ETKK Portraits (Part 1): Baroness Kriszta Bánffy

Baroness Krisztina Bánffy, came into the world in 1943 in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár). Her father was Baron József Bánffy, and her mother was Baroness Mária Wesselényi. She was one of five siblings.

Her childhood was overshadowed by wartime displacement, after which life continued in the Wesselényi Castle in Hadad (Hodod). Following the family’s forced relocation, they—like many other aristocratic families—were sent into compulsory residence at the end of Dónát Street in Cluj. Her youth was marked by hardships: humiliations at school, limited job opportunities, and the deportation of the family’s patriarch first to a forced labor camp and later to prison.

Krisztina Bánffy remembers vividly every member of the aristocratic community in Cluj. Alongside family and work responsibilities, she considered it her duty to visit and care for elderly noble acquaintances.

She shared her recollections with us in an almost two-hour video—here you can watch a shortened selection.