Andor Beretvás / Andreas Bottenstein

• Born on: 8.11.1900
• Birthplace: Budapest
• Category: Doctorate program
• Right of domicile: Budapest (Budapest), Hungary
• Citizenship: Hungary

The English version is based on a translation by artificial intelligence. The authentic version is the German version.

Background and Education

Andreas Bottenstein, who Magyarized his name to Andor Beretvás in August 1935, was the son of Gyula, an engineer from Budapest (also known as Julius Andor, born June 13, 1869, in the then-Hungarian, now-Slovak municipality of Rakovec nad Ondavou, the son of Moricz and Malvine Bottenstein), and Malvine Bottenstein (born October 7, 1876; died November 11, 1929, in Budapest; maiden name Guttmann). His parents were married on January 25, 1900, in Budapest. Andreas/Andor had one sister, Erzsébet (1901–1976).

After attending a high school in Budapest, Andreas Bottenstein enrolled at the Vienna University for World Trade. Including the preparatory course for high school graduates, he was enrolled there for the diploma program from the 1920–21 academic year through the summer semester of 1922. On December 1, 1922, he successfully completed the diploma program. During his studies, Andreas Bottenstein lived at Gentzgasse 130/6 (18th district of Vienna). After the Austrian federal government had established a solid legal basis for the title of Diplomkaufmann in March 1936 with the so-called Diplomkaufmannsverordnung, he was permitted to officially use this title in July of the same year. A year later, after passing the relevant examination in Budapest, he was appointed a certified expert in accounting. By this time at the latest, he had converted to the Roman Catholic faith.

Nevertheless, the National Socialists continued to regard Andor Beretvás as Jewish. Consequently, in the wake of racist persecution following Austria’s “Anschluss” to the German Reich (March 1938), he was denied the opportunity to complete his doctoral studies, for which he had been enrolled—with intermittent breaks—at the University for World Trade between the winter semester of 1932–33 and the winter semester of 1936–37. After Beretvás had submitted his dissertation on the topic Hamburg, Triest und Gdingen. Eine Gegenüberstellung [Hamburg, Trieste, and Gdynia. A Comparison] for review by Professors Bruno Dietrich and Hermann Leiter and had failed the first oral examination twice in 1937, he was denied the opportunity to continue his efforts to earn the degree of Doctor of Commercial Sciences under the Nazi regime with the terse “reasoning”: “Since he is of Mosaic descent [,] he is not admitted to further examinations.”

Emigration to the United States

By the time the University for World Trade added this note to his academic records in late January 1942, Beretvás had long been in exile in the United States of America. With his wife Illona Maria Aloysia (also known as Helen or Helene, born February 16, 1907, in Budapest, maiden name Sellei), whom he had married on August 24, 1935, in Budapest, Andor departed from the southern English port of Southampton on April 8, 1939, aboard the S.S. Bremen, operated by Norddeutscher Lloyd, to the United States. Six days later, the couple arrived at Ellis Island (New York), where the U.S. immigration authorities were located; their visas had been issued on March 14, 1939, in the Hungarian capital.

The fact that anti-Semitism was on the rise not only in the German Reich—which, following the “Anschluss,” also included Austria—but also in Hungary likely played a role in the decision to emigrate. For example, the Hungarian government established a numerus clausus for the Jewish population in certain economic sectors through the so-called “Jewish Laws” and restricted the right to vote for Jews. The introduction of forced-labor battalions specifically for Jewish men—whose deployment to the front lines during World War II claimed the life, for example, of former student Georg Stern, is an expression of the worsening situation for Jews in the Kingdom of Hungary. Faced with these sometimes life-threatening developments, the Beretvás family managed to flee to safety in the United States.

Just a few months after her arrival, her son Andrew Francis was born (born September 11, 1939, in Los Angeles; died July 31, 2023, in Woodridge, Illinois), who later earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and worked for many years as a physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a research center for particle physics near Chicago.

In 1942, Andor—who was considered unemployed at the time and lived with his family at 1928 North Normandy Avenue in Los Angeles—was registered with the U.S. Army.There is no evidence that he actually served in the armed forces. It is also unknown when he moved to Canada with his family. In any case, the Beretvás couple apparently immigrated to the U.S. with Andrew from Windsor (province of Ontario) on September 9, 1943, via the Detroit-Canada Tunnel (today: Detroit-Windsor Tunnel), in order to file an application for U.S. citizenship. At that time, the family was living in Chicago at 5346 South Cornell Avenue, in the so-called Cornell Towers Hotel. Also on September 9, 1943, Andor’s mother-in-law, Margit Eve Sellei (born April 21, 1878, in Budapest; died 1950; maiden name Schwarz), entered the United States from Windsor via the Detroit-Canada Tunnel into Detroit. She had traveled with her husband, the dermatologist and chief physician Josef Balint Sellei (born September 11, 1871, in the city of Temesvar/Timișoara, then part of Hungary and now in Romania), on October 14, 1938, from Bremen aboard the S.S. Europa, which was also operated by the Norddeutscher Lloyd shipping company, to New York; Andor’s parents-in-law, who had married in Budapest on August 4, 1900, arrived there on October 20, 1938. Like Andor, Helen, and Andrew Beretvás, Margit and Josef Sellei also stayed at the Cornell Towers Hotel. Josef, however, died in 1943; he was not granted American citizenship.

In the postwar period

The naturalization applications of Andor, Helen, and Margit, in contrast, were approved after World War II. Thus, on January 25, 1949, Helen, her widowed mother, and Andor were able to take the oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution before the Chicago District Court; from that point on, they were U.S. citizens. At that time, the Beretvás family lived at 6832 South Paxton Avenue in Chicago. Andor’s family and his mother-in-law thus survived World War II. The same is true for Andor’s sister, who had married Árpád Solyom in 1928 and was the mother of two daughters (Zsuzsi and Daisy): Erzsébet died in Budapest in 1976. However, this was not the case for Andor and Erzsébet’s father: Gyula Bottenstein died in Budapest on December 5, 1944—nearly three-quarters of a year after the German Wehrmacht had occupied Hungary and the German occupiers had murdered some 500,000 Jews by the end of the war.

At least during the first half of the 1950s, Andor Beretvás published several articles in The Accountant Review, an American journal specializing in accounting issues. At that time, he was working in management at various American hotel companies.

His wife, who had earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Budapest in 1931 and had worked as chief chemist at the major Hungarian petroleum and chemical company Lardoline Ltd., was also able to establish a successful career in the United States. Between 1942 and 1947, she was in charge of the research and development laboratory at the Nox-Rust Chemical Company (now Daubert Chemical Company) in Chicago, which produced anti-corrosion agents for ships and artillery for the U.S. Navy during World War II. She then joined the research department of the American Oil Company in Whiting, south of Chicago, where she remained until 1963. Within this major American petroleum corporation, she was eventually entrusted with leading the lubricants research department. In addition, she published—under her maiden name, it should be noted—the results of scientific research and filed patents—also under her married name and, in some cases, jointly with colleagues—on issues related to corrosion protection as well as petroleum-based lubricants and specialty products. Even in the 21st century, an essay she published in 1949 on this topic in the journal Petroleum Processing is still regarded as “one of the most fruitful sources for the period before 1950” (Rossrucker/Fessenbecker 2009, p. 253).

Andreas Bottenstein respectively Andor Beretvás who was described in the Chicago Tribune as a former management consultant and capital markets analyst for the private health insurance company Bankers Life and Casualty Co., died on October 26, 1972, at the age of 71 in Chicago, Illinois. Four days later, he was buried at the Catholic Calvary Cemetery in Evanston, a town north of Chicago. His wife, Helen, was laid to rest in the same grave after she died on June 30, 1996.

Author: Johannes Koll
Research support: Katharina Graf

Source material

Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Universitätsarchiv, Studierendenkarteikarten und Diplomprüfungsliste.
Geni.com: Eintrag von Marion Fellenzer zu Andor Beretvás/Bottenstein, http://www.geni.com/people/Andor-Beretvas/371189680570011049 [Stand: 27. August 2007, abgerufen 24. September 2026].
Ancestry.com: Einträge zu Gyula Bottenstein und Malvine Guttmann in Stammbäumen von Allan Pinkus, http://www.ancestry.com [22. September 2026].
MyHeritage.at: Stammbäume zu Gyula und Malvine Bottenstein, http://www.myheritage.at /" rel="nofollow">http://www.myheritage.at / [26. September 2026].
Geni.com: Eintrag von Marion Fellenzer zu Erzsébet Bottenstein, http://www.geni.com/people/Erzs%C3%A9bet-Bottenstein/6000000007511536544 [Stand: 22. August 2007, abgerufen 24. September 2026].
MyHeritage.at: Stammbäume zu Erzsébet Solyom (Bottenstein), http://www.myheritage.at /" rel="nofollow">http://www.myheritage.at / [29. September 2026].
Andor Beretvás: Hamburg, Triest und Gdingen. Eine Gegenüberstellung, Inauguraldissertation Hochschule für Welthandel 1937, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Universitätsbibliothek, Sign. 40618-C.
Wikipedia: Foto von der S.S. Bremen 1939 in der Wesermündung, Copyright: Wolfgang Fricke, zugeschnitten nach https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Bremen_IMO_5606989_P_Bremerhaven_1939rev.jpg [24. September 2026].
MyHeritage.com: Ellis Island Passagierliste und andere New York Passagierlisten, 1820-1957 zur Einwanderung von Andor und Helene Beretvás in die USA, http://www.myheritage.at /" rel="nofollow">http://www.myheritage.at / [22. September 1939], nach: National Archives and Records Administration (Washington, D.C.): Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957, National Archives Microfilm Publication T715, roll 6313: Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Record Group 85.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Hrsg.): Holocaust Enzyklopädie: Der Holocaust in Ungarn, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/de/article/the-holocaust-in-hungary [Stand: 17. Oktober 2025, abgerufen 25. September 2026].
Ancestry.com: Eintrag zu Andrew Francis Beretvas in Stammbäumen von Allan Pinkus, http://www.ancestry.com [22. September 2026].
Ancestry.com: USA, Einberufungskarten junger Männer im 2. Weltkrieg, 1940–1947, Karte zu Andor Beretvas, http://www.ancestry.com [24. September 2026].
Geni.com: Eintrag von Andrew Francis Beretvas zu Margit Sellei, http://www.geni.com/people/Margit-Sellei-Schwarz/372458344920003513 [Stand: 29. August 2007, abgerufen 24. September 2026].
Ancestry.com: Illinois, USA, föderale Einbürgerungsregister, 1856-1991, Einwanderungsanträge von Andor und Helen Beretvás sowie Margit Sellei vom 29. November 1943 beim Bezirksgericht von Chicago, http://www.ancestry.com , [23. September 2026], nach: National Archives and Records Administration at Chicago: Petitions For Naturalization, 1906-1991, NAI-Nummer: M1285, Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009, Nr. Rg 21.
Wikipedia: Fotos zur S.S. Europa aus Meyers Blitz-Lexikon, hier nach https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(Schiff,_1930) (24. September 2026]; die Abbildung ist – auch in den USA – gemeinfrei.
MyHeritage.at: Illinois, Nördlicher Distrikt (Östliche Division), Einbürgerungskartei Andor Beretvás, http://www.myheritage.at [22. September 2026], nach: District Court for the Chicago Division of the Northern District of Illinois Petitions for Naturalization, compiled 1906-1991.
Geni.com, Eintrag von Marion Fellenzer zu Erzsébet Bottenstein, http://www.geni.com/people/Erzs%C3%A9bet-Bottenstein/6000000007511536544 [Stand: 22. August 2007, abgerufen 24. September 2026].
Andor Beretvás: Case Study in Auditing Procedure Casualty (Automobile) Insurance Company, in: The Accounting Review, Jg. 26, Nr. 1, Januar 1951, S. 80-87.
Andor Beretvás: Case Study in Auditing Procedure (Real Estate & Personal Property Tax), in: The Accounting Review, Jg. 27, Nr. 2, April 1952, S. 210-214.
Andor Beretvás: Management Contracts, Expense Sharing Agreements, And Tax Planning, in: The Accounting Review, Jg. 30, Nr. 3, Juli 1955, S. 519-521.
Helen Sellei: Lubrication and the Theory of Corrosion, in: Scientific Lubrication, Jg. 15, Ausgabe vom Dezember 1963, S. 12-17.
Helen Sellei: Evaluation of Engine Preservative Oils, 2 Teile, in: Scientific Lubrication, Jg. 1, Ausgabe vom September 1949, S. 2-6 und Ausgabe vom November 1949, S. 11-12.
Thomas Rossrucker/Achim Fessenbecker: Sulfur Carriers, in: Leslie R. Rudnick (Hrsg.): Lubricant Additives. Chemistry and Applications, 2. Aufl. Boca Raton/London/New York 2009, S. 251-279.
Chicago Tribune vom 28. Oktober 1972.
MyHeritage.com: Illinois, Erzdiözese Chicago, Friedhofsaufzeichnungen, 1864-1989 zu Andor Beretvas, http://www.myheritage.at /" rel="nofollow">http://www.myheritage.at / [22. September 2026].
Find a grave, https://de.findagrave.com/memorial/283765483/andor-beretvas [22. September 2026] zum Grab von Andor und Helene Beretvás.