us-005578-irn522143-irn513769
scope and content: Metal food container lid used by Bela, Anna, and Judit Gondos when they were transported from Budapest, Hungary, to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on the Kasztner train in June 1944. The family often hiked at Svabhegy, a hill outside Budapest, and used the container with the now missing base for their picnics. Jews were increasingly persecuted by the Nazi-influenced Hungarian regime. Bela worked on 2 or 3 forced labor battalions until released in 1942 because he was a physician. On March 19, 1944, Germany invaded Hungary and the authorities prepared to deport all the Jews from Hungary to concentration camps. In mid-May, Bela heard about the Kasztner train, negotiated by Rezso Kasztner of the Relief and Rescue Committee, Hungarian Zionist Association, to get the German SS to take money to release Jews to neutral territory. Bela and his family were selected because of Bela’s Zionist ties. Kasztner failed to raise sufficient funds and the train was sent to Bergen-Belsen, arriving on July 8. After ransom money was raised by Jewish aid organizations, the prisoners were sent from Bergen-Belsen on December 7, 1944. Bela, Anna, and Judit emigrated to the United States in 1946.
title: Aluminum food container lid used by a Hungarian Jewish family on the Kasztner train
history: The container was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2011 by Dr. Bela Gondos and Dr. Judith Gondos Jacobs.
is or was included in: us-005578-irn522143
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn522143-irn513769/alternateIDs/1
date: approximately 1937-1946
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn513769
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
record resource extent: overall: Height: 3.375 inches (8.573 cm) | Width: 8.750 inches (22.225 cm) | Depth: 12.000 inches (30.48 cm)
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
results or resulted from: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn522143-irn513769/acquisitions/1
history: Bela Gondos was born on November 25, 1903, in Erdobenye, Hungary, to an Orthodox Jewish couple, Mor and Roza Feuerlicht Goldman. Bela had four siblings: Ilona (1899-1944), Zelma (1901-1944), Sandor Shmuel (1905-1999), and Zoltan (1908-2005). His mother Roza was born in 1880 in Tenke, Romania. His father Mor was a school teacher and complied with the practice of changing the family name to Hungarian in 1904. In 1913, Bela attended a Catholic high school in Satoraljaujhely. He experienced anti-Semitism, which created an interest in Zionism. In 1921, Bela moved to Budapest for medical school. He joined a Zionist student organization. He graduated from medical school in 1926 and had a position as a radiologist. In 1934, Bela married Anna Ilona Havas, who was born on June 22, 1910, in Gurahont, Romania, to an assimilated Jewish family. She was an artist and interior designer. The couple had a daughter, Judit, on April 27, 1937. They had a prosperous life with several maids and lived in a large apartment. Hungary was governed by a fascist regime, allied with Nazi Germany, with antisemitic racial laws modeled on the Nuremberg Laws. From 1939, Jewish men were forced into the Hungarian labor service, which was put under army command in 1940. In spring 1941, Hungary joined the German invasion of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Bela was conscripted into forced labor two to three times in the early 1940s. In 1942, he was in a labor battalion in Szentkiralyszabadja and then was released from labor service because he had a notice that, as a physician, he must report to the bunker of the Hungarian regent. Bela returned to his practice but had fewer patients because non-Jewish patients would not see a Jewish doctor. On March 19, 1944, Germany occupied Hungary. Anti-Jewish restrictions were implemented immediately. On March 31, Star of David badges were required for Jews. Bela’s clinic was shut, Judit was no longer allowed to attend school, and they had to turn over their valuables…
physical characterisitics and technical requirements: Large, rectangular, shiny aluminum container lid with rounded corners and a flat top with a metal plate where the handle, now missing, was attached. The deep lid curves slightly at the sides where 1 seam is separating. The bottom section is missing.
type: RecordSet
has or had holder: us-005578