Mother’s Best Holiday Gift Is Daughter She Lost in ’44

A 45-year search spanning three continents came to a happy ending as a Hungarian woman spent Christmas with a daughter who until two months ago believed her mother was dead.

Clara Toth, 69, of Burbank, had been searching for her daughter Marietta since she was kidnaped at age 4 by Toth’s estranged husband in their native Budapest.

Marietta, whose last name is Bonta de Esser, flew from her home near Caracas, Venezuela, to spend the holiday in Toth’s gaily decorated Burbank townhouse, an arrangement agreed upon when they were reunited in October. Bonta de Esser’s husband and two children--Toth’s newly discovered grandchildren--were to fly in late Christmas Day.

In the 45-year interim, Bonta de Esser has changed from a pretty girl, all smiles and blonde curls, to a tall, soft-spoken psychologist of 49.

“This Christmas, I got gift from God,” said Toth, 69, blinking back tears. “On Christmas, not everyone can get such a gift.

“My feeling was through 45 years that she was alive and I was just nonstop searching for her year after year,” said Toth, who has a thick Hungarian accent. “Not one moment did I give up.”

“It’s the birthday of a new life for me,” said her daughter, smiling softly.

The event that would change their lives occurred Oct. 14, 1944, Toth said. Then a 24-year-old actress, Toth left her daughter with her housekeeper and went to the theater to rehearse a play. She returned to find that her estranged husband, a pilot, had taken the girl. Police were no help, nor were her husband’s relatives, Toth recalled.

A few days later, the Germans and Soviets began bombing Budapest. Toth spent the next three months in a bomb shelter wondering if her daughter was dead and whether she would ever see her again. All she had were a few black and white photos of herself and her daughter, Toth said.

“It was heartbreaking Christmas in 1944,” said Toth. “I almost died. It was a terrible scary feeling.”

Bonta de Esser, meanwhile, grew up believing her father’s statements that her mother had died in the bombing in Budapest, she said. He took her to Paris and Venezuela, where she attended convent schools.

“I was sad I had no mother. The nuns told me I was always crying because I wanted to have a mother, sisters, brother and family,” said Bonta de Esser, speaking with a thick accent of her own, a Spanish one. “I had no picture. My father never told me anything about her.”

Toth, meanwhile, advertised in newspapers all over the world and sought help from the Red Cross. She remarried and moved to the United States but visited Budapest every few years, searching in vain for someone who knew her daughter’s whereabouts.

Her former sister-in-law resisted entreaties, money and other attempts to learn the whereabouts of Toth’s daughter. “She said, ‘No, I promised my brother,’ ” Toth said.

In July, the Toths returned to Hungary and discovered that the sister-in-law had died two years ago, having first burned letters from her brother, who also died that year. But a maid, bribed with $50, produced three empty 28-year-old envelopes that listed a post office box in Caracas. The maid had kept the envelopes for her son, who collected stamps.

Back in Los Angeles, Toth finally found a friend of a friend with a relative in Caracas. In October, the friend called Toth to say she had her daughter’s address and phone number.

“I thought I died that moment. I went to pieces,” Toth recalled. But her exhilaration faded when she learned her daughter had moved several years ago.

Toth told her story to a kind-hearted operator, who connected her immediately to a home outside Caracas. The woman who answered the phone said her name was Marietta. After first finding a language they both speak--English--Toth asked: “Do you know who you are talking to? I am your mother,’ ” said Toth.

“No, no, no. My mother died 45 years ago,” Bonta de Esser replied.

But when Toth said her maiden name--Weidmann--Bonta de Esser cried that that was her own middle name. Just then, the line went dead, and Toth agonized that she had been too abrupt in her introduction. Toth said she called the operator and begged her to reconnect the line.

“Did you hang up on me?,” Toth asked Bonta de Esser.

“No, mamma. We were disconnected,” she replied.

“That was my first ‘mamma’ in 45 years,” said Toth, who quickly flew to Caracas for an emotional reunion.

“I just see straight to her eyes. Both of us, the tears come out,” Toth said. “I said, ‘I die 45 years ago and I reborn again now.’ ”

They promised to meet again at Christmastime in Los Angeles, but Bonta de Esser came early after Toth suffered a heart attack a few weeks ago.

“When the doctor knew my story, he said, ‘No, I don’t let you die.’ ” Toth said. “He said, ‘You have to live a little more and get some of the happiness you lost in 45 years.’ ”

Times staff writer Tracey Kaplan contributed to this story.