Mary Krauss
Mary Krauss was born in Miskolc, Hungary, a large city by European standards, into a well-to-do Jewish family. Her father rose from a poor beginning to become a successful merchant with export-import, grocery, and delicatessen stores in Hungarian resort areas, and he served as head of the local Chamber of Commerce. He was honored to represent his hometown at the coronation of the last king. Her mother came from a wealthy lumber family and was herself a capable businesswoman. Mary grew up with maids, a German governess, and tutors in French and German literature and piano, attended a government-sponsored Jewish grammar school and gymnasium, and belonged to a Jewish youth group. Her father died when she was young, at age 42.
Mary fell in love and married against her family's wishes; her husband, in the lumber business, was a gambler who lost her large dowry within eleven months of their marriage, shortly before their son was born. She supported the family by selling handmade Persian rugs and opening a small dairy store in Budapest, working long hours while her mother helped care for the baby. During the war, the Nazi government seized her store, her husband was taken to forced labor and never seen again, and her thirteen-year-old son was sent to a copper mine in Yugoslavia. Mary and her mother tried to obtain Christian papers but were cheated; placed under papal protection, they were still deported. Mary survived Bergen-Belsen and then Theresienstadt, where she was liberated in May 1945, while her mother survived the Budapest ghetto. More than a hundred relatives, including her brother and elderly grandfather, perished.
Mary's son survived hiding in Yugoslavia, imprisonment at Mauthausen, and liberation by the Americans, reaching Chicago through a relative and the Rothschild house in Paris. Mother and son found each other through a newspaper notice and cables routed across a shattered Europe. Through an arranged marriage to a young man wanting to travel, Mary obtained a stateless passport and immigrated in July 1949, joining her son in Chicago and working as a finisher in the needle trade. She brought her mother over in 1953 after Stalin's death, later moved to New York, and bought her own home, always insisting on supporting herself without asking for aid. About twenty years before the interview, she remarried, though the marriage did not last, and eventually moved to Dallas to be near her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. Valuing her independence, she hoped to move into her own apartment at Golden Acres, and the senior program at the center was her cherished connection to people her own age.
Full Transcript
This morning I'm sitting with a very good friend of mine that I've met in my late life, and her name is Mary Krauss. Good morning, Mary. Good morning, darling. You are very nice. You are very sweet. I wish everybody would be the same like you are. Thank you. Mary, sit back, relax. We're going to talk a little bit about your life, and like everyone, it had to begin somewhere. Where were you born? I was born in Hungary. What town in Hungary? What city? It's called Miskolc. M-I-S-K-O-L-C. Was it a big city, a little town? No, it was a big city according to European standards. And my father was a self-made man.
What did he do? we had a couple stores export import grocery and delicatessen in the resort places in Hungary was all over in a car parker mountains with resort places also in my hometown and he was he became from a pool pool a little Jewish boy he became the head of the, how you call it, Chamber of Commerce. Isn't that wonderful? When the last king was coronated, what the coronation, the last king, my father, a little Jew, was designated to go to the coronation from Mishkos, from my hometown, to represent that city. The little Jew. Isn't that wonderful? It was after the First World War.
The Jews were accepted as... Equals. Yes, people as Gentiles. They went to the same school as they went. There were no difference. After that came the communism in a very short time. after the communism became Nazism or big. Okay, wait, we're going to stop and jump back a little. So your father you remember then you grew up in sort of a very affluent home Your father was a very successful man What was his father What was your Zeta Do you remember My grandfather had a little grocery store, and my father came out from this little grocery store. And made his own business. My mother, she came from a wealthy family.
They were wealthy, later they became millionaires. What did her family do? They were in the... Textiles? No, wood for houses. Oh, lumber. Lumber, you see. Okay, so it's interesting. You are one of the very few ones that I have talked with them that have come from an affluent background in Europe. Most of the people I talked to had a very poor home and a poor upbringing. You came from an affluent home, a well-to-do home. How many children were in your family? My brother and me, only two. Two. Now, okay, did your mother, did you have maids? Did you have servants? We had maids. We had, they called it German Freiline.
Freiline, yeah. to learn German before we learned Hungarian. And we had a maid who did cooking and everything. And my father died when he was 42. Okay, let me ask you something. If you had a maid and you had a cook, was your mother not sort of a typical Yiddish mama? Was she a society lady in those days? No, no. My mother was a very good businesswoman. Ah, so she was in the business with your father? She was with my father all the time in the business. What about you, going to school? I went to school. I went to the gymnasium, that's eight high school.
Then I wanted to go to medical school. But my father died and mother was afraid to let me go over myself to a big city, to Budapest. Where finally I went, I got married. And I went to live there, but I didn't afford to do it. So you did not get a higher education. What did you do Eight Great Okay What Eight grade Eight Form What do you call it In eighth grade eighth form When you finished high school Eighth high school. Okay. And then when you finished high school, tell me a little bit about your social life as a young girl when you were growing up in this town.
Did you mix with, you said that the Jews and the Hungarians were equal. Did you go with non-Jews or did you go with Jews? Did you go to shul? Did your family go to...? What kind of a Jewish life did you lead? We had government-sponsored Jewish grammar school. We learned every day Hebrew and Jewish history in the grammar school. It was four years. And when we were in the high school, we had once a week a Jewish hour, always. My friends were Orthodox, and my friends were mostly Jewish. Some were Reformed, some were Orthodox, and my father's stores were closed. On Shabbos? Yeah. Okay, did you have any Jewish youth groups, or how did the Jewish kids get together?
Yes, they called Deborah, this Jewish group where we were. Deborah? Deborah. Was it a Zionist group or was it a social group? No, we didn't even know about Zionism. We were Hungarian. We thought we are so Hungarian. You didn't need anything beyond being Hungarian. And when I got married. Wait, don't jump yet. I'm going to ask you how. Listen, I've got to rub my hands and hear the whole story. All right, so you grew up with Jewish kids and you did go to shul. You had an orthodox upbringing. What did you do when you finished school? Did you get a job? Did you work? What did you do?
I was at home in the meantime my father died, and mother was in the store. And we had then only one maid, and my brother went to school, and I had a lady from Switzerland who taught me French and German literature. Every day he came to the house to speak French with her Oh wonderful Or German It wasn so very expensive but until I got 20 years old and I learned how to play the piano. I was never a good piano player, but that was the upbringing mostly to Hungarian middle class Jews. Okay, so you studied history and literature and music and you did not work?
No. Okay. Then tell me, how and where did you meet your husband? I had very nice boyfriends who came to the house and everybody thought that I am going to choose one of them. All of a sudden I went to another town to meet, to a, I was invited to a relative and And I met my future husband. I fell in love. Oh, how exciting. Right away. Right away, because he was a very handsome man, and the whole family was against it. He was the card player. What did he do for a living? Also in the lumber business he was. Lumber business, okay. Yes. But he was a gambler.
He was a big gambler. He was a very good-looking man. and the whole family was against it. So I got married, I got one son. Was your mother at the wedding? Did she come to the wedding? Everybody was at the wedding, sure, because I made such a say in my life. I can't imagine I was capable to do that. You really fought against the whole family? In Europe they give dowry and it was a big, big money. everything in 11 months. My little boy was born when I was 11 months married. I could not even buy a diaper or call a doctor because I had no money almost to eat.
He had gambled away your entire dowry in 11 months. And what he had in the business, everything. How much was your dowry? Do you remember? I don't know. It was, it was, at that time there were all kind of inflation all over in Europe. Right. And the Hungarian money wasn't worth anything, we went to Pennsylvania for a year. It was because he was working. He had a forest there to work. So it was just for money and I don't remember. It was awful big money. All right. So what happened then when you, here you were with a man that you loved a great deal, but who had this sickness for gambling and a young baby boy?
What did you do? How did you make ends meet? My poor mother and brother, they helped me out. Then we left for a year. We lived in Transylvania. We left and we went to my hometown. Then the dear Hungarian said, I am not a Hungarian. I was born there. My husband was born in Transylvania, became Romanian. But he never took the Romanian citizenship. The Romanian said we are not Romanian, the Hungarian said we are not Hungarian. So we smuggled up to Budapest and we became Hungarian. We did not say anything. We came from my hometown and we became Hungarian. and we were staying there and I bought a little dairy store, you know, for what money I had because I ruined my brother and my mother's business also.
I had beautiful Persian rocks. I made it by hand. and I sold them and I bought a little dairy store and I was working from morning 5 o'clock at night 9 o'clock and mother had to give up the stores little by little in the meantime it became Czechoslovakia where the resort places were and the mother came up to Budapest she was taking care of the baby and my husband was playing cards so the life and this way I made a living I kept the whole family up and did you stay together with your husband or yes I did I couldn I could not get divorced because in Hungary you need citizen paper And they said I not a Hungarian citizen So did he live with you in the same house?
You continued living together and you continued supporting him all his life? Yes. Then he left me and he was called for forced labor. He was not his name. My son became 13 years old. he was called in also for slavery. He was a boy scout, and they said that these children are going to have harvest. And what did they really do? They took them to Yugoslavia in a copper mine, and it was the hair. It was the worst concentration camp all over in Europe. So what happened in the Second World War broke out? Yes, the Nazi government took my store away. Without looking back, I left the book, I left the money in the...
The till. Everything. I had two doors. I walked out one door. And they came in the other. and then later on they took me also to the concentration camp. My mother remained there in the middle of the whole family, grandfather, grandmother, everybody was taken away. Who lived in the country, they were taken away at May and we were only at September and October from Budapest, you know. So we knew that my brother, only brother with his family, and my grandfather who was 86 years old, and everybody was more than 100 relatives. And we didn't know what they do in Auschwitz and the Bergen-Belsen and something.
Which concentration? Were you and your husband in the same concentration? Oh, no. We never heard about my husband anymore. They took him and a whole bunch to Galicia, to Poland. And I didn't know where my son is because he... They had taken him to this copper mine. And we were told if we get a Christian birthday certificate or baptism paper Right Then we will be free and not to go to the concert So we paid $500 per person, Mother and me. At first we had to learn. I learned Ave Maria. Mother was singing Kol Nidre in the meantime, and the priest heard and understood what Mother said.
But we had to pay and finally the priest disappeared with the $500, not only ours, but there were a lot of people. And we did not get the Christian papers. But they were, they accepted and we were under the Pope's care. He gave a certificate, the Pope, through the primer, I don't know how the primer gave us, and they put us in a separate building. We are not supposed to be taken away because we are under his protection. Then when the Nazis came, they told a very dirty word, what we should do with the paper, what we got from the home. And the mother was 62, they left her there in Budapest, they put her in the ghetto and took me to the Kettelwagen.
I was in Bergen-Belsen, and from Bergen-Belsen, before the Americans came at April 12, they took us to Theresienstadt, this is Silesius. Theresienstadt, yeah. here. They took us there. They wanted to annihilate us there. 52,000 Hungarian and French. But they hadn't got time because one SS went to the Swiss Red Cross and the Red Cross train came in May 6th. I remember the days. I have the papers also. And so we were deliberated The Russians came and the Russians liberated us. At Theresienstadt. At Theresienstadt And July 26th we were taken to our homeland already Okay what about your son I did not know about my son And I went and asked everywhere, and nobody, I knew the young boys' parents also.
Everybody was on different places because when the Russians came, the Germans put fire on the barats, you know, and it was on a hillside. and Yugoslav underground had them out on the other side of the baroque and they were hiding in Yugoslavia for a year and the Yugoslavs were very, very good to the Jewish boys. They gave their last mouthful of food. So your son was in Yugoslavia? And from Yugoslavia, they took him to Mauthausen. He wanted to go back to Budapest. In the meantime, they caught him, and he was in Mauthausen, and he was liberated by the Americans. He spoke Hungarian, German, French, and English, because he went in a very good kindergarten.
So how did you two finally find one another? I didn't know anything about him. I offered something, somebody came with a Hungarian Jewish paper. It was written Hungarian. But I used to read always, but it was a little pinkish. After the war, I didn't want to read. Somebody came up and so short that our name was Sölössi. It's very hard to spell and pronounce, you know. that Searle Shee is looking for his relatives, his parents from Chicago. And it wasn't spelled right. We could not write to America yet. I went to the highest and the highest sent a cable to Chicago where my son was.
How did he get to Chicago? He was liberated by the American Mauthausen. He was speaking English, he was an interpreter and the pilot took him back and forth from Paris to Mauthausen. And finally he left him in Paris at the Rothschild house. Rothschild house was for these young boys. He was a minor and he remembered a relative in Chicago, a third cousin of mine. and somehow they found out the address and he sent an affidavit and through Sweden he went to Chicago It's amazing how you reach out for a straw and then he advertised in the paper Advertising, and if somebody would not see this paper I would never know it So through the highest, I got an answer also.
They couldn't get answer straight to Budapest. At first it went to Bucharest, to Romania, from Romania to Budapest, because the whole Europe was upside down. Yes, my son was in Chicago. Then in the poor thing, he started to send packages, because we had nothing to eat. mother survived in the ghetto and nobody else nobody, one cousin I have left more than hundred I had and so he was working I thought to bring me over oh, did she bring me over he sent someone to Hungary married me it was a black marriage It was an arranged marriage, yeah. Arranged marriage. The boy wanted, he was 19 years younger than I am, and he wanted to go back to Hungary.
He was a kid, as a kid in Hungary. He was a psychiatrist. And he wanted to go back very badly to see Europe. So my poor son, he worked as a pocketbook designer, learned in Paris. and he gave two months salary to this boy and the fare and six months later at 49 I could come out from Europe It was very hard because the Hungarian didn want to give me passport I know the Hungarian. The Romanian didn't want to give me passport. But you were married to an American now so they couldn't stop you. Yeah, finally I was an American's wife so the American gave me a stateless passport.
I came out at 49, July 26, 1949. And then you had to get a divorce when you came over here, did you? We got divorced. He was married three times already. But he has now big sons, and he is a good psychiatrist. All right, so you came over in 49, and you came to your son. I went to Chicago to my son, got married in the meantime. I am a young girl who was not even 16 years old. How old was your son? My son was over 20, and they got married in Chicago. And on the sixth day, I didn't want to stay home already.
I went to look for a job, but my English was poor. I learned, I studied English by a British teacher. I zho zho all the time, you know. But my grammar was fairly good. But I could not get an office job. Finally, as finisher, I started in the needle tray. because I know hand, everybody knows that the other side hand embroidery. I can sew on sewing machines, still I can. And I made a living. In the meantime my son and my daughter-in-law moved to Houston, Texas. They lived there for 10 years. They wanted me to move there. There was no job for me. I didn't want to be on their neck.
the babies already, two babies. I didn't want to be on their neck. I wanted to bring over my mother from Hungary. I was going to ask you. And in 1953, after Stalin's death, she got the passport. Before Stalin died, nobody could get the passport. Mother got the passport and she came over And she was a big help also because she was taking in the meantime I bought an apartment from the middle when I had saved and for under the table I gave to someone to get an apartment. I moved to New York after my children moved. So you bought your own apartment? I bought my own home, not the apartment, the furniture, and then the right to move in.
Right. After the war, it was the... So you had your mother. How old was your mother when she came over? My mother was 72. And I found some friends for her, elderly ladies, and I went to work, and I never, never not accept, but I never asked and I never got any penny for mother, either for me, assistant or... You did it all on your own. Everything on my own. When I see how they help here, these Russian women, it did not occur to me to go for help. I went to work and work and work, and thank God I did it. You're wrong. My own.
And you are what you are because of what you made yourself. Twenty years ago I got married. Uh-huh. Twenty years ago I got married, and I stopped working. I worked in the house only. How did you meet your second husband? He was born in New York. Uh-huh. And the parents moved back to Europe, and he went in the school in my hometown. So we knew each other when I came over, and I was in New York. But it did not work out, and we are separated. Okay. How many, so how did you get from New York to Dallas? My son, 20 years ago, moved from Houston to Dallas.
And I used to come down three times a year to see them and my grandchildren. How many grandchildren do you have? I have one granddaughter, one grandson, both are married. Very nice kids very nice My daughter is a good girl also my son a wonderful son and he told me to give up everything I had everything what I needed I gave up, it was a year, it will be two year in October, next October. And I came down and I gave everything to the Russians because we had 21 Russian family in the house, 27. And I gave everything to them and I was happy to, I had someone who needed.
and I am not happy here because I have not my own home. Do you live with your son? I live with my son. They are very good, but I am like a little old lady who has to do always what they want to do. So I know I want to move in my own apartment. Have you began looking? Have you gone to Golden Acres? Yes. Have you applied? I talk to the social worker, and they are going to send me the papers. Good. Because there are lots of people there like you and lots of activities. And the children are good children, but generation gap. Everybody's younger.
I'm not supposed to be among the young people. And my people can go out from the house. They can drive. I can drive. and I am sitting all by myself the whole day. So then this senior program at the center is really a very important thing in your life. That's the only thing that I see people. How many times a week do you come? Three times. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Why don't you try to get your children to bring you on Sunday? On Sunday they have a brunch and they go to a movie. I started to come, but then I have to ask one of my children to bring me and pick me up, and everybody's glued to the television, you know?
It's sport. Yeah, unfortunately. I don't want them. So this senior program is your only contact with people your own age? Yes. That's wonderful. I went two, three months ago. Miami and I plan to stay there in a not too expensive place the whole winter. At least I see people, I can go out on the street, I can go window shopping. And I talk every week with my son and all of a sudden he said my daughter Mila is going to have operation on her arm and on her eyes. so I had no patient and I came home and it wasn't necessary. They told me it was not necessary, but they did not tell me the truth.
What she did with the eyes to have sewn up, so this way I won't have to come home. And she gets almost every year a... Brostitis. not bursitis a little lump from fat on her arm and I was afraid maybe it's cancerous or something so I could not stay it was paid already till the first and the 21st I came back so do you plan on doing that spending every winter in Miami if I will have a home for myself where I can have people to talk to Then I don't need Miami. Miami looks like an oldish home also I know With the walker people walking with the walker Well did they tell you that you have a pretty good chance of getting into Golden Acres Yes I hope I hope.
My daughter says they have someone who could help. That's good. All right. Your life certainly has been very interesting and very difficult, and you seem to have always overcome whatever obstacles have been put in front of you, and you seem to be very honest with what life has and what you have to do. If someday, let's say, your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren came to the center and saw, oh, here's my grandmother talking on the tape, is there something that you would like them to know, that you'd like to leave them about how they should lead their lives, or is there any advice you would want to give them on life at all?
They are very honest. They are hardworking kids. My grandson is in the computer business and this kind of things, and he made it himself. He studied in Austin to be an electric engineer. and finally he is in this business. And my daughter-in-law who studied to be psychologist and she worked with autistic children. She was so downhearted always She cried so much And finally she left it and she works as secretary by her father Okay, so what advice would you give the kids or the grandchildren? They have different ways of life. They live very nicely. You know, think that they were not on drugs. Their morale was all right.
So you're saying they lead a good life and there's nothing that you can add, that they are good people and good children? They are good when they are good Jews. I was sick last year and my grandson called up, Dr. Klein, the rabbi, called up, he should come out to me to the hospital. That's wonderful. Isn't that nice? and my grandson's little wife has a little wife like I am only only size three the whole girl size three and she'll be the next year at the doctorate she is by biochemist they so they live very nice simple life like an American in a from a booth house the father worked very hard until he became and what he is.
And the mother, mother is a real American woman, a good mother, a good wife, a very, very good businesswoman. Well, Mary, then you have napas from your family and the only desire that you have in your life yet is to have a place of your own To be independent To be independent Not to do always what she wants to My son never tells me what to do, but she always has something to do. Do this, you have to do this way, you have to do this way. You are not dressed well. I don't buy everyday a dress. I don't need it to come. You have to get dressed when you come among the ladies.
I don't have to get dressed when I come among the ladies. Well, she wants you to always have your best foot forward. I'm sure her intentions are honorable. She's all right in her way, you know. And she thinks that the European are a little bit lower. Well, that's American, right. Okay, Mary, I have enjoyed very much our discussion, and I wish your life should be what you hope it will be. that you will get your independence and that you will continue coming to the seniors and continue coming to my groups and continue to be the strong, independent woman that you are. I don't feel I am strong.
I don't feel I am strong, but, you know, my whole wish, I should be independent and not to be a burden on my only child because I have nobody, nobody else in the world. All right. I hope that your wish will come true. Mary, thank you for spending this time with me. I thank you. I thank you. You know how I feel like I would talk to a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist? Well, the trouble is I won't charge you any money for this session. Thank you, Mary. Thank you.