Yahoo News Tributes to Hungarian refugee who fled World War II and settled in Bacup
Tributes have been paid to a Hungarian refugee who fled her home country during the Second World War and passed away just two weeks after celebrating her 103rd birthday. Ilona Zsigmond, of Moorlands Terrace, Bacup, passed away peacefully from frailty on December 8 at Lumb Valley Care Home.
Her son, Peter said: “She was the kindest, most generous person you could ever meet. Mum dedicated her life to helping others.
“She was emotionally attached to Hungary but she considered herself to be British with a strong Hungarian family. She was grateful for her life and she loved life and enjoyed people visiting her.
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“She lived a healthy life and drank very little. She walked everywhere and even in her early 90s she would walk to Bacup to do shopping and walk to church and back.”
Ilona was born in Doboz, Hungary, to parents Zsuzsanna and Istvan Komaromi and was a sister to seven siblings. The beloved mother-of-two worked in a post office during her youth in Hungary and came to the United Kingdom alone in her mid-20s as a refugee during the Second World War.
Ilona made the difficult decision to leave her beloved home country because she felt unsafe and uncertain whether Russia or Germany would take over. Her strenuous journey to the UK took around three years and she travelled through different countries that were also at war and settled in Austria for a while before she was moved again.
She was enrolled in a refugee programme and worked as a midwife in large refugee camps throughout her journey. Ilona first arrived in the Skipton and Bradford area and then lived in Manchester, before settling in Bacup where she lived for the rest of her life.
When she arrived in the UK she worked as a domestic and met her husband Joseph, who was also a Hungarian refugee. The couple got married in Skipton in 1949 and had children Peter and Stephen.
The pair bought a petrol station on the Rochdale Road junction in Bacup in the early 50s, which they ran for 12 years. She then worked in a number of slipper factories in Stacksteads for 15 years until she retired.
Her son Peter was sent to Hungary as a police officer as part of the UK’s Foreign Office initiative to help the country ease into a democracy. He took Ilona back to her hometown in Hungary in 1991 after the Iron Curtain fell and she was reunited with her mother, who also came to visit her in England and was more than 100 years old when she passed away.
She loved cooking traditional Hungarian food and cakes, with cheese scones being her speciality. Ilona loved house plants and planted flowers and fruit bushes in her garden.
She did a lot of charity work with Central Methodist and Stacksteads Methodist Churches and helped out with their coffee mornings, bringing homemade walnut roll and crisscross cake. Ilona was a treasured neighbour who was always there for people when they needed someone, even when she was in her 80s.
She would go shopping for people and visit people who were unwell.
