Magyar News, 1996. szeptember-1997. augusztus (7. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1996-11-01 / 3. szám
OM A flUMT Has it ever happened to you that you were looking for something and in the process you stumbled onto other things, too? Well something like this happened to me. First. I received a call from Irene Zambory Warcup. She told me a story about her brother-in-law, Adam Murach, who served in the US Marines throughout WW II. As a matter of fact three other brothers of Adam were also in the service, unfortunately they gave their life serving our country. Though this tradition of being in the armed force hasn’t ended at that. Adams nephew also enrolled and served as an officer in the US Military. Naturally in all cases decorations were earned. Then came the second part of the stoiy. At the end of the war, when Adam was receiving his discharge, he was escorted into the commanding officer’s office. The two escorts holding him by the arm made no mention of what that was about. Well Adam had no idea about it either and was anxious the get home to his fiance, Irene’s sister Jean. Still clutching on to his honorary discharge paper, he reached for a picture that the commander was handing him. He was told, as we heard it many times from Irene Warcup, that without his knowledge a military photographer took an action style picture of him and a famous WW II artist, Schlaikjer, made it into a poster. Poster portrait of Adam Murach During the tune since, only the portrait part of the poster was preserved by the family, nicely put into a frame. Then as years passed the request to have the whole poster in an intact shape became the goal. This turned out to be a major task. Since Irene, a devoted republican all her life, in some of her correspondence with leading members of her party she mentioned her problem. The response was nice, she received praise from a President and a Senator for being proud of what members of her family did for this country. They even suggested people to contact to help find the poster. For some reason this didn’t work. Not clear at that time was the fact that there were no records made of whom these artworks depicted, so going by the name did not help. I couldn’t say no to an elderly Hungarian lady when she approached me to help her. I tried the conventional way without success, then I sent copies of the portrait to Marine Headquarters, also without success. The Curator of Marine Corps History and Museum Division, in his letter, made it clear that there is no such poster in the Marine’s collection. He also gave me WW IIposters by Stephan Dohanos an address in New York, Meehan Military Posters, a commercial place that deals with posters going back to the beginning of these kinds of prints. I was truly amazed. They have many catalogs and sure enough Adam Murach’s poster was in one of them. The did not indicate that this was a poster for the Marines. Meehan did an excellent professional job preserving and mounting the poster to be framed. Browsing through the catalogs, I came across the names of Hungarian artists. Among them I picked Stephan Dohanos who was a member of our Hungarian community. Besides being founder of the Famous Artist School, illustrating artist of the Saturday Evening Post, and also responsible for over 300 American stamps, Dohanos was active in our midst. He was the artistic advisor on the world renowned monument, Hungary 1956, in Norwalk and guest speaker at many affairs. The Meehan Military Posters was kind to lend us some slides of Dohanos’ posters to show in the Magyar News and we are very thankful for it. People who know me wouldn’t be surprised if I say: “Whatever you touch, you will find a Hungarian in it.” Joseph F. Balogh FLY THE BEST - YOU ARE WORTH IT Piper Flight Center, Dealer for Piper, Aerospatiale, Trinidad and Tobago Flying Club, Pilot Shop, Avionics, Aircraft Sales, Leasebacks, Maintenance and Fuel 1/2 hour demo in Warrior $50 plus tax THREE WING CORE EXCLUSIVE FLYING CLUB SINCE 1974 Sikorsky Memorial Airport Main Terminal Side Stratford, CT 06497 Tel:(203)375-5795 Page 6
