סיקלאי מטילדה

שם משפחה, שם פרטי

מטילדה נישאה  לסיקלאי מיקלוש ייליד הונגריה  וחיה בבודפשט

מיקלוס סוקלאי נרצח בשואה בשנת 1944

שני ילדיהם  הוחבאו במנזר ומטילדה הוכנסה לכלא בבודפסט  מאחר והיה לה דרכון טורקי

(תמצית סיפור חייה של מטילדה).

Life story - granddaughter Daniela

Matilda Konstant was born in Istanbul on May 1, 1917. Her mother died shortly after she was born and her father married Perla who had a daughter same age (called Lisa); the two had a son together, Sammy.

At 17, Matilda met her future husband Miklosh (Meir) Siklai who visited Istanbul from his native Budapest. The two married and she moved with him to Budapest. In the next two years she gave birth to her two children – Helena (named in Israel Judith) b. 1935; and Shlomo b. 1937. When her husband was taken into the forced labor in the Soviet Union, she remained home with her kids until just before the Nazis invaded Budapest in 1943. At this time, she was able to find a monastery in Hungary’s countryside which was willing to take her kids and hid them. And this is where they spent the time of the War.

As a Turkish citizen, Matilda was jailed during the German occupation and was not sent with many of the other Jews who were deported from Hungary by trains to Auschwitz. Her time in jail left her with a damaged kidney, which she carried with her throughout her life. At the end of the War, Matilda sought a way to move back to Istanbul  and to reunite with her family. The three arrived in Greece, and Matilda was approached by the representative of the Jewish Agency who convinced to go rather to Palestine. Her kids left before with the Youth Alya and settled in Kibbutz Bein Hashita in the Israel Valley.

Matilda eventually arrived in 1946 on the ship Haviva Reik, named after the pioneer parachutists who was sent by the Jewish Agency on military missions in Nazi-occupied Europe and was killed. She immediately joined her two kids at the Kibbutz. But the adjustment of living in the agriculture communal after living all her life in urban places was too difficult and a couple of months later, she decided to leave the kibbutz and moved with her kids to Ranana. They lived in a small house and after working as a cook for a while, she opened a small bakery shop. It was not a success and she began working as a cook in the kitchen of the headquarters of Bank Leumi, where she remained until retirement. Matilda spoke 11 languages – Ladino, Spanish, Turkish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Russian, Yiddish, Greek, German, English, French. She had an extraordinary talent for languages and was known to be speaking to the people in shops in their own language.

Several years later, she met the man who was going to become her partner for life – though they never married. His name was Shaar-Yishuv (Sharya) Hurvitz and he came from a family of Jewish settlers who settled in Palestine in the early 19^th century. He was 20 years her senior and his Hebrew was impeccable; he loved writing her poems. The two lived in a small house in Ramat Hasharon where Sharya had a nursery where he grew avocado, mango, and many exotic fruits.

In 1958, a guest came to visit the nursery. He was a young horticulturist who had just come back from years abroad, where he attended the University of California, graduating with specialty in subtropical fruits. His name was Ruben Ohad. When visiting the nursery, he saw Matilda’s daughter Judith, who was a nurse and was visiting her mother. They ended up marrying.

Matilda was a great cook who hosted all of the holidays and Shabbat dinners at her home. The dinners were full not just with the family – her three grandchildren and Sharya’s seven grandchildren – but also relatives, friends, and anyone who had no place to go in the holiday. She was the most generous person, the happiest, optimistic, and a wonderful person who was loved by a lot of people. She used to spend a month every year in Texas, where he son Shlomo was living with his wife Jody and their son Michael. She loved going to Istanbul to visit her parents, and then other family members and used to take the boat from Haifa to Turkey.

Sharya died in 1977 and as soon as Matilda retired, she spent the res of her life volunteering in hospitals. Matilda died in 1995 at 78. She was a woman of incredible kindness, always putting others before himself. Her gentle spirit and genuine warmth touched everyone around her. She particularly loved her grandchildren and was a regular visitor to their home in Hod Hasharon.

. תודות לנכדתה דניאלה לכתיבת סיפור חייה של מטילדה