More Munks!

Ishtvan Marosi, Marianna Marosi and me on Buda Castle Overlook

In case you didn’t catch it, the title of this blog, “More Munks” is actually a pun: on my father’s side, the ancestor who I have in common with Nori, Magda, Laci, Csiompi and their kids is Mor Munk, my great-great-grandfather.

Yesterday, June 30, I met yet another cousin, Ishtvan Marosi, who changed his name from Munk, a name which sounded Germanic to him and he wanted a more Magyar name. My parents did the same, changing the name Munk to Munn to Americanize it.

Ishtvan is the oldest of the Munk cousins here, and the one I hoped would be a repository of more details about the generations before him. He was born in 1939 and survived the war by hiding with his father outside of the town of Monor. Ishtvan’s lovely and stylish wife Marianna was actually born in the Budapest ghetto.

Unfortunately, Ishtvan does not remember much about his grandfather, Lipot, other than his grandfather loved him. Nor did he remember anything about Lipot’s funeral in 1943. I had hoped that someone in the family would remember where Lipot was buried since Jewish tombstones are often a revelation in and of themselves. There are many cemeteries in Budapest so it would be difficult to check them all, but Marianna promised to call the largest one here to see if there is a database of who is buried there. The Ujpest cemetery would have been a likely candidate, not only for Lipot, but for his twin brother Joseph (my great-grandfather), and for Mor and Maria Munk, too.

Ishtvan did remember one important little story: Ishtvan’s father Laszlo was a shoemaker. When I remarked that my grandfather Vilmos was a shoemaker, too, Ishtvan nodded and said, “My father saw that his cousin Villy was rich, always wearing nice clothes, and he decided to be a shoemaker, too.” It might sound crazy, but that information made me cry. For someone to have even the tiniest details about my grandfather, even the fact that he wore nice clothes, was worth so much to me.

I never knew Vilmos, of course, because he perished in Mauthausen. I do have about a dozen pictures of him, though, and he is a strikingly good-looking man who was, yes, well-dressed. And I am happy to hear that he was well-off, but I am not sure how a shoe maker could be rich. Perhaps he owned a shoe factory?

It certainly could be in the Munk genes to be successful factory owners—Ishtvan is! He owns a large toy-making factory in Dunakeszi, a suburb of Budapest. Ishtvan and Marianna gave me the tour of both the retail and manufacturing sides of the business and the spacious offices upstairs. For a part of the year, his company, Metalcars, also manufactures parts for Electrolux vacuum cleaners.

We were assisted during the entire day by Ishtvan’s grand-daughter Barbara, a precocious 14-year-old who attends an international school in Budapest and speaks almost flawless English. It’s no easy task to serve as translator, since people rarely speak slowly when they are conversing, but Barbara did it easily and with enthusiasm. Barbara’s pretty mother, Judit, joined us at the factory, and seemed very happy when I told her that the investment in Barbara’s education was paying off.

After a tour of their business, the Marosis took me to the hilly side of Budapest. Buda was actually a separate city, across the Danube, from Pest, and today is the home of the wealthier residential districts. It also provides a spectacular view of Budapest from the castle where we walked along the rampart for about an hour. Of course this place also held a strategic vantage point for the Nazis who used it to lay the city at siege during WWII.

The National Museum of Art is also here. My cousin Nori tells me that I must go back to see the exhibition of Mihaly Munkacsy’s art which has returned to Hungary from the U.S. where it is owned. It was rather funny for me to see a huge banner saying “MUNKACSY” on the building since my father used to pretend that this was his name (perhaps because of the connection to this famed artist?)

We had a splendid family style lunch at a restaurant owned by a friend of the Marosis, and we were joined by Ishtvan’s son, George and his wife Agatha, and their two children, out-going Petra and shy little Esther. George’s resemblance to my father was striking, particularly his green eyes. I would have to say that the Munk nose, however, is the most distinctive feature in our family!

We all left the restaurant for the Marosi home in the 2^nd district. A striking three-story residence, at one time the home housed three Marosi families but now is just home to Ishtvan and Marianna. The home is beautifully decorated with antiques and family photos and has many rooms and a balcony, but we all crowded in the kitchen for a surprise that they had prepared for me: one of my favorite desserts, silva gombosh or apricot dumplings. These take an extraordinary amount of time to prepare, from the preparation of the potato dough to the pitting and boiling of the apricots to the sweet breadcrumb-like topping. Ishtanem—oh my God. Were they ever great.

Sadly, the day had passed so quickly that we now only had a few minutes left to look at the family tree. Ishtvan and Marianna now brought out old family photos which were not identified—one of them possibly another photo of Mor and Maria—and they quickly piled on top of one another on the kitchen table. I took notes and photographs of the photos, but there just wasn’t enough time, so we agreed to meet again next week.

My sister Judy said that I had to stop looking for cousins because we now have too many! I think she may be right!