United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Ilona Foldes (1902-2001) was born Ilona Laszlo to Edward Laszlo and Yetta Springer in Felsőszvidnik, Hungary (now Vysni Svidnik, Slovakia). She lived in Prešov with her husband Arthur Révész and their son Paul until they were arrested by the Gestapo in 1944. They were sent to Berlin and then Oranienburg, where Ilona was separated from her husband and child, whom she never saw again. Ilona was sent on to Ravensbrück and survived. After the war, she married Hungarian Auschwitz survivor Sándor Foldes, and the couple immigrated to Chicago in 1952.
folders 4
The Ilona Foldes papers are arranged as three series: I. Memoir, approximately 1960s, II. Photographs, approximately 1920-1950, and III. Clipping, approximately 1976
The Ilona Foldes papers consist of English and Hungarian versions of Foldes’ memoir, “The Unknown Destiny,” a postwar photograph of Ilona Foldes, a prewar photograph of her first husband, Arthur Révész, and three prewar and wartime photographs of their son, Paul Révész. The papers also include a clipping about the 1976 Hungarian film “Kísértet Lublón” (“Haunted Lublon” or “The Phantom on Horseback”) based on Mikszáth Kalman’s serial novel. The clipping was found among the photographs, and although its relationship with the photographs is unclear, it is considered part of the collection.
Ilona Foldes papers