My Hungarian Adventure Begins

Today, Wednesday, June 22, I head to Budapest to meet the descendents of my great-grandfather's brother, Lipot Munk. As with many genealogical adventures of mine, this one begins with some incredible good luck.

In 2009 on a summer visit to the Budapest synagogue memorial where my father’s name was listed as a Holocaust victim (a mistake my father enjoyed), my guide Karesz Vandor pointed out the engraved names of the other Munks who had died during the Holocaust. One name in particular stood out: Munk Lipotne. (The “ne” suffic refers to “widow” or “wife of.”)

I asked Karesz to pronounce the first name, Lipotne, and it sounded a lot like “Leopold,” a name my father had mentioned a long time ago. In one of my childhood conversations with my dad about his family tree, he said that his grandfather Josef had a twin brother named Leopold. Could this “Lipotne” be the wife of this twin brother?

For the next eight months, Karesz continued to research this possibility on his own. On February 12, 2010, Karesz sent me this email:

“Today I had the chance to visit the Ujpest town hall and talk to Ms Varga (the research clerk). You know they have the records and even the name index …but they are very strict and serious. I can find the same records in the Budapest Archives, but they don't have an index so that no can collect names of people. So without the index, one has to look thru all records (some 2-3,000 per year in the death records) to find the very one. But with the index everything is just one turn of a page. So … I asked Ms Varga to give me the index of Lipot's death record. She was very kind and helpful [but] we did not find any Munk Lipot in 1939.

But I asked her to involve her colleague in order to expand the research forthe years around 1939 thru the index books and her colleague found a Munk Lipot who died in 1943. She gave me the index number it is 173/1943 (_the 173rd death record for Ujpest in that year). They could not give me more information, but I gave them more info and they could answer “yes” or “no.” And I said, “Lipot was born in 1865 and his father was Mor and mother was Schönhauser Mária.” And she said “Yes” to all my questions! So actually Jozsef really had a brother and lived in Ujpest and was "lucky" enough not to live until 1944.”

Karesz then obtained a copy of the actual death record for Lipot: He died on February 12, 1943, at 11 pm of gastric cancer. He was married to Gizella Stein and his parents were Moricz Munk and Maria Schönhauser Munk.

With these additional details about Josef and his parents (my great-great grandparents), Moricz and Maria, there was no longer any question that Karesz had found the descendants of my great-grandfather Joseph’s brother. Now …how to find their descendents, if any?

On March 26, 2010, Karesz emailed again:

“Mrs. Varga was extremely helpful this time. We found three children for Munk Lipot and Stein Gizella: Laszlo, Olga and Marta. The good news is that apparently there is an online government system thru which the clerks can check where a certain person is residing and so forth. She checked in it and we found all 3 of them in the database!

They all survived and lived very long lives. Laszlo died in 1986 in Budapest; Olga in 1996; and Marta in 2002. The latter two had been living in Szekszard. We even have their husband's names and residential addresses. By having these we might be able to trace their descendants! It is very, very probable that you have a whole bunch of unknown living relatives in Hungary!”

With very little effort using an Internet Hungarian phone directory, I located the first of many cousins living in Szekszard, two hours’ south of Hungary. By February 28^th, Karesz and I had made contact with them as well as another cousin in Budapest. A series of very exuberant emails between cousins ensued.

Last year, I met my second cousin Magda and her daughter Nori in Krakow for two short days. We have maintained a correspondence over the past year. Nori has since married and is more than 5 months’ pregnant.

She will be my guide and host during this trip to Budapest. She has planned a trip to Szeszard to meet the cousins living there as well as a trip to Slovakia to find the ancestral wellspring of the Munks—maybe we can get birth certificates of Josef and Lipot!

It is possible that the last time the Munks were all together in Budapest was 1943, 68 years ago, when the Nazis began to occupy this ancient city and deport able-bodied men to labor camps.

I fly from RDU to Miami; Miami to Madrid; then Madrid to Budapest. I know that I will be worn out when I arrive but very happy. I know that my father is with me in spirit.