Alice Kertész
Alice, Sándor and Tomas came to Sweden in 1957. They first lived with Alice’s aunt in Johanneshov, but soon moved on to Borås. There Alice worked in the textile industryat the company Lapidus. After five years in Borås, they moved back to Stockholm.
Sándor had difficulty finding work and never really settled in. He was in his fifties when the family moved to Sweden. In the morning of 9 March 1964, Sándor took his own life in the family’s apartment in Bastugatan in Stockholm.
Alice and Tomas moved to Bagarmossen. In the late 1970s, Alice became seriously ill. She died in the autumn of 1982 at Rosenlund Hospital in Stockholm. A few years after her death, Thomas began to investigate what had happened to his relatives and the 500 Jews from his native town of Jázbérenysz who the Nazis murdered.
Tomas Kertész has shared his parents’ story with the Swedish Holocaust Museum and has lent objects and photos from his private collection.
Sándor’s first wife and three daughters
Sándor’s wife Borbála and their three daughters were deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944. There they were sent directly to the gas chambers.
Alice’s mother Ilona and the ”Russian siblings”
Alice’s mother Ilona was remarried and lived in present day Ukraine. She, her husband and his adult children were all shot while they fled the Nazi German troops in 1941.