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| András Körner with his father, the modernist architect József Körner (1907-1971) in Budapest, 1946 |
Körner has written several books, including A Taste of the Past: The Daily Life and Cooking of a Nineteenth-Century Hungarian-Jewish Homemaker, a detailed and engaging description of domestic life in a Hungarian-Jewish household based on extensive interviews with his mother, his great-grandmother's recipe book (recipes included), and an array of other sources, as well as Körner's own illustrations. He has also written a biography (with audio recordings) of the Hungarian bauhaus artist and architect, Andor Weininger, titled The Stages of Andor Weininger from the Bauhaus to New York, as well as two books in Hungarian; A Reluctant Jew: Essays and Stories, and a social history of Hungarian Jewry, How Did They Live? The Everyday Life of Hungarian Jews, 1867-1940. He is currently at work on a second volume which will present additional aspects of the everyday lives of Hungarian Jews over the same period.
The interviews were conducted at Körner's apartment in New York on March 11 and 25, 2014. Special thanks go to Ph.D. candidate in History at Cornell University, Máté Rigó, for his assistance in cataloging the interviews. To download the interviews, click here.
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Körner's maternal great-
great-grandfather, Eduard
Baruch (Baruch Ede, 1812-
1886), self-fashioning in the
manner of the Hungarian
revolutionary leader of 1848,
Lajos Kossuth. The portrait was
painted by the Viennese artist,
Berthold Fischer in 1852.
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March 11, 2014
18:30 Mother
fears she would not survive; Issues of collaboration
22:00 Ambivalent
relationship to Jewish origins while growing up
1:08:00 The
experience of 1945 as a radical break in Hungary
1:09:00 Leftist political orientation in the family; Father prosecuted in 1932 for attempting to organize and exhibition on Budapest slums
To access the interview, click here.
19:00 Dilemmas
of emigration after the revolution, caught twice on the border
1:19:00 Jewish
renaissance in Hungary
00:00 Family
background, traces back family history to early 18th century,
Bohemanin Jewish origins of the maternal side of the family
03:00 Bohemian
Jewry
04:00
German-speaking ancestors
05:00 Family
portraits, collection of family memorabilia, clothes, socks, paintings
08:20 Paternal side: family living in present-day Slovakia; Merchants, teachers; Ancestors move to Budapest; Maternal ancestors move from Körmend, then Moson, then Győr; Maternal grandmother moved to Budapest
08:20 Paternal side: family living in present-day Slovakia; Merchants, teachers; Ancestors move to Budapest; Maternal ancestors move from Körmend, then Moson, then Győr; Maternal grandmother moved to Budapest
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| Körner's maternal great- grandmother, Therese Berger (nee Baruch, 1851- 1938) in 1870 |
10:00 Father is
modernist architect József Körner; Before-WWII he could not get commissions
for public buildings
11:30
Father wins international architecture competition in late 1930s, but wasn’t
allowed to transfer money abroad, so he gave money to a diplomat who absconded
with it
14:00 András Körner was born in Budapest in 1940
16:00 Experience
of WWII; Family moves to a “Swiss” yellow star house; Mother deported in
November 1944 to dig defense lines in Western Hungary
21:00
Relationship with mother
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| Körner with his mother, b. Katalin Halasz (1910-1991) in St. Wolfgang, Austria in front of the Weisses Rössl Inn in 1987. |
25:00 Holocaust
memories in Budapest ghetto
27:00 Mother
tells him of the family’s religious past
29:00 Encounter
with his future wife at the European Forum in Alpbach, Austria in 1965
31:00
Dilemmas of emigration in 1956,
grandmother
32:00 Distance
from Hungarian community in New York
33:00 Childhood:
how parents changed during WWII
34:00 Father’s
chronic illness and labor service
38:00 Holocaust
nightmares, dreams
41:00 Parents
speak German and Hungarian; family archives in German (recipe books in German)
43:00 Mother’s
role during the Holocaust; Oral
history project with his mother; 300-page oral history memoir; Minute details
of everyday life at the turn of the century
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| Körner's drawing depicting how his great-grandmother kept her purse under her skirts (it also shows her monogrammed socks). The young girl in the drawing is Körner's mother, who was raised in part by her grandmother. |
46:00 Impact of the oral history with his mother on his life
47:00 letters of his great-grandmother from 1870s; Book of letters
48:00 Recipe
collection of great-grandmother
49:00 Recipe collection becomes the basis of his first book
52:00 Antiquated
Austrian German
55:00 Importance
of religious past of his family
56:20 Connection
to Budapest Jewish culture
1:00:00
Assimilation as a problematic concept; Social circle of parents consisted of
assimilated Jews
1:02:30 Used to
regard Jewish milieu as a “self-built ghetto”
1:03:00 Dating
experience in 1950s Budapest
1:06:00 Jewish
identity politics in 1950s
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| The monogrammed socks |
1:09:00 Leftist political orientation in the family; Father prosecuted in 1932 for attempting to organize and exhibition on Budapest slums
1:13:00 Father
was social democrat, then communist party secretary
1:15:00 Father
refused to reenter the party in 1956
1:17:00 1945
experience; rape
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| Körner in 1947 or 1948 from when he attended the primary school on Sziget utca (now Radnóti Miklós utca) in Budapest. |
SECOND INTERVIEW
March 25, 2014 (NOTE: the recording incorrectly gives the date as March 24)
00:00
Left-leaning family’s reaction to the 1950s
04:00 1956,
Petőfi circle
09:00 Fear of
arrests in early 1950s, packed suitcase
11:00 1956
experience of revolution, refused a machine-gun
13:00 Shootings
in 1956
15:00: Hopes in
1956
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| Liebermann's luggage store in Lansing, MI, 1970, designed by Körner (with the owner's initial lit up in blue on the facade). |
25:00 Encounter
with future wife; Jewish attraction to Catholicism
29:00 McCarthy
era firings
31:00 Started
practicing in Budapest in early 1960s
32:00 Experience
of Kádár era
35:00 First travel to the West in 1963
39:00 Western
border of Hungary as a strong boundary
44:00 Career in
architecture
45:00 Career as
a corporate architect
48:00 Drawing
50:00 Career chances in second half of the 20th century; “crushing of the souls”
50:00 Career chances in second half of the 20th century; “crushing of the souls”
52:00 Limited
possibilities foster conversations in early 1950s
56:00 Hungarian
expat community in New York
58:00 Writing
books
1:00:00 Hungarian
Table in New York
1:04:00 Issues of ethnic identification
1:09:00 Intreviews with his mother
1:18:00 Lack of
historical writing on middle class women
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| Andor Weininger (left) with Körner, New York 1984 |
1:24:00 Preservation of goods by family
1:25:00 Material
way of approaching history, István Szabó’s Sunshine
1:27:00 Ending of
Sunshine: discarding remnants of family past
1:31:00 Grandmother
preserves family heritage when emigrating to the US in 1946; Discovery of
family relics
1:32:00 History of
material objects as part of “History”
1:37:00 Bauhaus; book
on Andor Weininger
1:44:00 Goals when
writing the books
To access the interview, click here.
