Egon Mayer (December 23, 1944 – January 30, 2004) was a Swiss-born American sociologist and professor at
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus.
Being New York City's first publ ...
. He wrote a number of books on Jewish culture and history, including ''From Suburb to Shtetl'' (1979), ''The Court Jew: A Contribution to the History of Absolutism in Europe'' (1984), and ''Love and Tradition: Marriage Between Jews and Christians'' (1985).
Mayer was born in
Caux, Switzerland
Caux (Montreux) is a small village in the Canton of Vaud, Switzerland which is part of the Montreux municipality. It looks out over Lake Geneva from an altitude of 1000 meters.
Overlooked by the Rochers de Naye summit (2000 meters), the Caux are ...
to Eugen Mayer (born in 1914 in
Komárno
Komárno, ( hu, Komárom, german: Komorn, sr, Коморан, translit=Komoran), colloquially also called ''Révkomárom, Öregkomárom, Észak-Komárom'' in Hungarian language, Hungarian; is a town in Slovakia at the confluence of the Danube an ...
,
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
; now
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
), and Hedvig "Hedy" Mayer (also known as Haedviga Mayerová, born in 1925 in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
, then
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...
). They held Czechoslovakian citizenship at the time, as Komarno was split in 1920 by the
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon (french: Traité de Trianon, hu, Trianoni békeszerződés, it, Trattato del Trianon) was prepared at the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace Conference and was signed in the Grand Trianon château in ...
. His parents were Jews who were passengers on the
Kastner train
The Kastner train consisted of 35 cattle wagons that left Budapest on 30 June 1944, during the German occupation of Hungary, carrying over 1,600 Jews temporarily to Bergen-Belsen and safety in Switzerland after large ransom paid by Swiss Orthodo ...
during the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. Mayer's mother was pregnant with him at the time. The train left Budapest in June 1944 after Rudolf Kastner, a Hungarian lawyer, negotiated with
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concent ...
. Mayer created and maintained a website in Kastner's memory.Löb, Ladislaus. ''Rezso Kasztner''. Pimlico/Random House, 2009, p. 133. Mayer, Egon. Mayer's family returned to Budapest when the war ended, then immigrated to the United States in 1956. Mayer studied at
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus.
Being New York City's first publ ...
(
City University of New York
The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...
) and the
New School for Social Research
The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...
, obtaining his Ph.D in sociology in 1975 from
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...
.
Death
Mayer died on January 30, 2004, aged 59, from cancer of the gall bladder, in
Laurel Hollow, New York
Laurel Hollow is a village in the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on the North Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 1,952 at the 2010 census. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Laurel Hollow was the eighth ...
. He was survived by his mother, his wife and their three daughters.