Margo Lovith and Lea Bilman

This photo was taken in 1946 when my wife Margo and I returned home from deportation. This is Margo with a little girl, Lea Bilman, the daughter of my aunt Edith Bilman, nee Pardesz, my mother's younger sister. Here Margo had already started putting on a little weight; previously she had looked like a little girl. She had beautiful black hair and a strong body. I met my wife Margo during deportation. Margo didn't stay in Hungary, we came to Kolozsvar straight away. We came back in September 1945, and our friends, who had been in other concentration camps, I don't know where, had been waiting for us. Margo came here when she was 20. Everybody loved her. Because I was married to her, all doors opened for me. [People were nicer to Egon because of Margo's friendly personality.] She wasn't a talkative person but when she spoke, she spoke wisely. She didn't laugh out loud a lot but she always had a smile on her face. Margo was comfortable among my friends and liked the places I went to. Lea's mother, Edit was exempted from deportation because she went to give birth at the Jewish hospital on Szechenyi Square. It was thanks to Samu, he got her there, because he was able to come and go freely. The Christians in the hospital were hiding Edit. They took her down to the basement where she gave birth to Lea in 1944. They weren't keen on releasing Edit from hospital; she stayed there with her child for a long time. Samu played his cards well, he wasn't in the ghetto at all, and he wasn't deported because he could prove with some kind of documents that he was of German origin [which was not true]. He had Austrian education and spoke German really well and so he made people believe he had come from Vienna and he wouldn't let anyone in on the secret that he had gone to Vienna from here in the first place. They had their second baby, Judit, in 1945.