Dezső Kertész papers

Collection consists of a series of documents, relating to Kertész's service in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I, and as a reservist following that war, his conscription as a forced laborer in the early 1940s, his later exemption from such work, and his role as a teacher at a Jewish secondary school in Budapest. Dezső Kertész was born in Szabadka, Austro-Hungarian Empire (modern day Subotica, Serbia) in 1899, the son of Jacob Kohn and Betti (nee Adler) Kohn. During World War I, he served in the 3rd Infantry Regiment of the Royal Hungarian Army, and served on the front during 1917-1918, where he was wounded in action. After the war, he remained in the reserves, and taught in secondary schools, including a Jewish secondary school in Budapest. Although he appears to have been conscripted into a forced labor battalion in the early 1940s, he evidently survived the war and German occupation of Hungary, and resumed teaching in 1945.