(Wywiady dostępne są w językach angielskim i ukraińskim. Prosimy o wyrozumiałość.)
Uzhgorod, Ukraine
Interview conducted in 2003 by Ella Levitskaya
Ignac Neubauer’s mother, Fanni Neubauer and his stepfather Gedale Fixler.
This is me, Ignaz Neubauer (sitting from the left). Sitting on my right, a little behind, is my brother Dezso, standing behind him is our brother Marton with his head bandaged. Sitting beside me in the center is my cousin Marius Preise, my mother brother Pinchas’ son. Beside us are our friends – Jewish boys. Sitting from the right is Moricz Gross, standing is Gersh Lebovich. We were photographed for the memory. This photo was taken in Malaya Dobron in 1940, my mother managed to preserve it during WWII, which was a miracle.
This is me, Ignaz Neubauer, photographed by a friend of mine whom I bumped into. He had just bought a camera and photographed all indiscriminately. We met in Uzhgorod on the embankment of the Uzh River in 1939. My acquaintance, who photographed us, kept this photo, and he gave it to me after WWII in 1946.
This is me, Ignaz Neubauer, on the left, with my friend Moishe Schenberger near the synagogue in Uzhgorod. We were photographed by our friend in spring 1940.
This is me, Ignaz Neubauer, on the left, beside me on a bicycle – a plumber from Uzhgorod, a Jew, whose surname was Preis. I stopped to talk with him in one of the streets in summer, when my colleague passing by photographed us.
This is our wedding photograph. This is me and my wife Lubov Neubauer. This photo was taken in a photo shop in Uzhgorod in 1957.
My wife Lubov Neubauer at the River Uzh embankment, near the school where she worked. We were having a stroll and I took this photograph. This photo was taken in Uzhgorod in 1970.
This is our family at the wedding of my niece Rita (my wife older sister Anna’s daughter). This is me, Ignaz Neubauer, and my wife Lubov Neubauer in the upper row. The lower row from left to right: my son Alik Neubauer, my wife’s sister Donia Kerzhner holding my daughter Marina Neubauer, the bride Rita and the bridegroom Alexandr Bertalon, my wife’s sister Anna Kerzhner. 1972. Uzhgorod, the Palace of nuptials.
This is me. This photograph was taken for my passport in Uzhgorod, 1974.
This is me with my niece Erika (my sister Hermina Spiegel’s daughter and her husband Grisha Goldman photographed in a photo shop in commemoration of my visit to Israel in 1985.
This is me at work in the garment shop in 1980, Uzhgorod. My colleague who had just bought a camera, photographed me as a surprise.
This is me. This photograph was taken for my passport, Uzhgorod, 2003.
My sister Hermina Spiegel (nee Neubauer) during our reunion in Budapest in 1985.
This is me, Ignaz Neubauer, my wife Lubov Neubauer and our grandson Robert. 1995. Uzhgorod, it is Robert’s birthday party at our home, he turned 6, my wife made a birthday cake, we are waiting for the guests; our daughter Marina photographed us.
This is my family: from left to right: my wife Lubov Neubauer, my grandson Robert, my daughter Marina, my niece Yudita, my sister Hermina’s daughter. This photograph was taken during my niece’s visiting us, when she arrived in Uzhgorod from Israel in 1996.
Mr. Neubauer’s story is largely set in Subcarpathia and he gives us great insight into his homeland during different rules (Czech, Hungarian, Soviet; following Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the region became an administrative region under the name of Transcarpathia). Growing up in a very religious family, he vividly recalls the celebration of Jewish holidays, and how he teased his younger siblings, who fell asleep during seder, saying that he saw the prophet Elijah come in while they were asleep. After finishing school in 1938, he began to sell products and became the only breadwinner in the family, as his father was sick and his siblings were still at school. During the Second World War the family was taken to the ghetto in Uzhgorod, then Auschwitz. His grandfather, father, sister and three brothers perished there, while he survived the Gleiwitz camp. Considering emigration to the USA or Palestine at the end of the war, he changed his mind when learning that his mother and sister had survived and returned to Uzhgorod, where he worked as a tailor and founded a family. 15 pictures illustrate his rich account.
(Wywiady dostępne są w językach angielskim i ukraińskim. Prosimy o wyrozumiałość.)
Uzhgorod, Ukraine
Interview conducted in 2003 by Ella Levitskaya
This is my father Ignac Gohman. This photo was taken in Mukacevo in 1926, my father was photographed on his birthday. This is the only miraculously preserved photograph of my father during World War II.
This is my mother Eszter Gohman (nee Berghida). This photograph was taken in Mukacevo in 1921, before my parents’ wedding. My mother gave it to my father as a token of love. My brother and I found this photo in the storeroom of our parents’ half-ruined house in Mukachevo when we returned from a concentration camp in 1945. This is the only miraculously preserved during World War II photograph of my mother.
Frieda Berghida
This is me, Tibor Gohman (standing on the left) with my brothers. My older brother Miklos is standing on my right and my younger brother Adalbert (in the foreground, on the right). My father photographed us during a walk in a Mukacevo park on a sunny day in 1934.
This is me, Tibor Gohman (on the right) with my older brother Miklos. We were close friends and when Miklos received his first salary, he invited me to a photo shop to be photographed for the memory. This photo was taken in Munkacs in 1943.
This is me, Tibor Gohman (on the right, wearing a military uniform of a soldier of the Soviet army), and my older brother Miklos Gohman. This photo was taken in Uzhhorod in 1953 when I came home in Mukachevo on leave from the army in the Far East. Miklosh and I were photographed so that I could show this photograph to my wife Valentina Novikova who was waiting for me in Vladivostok.
My wife Valentina Gohman (nee Novikova) with daughter Natalia (on the right) and son Victor. I had this photograph taken in a photo shop in Vladivostok on my son’s fifth birthday in 1961. I sent one photo to my brother Miklos in Uzhhorod.
This is my family: me, Tibor Gohman (sitting on the right), with my wife Valentina. Our children are standing: son Victor and daughter Natalia. We were photographed just for the memory during a family walk in Uzhhorod on a Sunday 1970, and we just happened to drop by a photo shop.
This is me, Tibor Gohman (on the right), my wife Valentina and granddaughter Tatania Gohman . This photo was taken near our home in Uzhhorod in 1997, before Tatania’s prom at school. A photographer was invited to photograph school graduates and their parents who were dressed up for the prom.
This is me, Tibor Gohman, at home in Uzhhorod. There is a camp number on my left arm. This photo was taken in Uzhhorod in 2003 after the interview.
Born in Mukachevo, Subcarphatia [Munkacs until 1918, Munkacevo from 1918 till 1939, Munkacs from 1939 till 1945, Mukachevo since 1945.] Mr. Gohman provides detailed descriptions of his home town, where Jews constituted 50% of the population, living alongside Hungarian, Czech and Ukrainian families. The family of his paternal grandfather, a shochet, was religious and he recalls his grandmother being angry when he quit cheder after two weeks. After finishing school, Mr. Gohman became an apprentice to a joiner.
During the Second World War, he was in the ghetto in Mukachevo, then deported to Auschwitz. He worked in Katovice camp until he was taken to Mauthausen in January 1945. Following the liberation of Mauthausen he was taken to a hospital in Hirschwang near Vienna. After the war, he chose to return to Subcarpathia to reunite with his family, not knowing that almost all of them had been exterminated by the Germans. His brother Miklos, however, had survived, they met in Budapest and returned home together. There, they were confronted with the Soviet power and skeptical about it but understood that they had to adjust to life in the USSR. In 1948 he was recruited and served in the Pacific Ocean Navy. He met his wife while in the army, founded a family and after demobilization worked as a driver. 10 pictures illustrate the various chapters of his life story.
