigs. (laughs)
Ted: No pigs we didn’t have
Martin: But they were raised in the community I guess, weren’t they, pigs, and cattle for milk
Ted: There were people raising pigs on their farm, I could listen to them once in awhile they were butchering.
Martin: Yeah, that’s right, butchering was very common, yes.
Ted: They would make their own bacon and pork chops.
Martin: I do recall that very clearly, all the squealing.
Ted: And then followed up with their – they would build a big fire and roast a pig in the fire outside.
Martin: I guess they’d roast the whole pig (Ted: that’s right) and they’d have it for the winter I suppose. Yeah, I do recall the squealing pigs. Now I was about…when we came away I was between five and six years old, so that I have a recollection there too. I was telling Bert yesterday that I recall this mountainside as children we would go up a hundred feet or so on a mountainside on an incline and roll down.
Ted: Yeah! That’s right, it was one of our past times, we used to roll down the mountainside.
Martin: And I remember shoska, picking shoska as you came down the hill – what is shoska is it a watercress, I always thought.
Ted: I thought it was spinach.
Martin: I doubt it would be spinach – I think it had a sweetness a tartness. Spinach doesn’t have that, and I think shoska is watercress, but I don’t know whether watercress has to be at the water. I don’t think it does.
Ted: I don’t know.
Martin: I think it will grow on a hillside.
Ted: I always thought it was spinach.
Martin: Bert said the same thing, but I felt like it was more like watercress.

[Note: Sóska is the Hungarian term for Sorrel, though it is often confused with spinach.]

Ted: It was probably sweetened up when it was prepared it would taste sweet, but it isn’t sweet naturally.
Martin: Now you may have a point there, but if you pick it on the hillside you don’t prepare it for anything, you just eat it right there. We did.
Ted: That’s right.
Martin: I recall as a child, of course being impressed by the mountain, it must have been a tall mountain. I don’t recall….I always had the impression, I always wondered what was on the other side of the mountain and I never did find out, it was far away, it was just beyond my comprehension.
Ted: Usually the mountains there surrounded us. Practically, the whole town. You could only get into the town through a pass in the mountain.

15:00

Ted (cont): These passes occurred in certain spots and I remember going with Dad on a horse and wagon we’d cross the river and go up the mountain and then there was a road on the other side there’s another little town called Buchem. We went there.
Martin: Buchem, would you call it BUCZOM or something?
Ted: It sounds like BUSC.
Martin: BUSCOM. I imagine that would be on a map. I am sorry I don’t have that map, I think you and I
Ted: I don’t know it would be on a map, but father’s brother lived there.
Martin: Now that wouldn’t be more than what…how many miles?
Ted: I would say it would be
Martin: A day’s ride?
Ted: I would say ten, fifteen miles, a day’s ride.
Martin: Yeah, it was a day’s ride on a horse, and possibly you would have to stay over and come back the next day.
Ted: That’s right, to visit him we’d have to go through the mountain pass.
Martin: Fifteen miles over a mountain and poor roads…
Ted: Mostly forest, there was a rough trail there you might say.
Martin: You would probably take your lunch along, and feed the horse on the way.
Ted: Well, yeah, always, we would take oats for the horse and something to eat on the way. But the mountains were – the range are the Carpathian Mountains.
Martin: It was a range of them. I thought I saw on the map they were called Carpathians and also Transylvanian Alps.
Ted: Transylvania is the big range and those cross Romania and goes through several countries, but the local range was called Carpathians.

[Note: The Carpathians are the largest mountain range in Europe, covering Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Romania and Serbia. The Transylvanian Alps are another name for the Southern Carpathians.]

Martin: Now, the house itself. I was talking to Bert last night just refreshing my mind. She said the floor was just a dirt floor. Was not a wood floor
Ted: That’s right. No basement. Sort of a clay, finished clay, hard clay.
Martin: The house itself, was it a wood house (Ted: Yeah) it wasn’t a log cabin, it was cabin like, but not log cabin
Ted: No, it wasn’t. Mostly the outside was plaster, but the frames were all wood. Everything was wood.
Martin: Probably hand hewn lumber.
Ted: Most likely, but I wouldn’t recall. I know it had plaster on the outside.
Martin: No plaster on the in[side], and we probably had a wood a stove to burn wood for heating and for baking and for cooking.
Ted: We had a wood stove. Not only that, but outside we had a clay oven, and you could bake in there for your breads.
Martin: We burned wood – and we would pick up firewood in the neighborhood.
Ted: There was no other fuel.
Martin: There was no oil, no coal.
Ted: We had plenty of wood all we had was to go up the mountain.
Martin: I guess we did a lot of that, all the kids would have to forage.
Ted: We’d pile the wood on our lawn along the house for the winter.
Martin: Like on any farm, of course now, around here.
Ted: We would chop it up and wait for use.
Martin: How big was the house. Was it one room?
Ted: The house was one room, yes
Martin: And here we were, 7, 8 people
Ted: We were at one time, all of us were there, there was 7 people.
Martin: Except for Al of course we were all born probably in that one house.

[Note: A reference to their brother, Allen, who was born in Chicago in 1914.]

Ted: That’s right.
Martin: Did we stay in one place all the time?
Ted: We were in one place, as far as I…
Martin: We never did move?
Ted: No, in the 11 years I spent there
Martin: Were you 11 you think?
Ted: Well, I was 11 when we came out, yeah.
Martin: So you were old enough to know as much about it as most people.
Ted: If I was born in nineteen hundred and two, I was there 9 years anyhow, from 1902 to 1911, I was there for nine years, so we were living in that one place all that time.

[Note: Their mother left for America in 1912. The rest of the family followed in 1913, so Ted would have been 11 by then.]

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It's fun to hear each one of them remind the other something they had forgotten. My grandfather remembers hearing the squealing pigs after Ted mentions them, and my grandfather reminds Ted about their rolling down the hills as a pasttime. That's what kids did before videogames.

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If you choose to join me in Amanuensis Monday and post your transcriptions, feel free to add a link to your post below, or in the comments.

Almasu Romania / Varalmas Hungary

Monday when I posted the transcript of my grandfather and his brother discussing their home village in Transylvania, I included photographs of nearby Cluj I had found on the web. Cluj had been mentioned on the tape, but I noted that wasn't the village they were describing. After she saw the post, my mother reminded me that when she had visited in 2000, she had taken some photographs I was welcome to scan and post here. Several photographs appear below from what is now Almasu, Romania, and 100 years ago was Varalmas, Hungary.




Except for the telephone poles, and the partially paved road, the main street of the town might not look much different than it did 100 years ago.

They are still using wells as their primary source of water.



While there are no Jews left in the town, there are two Jewish cemeteries that remain. My parents, who were there with cousins from Israel who knew both Hebrew and Hungarian so they could read the tombstones, searched for the tombstone of Armon Deutsch, a brother of my grandfather who died tragically. They were unsuccessful. It isn't certain that there was a stone marker for the grave, or maybe it had faded beyond readability.

On the tape they made in 1977, my grandfather and his brother indicated that the house they lived in was by the river that ran through the town. There were no other details, so my parents found a house by the river they decided was representative of the ones they saw.







It appears as if the house could be over 100 years old. While run down, it was likely in better shape in its younger days.

My great uncle talks about at age 8 driving a horse and carriage with bottles of plum brandy (slivowitz) to a local brewery. Horse and carriage is still the primary means of transportation in the town. My father shows up in this photograph.



Finally, there is a photograph of the Huedin Train Station. Huedin is the nearest town that had a train station in the early 1900s, and is likely the train station from which my grandfather's family left - his mother in 1912, and the rest of the family in 1913.



The name of the town (Varalmas) means Apple Fort. You can barely see the fort in the distance in the photograph of the cemetery above. A close-up view of the remains can be seen here.