A simple woman of worth, Malvin Brandler

No airs and graces for Malvin. She never pretended to be anything but what and who she was, Miklos's wife, companion, partner, and helpmate, Robert's doting mother, and loyal friend of many of the Hungarian Jewish immigrants, but in particular, my mother's Zsuzsa's. Together the two of them left the Jewish building in Bezerédi Street, reported to the brick works, marched to Lichtenwörth, the Jewish women's labour camp near Wiener Neustadt. They survived together, looked out for each other, shared their blankets, and returned to Budapest, to Bezerédi Street together. In Hungary Miklos and Malvin moved in different circles from that of my parents. They lived outside Budapest, in Pesterzsébet, Miklos had his cap making workshop, they were bikies, zoomed around the country on a motorbike with a side-cart, while my parents lived in the ninth district of Budapest, focused on leaving the country and moving to New Zealand. Malvin and my mother Zsuzsa kept in touch from time to time, and when Malvin and Miklos fled from Hungary after the 1956 uprising, they decided to come to New Zealand. They were down to earth people, with their feet firmly rooted on the ground. They worked hard and frugally and built up a modestly successful cap manufacturing business. They managed to scrape together the money to buy a modest but comfortable home. Unlike many of the other Hungarian immigrants, they were active in the Jewish community, joined B'Nai Brith, Malvin joined the Council of Jewish Women, They were pillars of the Jewish community, but they were also rocks of the circle of Hungarian immigrants, who could share their worries, anxieties, dreams and frustrations with them. They could always count on Malvin's no nonsense down-to-earth advice, often expressed in  language, colourful colloquial, bordering on the crude but friendly. Gilding the lilly was not for Malvin. Their lives and dreams were shattered when their son Robert was killed in a car accident. Miklos was so traumatized that he could never mention Robert or the tragedy. Not being able to share this with her husband was very hard on Malvin. Robert was her future, her only relative. None of her family survived. When Miklos died after a few years, was he killed by grief I don't know, Malvin had no one left. But she faced life with great courage. She never complained, never gave in to despondency, she was always there for her friends, always a tower of strength. She and my mother phoned each other every morning to make sure that they were both still alive. They shouted at each other called, each other names, shared each other's lives as only very close friends can. She was part of our family, an additional grandparent for our children. When Malvin died, peacefully, in her sleep while watching Gone with the Wind on television, with her supper tray in front of her, my mother somehow lost her will to live. A little while later my mother died. The two friends shared some of their hardest days, their joys and griefs. When Malvin passed away it was time for my mother to go. It is Malvin's yah-zeit this week. I am the only one left to say kaddish for her.