Aladar Steiner

Aladar Steiner was born on Aug. 8th 1898 in Budapest, Hungary. His father was Wilmos Steiner, a tailor from Hungary. Aladar’s family moved to Berlin when he was 4 years old. At the age of 6 he attended Gemeindeschule till he was 14. After that he learned tailoring at “Bocks”, Holzmarkstraße 13. He served in the German army in WWI from 1916-1918. Aladar met Aranka Farkas at a Hungarian ball and they were married in Berlin 1921. They had two children, Freddy was born in 1922 and Lilli was born 1927.

Aladar worked for a company called “Wallach&Schubert” as a cutter until 1927. From January 1928 until June 1929 he was an operations manager at “Dargas” on … str. 18. From July 1929 until November 1936 he worked as a Zwischenmeister with 15 journeymen at “Silberstein&Schybilski” company on Poststraße.


Aladar had a wholesale clothing factory in Berlin where he produced and sold gabardine coats from 1936-38 with 200 employees. Freddy worked at the factory and learned the trade from the bottom up. They lived in an apartment in a neighborhood of Jews and Gentiles and the children went to a Jewish school across from a Catholic school and had mostly Jewish friends. They kept Kosher.

The Nazis came in to power in 1933. By 1935, the Nazis started excluding Jews from general life with the Nuremberg Laws, including prohibition of intermarriage. Aladar’s brother (or brother-in-law) intermarried and they killed his wife, placing a sign on her saying “Jew Lover”. Aladar saw things were getting worse for the Jews. Gentiles threw rocks at their children and Aladar would tell the children some details but his wife Aranka was a very nervous person and it wasn’t discussed in front of her. During a march of Nazi troops, the Germans raised their hands to salute and say “Heil Hitler” and Aladar said “kvatch” in disgust and he was struck in the face with a rifle butt, knocking out some teeth. Aladar’s in-laws fled to Cuba. They couldn’t get into the U.S. due to the immigration quota. Aladar, Aranka and the children went to see them off at the train station in Vienna. Between 1933-1939, 315,000 Jews fled Germany. Aladar hoped that these bad times would pass and they would be alright.

All Jews had to wear the yellow Star of David. 1938 was a a turning point when Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) occurred. Until that point, Jews still owned a lot of businesses. A Nazi soldier came to their apartment with a couple. The man was a Dr. They were told the couple was taking their apartment and they could only take enough clothes that they could carry. Aladar’s factory and his car was also confiscated while he was driving down the street. They fled to Hungary in 1938. They could immigrate to Hungary since Aladar and Aranka had Hungarian citizenship.

Hungary was ok at first until they started to experience antisemitism and their children would sometimes fight the kids that called them names. They lived on the 4th floor of an apartment above a beer factory and attended Shabbat services every Friday night and all the Jewish holidays at the Doheny synagogue. Aladar became a partner at a clothing factory from 1938-44. He introduced the assembly line band system of making uniforms. They later moved to an apartment on the outskirts of Budapest and Aladar’s partner (who was a Baron) helped him get papers saying he was a Gentile. He wanted to get papers for Lilli and Aranka but Aranka was too scared of being discovered so they started wearing the yellow star. By 1940, the Jews of Hungary began to be decimated. Jews were forced to enlist in special slave labor army units, including Freddy who was sent to Poland to dig ditches.

Lilli and Aranka had to move to a “Juden House”, marked with a Jewish star. During the forced march, Hungarians yelled antisemitic slogans at them. Those that couldn’t walk were shot. Two families lived in each apartment. A 5pm curfew was imposed, making them destitute prisoners. Aladar had twin sisters and one of them was sent to Auschwitz and she died in the cattle car on the way. She was pregnant with twins.

In 1944, Germany invaded Hungary and the ghettos and deportations began. Aladar’s true identity was discovered and the Gestapo confiscated the factory and he became a forced laborer, but they told him to continue to manage the factory.

By Jan, 1945, the fascist Hungarian government ceased to recognize these protected houses and the Arrow-Cross began searching for and killing any Jews they could find. Aladar got Lilli and Aranka moved to the factory where he worked. He had 400 Jews working at the factory, including Freddy’s wife, Eva, and Aladar’s sister Elvira, brother Oscar and cousin. They slept in the factory. There were no beds. Soldiers were stationed in front of the factory. Soldiers would regularly take women away and rape them. They tried to take Lilli one day but Aladar stopped them, saying she was his.

They made and repaired uniforms until Christmas 1944, when they were taken to the Budapest ghetto. The family stayed together in the ghetto which was around the Doheny synagogue where they lived for 9 months, sleeping in the basement on wooden doors. They had very little to eat, living on bean soup and coffee. People were committing suicide. When people were sick or they disobeyed, they were killed. Aladar was able to became a ghetto policeman (Kapo) which allowed him to get a daily slice of bread and a caraway soup which he share with Aranka and Lilli. He became a police officer because he was able to communicate well with the guards in German. The Nazis began deportation from the ghetto and Aladar and the family were on a line to get a tattoo on their arm before being sent to Auschwitz. They hadn’t heard of the death camps at that time. They were told they were going to a labor camp. They were on line for 3-4 hours. There were 75 people ahead of them when the Germans fled from the advancing Russian army. The ghetto was liberated by the Russians on Jan. 17, 1945. About 94,000 Jews remained in the 2 ghettos by then. Another 20,000 came out of hiding.

They went to their apartment which was in very bad shape. In 1941 there were 184,000 Jews. By 1945, 98,000 Jews had died of death marches, train transports, starvation, disease, suicide and the Hungarian Arrow-Cross death squads. They lived in Hungary for 9 years from 1938-1947. Aladar’s friend told him he saw Freddy and that he was dying. 20,000 Jews returned from slave labor. Freddy came back, having been nursed by a Russian soldier. Aladar got a horse and buggy and traded for food in the country. It was winter and they burned furniture to keep warm and had to eat their horse.

HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society) helped Lilli and Freddy immigrate to the U.S. in 1947.
Aladar’s siblings were already in the U.S. but Aladar and Aranka were stuck on Ellis Island and then Venezuela. Aladar’s brother’s lawyer tried to help them but they were kicked out of Venezuela when they found out they had a false passport. They then went to Cuba. They weren’t allowed to work and Lilli and Freddy sent them money until they were able to leave after 1 year in 1951.

Aladar and Aranka became U.S. citizens in 1956. They lived in NY and moved to Florida in 1970 for health reasons. Aladar read everything he could get his hands on and wrote about his experiences. He received restitution from Germany for the factory confiscated from him. He and Freddy regularly had nightmares of their ordeals. He died of a heart attack in 1969. Aranka died in 1984. Freddy died in 1991 of a heart attack. Lilli died in 2000 of a brain aneurism.