É. Apor (ed.): David Kaufmann Memorial Volume: Papers Presented at the David Kaufmann Memorial Conference, November 29, 1999, Budapest.
ORMOS, István: David Kaufmann and his Collection
ISTVÁN ORMOS Kaufmann was contented with his life and situation both in the professional and personal fields, and thus he would turn down invitations to go abroad, although with the rising of his star he received ever growing numbers of tempting offers (to Mannheim, Berlin, Breslau, Munich and Vienna, among others). 2 6 Days and years passed by in hard work; the teacher and scholar was surrounded by an aura of appreciation, veneration and devoted love, and he also lived in perfect harmony with his wife. His happiness was not unclouded though: after a while the symptoms of diabetes manifested themselves, and his unflagging zeal, his fanatic drive for work were no doubt due, partly at least, to the awareness that fate had allotted him a short life. This disease, from which he suffered for approximately ten years, undermined his health, and little by little the robust body began to show signs of decay. This explains the sudden changes of mood so characteristic of his last ten years, the abrupt onsets of sadness, when for no apparent reason tears would suddenly fill his eyes. As was his custom, he arrived at Karlsbad 2 7 in the company of his mother on 27 June 1899 in order to undergo medical treatment and to take a general rest after the strains and fatigues of the school-year - his wife was staying at nearby Marienbad at the same time because the thermal waters there were more suitable to her complaints. 2 8 Judging from Kaufmann's letters to Abraham Berliner, Kaufmann's wife seems to have been of fragile health, to have visited spas alone regularly in order to cure her complaints. She also visited Kaufmann's family in Kojetein regularly while her husband was working in Budapest. During these enforced separations Kaufmann was always anxious about her health and well-being. 2' On 29 June Kaufmann slipped in the bath breaking his clavicle, and this generally harmless though unpleasant accident - no doubt at least in part due to his diabetes - in his case led to complications, haemorrhagia and pneumonia, so that he died on 6 July - he was barely forty-seven years old. After the funeral service on 9 July his body was transferred to Budapest. He was buried on 11 July in the Jewish section of Kerepesi cemetery (Salgótarjáni street). The funeral began at three o'clock and lasted until around seven because eleven addresses were given, among them by Samuel Kohn (Budapest), Ferdinand Rosenthal (Breslau), Wilhelm Bacher (Budapest), Marcus Brann (Breslau), David Heinrich Müller (Vienna), Mór Klein (Nagybecskerek) 3 0, Sándor [=Alexander] Büchler (Keszthely), [Baurat] 2 6 GOI.DBERGER 1900. KRAUSS 1901 (1902). 14. 2 7 Present-day Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. 2 8 Present-day Mariánské Lázné in the Czech Republic. 2 9 F[erdinand] ROSENTHAL, Briefe Prof. Kaufmann's an Berliner. In: Festschrift zum siebzigsten Geburtstage A[braham] Berliner's. Hrsg. v. A. Freimann - M. Hildesheimer. Frankfurt am Main 1903. 301-330. 3 0 Present-day Zrenjanin in Vojvodina/Serbia. 132
