In the 1970s, Matild/Mathilda would state firmly that [a] her
mother was fifty years old when youngest child Ily was born; [b]
Berta died “at the age of 52… leaving our two-year-old baby
sister Ily behind”; [c] Ily was eighteen years younger than
Mathilda (born in 1895); and [d] six years older than Mathilda’s
daughter Martha (born in 1919). We could thereby calculate
Berta’s vitals as 1863-1915—except that Berta was still alive
when József first visited Kolozsvár, circa March 1916. When I
first compiled To Be Honest I tentatively placed Berta’s
death in mid-1916, but then my brother Matthew turned up new
evidence during his May 2009 trip to Kolozsvár/Cluj:
“Rares Beuran, a
professor at the local university … was kind enough to link me to
friends of his, a videographer and a television producer, who
had ties to the local Jewish center. I was told that the Jewish
community in Cluj has dwindled to a few hundred with an average
age of 70. The center had no records of those lost in the
Holocaust, but they did have an old record book that apparently
survived World War II in a cellar; it listed deaths in the
Jewish community from roughly 1915-1935. For a small fee, a
center official searched for records of my great-grandfather and
great-grandmother Kohn. A fair number of listings by that name
turned up (each marked by a dramatic exclamation of “KOHN!” by
the gentleman doing the searching), but nothing corresponded to
my ancestors. Finally, though, we made a discovery.
“Record #361 listed
my great-grandmother Berta, listed as Mrs. Móric Kohn…
According to the record, she died September 8, 1917 at age 50,
and was buried two days later. An address also was listed, #7
Rózsa Street in Kolozsvár… And there was a number for her grave
marker in the Neolog Jewish cemetery in Cluj: #962. That in
turn prompted a trip to the cemetery with Rares and his friend
to see if we could locate the marker. The Neolog Jewish
cemetery turned out to be padlocked, but my hosts knocked on the
gate and we were admitted inside… The cemetery contains graves
of those buried as recently as 1990, but nevertheless is marked
by disrepair and overgrowth despite the caretaker’s efforts.
(When I asked why, one of my hosts replied by rubbing his thumb
together with his index and middle fingers.) That is
regrettable, particularly given the excellent condition of the
main city cemetery next door. However, it does give the place a
certain lyrical and haunted quality. Wild cherries overhang the
graves, which in places bear testimony to the calamity that
befell Cluj’s Jews when the Nazis executed their Final Solution
in Hungary in 1944.
“Other graves—including presumably that of my
great-grandmother—are marked not by headstones but by simple
numbered markers, in accordance with custom. One had to get
down on hands and knees with brushes to scrape dirt off and
uncover the numbers, which unfortunately did not seem to be in
any sort of logical order. I gave up quickly, but my steadfast
hosts persisted until I finally persuaded them to stop. The
only payment they accepted was a lemonade afterward, bought and
drunk at the local shopping mall outside the city center.”
Given that Móric
(Morris/Maurice) Kohn is not the most uncommon name to be found
in a Jewish community, the lady who died aged fifty on September
8, 1917 might have been someone other than Berta. But
the address on Rózsa Street shares a “7” with Matild/ Mathilda’s
address on her 1922 wedding certificate confirmation. The
street by then had been renamed after Romanian theologist Samuil
Micu; and its close proximity to Casa Matei Corvin (“it’s just
west of the main city square whereas Casa is just north”) leaves
little doubt that we do indeed have a record of Berta’s death
and burial. Assuming there was no bureaucratic error in dates
of death and burial, we can only conclude there was one
in Berta’s age—or that Mathilda’s firmly-stated recollections
were slightly awry.
Notes
