Nicolae Hönigsberg (also known as Miklós Kinigli; 28 August 1901 – 8 December 1944) was a Romanian

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

of Hungarian and

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

ethnicity. He competed in the men's tournament at the

1924 Summer Olympics The 1924 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the VIII Olympiad () and officially branded as Paris 1924, were an international multi-sport event held in Paris, France. The opening ceremony was held on 5 July, but some competitions had al ...

Club career

Nicolae Hönigsberg was born on 28 August 1901 in

Nagyvárad Oradea (, , ; ; ) is a city in Romania, located in the Crișana region. It serves as the administrative county seat, seat of Bihor County and an economic, social, and cultural hub in northwestern Romania. The city lies between rolling hills on ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

(today Oradea in

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

), starting to play football at local club,

CA Oradea Club Atletic Oradea (Nagyváradi Atlétikai Club) (), commonly known as CA Oradea (Nagyváradi AC), or simply as CAO (NAC), is a Romanian Association football, football club based in Oradea, Bihor County, which competes in the Liga IV. The team ...

for whom he appeared in 49 league matches and scored 19 goals. His biggest performance with Oradea was reaching the

1923–24 Divizia A The 1923–24 Divizia A was the twelfth season of Divizia A, the top-level football league of Romania. Participating teams Final Tournament of Regions Preliminary round Quarter-finals 1 Brașovia failed to appear, so it lost the g ...

final where they lost 4–1 in front of

Chinezul Timișoara Chinezul Timișoara was a football club that played both in the Romanian and the Hungarian championship during its existence. It was based in Timișoara, Romania (at the time of foundation Temesvár, Austria-Hungary). History The club was establ ...

. By the late 1920s he played for Haggibor Cluj, the team of the city's Jewish community.

International career

Nicolae Hönigsberg was used all the minutes by coach

Teofil Morariu Teofil is a Polish and Romanian given name, a form of Theophilus. Notable people with the given name: *Teofil Żebrawski (1800–1887), Polish mathematician, bibliographer, architect, biologist, archeologist, cartographer and geodesist *Teofil Adam ...

in the first official match of Romania's national team at the 1922 King Alexander's Cup, against

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

which ended with a 2–1 win in which he had a praised performance by the press. He appeared in a total of six games for the national team, the last one being a 6–0 loss in front of

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

at the first round of the

. In January 1932, the ''

Gazeta Sporturilor Gazeta Sporturilor () is a Romanian sports website, originally founded in 1924 as a daily newspaper. It was the third-oldest daily newspaper in Europe, with 99 years of uninterrupted publication, before issuing its last edition on 31 October 2023. ...

'' newspaper made a series of articles in which it was analyzed who were the best players of Romania's national team in its first 10 years of activity and Hönigsberg was considered the third best midfielder, being described as:"Finally, the third great midfielder who operated in the national team was Hönigsberg from Oradea, known in the sports world as Kinigli. Without having the physique of

Vogl VOGL is a debugger for the OpenGL rendering API intended to be used in the development of video games. VOGL was originally written at RAD Game Tools and Valve. VOGL is free and open-source software subject to the terms of the MIT License. Desc ...

or Steinbach, he surpassed them with his colossal breath and the extraordinary activity he carried out during the game, which he contested with determination. He was nevertheless one of the fairest players and enjoyed remarkable popularity. On the whole, however, he was inferior to both Vogl and Steinbach." ::''Scores and results table. Romania's goal tally first:''

Personal life and death

After he ended his playing career, Nicolae Hönigsberg worked as a

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

Cluj Cluj-Napoca ( ; ), or simply Cluj ( , ), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (), Budapest () and Belgrade ( ...

, then in 1935 he was a

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

. Because of his Jewish origins, Hönigsberg was taken to the

Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 f ...

in 1944, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, being one of the

Holocaust victims Nazi Germany discriminated against and persecuted people on the basis of their race or ethnicity (actual or perceived), religious affiliation, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and, where applicable, mental or physical disabilities. Di ...

, dying on 8 December, aged 43.

Honours

CA Oradea *

Divizia A Liga I (; ''First League''), also spelled as Liga 1 and officially known as SuperLiga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Romania and the highest level of the Romanian football league system. Contested by 1 ...

runner-up: 1923–24

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Honigsberg, Nicolae 1901 births 1944 deaths Footballers from Oradea Romanian men's footballers Hungarian men's footballers Romania men's international footballers Olympic footballers for Romania Men's association football midfielders Liga I players Club Atletic Oradea players Footballers at the 1924 Summer Olympics Romanian Jews who died in the Holocaust Romanian civilians killed in World War II Romanian people who died in Nazi concentration camps People who died in Mauthausen concentration camp 20th-century Romanian sportsmen 20th-century Hungarian sportsmen