Sándor Rátkai

Born 1869 in Subotica
Died .5.1945 in Mauthausen

Biography

Sándor Rátkai, born 1869 in Szabadka/ Subotica (current day Serbia)

Died in May 1945, in Mauthausen

Occupation: opera and operetta singer

After several years of working as a singer, traveling with the opera company from city to city, Sándor Rátkai was one of the pioneers to settle down in Miskolc, Hungary, and be part of creating a permanent opera house. Today, his picture (45" x 65") is still hanging in the entrance hall of nowadays National Theatre of Miskolc. After his wife died, who also was an opera singer, he moved in with his son, daughter-in-law and their family in Debrecen, Hungary.

They survived many aspects of the horror of the war together. After shipment on cattle cars from Debrecen to Vienna he was kept in a school and forced to sort rubble after bombings. At the age of 76 years, Sándor was forced on the death march from Vienna to Mauthausen together with his daughter-in-law Edit and granddaughter Judit Rátkai. His nine-year-old granddaughter helped to keep him going so as to avoid being shot. All three of them survived the death march only to be interned in the overcrowded horrific tent camp behind the Mauthausen main camp for most of April 1945.

Sándor sang songs to prisoners to try and keep spirits up and to pass the time between roll calls, or removing dead prisoners. After liberation he, with many others, broke into a food storage building and gorged on raw sugar, as they were all starving to death. The sugar, combined with his emaciated and ill condition killed him within a couple of days. He died in a temporary hospital set up at Mauthausen sometime between May 8 and May 12, 1945.

Judy Winkel, Rita Vali

Location In room