Application for Admission to Australia
Object numberM2007/068:005
TitleApplication for Admission to Australia
DescriptionOfficial correspondence from the Commonwealth of Australia Department of Immigration (NSW Branch) to Imre Kaldor referring to his application to bring the sister of his wife Rose, Mrs Sarah Gross (nee Sari Czeizler) and her daughter from Hungary to Australia. The letter is dated 7 November 1952 and indicates that if information showed Mrs Gross and her daughter to be of good health and character, the appropriate Australian visas would be granted. The visas were granted and Sarah Gross did come to Australia. However, her daughter, Ezster, had married and remained in Hungary.
This letter is part of a collection of objects and documents relating to Imre Kaldor and his wife Rose (nee Czeizler). Rose was born in Debrecen, Hungary, in 1904, the eldest sister to Sari. From a young age she nurtured an interest in fashion, moving to Paris in the 1920s to be a dressmaker and later returning home to establish successful fashion salons in Debrecen and Budapest.
After the Germans’ entry into Hungary in 1944, Rose, her husband Imre Kaldor and their daughter Kathy were expelled from their home and confined to a ghetto. They were eventually placed on cattle cars and sent to a forced labour camp in Florisdorf, where Rose was assigned to a work detail repairing bomb-damaged houses in Vienna. In February 1945 in the wake of the Allied advance, they were sent along with 200 others on a death march from the camp. They managed to escape and hide out in a nearby village until the end of the war. Rose discovered later that the Florisdorf prisoners who continued on the march were executed in the forest.
The family returned to Budapest only to find that their house had been destroyed. Rose managed to reclaim and successfully re-establish her fashion salons, but when Kathy moved to Australia, Rose and Imre followed accordingly in 1951. The family was very happy in Sydney, but Imre was ill and died in 1952. In the following years, Rose married Paul Visontay, who had migrated from Hungary to Australia with his son, Ivan. It was a great coincidence that Rose and Paul crossed paths in Sydney as the two had briefly dated in Hungary in the 1920s when Rose was 16 and Paul was 20.
This letter is part of a collection of objects and documents relating to Imre Kaldor and his wife Rose (nee Czeizler). Rose was born in Debrecen, Hungary, in 1904, the eldest sister to Sari. From a young age she nurtured an interest in fashion, moving to Paris in the 1920s to be a dressmaker and later returning home to establish successful fashion salons in Debrecen and Budapest.
After the Germans’ entry into Hungary in 1944, Rose, her husband Imre Kaldor and their daughter Kathy were expelled from their home and confined to a ghetto. They were eventually placed on cattle cars and sent to a forced labour camp in Florisdorf, where Rose was assigned to a work detail repairing bomb-damaged houses in Vienna. In February 1945 in the wake of the Allied advance, they were sent along with 200 others on a death march from the camp. They managed to escape and hide out in a nearby village until the end of the war. Rose discovered later that the Florisdorf prisoners who continued on the march were executed in the forest.
The family returned to Budapest only to find that their house had been destroyed. Rose managed to reclaim and successfully re-establish her fashion salons, but when Kathy moved to Australia, Rose and Imre followed accordingly in 1951. The family was very happy in Sydney, but Imre was ill and died in 1952. In the following years, Rose married Paul Visontay, who had migrated from Hungary to Australia with his son, Ivan. It was a great coincidence that Rose and Paul crossed paths in Sydney as the two had briefly dated in Hungary in the 1920s when Rose was 16 and Paul was 20.
Production placeSydney, New South Wales, Australia
Production date 1952-11-07
Subjectmigration, post World War II, families, survivors
Object nameofficial correspondence
Materialpaper
Dimensions
- width: 213.00 mm
height: 335.00 mm
Language
- English
Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Mr Ivan R Visontay
Documentation
Boutique300001629
Boutique300001629