Andor Gergely and Lajos Kenéz papers

The Andor Gergely and Lajos Kenéz papers consist of records documenting the lives, medical careers, relatives, and persecution of Andor Gergely and Lajos Kenéz in Oradea as well as wartime and postwar Hungarian printed materials. Andor Gergely and Lajos Kenéz records include biographical materials, student records, correspondence, and legal records documenting Gergely’s and Kenéz’s relatives, educations, medical careers, involvement and prominence in the Jewish community of Oradea, persecution as Jewish doctors under the Hungarian occupation, defense by colleagues who provided testimonials about their character, and Gergely’s courtship of Edith Kenéz. Printed materials include the first issue of the anti‐Semitic paper Harc edited by Bosnyák Zoltán, a poster to the Hungarian soldiers following the dismissal of General Miklos Horthy by the Nazis in 1944 and the appointment of Ferenc Szálasi as the Hungarian prime minister, issues or partial issues of postwar Hungarian language newspapers, and a 1952 Hungarian translation of a 1951 speech by David Ben‐ Gurion. Lajos Kenéz was born Ludovic Klein in 1888 in Biharnagybajom, Hungary, to Karoly Klein and Jenny Stern. He changed his name in 1907. He received his medical degree in Budapest and was assigned to a hospital in Oradea in 1913. During World War I he was assigned to military hospitals in Budapest and Rozsahegy. He was persecuted as a Jewish doctor under the Hungarian occupation, relocated to the ghetto after the German invasion, and deported to Auschwitz. He did not survive. Andor Gergely was born in Oradea, Romania (Nagyvarád, Hungary) in 1912 to Armin Gergely and Margit Rosenfeld. He studied medicine in Poitiers, France in the 1930s and practiced gynecology in Oradea. He was stripped of his medical license following the Hungarian re‐occupation of Oradea in 1940 and fought legal battles and obtained testimonials to his character to try to continue his practice. Following the German invasion of Hungary, he was moved to the Oradea ghetto, deported to Auschwitz, and spent time in Oberwüstegiersdorf and Wolfberg before his liberation from Wüstewaltersdorf. He married Edith Kenéz, daughter of Lajos Kenéz, and emigrated to Israel.