Koranyi family papers

Koranyi family papers 

Sarah Koranyi (1896-1957) was born Sarah Schwarcz in Budapest. She was the youngest of seven children in a poor family that kept kosher. Zsigmond (Zsiga) Koranyi (1889-1982) was born Sigmund Kohn in Zilina, Hungary (later Slovakia). He had seven brothers and sisters, and his family was moderately religious and kept kosher. Sarah and Zsiga married in 1917, settled in Budapest, changed their last name to Koranyi, and had two children: Marta (1921-2015) and Erwin (1924-2012). Zsiga’s brother Sandor escaped Zilina with his wife and mother-in-law, but the rest of their relatives were deported to Auschwitz and killed. Zsiga helped his brother’s family and other Jewish refugees in Budapest find safe places to stay. One of those refugees was Marta’s future husband Jan Sebor (b. Erwin Schwalb, 1913-1996) from Zilina. Marta was assigned forced labor at the Riegler Paper Factory, but a friend helped her escape. Her brother Erwin helped obtained Swedish protection documents from Raoul Wallenberg for her family. When Franz Szalasi’s Arrow Cross government no longer recognized the Wallenberg documents, Marta started working as a secretary at Wallenberg’s “satellite embassy” at 1 Jokai Street, and she and her family lived in a room in the same building. They survived an Arrow Cross raid on the building in January 1945 and were liberated. Marta and Jan Sebor were married in April 1946. They spent some time in Czechoslovakia, but their employment options were limited when they refused to join the Communist Party. They traveled in Europe before migrating to Israel in 1949. Her parents settled in Montreal, and she and her husband immigrated to the United States and settled in New York in 1956. 

Koranyi family papers