Draft:Zoltan Toman

Zoltan Thoman, Zoltán Toman, Zoltan Goldberger, Zdeněk Goldberger, Zolo Toman
Asher Zelig Goldberger
Born	March 2, 1909 Sobrance
Died	December 20, 1997, 88 Cabon San Lucas, Mexico
Burial place	Caracas, Venezuela
Other names	Vasil (1926 - 1936)
Citizenship	Hungarian, naturalized Czech
Education	law at Charles University in Prague
Alma mater	Faculty of Law Charles University, Faculty of Medicine at a German University in Prague
Occupation	Head of Foreign Intelligence
Employer	Ministry of Interior (1945 - 1948)
Title	JUDr.
Political party	Communist party of Czechoslovakia
Spouse(s)	Pesla (Pesia) Gutman (Pavla Toman); Maria Toman (Marinadi)
Children	Ivan Toman
Relatives	5 sisters, 2 brothers

Zdeněk Toman (his own name being Asher Zelig Goldberger; alias Zoltan Thoman, alias Zoltán Toman; alias Zoltan Goldberger; alias Zdeněk Goldberger; alias Zolo Toman; March 2nd 1909, Sobrance – December 20th 1997, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico) was the section chief of foreign (political) intelligence at the Ministry of Interior from 1946 to 1948 and so he belonged to the group of very few but very powerful and influential clerks with unlimited powers in the post-war Czechoslovakia.

Concise biography

After concluding his high school studies in Uzhhorod, Zdeněk went on to graduate from Charles University's law course. He emigrated shortly before the onset of the Second World War through Poland to the Great Britain along with his wife Pavla Toman. Zdeněk worked in the London exile at the Ministry of Social Welfare and also as a repatriation officer. Back then he already had lots of connections which reached into important political and diplomatic areas. Zdeněk moved along with the government-in-exile to liberated town of Košice where he functioned as the head of the repatriation commission. After the end of the second world war and the liberation of Czechoslovakia, Zdeněk was a hardline communist and as such was put in power by the communist party in 1945 to the position of Deputy head of the (intelligence) VII. Department of the Ministry of the Interior, where Zdeněk was the Deputy head for Brigadier General Josef Bartík. By the end of 1947 Zdeněk was appointed to the position of Ministerial Councilor to the Ministry of Interior. After Bartík was called off on 15th January 1946, Toman took over the position of the Head of the Department for Political (foreign) Intelligence of the Ministry of Interior. He became Section Chief of Foreign (political) Intelligence at the Ministry of Interior. From 1945 to 1948 Toman belonged to the very few but very powerful clerks with a lot of influence and unlimited powers. Toman's career was spearheaded from the shadows by Minister for the Interior Václav Nosek and Secretary General of the Party Rudolf Slánský. Zdeněk Toman was not just the Head of foreign intelligence, but also a hustler, savior of hundreds of thousands of Jews due to a bribe, a big-time player in the behind-the-scenes, a man of many names, and finally “The Grey-Red Eminence” as he illegally acquired funds for his own foreign bank accounts and also for the communist party (KSČ)'s illegal budget, which the party then used to pay for its election campaigns. Toman was also the first significant political prisoner not just to manage to escape from prison custody and out of the communist Czechoslovakia after Februrary 1948, but also to jump-start a new life and a new career in the west. He lived a vast portion of his life in exile as a businessman in Venezuela where he made a vast sum of money. Zdeněk sent significant donations and gifts to various cultural and education institutions in Israel. He never visited Czechoslovakia again in his life, not even after the events of the Velvet revolution in 1989.

Detailed biography

His background and his life during his studies (1909 to 1934)

The KSČ crest (illustration photo)

Zdeněk Toman (his own name being Asher Zelig Goldberger) was born to a poor jew family on March 2nd 1909 to a then-Hungarian town Sobrance in Transcarpathia as a son to David Goldberg and Rosalie (Rosy) Goldberg (maiden name Toman).

Asher Zelig Goldberger studied in the Sobrance town and graduated high school studies in Uzhhorod. After high school Zelig went on to study law in Prague. He started studies at the faculty of law at Charles University in the academic year 1927 / 1928, and graduated in 1933 as an advocate (acquired the title Doctor of Law). He joined the Communist party during his studies at the university and worked as the Head of Promotion Department for the second Prague district Comintern from 1926 to 1936 under the nickname Vasil.

From 1935 to 1939

After finishing his studies, Zdeněk lived in Slovakia as a lawyer. He married Pesla Gutman on 26th January 1935 in the Polish town of Łódź. Zdeněk Toman had his name changed in 1936 to from Zoltan Goldberger to Zoltan Thoman.

World War II.

Edvard Beneš (illustration photo)

After the german occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15th March 1939, Toman fled with his wife in April 1939 through Kraków to England with the help of the local Committee for Czechoslovak Refugees. In England he was employed in “Messrs. Lyons Co.” in a management position. Toman was well-known for his left-wing mindset. Both him and his wife were registered with the Czech Refugees Trust, which regularly sent them food allowance due to a bodily disfigurement. In 1941 both Toman and his wife were considered members of the Czechoslovakian Communist party in England, which Toman repeatedly denied and proclaimed that they were supporters of Social Democrats. From 1941 onward Toman was employed at the Exile Ministry of Social Welfare (social affairs) as a repatriation officer.

1945 to 1948

After the end of the Second World War Toman and his wife returned to the liberated Czechoslovakia. Toman lead the repatriation commission in Košice. This institution issued (“opted”) Czechoslovakian documents for those persons from Transcarpathia that have registered in the pre-war population census as either Czech or Slovak, and this treatment was also extended to members of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in the Soviet Union (called Svoboda's army). Transcarpathia had many individuals who were willing to pay Toman for passage. His machinations with documents did not escape the soviet NKVD's attention and Toman was forced to send a portion of each bribe. Later on Toman moved from Košice to Prague. The Czechoslovakian Minister of Interior Václav Nosek, member of the Communist party, made sure Toman would become the Deputy Chief of Foreign Intelligence at Nosek's ministry, in the Z/VIII department. At around this time Zoltán changed his name to Zdeněk.

Foreign currencies, cigarettes, alcohol

General Lev Prchala (illustration photo)

Toman's work included sending out verified and reliable individuals from Czechoslovakia to foreign countries, and then he himself also had work trips to the west. Occasionally Toman was assigned to tasks on those trips, such as investigating Czech emigrants - in these cases outliers and renegades - in the group surrounding general Lev Prchala (the Czech National Assembly in London) on one of his trips to London and to reorganize Czech journalists in England.

Toman's subordinates carried jewelry, gold and gemstones out of Czechoslovakia, and then exchanged these in London for foreign currency which they then brought back to Czechoslovakia. Shipments labelled costume jewellery travelled across all of europe via diplomatic post which was exempt from customs inspections. This way not only foreign currencies but also cigarettes, alcohol and other luxury goods made their way into Czechoslovakia. In addition to these activities illegal secret funds were established. A portion of these funds was used for the Communist party, and another portion was used for activities of the secret service. This another portion remained on private bank accounts of various actors both domestically and abroad.

Jewish refugees

Jews had to wear the Star of David during the Second World War, sewed on at a visible place on their clothes. (illustration photo)

There was a humanitarian organization in the post-war Czechoslovakia, called “The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee” (AJDC). This organization was centered around helping those who survived internment in concentration camps, and it also sponsored activities of the “Bricha” organization. Bricha supported migration of Jews to Palestine which was under British rule at the time. The head of the Prague branch of AJDC, Gaynor Jacobson, had significant financial resources at his disposal and paid Toman an agreed upon sum for each Jewish migrant that “passed through” Czechoslovakia.

From the summer of 1946 to the end of 1947 around 200 thousand Jewish refugees “passed through” Czechoslovakian lands from Poland and the USSR. They were fleeing from antijewish sentiment which escalated into a pogrom in Kielce, where the Poles beat to death almost 40 jews in July of 1946, including ten women and a six-week old child. Toman was a paid helping hand of the American AJDC and Bricha in transporting thousands of Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Slovakian, Ukrainian and Baltic Jews through Czechoslovakia to refugee camps in Germany, Austria and Italy. These countries had around 60 thousand Jews at the end of the Second World War. Toman officially estimated that he helped around 250 thousand Jews get to safety. This number rose to 300 thousand in 1948.

The refugees most often came through Náchod. They came over in enclosed trains that were on course for eastern occupation areas in Germany and Austria, from where they were to continue through Italy to Palestine. Initially the number of people making their way in this manner was just a few hundred each day, however after the events in Kielce the amount rose to up to 12 thousand people a day. This way of transferring people roused a lot of disgust from the superpowers. It wasn't just Brits who were against it but also the American ambassador in Prague. The one most against this however was the Soviet Union because it considered the laving individuals its subjects. Toman reacted to this sentiment by closing the borders “just to be sure” several times, and then demanding increased amounts “transit fees” to reopen them. It's likely that this money was used by Toman to finance his own intelligence service, then passed on some of this money to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia's coffers, and then kept a small amount for his own purposes.

Weapons for Palestine

Jan Masaryk (illustration photo)

David Ben Gurion (1949) (illustration photo)

In 1947 Toman began arms delivery activities for the newly forming Jewish state. Excess of domestic arms production as well as captured german army arms both found a use in Palestine, which desperately needed weapons. The Czechoslovakian arms shipmentrs into Palestine however implied a direct conflict with the British. The shipments had the Czechoslovakian government's support, as the KSČ needed money and the then-Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Masaryk was favorable towards Israelis and thus signed the agreements. Official story was that those weapon shipments were on their way to Africa, but the end goal was Israel. The Israeli premier David Ben Gurion later stated that “if it weren't for the Czechoslovakian arms, the Israeli state would never have been created.” Later on Toman presented his activities connected to shipping weapons as being done out of his own “conviction”, but kept the fact that he had them done for his own personal gain a strategic secret.

Toman's other activities

Aside from the activities brought up so far, Toman was also involved in illegal transactions of reichsmarks and gold in the American occupation area.

Toman repeatedly publicly defended Marian Kargul, who was doing similar activities, and also had a export company in Brazil which sold czech goods. Kargul was suspect of running a Jewish work camp in Poland. Kargul donated 500 thousand Czech crowns to KSČ and a significant amount of foreign money to Toman.

A rumor was made public where Toman disclosed names of several of his agents to his sister Arana (Aurelia) Roznicuk. Aurelia then passed these names on to her own husband - zionist activist dr. Imrich Rosenberg, who lived in Belgium. Imrich Rosenberg subsequently informed western secret services.

The Clouds start gathering

Bedřich Reicin (pre-1951) (illustration photo)

Aforementioned Toman's activities stopped being fine with some of the influential Communist officials starting in the second half of 1947. In the strugger for power Toman was an outlier that did not belong to any party wing and he was reluctant to share any money from his significant gains as time went on. On top of that the Soviet advisors told Minister of Interior Václav Noska that Toman is losing their trust in 1947. Their justification was that Toman lived in London throughout the second world war which roused suspicion that Toman could be an “agent of foreign powers”. Toman's influence and power were looked down at by the Chief of Military Counterintelligence OBZ Bedřich Reicin and also his deputy Karel Vaš, both of which saw a potential competitor in the game for high positions in government.

An agent of the NKVD, an officer of Military Intelligence OBZ, a judge and prosecutor of the kangaroo court all in one, Karel Vaš, personally oversaw the creation of the letter. The letter was dated 22nd December 1947 and was adressed into the hands of the Secretary General of the KSČ Rudolf Slánský. The letter described Toman's “London trades”. Rudolf Slánský stopped favoring Toman and on 12th January 1948 an arrest warrant was issued for Toman. Before getting officially arrested Toman was sent on a forced “sick leave” by the end of February 1948, which he was to spend out of Prague. He was held in some sort of house arrest, separated from any contact with friends and family. Toman's wife Pesla went to Toman's superior, Minister of Interior Václav Nosek to get information. She was told there was no cause for concern.

The dark side of influence

Post-war aid for Czechoslovakia from UNRRA (illustration photo)

Section Chief of Intelligence of the Ministry of the Interior Zdeněk Toman became another victim of the Soviet purge during which all hotspots of potential resistance to the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia were to be removed. His influence was too strong for him to be allowed to stay in power any longer. He was too well connected with western institutions like the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) and the AJDC (The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee). He was a Communist, however he was potentially dangerous because he knew too much about too large a number of people. He met with Britist and American ambassadors who openly protested the relocation of 250 000 eastern European Jews from their temporary homes through Czechoslovakia to western refugee camps. Toman knew which powerful individuals would benefit from deals that he organized on the black market to fund the Czechoslovakian Communist party and some other subjects. Some of those powerful individuals had expensive carpets in their homes that Toman provided, others had gotten jewellery for their wives, and then there were also cigars and whiskey, which for then citizenry of Czechoslovakia were anything but common.

The Arrest

A special commando of the Czechoslovakian secret state police (StB) arrested Toman in Prague on the morning of 27th April 1948. The action was justified by the StB Commander Lieutenant Colonel Jindřich Veselý to the intelligence officers by stating that during a home inspection of the Tomans' flat two rare paintings, a number of persian carpets, gold and other valuables were found. At this point Toman was father to a half-year old son ivan, who was born to the Tomans in October 1947. Zdeněk Toman was charged with speculating in currencies on the black market under the goal of his personal enrichment and was told to expect summary execution. Toman went through hard interrogations but he refused to cooperate with the investigators from the start and even threatened suicide. While Toman was imprisoned at the Charles square a raid was carried out on the Tomans' flat.

Pesla

Glass palace in Prague-Bubeneč illustration photo)

Toman's wife Pesla (Pavla Toman) was employed as a pharmacist in one Prague hospital. After Toman's arrest in April 1948 she was also interrogated by StB. The situation was a shock to her and she commited suicide by jumping off of the fourth floor a tennement building number 728/2 on Dürich square in Prague, where the Tomans lived. Pesla had high heel boots on, held a handbag and also a goodbye letter. This letter was adressed to the StB commanding officer, Lieutenant Coloner Jindřich Veselý (at the Ministry of Interior). This letter, among other information, had sentences (or perhaps instructions or a last will) such as: “I know how much your wife wanted to conceive. You are a good communist and you will raise him a good communist. It is not easy for me to leave like this. At a time when a new type of human is emerging, a type of human that enjoys work, that enjoys life. I firmly believe that you will make Ivan into such a great human. Tell my husband that I was with him until the last moment.” There are speculations that Pavla Toman did not commit suicide but was instead murdered as to demonstrate to Toman that it is better to work together with the authorities that were preparing political trials which were a variant of stalinist trials. Her body was cremated on orders from the police. At this period the then-eight month old son of the Tomans, Ivan, disappeared and not a single one of his relatives met him ever again.

Escape beyond the border

During his pre-trial detention Toman learned despite the strict ban on information regarding this event of the demise of his wife Pesla. In July 1948 Toman was to be transferred from the small prison O-StB in the palace of justice on Charles square into a high security Pankrác prison. Before the transfer could even be atempted however Toman planned and succesfully executed his escape. He utilized the relatively lax regime in the palace of justice. If the guards were in good mood, prisoners were permitted to phone home or call friends. During these phonecalls Toman spoke in English so that the uniformed guards would not understand. Toman managed to convince one Constable of the Sbor národní bezpečnosti(SNB) to carry out a letter to one Toman's friend. The letter was a call for help in his escape plan. On 22nd June 1948 Toman was tasked by one guard to clean the toilets. The guard locked him in the toilet room and went away. Toman was tall but still needed to stack up two buckets below the bar-free toilet window to climb out of it. Once through, he jumped down into the court hallway, and because he was in his civilian clothes he managed to just walk out of the building. He even saluted a uniformed member of the SNB to signal that he “belonged” to them. The open window in the toilets was the only thing that the returning guard found before he sounded the alarm. Neither inspections on exits out of Prague nor a country-wide search or harsher border controls brought any fruit. Eleven guards including the Charles square prison Chief were punished, but it's likely some of them were bribed. Toman was helped by friends on the outside, six of which was arrested. Toman was hidden by a friend of his in a cabin behind Prague. After several weeks on 18th July 1948, Toman crossed the border at Cheb, specifically Cheb-Marktredwitz orientated toward western Germany (to Bavaria). He used a secret route that his agents used. Toman's succesful escape was explained by the Secretary of the Union of Friends of the USSR to the Secretary General of the Central Leadership of the KSČ in a written report as follows: “...half of the Ministry of Interior which cooperated with Toman wanted him gone, and as such sabotaged the search...”.

Toman in the West

Once in the west Toman began working together with the American Counterintelligence Corps CIC. He also utilized the fact that a lot of the real estate used by his agents had him as the owner. According to one report Toman revealed his own information network in Bavaria to Americans who subsequently terminated it. Apparently Toman also mentioned the Czech-French communist Artur London. At the time western media started releasing articles labelling him “an agent of the Informbyro”. After London was exposed, the French authorities banned him from re-entering the country as he was on a recovery trip to Switzerland. OBZ was considering an assassination of Toman in Germany.

1949 to 1950

On 23rd Junce 1949 Toman was convicted in absentia for smuggling “costume jewellery” and for taking part in helping release Marian Kargul from prison to a death sentence and to loss of all assets. He made an appeal to the Supreme court of Czechoslovakia on 3rd April 1950 but it was denied, with reasoning given that the sentence is appropriate. Toman left his son Ivant Toman and his own sister Magdalena (Lenka Toman). Toman kept investigating his son's fate even once in foreign lands but to no avail. Toman's sister Aranka (Aurelia) Roznicuk (Goldberger) also inquired about the fate of her nephew Ivan Toman as well. After Toman's escape from the prison on Charles square she was brutally interrogated and in the end sentenced to fifteen years in prison for treason. After serving her sentence she was released at the start of 1960s and soon after left to travel to her sister Magdalena in America. Her inquiries about her nephew which she made from across the Big Puddle always came back hollow. Toman himself never believed his son Ivan's death and never visited the grave in the motolský graveyard. He bequeathed his son 10,000 dollars to his son in his last will and testament.

In Venezuela

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (illustration photo)

After a short stay in Germany and then in Paris, Toman moved to London and later to his relatives in Venezuela. Here he traded in machines in a family business called “Gexim” that his brother Ármin Goldberger founded. Once again Toman amassed a large fortune, this time in Venezuela, and started calling himself Zoltan Toman (Thoman) again. Thoman sent large donations and gifts to various cultural and entertainment institutions in Israel. He was awarded an honorary doctorate at the Israeli Ben-Guiron university of the Negev in Beersheba. He bequeathed five million american dollars to this university which were used for building purposes. Toman received several awards for his charity work, both in Israel and in the USA. Toman remarried in Venezuela to Maria Marinadi.

Toman learned about the fate of his son Ivan at the start of the 1990s thanks to the Office for the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism. After the Velvet revolution (post-1989) Toman was officially rehabilitated in Czechoslovakia. His death sentence was mitigated to the a one year sentence, which Toman was exonerated from in its full capacity by the Court of Appeal. Toman never went back to Czechoslovakia as he was afraid of getting arrested. The closest he ever got to Prague was a visit to Vienna.

He died on 20th December 1997 in a mexican city by the sea Cabo San lucas. He was later buried in Santa Barbara in California. His remains were later transferred and buried in Venezuela's Caracas. Most of his assets were inherited by his second wife, Maria Toman (maiden Marinadi) and her three daughters. Toman gave away some portion of his wast assets during his life. He gave rare paintings to the Israeli museum in Jerusalem, and the five million american dollars were in the end awarded to the Ben Gurion university ba a court after a back and forth trial.

Relatives of Zdeněk Toman

Father

David Goldberger (??? – 1944) owned a food store where he also sold alcohol in Sobrance. He was religiously-based and came from a family which was related by kinship with rabbis professing Hasidism. David Goldberger married Rosalia Thoman and they had eight children together. David Goldberger was arrested by Germans and deported by hungarians into an Uzhhorod ghetto from where he was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp on 17th May 1944, where he died during the Holocaust.

Mother

Rosalie (Rosy) Goldberger (maiden name Toman) (??? – 1944) was born in the Sobrance city and married David Goldberger. She was religiously orthodox and wore a wig. She had eight children with her husband. During the second world was she was arrested by Germans and deported by Hungarians to an Uzhhorod ghetto from where she was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp on 17th May 1944, where she died during the Holocaust.

Pesla (Pesia) Gutman (25th December 1912, Końskie, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, Poland – 8th May 1948, alleged suicide after imprisonment of her husband Dr. Zdeněk Toman.Daughter of Mendel Gutman (Gutman, Gutmann, Guttman, Guttmann). She graduated in pharmacology at Charles university in Prague. There she also met Zoltan Toman who she married on 26th January 1935 in ŁódźŁódź, Poland. (Married Toman, respectively Goldberger). They both later fled to England where they weathered the years of the second world war. Pesla worked as a volunteer for the Czech Red Cross. They then returned together into the liberated Czechoslovakia after the end of the second world war. After imprisonment of her husband on 27th April 1948 she was interrogated by StB. She allegedly committed suicide on 8th May 1948 by jumping out of a fourth floor window of a house the Tomans lived in. Her body was cremated on the order of the police. Her brother Zvi Gutman survived the war and got to Israel.

Son

Motolská graveyard (illustration photo)

Ivan Toman (4th October 1947, Prague – 7th March 1961, Prague) was also known as Michal Rohan (born on 2nd November 1947 in Jihlava). After the alleged suicide of his biological mother Pesla (Pavla Toman), he was placed into a state shelter for infants in Prague, Na Štvanici. The Czechoslovakian StB kept moving him from one location to another until they managed to get him out of his relatives' sight. Officially his place of residence was never uncovered or announced. All inquiries of his relatives were either ignored or intentionally sent to wrong places. Czechoslovakian StB opportunistically made public false news about the boy, but never attempted to put the boy into a foster family or a regular shelter for infants. Eventually Ivan Toman found a new home in the family of Jiří and Ludmila (Lída) Rohan. The Rohan couple were vetted members of the KSČ, Jiří Rohan was a driver for the StB. The official version was the Ivan was an orphan found in the second half of September 1948 on one of Jihlava streets. Together with the child his adoptive parents also received ten thousand czech crowns and most of the money that Tomans left in Czechoslovakia on their deposit books from his alleged mother who said in a letter that the boy's name is Michal and that she's leaving for the west and can't take him with her. Ivan Toman received a new identity as a part of the cover operation named “Ivan”, and his new identity was Michal Rohan, who was born according to a forged birth certificate on November 2nd 1947. His real identity was not known by anyone else other than the Commanding officer of the StB Jindřích Veselý, StB officer Captain Alois Samec (who was tasked with Ivan's “disappearance”, Ivan grew up side by side with Alois' own son) and the Minister of Interior Václav Nosek. Ivan Toman alias Michal Rohan never got to know his biological parents. He died on 7th March 1961 before his 14th birthday in the Central Military Hospital in Prague after a fifty days long coma. The cause was a brain contusion in the Prague park Stromovka where he fell head-first on a rock in an unfortunate accident. No other culpability has been proven. The Rohan couple had his cremated remains buried on the Motolská cemetary. (The urn alley by Motola crematorium, grave number 288.)

Second wife

Maria Toman (Marinadi) (Maria Marinadi Toman) (??? – 2003). She had three daughters from her previous marriage. Her entire family moved to USA in 1960s. She died in 2003.

Older brother

Ármin Goldberger (1903, Sobrance – 1998, Caracas, Venezuela). was Toman's older brother. He graduated the elementary school in Sobrance and the high school in Uzhhorod. He then went on to study electrical engineering. After finishing his studies he left Czechoslovakia. In summer 1940 he moved to Venezuela. He spent his whole life working as an engineer. He first worked for the Ministry of Public Works in Venezuela, later became an independent contractor. He married Suze Eylenbur and had two children with her (Thomas, * 18th August 1940, and a daughter who lives in Palo Alto in California). Family of Ármina Goldberger lived in Caracas and owned an industrial company under the name of “Gexim”, which was focused on industrial machinery. Ármin Goldberger died in 1998 in Venezuela. His son Thomas Goldberger Married Cecilia and they live together in Miami, USA.

The second older brother

Bernát Jenő (Jeno) (Baruch) Goldberger (1906, Sobrance – 1944) was Toman's second older brother. he married Ella Grunfeld. During the second world war he vanished. He was supposedly recruited into the Hungarian Labour Battalions and there his trace ends. Baruch Goldberger married Ella Braunfeld, born in 1914 in Sobrance. During the Second world war Ella was (in March 1944) deported by Germans and Hungarians to an Uzhhorod ghetto and from there she was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp on 17th May 1944, where she died during the Holocaust.

Sisters

Aside from the two brothers (Ármina a Barucha) Toman also had five sisters. Three of them died by the end of the second world war in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

• Bella Goldberger (???, Sobrance – 17th May 1944, Auschwitz concentration camp);
• Klára Goldberger (???, Sobrance – 17th May 1944, Auschwitz concentration camp);
• Erzsébet (Bözsi) Goldberger (Esther/Bossi)(???, Sobrance – 17th May 1944, Auschwitz concentration camp).

The other two Toman's sisters:

Magdalena Leibowitz – sister

Magdalena (Magdolna/Lenka/Lenke) Leibowitz/Toman/Goldberger - (20th January 1913, Sobrance – 21st April 1999, USA) was Toman's sister. She was arrested in October together with her aunt and was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was then sent into several other camps until she ended up in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she was freed by the British army. Her health at that point was in a poor state and required hospitalization in a Swedish hospital, where she recovered and was subsequently sent back to Prague where her brother Zdeněk Toman lived. It was in Prague that she met her sister Aranka. She changed her own name to Lenka Toman and married Simon Leibovitz. In 1949 she managed to leave Czechoslovakia and get to her brother Ármin Goldberger in Venezuela's Caracas. They lived in Venezuela and eventually got Venezuelan citizenship in 1952. They moved on 24th April 1966 from Maiquetia (Venezuela) to New York, USA. She died on 21st April 1999 and is buried in Santa Barbara, California.

Aranka Roznicuk – sister

Aranka (Aurelie) Roznicuk/Goldberger - (4th April 1918, Sobrance – 21st April 1999, Venezuela) was Toman's sister. After finishing elementary school she went on to to graduate from a commercial course in Uzhhorod. She worked in a local store, subsequently got to Uzhorod and later into Budapest. It was in Budapest where she got arrested and was sent to the Sipa Riga concentration camp, and later on to the Bačka camp in proximity of the Yugolavian border. From there she was transported on 9th August 1944 with other prisoners to the Stutthof concentration camp near the Polish port city of Gdańsk. The camp was soon evacuated as the Red Army was drawing near and a death march followed. Aranka was freed by the Russian army in eastern Prussia and she set on course for Warsaw and then to Sobrance, but she did not find any survivors of her family there. Eventually she moved to Uzhhorod, where her brother Zdeněk Toman found her and brought her to his new home in Košice and later to Prague. Aranka worked in Prague for the Ministry of Social Services. She met Imrich Rosenberg, an officer of the repatriation commission under the Ministry of Social Security. They married under Jewish law on October 2nd 1945. Her brother Zdeněk Toman was arrested and she was arrested after him a day later on April 28th 1948. Aranka Rosenberg was kept in prison until her trial on 23rd June 1949. She was charged with illegal trading of foreign currencies and of fraudulent activity and was convicted to fifteen years in prison coupled with forced hard labor. Her appeal on April 3rd 1950 was dismissed, and she was released after serving thirteen years. Her husband Imrich divorced her in 1954 and married Truda Osterman in Ottawa, Canada. Aranka moved to Venezuela to join her brothers. She later returned to Czechoslovakia and actively searched for her nephew Ivan Toman to no avail. She lived in Venezuela and remarried. Together with her husband she founded the business company “Eksa” which sold smaller products to Ármin's “Gexim” company. Aranka died on 21st April 1999. Her husband died in Venezuela and was buried at a Jewish cemetery.

Brother-in-law

Izák Rosenberg (Itzhak; Imrich; Imre) (May 17th 1913, Nové Mesto nad Váhom in Slovakia – 1986). His father Samuel Moshe (known as Maurice) worked in furniture business in Nové mesto. He had two sons, Imrich and Abraham (who was known as Adulo). Imrich finished elementary school and high school in Nové Mesto. He was actively engaged in a zionist student's movement. He graduated in law at a university in Bratislava, and worked various jobs in “Maccabi Hatzair” organization in Czechoslovakia. His articles were published in various zionist publications in Czechoslovakia. Prior to the second world war he visited Palestine. He continued his studies in the Hague (in Holland), where his focus was upon the rights of minorities. He spent second world war in England, where he worked in the Czechoslovakia government-in-exile on behalf of Jewish interests. After the war was over he moved back to liberated Czechoslovakia and was instated as a member of the repatriation commission. Later on he moved to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His openly zionist ideas were causing him problems in government positions. He openly spoke in favor of the Jewish community. On October 2nd 1945 he married Aranka Goldberger, Zoltan Toman's sister, in Prague. He quit working for the government and moved on to working in the private sector. He worked at several companies until he ended up working for a company called “Joint and Co.”. He often traveled abroad as a part of his job. His last trip was to Belgium. During the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, he was in Brussels. He never returned to Czechoslovakia where he was wanted by the police, and left for London. He stayed in London to try and find out what became of his wife back in Czechoslovakia. In the meantime she was sentenced to fifteen years in prison coupled with forced hard labor. Isaac Rosenberg was sentenced in a trial in absentia to a life sentence of forced labor and loss of all assets. He decided to move to Canada where he arrived with no finances whatsoever, and had to scrape by. Later on he started to get into real estate and eventually even joined the academia. He divorced his wife while she was still in a Communist prison in Czechoslovakia in 1954. Later on he married a psychologist Truda Osterman in Ottawa, Canada. They lived in Israel and later on moved to Canada. He died in 1986.

In culture

Zelig Goldberger alias Zdeněk Toman was the central character of a movie named Toman of the director Ondřej Trojan.

Links

Notes

1. Dürich square was named after Joseph Dürich and it kept this name up until the year 1940. During the second world war (under the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia) it was renamed from 1940 to 1945 into Scharnhorst square, after the Prussian general Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst. After liberation of Czechoslovakia the square was renamed back to Dürich square. However from 1947 up until present day this place in Prague 6-Bubeneč has been renamed to Svoboda square.
2. Adress of the house where the Tomans lived in May 1948 is listed as “house 728/2 on Dürich square in Prague”. It is most likely a building called the Glass Palace, known under the nickname “Skleňák” which is allegedly one of the highest quality pre-war residential buildings in Prague. It is (as per the year 2018) located at the Prague 6-Bubeneč adress, Svoboda square number 728/1. The building is on the list of protected cultural monuments of the Czech republic. Living in the both now and back then luxurious house would by adequate to JUDr. Zdeněk Toman's status as an officer of the Ministry of Interior in high places from 1945 to 1948.
3. Sobrance (in Hungarian as Szobránc or Szobráncz; in German Sobranz) - is today (2018) a district city in the southeast Slovakia in Košice region.
4. According to some sources it was during his studies in Prague where Zdeněk changed his surname to Toman. According to other sources however it only took place in the exile in London during the second world war.
5. Another source lists that Toman worked for a company by the name of “Czech Refugee Trust” while in England, which was directly established by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). The company was where it was decided which of the Czechs would get a British entry visa.
6. The second world war brought German occupation and a massacre of the Jewish community to Kielce. The Jewish community made up almost a third of the local population. The end of the second world war however did not mean an end to suffering. On July 4th 1946 the Kielce pogrom took place, where out of the initiative of the Provisional Polish National Council 37 Jews were massacred.
7. Lieutenant colonel Jindřich Veselý (12th July 1906 – 20th March 1964) was an employee of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from the year 1933. He was imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp from 1939 to 1945. After the end of the second world war he worked as a member of the Sbor národní bezpečnosti (SNB). He was the commander of StB from 1948 to 1950 (as head of the I. department of the Ministry of interior). He attempted suicide on 5th March 1950 but failed. His second attempt upon being removed from the office of the director of the Institue of the History of Socialism, he attempted to take his own life again, this time successfully, on 19th (20th) March 1964.
8. The funeral home of Antonín Semerád arranged a class 3 funeral for Pavla Toman. In the column “ashes retrieved by” was written “Do not hand out! Notify police in Vinohrady”.
9. Captain Alois Samec (* 12th December 1909 – 16th April 1968) was a member of the KSČ from 1929. He fought in the Spanish civil war from 1936 to 1939. He was tasked - as a political journalist of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia - to observe the followup fallout and “their attempts to influence politics of the National front”. In 1949 he directed the intelligence offensive against Austria and Germany. In October 1950 he was reassigned at the age of 41 to a paratrooper unit in the army. Samec was later tasked by the Minister for National Defence Ladislav Kopřiva to gather materials for the “Bezpečnost” case. Alois Samec was a commander for the I. sector from March 1951, and was released in April 1952.