10/24/2016 Archival Research

Dr. Victor Fenyes's Legacy in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial

Dr. Victor Fenyes's daughters have lent their father's legacy to the archives of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. It has thus been made available for research while remaining family property.

Dr. Fenyes (1899-1968) was a lawyer and journalist, born into a Jewish family. In 1944, he was deported from Budapest to Hannover-Ahlem, a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. His wife and daughters were murdered in Auschwitz. Soon after the war, Victor Fenyes founded a self-help organization for concentration camp survivors in Hanover. Throughout his life, he was involved in the activities regarding the commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust. His legacy contains numerous photos and documents he collected over the years spent working at the organization.

Moreover, there are personal documents belonging to Mr. Fenyes's second wife, Janka Fenyes, née Blau (1921-2009), who was born in Zsigard/Ziharec (today's Slovakia). She survived the concentration camps Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and was briefly imprisoned in Bremen-Obernheide, a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. Janka Fenyes lost 53 family members in the Holocaust. The couple got married in 1946 and had two daughters.

The legacy consists of approximately 300 photos, hundreds of written documents as well as a number of objects from the Victor Fenyes's work at the organization.