Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference)

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Centropa Budapest Cafe

With Claims Conference funding, Cafe Centropa in Budapest provides regular social activities for Nazi victims. Photo:Róbert Bácsi/Zoltán Szabó/Centropa
High school students spend an afternoon listening to stories and visiting with the members of Cafe Centropa. Photo:Róbert Bácsi/Zoltán Szabó/Centropa
Survivors enjoy seeing old friends and meeting new ones at Centropa Cafe events. Photo:Róbert Bácsi/Zoltán Szabó/Centropa
Many Nazi victims have little or no family left to share special moments with. Cafe Centropa provides them with companionship and social activities. Photo:Róbert Bácsi/Zoltán Szabó/Centropa


In Budapest, elderly Holocaust survivors in need of a hot meal, a social worker, or medicine can find these necessities through programs funded by the Claims Conference. But sometimes there is a need for companionship and stimulation that goes beyond these daily, life-sustaining needs. Café Centropa, a program of the Vienna-based Central Europe Center for Research and Documentation, uses Claims Conference funding to bring together survivors for afternoons of coffeehouses, lectures, music, and discussion.

Attending these programs are people like Mariann Szamosi, 85, who runs her own publishing company; György Vágo, who at 80, is a councilman in his district of Budapest; Livia Révész, 79, who operates a telephone drug hotline; Blanka Pudler, a French translator well into her 80s; her friend Eva Baik, a Russian translator; and Tibor Kosa, who retired from his job as an optician nearly two decades ago, but still stays active at age 101.

They come together and tell their stories, as only one survivor can to another. They have lived through a long and troubled century, yet their spirits, clearly, still burn brightly