Csillag András: Pulitzer József makói származásáról. A Makói Múzeum Füzetei 46. (Makó, 1985)

Óbuda) along the main pathways Moravian Jews followed to populate the country. The town where the earliest settlement of the Pulitzers was registered in this country is Nagyvárad, then South-East Hungary, now Romania. Abraham, son of Aaron Pulitzer was recorded there as early as 1722. After the turn of the century, with an upswing in corn production Makó became a provincial market centre rapidly attracting lots of Jewish tradesmen. By 1836 the Jewish community population there rose to 1120. In 1828 already there were as many as six Pulitzer families existing in the town only. Their first representative there was Baruch Simon Pulitzer, who, in the conscription of 1773 appears as a newly married retail dealer in raw hide, with a house of his own. He was born in 1751. Joseph's grandfather, Mihály (Michael) was undoubtedly born at Makó, between 1779 and 1784, and died in Pest on 22 April 1870, „at the age of 88". He lived a long and active life as a well-to-do merchant trading in land produce. In the 1830's and 1840's a juryman and member of the community board, he was the highest tax-payer among local Jewish shopkeepers. He often acted as a spokesman and a delegate in his people's affairs in the town, including the demanding of emancipation. In the mid 1850's he moved his residence from Makó to Pest. His wife, i. e. Joseph's grandmother was a native of Csongrád town. Rosalie (Sali) Schwab was born in 1788 or 1789 and died in Pest on 5 January 1863, "at the age of 75". According to the birth and death registers of the Jewish community at Makó (Csongrád County Archives) Joseph was undoubtedly born on 10 April 1847, at Makó. He was ritually included in the religious community on 17 April. The parents indicated are: Fülöp (Philip) Pulitzer

, a "trader" and Elize Berger. As shown by the registers, Joseph was fourth-born child in the family after Lajos Lázár, Borbála and Breindel. His younger brothers and sisters were Anna Fanny Franciska, Albert, Gabriel Gábor, Helene and Arnold. The eldest boy, Lajos first went to a Jewish elementary school at Makó; then from 1852 he was sent to an economic school in Vienna until his death on 7 June 1856. The father, Fülöp Pulitzer (sometimes signed Puliczer) was, too, born at Makó, in 1811. A welltrained businessman, he married Elize Louise Berger in the late 1830's. Joseph's mother also came from a family of traders in Pest. She was born there in 1823. What is known with certainty about her is that she came from a family of Jews and was not born in Austria proper as asserted by several biographies. The Bergers got permission to settle in Pest permanently in the first decades of the 19th century. The name of Lazar Berger (Joseph's grandfather) was mentioned for the first time in the conscription of "intolerated" Jews in Pest from the year 1811. In a few years his family became "tolerated", with a residence in Király Street. According to the Jewish conscription of 1837, Ludwig Berger (the brother of Joseph's mother) was a married merchant born and living in Pest. Fülöp Pulitzer established his trading enterprise in the centre of Makó in the 1840's. It was here, at No. 1637 Megyeház (Úri) Street that Joseph saw the world for the first time. Fülöp was trading in land produce "in large quantities". Like his father, he bought up locally grown products to sell them in other parts of the country. A punctual tax-payer, a sober and honest merchant, he enjoyed great respect in town and was "a man of excellent means". During the Revolution of 1848—49 he was food-supplier to the insurgent troops and also served as a juryman in the local Jewish community. In the 1850's he remained a successful and wealthy merchant who still often went on business trips in the Austrian Empire. Joseph must have had a carefree and cheerful boyhood; even a private tutor was hired to teach the children at home. Inspired by greater chances of prosperity in business, the Pulitzers moved from Makó to Pest in 1855. Fülöp's new enterprise soon held out promises of a prosperity never experienced before. The family First took up residence at No. 6. Waitzner Street, then at No. 2 Göttergasse. They were well off but soon Fülöp got ill with tuberculosis and business had to be neglected. A real disaster came to them when he died on 16 July 1858, at the age of 47. His testament reflects the father's philanthropic feelings and fondness of his family. Elize Berger was given right to the administration of the children's share and to become beneficiary of it under the reservation that she would need the approval of her acts from Fülöp's elder brother Mihály Mayer or her own brother, Ludwig. Following Fülöp's illness and decease business went bankrupt. No reserve-fund remained and neither of the brothers helped the widow. The family got into debt and was plunged into poverty. According to some Hungarian newspaper accounts later, Mrs. Pulitzer continued business activities by running a small flour shop while Joseph attended Hampl's Economic School in Pest. The fact that Joseph aged seventeen left home against his mother's will to become a soldier may well have been the result of an effort made to lighten the burdens of the family, as well as an outcome of some sort of disagreement with his stepfather. Pulitzer's birthplace at Makó is not visible in its original form any more. The house was rebuilt for the purposes of a post office in 1895. The one-story building, which served as a post office until the 1920's, is still standing at No. 4 Dózsa Street, right across from the old County Hall. 28