My great-grandparents Markusz (above left) and Sali Kohn Moskovits (above right) lived in Szobrancz, the major Jewish community between Nagymihaly (now Michalovce) and Ungvar (now Uzhorod, Ukraine) while their family was growing.   Family photos appear to confirm reports that the family lived comfortably.  An 1897 directory of landowners and leaseholders lists a Moskovics Markus as a leaseholder (haszonberlo) in Bunkocz farming 530 Hungarian acres (kataszteri hold) owned by Maria Draveczky and Janos Mariassy.  The farm had 312 acres of arable land and 135 acres of grazing land for his 70 head of cattle.   Bunkocz, now Bunkovce, Slovakia, is west of Ostrov (Ostrov Eles), where my grandmother Hermina was born in 1876.

Sali, who was born in 1846 in Zbegnyo in Zemplen county to the west, was only 18 or 19 when she married Markusz.  Gyula (Yehuda), their first child and oldest son, was born in Szobrancz in September, 1865.  Moricz (Moshe Yaakov) was born in November, 1866, followed by Emil in 1867 and Armin in 1869. Markusz and Sali also had four daughters including my grandmother  Hermine, born in 1876, her older sister Rosza and Karolina, the youngest, born in 1883. According to records that a researcher found in the archives in Uzhorod, Ukraine, there was also a  fourth sister named Gitel, born in 1875,  and a son David (Deszo) born in 1883.  My second cousin Harriet Moss Varady knows that she was named for an aunt Giza (Gitel). affectionately known as Gizanene, who died in Europe. 

Of the nine Moskovits children only two, my grandmother Hermine and her oldest brother Moritz, Harriet’s grandfather, came to the United States. Gyula died in Presov in 1926 and Armin died in Michalovce in 1933. Emil, his wife, their daughter-in-law, and their granddaughter were also deported from their homes in Nyiregyhaza and perished at Auschwitz or during the ardous transport.  Karolina had moved to Kosice where her son Bela had opened a law practice.  Her son Imre, Bela’s brother, believed that their mother was murdered in the Kosice ghetto.  No records about her fate have come to light.  Markusz and Sali lived on Andrassy utca in Michalovce, now in eastern Slovakia, until their deaths--Sali in 1924 and Markusz in 1925. They are buried in Michalovce near their son Armin and other members of the extended Moskovits family.