The S_zekula Family of Stamp Dealers

Miksa (Max) Goldberger was born in Privigye, Hungary (Prievidza, Slovakia after WWI) on March 17, 1875, as son of flour merchant Henrik Goldberger and Netti Grosz. On August 14, 1902 he married Béla Szekula’s sister Ilona (Helene), born in Szeged on April 10, 1884, in Budapest. Still living in Budapest, they had three children: daughter Erzsébet (=Elisabeth, b. 20. August 1904), son László (=Ladislav), born on April 3, 1907, and daughter Ibolya (=Viola, January 21, 1911 – March 21, 1995). Eventually, the family followed Béla Szekula to Switzerland. On February 14, 1919, the Goldbergers became Swiss citizens of Geuensee. In May 1919 Max Goldberger joined Béla’s stamp company as an employee with signatory rights (Prokura). In October 1920, while still working for Béla, he opened his own stamp business Max Goldberger in Lucerne at Hertensteinstr. 58. In February 1922, Max Goldberger’s Prokura at Béla’s company expired. In June 1923, Goldberger’s stamp business was transformed into Max Goldberger & Cie, with him and his wife as owners. In July 1929 their company was deleted from the Swiss company register when the Goldberger family left Switzerland to reopen their stamp business at Eichhornstr. 8 in Berlin. Two years later the Goldbergers made it into the news: In late 1931, after selling new prints of rare stamps as originals Max Goldberger and his son Ladislav were sentenced to three and six months in prison, respectively, for fraud. Apparently Max Goldberger successfully appealed against the verdict, as a few years later a certificate of good conduct available to the Swiss embassy contained no record of a prison sentence (unlike that of his son). In 1934 Goldberger & Cie moved again, to Friedrichstr. 160 – probably for financial reasons. Although he had adopted the Protestant faith and been baptized while still in Switzerland, the trade became increasingly difficult for him since Hitler came to power because of his Jewish surname. Finally he had to realize that his commercial existence was threatened. In February 1936 he wrote a letter to the Federal Council of the Swiss Confederation in Bern via the Swiss embassy, ​​requesting permission to change his family name to Gadmer – a request that had little chance of success. It didn’t matter anymore. On March 5, the Berlin police informed Max Goldberger, citing the law on expulsions from the Reich of March 23rd, 1934, that he had to leave Germany within 30 days because the Berlin district court had sentenced him on December 17 of the previous year to pay a fine of 50 Reichsmarks. The fine had been imposed because he had failed to apply for an extension of his residence permit in Germany in a timely manner in 1934 and therefore had no valid identification documents between September 18 and October 29, 1934, violating the passport regulations. His appeal against the expulsion gave him a few months’ reprieve, but was finally rejected on June 20. Resigned, he turned once again to the Swiss embassy in the hope of receiving support with an application for an extension of the deadline in order to have more time to liquidate his business. He had already come to terms with his expulsion itself. What happened next is not known, but the Goldberger family was still in Berlin until August. On August 5, 1936, Helene Goldberger informed the authorities that her husband had died at ten o’clock that morning at the age of 61.

That same year, Helene moved from Berlin to Budapest to Erzsébet körút 24, the address of her sister and brother-in-law Margit and Ferenc Gergely. On May 31, 1937, she married her cousin Géza Szekula, who was four years her junior, in Budapest. Whether this marriage was romantic or more practical, it lasted less than a year. Helene became a widow for the second time on March 4, 1938, when her husband died of an aortic aneurysm and bronchial catarrh at the age of just 47.

Helene’s partnership in the stamp business Max Goldberger & Cie probably existed not only on paper, but she was actively involved in the stamp trade. Sometime after moving to Budapest she opened her own stamp shop Sveici Bélyeghaz (or in the newer spelling Svájci Bélyeghaz = Swiss Stamp House) on the second floor of her home address. The business existed until the early 1950s, when Helene moved back to Germany to live with her now widowed and financially well-off older daughter Elisabeth in Keyenberg. Helene’s last sign of life is a registration certificate from Keyenberg from March 1963.

Max and Helene’s son Ladislav also left Germany after his father’s death, but he went to Paris. There he continued to try his hand at the stamp trade, but after the outbreak of the war this became increasingly difficult and he began to struggle financially. In addition, after the German invasion in June 1940, things became less and less safe for him. In the spring of 1943, the Swiss consul in Paris organized transport for Swiss Jews back home. However, despite the circumstances Ladislav decided against returning to Switzerland and even confirmed with his signature that he wished to remain in Paris at his own risk. In December 1943 he was arrested by the Gestapo and interned in Drancy. Unlike other Swiss Jews interened there who were later handed over to the Swiss consul, the Swiss citizenship of the Hungarian native Ladislav was ignored by the German side. On January 20, 1944, he was deported to the Extermination Camp in Auschwitz Birkenau, Poland, where he died in the Holocaust.