About us

The thought of creating the webstore was the idea of Lucy Braun in the last year of her life. Her greatest desire of her life was to preserve the treasure of her life work for posterity. She spoke of her life as follows:

„I am a survivor of the Holocaust in Hungary. My whole life with my husband (Tibor Braun, pharmacist) has been devoted to help the Jewish community in the world. The Jewish motifs that appear on ceramics and textile were created based on my own ideas. Part of my work is exhibited in the Israel Museum of Jerusalem.

I donated pieces of my work to The Museum of Hungarian Speaking Jewry, based in the town of C'vat (Safed), where they welcomed the gifts with great joy and are dedicated to support my work to be known in Israel. My book, that contains my life story and the life of my family, is part of the collection of Yad va Shem Memorial Museum in Israel. A lot of my synagogue embroidery can be seen in a lot of synagogues in Budapest.

The products you can see here are essential accesories of Shabat and the Special Days of the Jewish year. The famous «Herendi» motifs were created by the help of the Herendi Porcelain Factory, which were manufactured by the Kiskunhalas Home Industrial Cooperative. The other main decorative element is the «haban» motives which appear on ceramics. These famous industrial art elements combine with the symbols of jewish traditions. 

I worked for the Dohány street synagogue in Budapest for 27 years. One of the most personal piece of my life work is the tree of life with the small birds, which I created for the first anniversary of my sister’s death: because trees live forever and shine their light towards us.

The last chapter of my life work is  the «Dreambird» based on the well-known Hungarian hasidic Jewish melody called: „The rooster is calling, dawn is coming”  I am talking about this in the film: Lucy’s Dreambird.

One of my latest work is a wedding canopy at the request of Bethlen synagogue in Budapest. (It can be seen in the film: Lucy Braun’s book). At my request, it was made with the precondition that poor people, if they want to get married, can use this canopy without payment. This is a moving canopy, it can be taken to synagogues and hotels, everyone can use."

The history of Lucy Braun’s life and her work can be seen in the videos quated above, which were created by Miklós Bánki (see on Start page).

After the death of Lucy Braun ont he 6th of May, 2021, two of us took over the realizasion and operation of Lucy’s webstore.

My name is Sylvia Bano, Lucy Braun was the younger sister of my grandmother. I studied in the Lauder Javne Secondary School. After I studied special educaton. Later I also took care of the elderly for a while. Meanwhile I completed a painting estimator training. I have always had strong Jewish identity and I have been interested in Jewish culture, literature and arts. Lucy intriduced me into the process of setting up the websture, which I gladly accepted. Lucy told me that his older brother, Pista (Steve) said of himself: „I was born a Jew, I was raised as a Jew, I will remain one”. Although I was not raised religious or according to the Jewish traditions but I also confess: I am Jewish and remain one.

My name is Andrea Simonyi. Lucy Braun honored me to involve me in her personal correspondance with her English speaking friends, after I created the English subtitles of the films on her life. Thus I came to know her world-wide network of friends. My work has been focussed on helping the Chrisitan world to face the wounds Christianity caused to the Jewish people in her history, first of all in the Holocaust. This is how I came to know many of the survivors of the Shoah. I was a teacher of Sandor Scheiber Jewish school for 10 years. The example of their lives impacted me deeply. I am happy to part in preserving the rich inheritance of Lucy.