Kárpáti Károly & Terézia (Krautheim)

Krautheim-Kárpáti, Károly Krautheim-Kárpáti, Mrs. Károly (Terézia) In 1944, Károly Krautheim-Kárpáti, b.1903, his wife, Terézia (née Krautheim), b.1911, and their 14-year-old daughter, Éva, were living in Budapest in a small home at no. 104 Öv Street in the 14th District. Károly Krautheim-Kárpáti was employed as the works manager and purchasing agent for the local branch of the famous Zsolnay Porcelain Factory. He would buy the various materials needed for making porcelain in Elemér Tamás’s shop. Tamás, his wife (née Ilona Korvin), and their two children, 16-year-old Ferenc and 13-year-old Anna, also lived in the 14th District at no. 8 Zichy Géza Street. Krautheim-Kárpáti offered his help to the Tamáses immediately following the German occupation of Hungary, but the family accepted the offer only in the summer of 1944, when their house was marked with a yellow Star of David. Tamás moved in with the Krautheims. He thought however, that it would be safer to hide his family in the children’s home of the Scottish Mission on Vörösmarty Street in the 6th District. There, the Calvinist pastor, Lajos Nagybaczoni-Nagy*, took in the fleeing Jewish family. In November 1944, the mission was raided by, most probably, Arrow Cross men, who took the Jews hiding there to the ghetto of Pest. Mrs. Tamás and her two children escaped from the marching column and at first went to the apartment of Pastor Lajos Nagy, and then to the home of the Krautheims. When they arrived, Károly Krautheim-Kárpáti told them: “From now on you will stay here and we will live or die together.” The Krautheims were only able to give the Tamáses one room, as they were already hiding other Jews: the former owner of the Sidol-Factory with his family. There were times, when eight members of that family were being hidden simultaneously in the home of the Krautheims: Lipót Götzl and his wife, Gizi, their two daughters, Tini and Rózsi, and Rózsi’s three children: Gyurka, Tomi, and Éva. Rózsi’s husband was aforced laborer, but sometimes he also stayed in the home of the Krautheims. Later, when the bombardments became more frequent, everybody moved down to the cellar. A separate storage room without any windows served as the hiding place for the Jews. They survived there until the liberation on January 3, 1945. The Krautheim and the Tamás families remained in close contact with each other until the death of the Krautheims – Károly in 1972, and then, a few months later, Terézia. Their daughter left Hungary in 1956 and settled down in the United States. Ferenc and Anna Tamás have been keeping in touch with her. On July 16, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Károly Krautheim-Kárpáti and his wife, Terézia, as Righteous Among the Nations.