There was a Hungarian passenger on board the Titanic

According to origo.hu, the current view is that there was neither a Hungarian survivor nor a victim in the tragedy of Titanic. The Explorer Society Foundation holds that the only Hungarian there was Dr. Arpad Lengyel, the ambulance doctor of the steamer Carpathia, which saved the passengers of the sunken ship.

However, there is a name on the passengers’ total list of Encyclopedia Titanica. Mr. Leopold Weisz, who did not survive the tragedy, is listed among the English passengers. His name (the letters ‘s’ and ‘z’ in his last name) suggests he had Hungarian roots.

Leopold Weisz was born around 1875 in Veszprém, Hungary, but he moved to England at the age of 19 to study crafts. There he married the Belgian Mathilde Francoise Pede. Soon he immigrated to Canada in 1911, and returned to the United Kingdom only to get her wife as well. Because of a coal strike they were directed from the steamer Lusitania to Titanic, origo.hu wrote.

Weisz took his savings – 21 kg of gold (worth 15000 USD) – as well. Mathilde was anxious on the whole day of the catastrophe. His husband thought that her distress was caused by the iciness of the sea.

The wife survived the disaster, but Leopold Weisz died. After his dead body was found Mathilde received the gold and started a new life in Montreal. She married again and spent her whole life in Canada.

Leopold Weisz was buried in the Baron de Hirsch Memorial Park in Montreal. According to origo.hu different sources show different birth dates. Many Canadian sources call Weisz the “Hungarian-born stonemason from England”.

He was listed on the British passenger list, since he was a British citizen at the time of the tragedy. He was 19 years old when he left Hungary, and his nationality was definitely Hungarian at the time, origo.hu wrote.

Copy editor: bm

Source: http://www.origo.hu