Piroska Sporn and her family

The photo was taken around 1926 in Kolozsvar. The lady with the hat is my mother's oldest sister, Piroska Sporn. Her daughter still lives in Israel, she is called Sulamit but we call her Baba. The man is my aunt's husband, Zsigmond Sporn - his family name was the same as my aunt's. Piroska Sporn was two years older than my mother. She married a Sporn but they were not related. Her husband was called Asher Seilig Sporn. He worked as a clerk in the Dermata factory and died quite young, in the 1930s. [Editor's note: The Dermata leather and shoe factory, owned by Dr. Mozes Farkas and Jozsef Farkas, was one of the most famous leather businesses of Kolozsvar, it was the predecessor of today's Clujana shoe factory.] Piroska's husband is buried here in Kolozsvar, in the old Jewish cemetery, which was the cemetery of the Orthodox Jewish community at the time. Piroska graduated from secondary school and also worked as a corset-maker. The Sporn girls learnt the trade of corset-making after finishing school but they didn't have a store in Kolozsvar. As far as I know, they worked in Aunt Piroska's apartment, since her husband died so young, they had their corset salon in one of the rooms. She had a daughter called Shulamit and two adopted sons from her husband's first marriage; she had to support them as well, so that's why she started making corsets. I think she left for Israel in 1935 or 1936. There she ran a corset salon in Haifa with her sister Lea, who had emigrated earlier. The salon was called Gracia. As far as I know, there's a diner in its place today but the name Gracia can still be seen on the façade, it hasn't been taken down. Poor Piroska died in 1948 or 1949.

Photos from this interviewee