The Beginning of My Search: 1989

Twenty years ago, I asked my wife's aunt, Bella Winkler Gorog, to tell me about her family. Even at the age of 90, she had an excellent memory and proceeded to give list dozens of her aunts, uncles and cousins who were killed in the Shoah. Among them was a cousin named Jenő Kaldi, whom she remembered had been the manager of the Benz Co. in Budapest, Hungary and that his name was formerly Kohn. I entered "Kaldi" and "Kaldy" into the Jewish Genealogy Family Finder on the JewishGen.org Web site and figured I would get to this corner of the family later on. I inquired of a researcher in Hungary and he confirmed that Kaldi was an employee of the Benz Co. but knew nothing further. I contact the Mercedes Benz archivist, and he too confirmed that Kaldy was a former employee but knew nothing further.

A few years later, I received an email from a boy in Australia inquiring after Jenő Kaldi. He reported that his grandfather had been an inmate at Mauthausen in November 1944 when he was wounded by a stray bullet fired by a German guard. The next day the Germans came looking for the wounded man to remove him from work detail and send him to the hospital, a virtual death sentence. At that moment, an older man stood up and said, "I'm him!" and was marched off to the hospital, never to be seen again. According to the boy, the man's name was Jenő Kaldi, and after the war the younger man, before moving to Australia, adopted the last name of the man who had saved him, and had named his son John Kaldi, now a famous sedimentary geologist living in Australia.

Two decades later, thanks to the invention of the World Wide Web, I have learned a lot more.

I would like to hear from anyone who has an interest in Jeno Kaldi. Please contact me by responding below.

Adam Brown