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Jim Kemeny's Page
Profile Information
- About Me:
- My mother, Maria Kiss, was Catholic and married Zoltan Kemeny, a Jewish refugee. They settled in London together with my father's half-sister, Joci, and her husband Sani (Sandor). They bought a house in NW London, where I was brought up after the war. I have a cousin who lives in California, George Weisz, with whom I have been corresponding via email for the last 25 years.
My Hungarian has deteriorated but I can still remember it and understand what I call "kitchen Hungarian", though not the elaborate Hungarian of the well-educated.
- My British-Hungarian story:
- With both parents being Hungarian and living with two Hungarian relatives on my father' side, I naturally learned both Hungarian and English as a child. Joci taught my mother how to bake Hungarian cakes and pastries which they sold to other Hungarians in London. When I was 18 I learned to drive and helped deliver cakes. There was also an annual get-together held in South London called the Nitra Party which we went to several years in a row in the late 1940s. Maria took me to Hungary in 1948, to bring her younger sister Elizabeth to England. Joci took me to both Hungary and Czechoslovakia several times to meet relatives in the early 1950s. I saw a film on Raoul Wallenberg and heard someone speaking "kitchen Hungarian" and realised I could understand every word they spoke.
- What I want from this site:
- Maybe to improve my Hungarian. After reading The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer I realised I could remember more Hungarian than I thought possible.
Jim Kemeny's Blog
Introduction: Childhood in London
I was born in London at the height of the war. September 1942 was at the greatest extent of occupied Europe, with the panzers racing towards the River Volga and Stalingrad. It seemed as if nothing would stop the Nazi war machine.
I can't say I remember the V1 flying bomb, but during air raids we used to shelter under a…
ContinuePosted on January 8, 2016 at 16:00 — 2 Comments
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Good Day,
How is everything with you, I picked interest on you after going through your short profile and deemed it necessary to write you immediately. I have something very vital to disclose to you, but I found it difficult to express myself here, since it's a public site.Could you please get back to me on ( mr.jamespollard01@gmail.com ) for the full details.
Have a nice day
Thanks God bless.
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