Dried flowers kept within a memorial book saved by a Hungarian Jewish family while in hiding

Dried flowers kept within a memorial book saved by a Hungarian Jewish family while in hiding 

Dried flowers kept within a memorial book saved by a Hungarian Jewish family while in hiding 

overall: Height: 8.000 inches (20.32 cm) | Width: 6.000 inches (15.24 cm) 

Dried flowers preserved from the funeral for Samu Kornhauser by his widow Malvina. She pressed the flowers in the memorial book, Emlekezesek Konyvet, [Book of Remembrance] between pages 34 and 35. The book is record 1999.282.4. The book was preserved during World War II by Malvina, her daughter Margit Pick, her husband Istvan and son Gyorgy. Malvina, ten year old Gyorgy, and his parents lived in hiding in Budapest, Hungary, from November 1944-January 1945. Hungary, an ally of Nazi Germany, had adopted similar anti-Jewish laws in the 1930s. Istvan, an engineer, lost his job in May 1939 because he was Jewish. He was conscripted into Hungarian labor battalions in 1940, 1943, and 1944. After German setbacks in the war against the Soviet Union in early 1943, Hungary sought a separate peace. In March 1944, Germany invaded Hungary. The next month, Hungarian authorities began round-ups of Hungarian Jews for deportation to concentration camps. That June, Gyorgy, his mother, and maternal grandmother Malvina were forced to move to a designated Jews only yellow star building. In November, Istvan escaped his battalion and went into hiding in Budapest at a textile factory on Csango Street where nearly 200 other Jews were also hiding. On November 22, he sent for Margit and Gyorgy. In December, Imre Kormos, the Jewish owner of this factory and three others where Jews were hiding, was betrayed to the Gestapo. The factory was raided December 2, but the police accepted bribes to not make arrests. On December 17, the Pick family went to the central ghetto to avoid capture. Budapest was under heavy bombardment and there was no electricity, gas, or water. Food was scarce because of the Soviet blockade. The Picks lived in the crowded basement with nearly 200 others. On January 18, 1945, Pest, where they lived was liberated by the Soviet Army; Buda was liberated on February 13. The family returned to their own apartment. They were reunited with Malvina, who had hidden in the international ghetto. Over 160 members of Gyorgy's extended family perished in the Holocaust.