Forgotten cousins in Israel and Hungary – via the Hungarian Military History Archives

Poking around the web a few months ago for tidbits on my maternal grandmother's branch, I happened upon the name of her uncle in an Excel sheet listing army officers, on the website of the Hungarian Military History Archives.

And thus begun a series of amazing discoveries resulting in finding my closest living relatives, in Israel and in Hungary.

The Wolf family

Andor Hollai (Holländer) was the husband of Erzsébet Wolf, the sister of my maternal grandmother' father, Sándor Wolf. As it happens, Andor was commissioned captain of the Hungarian Defense Forces in 1947, at the tender age of 48 – apparently in recognition of his political services to the fledgling Communist rule, rather than with a view of reactivating this World War One veteran.

I requested Andor Hollai's personal file, and the Archive promptly obliged. From the file, I learned the name of his son, and found out that Andor and Erzsébet were also the guardians of the granddaughter of Erzsébet's sister. Jolán Wolf's daughter and son-in-law were both murdered during the Holocaust, but their daughter – Ágnes – survived, and was adopted by Erzsébet and Andor.

Andor Hollai (Holländer); Hungarian Military History Archives, file: AKVI 1899/872

While reading Andor's handwritten addition to his autobiography in the file, I was flabbergasted by the following line:

"one of my wife's brothers moved to Palestine in 1950."

For one, I had no idea that my great-grandfather had a brother, much less that he emigrated Israel. All the greater was my confusion, as I could not fathom how my mother – who was lifelong lover of Israel and who had been to the Land multiple times, including a year-long stay, and who was mostly raised by my great-grandfather who would have been this mysterious emigré's brother – would not have known that she had a first cousin (once removed) there.

My mother and her grandfather, Sándor Wolf, cca. 1964

I parsed through Jewish birth records again, and identified István Wolf as my great-grandfather's theretofore – to me – unknown brother. I then found him on a 1945 Budapest census questionnaire in Yad Vashem. From there, I was able to find a newspaper ad he posted in 1950, selling their furniture and utensils under the same address as on the census, and another, also from 1950, in a Hungarian-language Israeli paper, which listed him and his wife as new olim.

Importantly I found the Dachau personal file of István's daughter, Magda, in the Arolsen Archive, again with the same Budapest address. Luckily, Magda's son also started building a family tree on one of the largest genealogy portals. I was thus able to identify him and his family on Facebook. Once I managed to get in touch with them, I had a call with Magda's son – my second cousin, once removed – and his wife and daughter. Needless to say, they were also unaware that they still had relatives in Hungary – although Magda's son did recall that Magda's father, István, visited his siblings in Budapest in the 1960s.

Similarly, I found Andor Hollai's descendants thanks to his great-grandson, who began building up their family tree on a major genealogy website. Having spoken to him and his father, it turned out that the father remembered István, who brought him enormous chewing gums from Israel in the 1960s.

Andor's grandson also happened to have a number of old family photos. The one below, taken around 1906, is one of the most interesting finds of my entire family research quest. It portrays my great-grandfather, Sándor, and his entire family, including István, who emigrated to Israel in 1950, Erzsébet, who went on to marry Andor Hollai, and Jolán, whose granddaughter, Ágnes, was adopted by Erzsébet and Andor after the death of her parents in the Holocaust.

The Wolf family, cca. 1906; courtesy of Iván Hollai, grandson of Andor Hollai (Holländer)