LA Times Obituary
20 February 2000
Agnes Victoria Linhardt (née Breuer) passed away on January 21, 2000, a victim of cancer. The first child of Miklos Breuer (1904-1944) of Ujfeherto, Hungary and Cecilia Fischmann (1907-1997) of Beregszasz, Hungary (now Ukraine). Agi was born on March 30, 1931 in Budapest. She led a happy childhood, adored by her father. She spent her summers in Ujfeherto with her loving grandparents Ferenc & Mali, until rising anti-Semitism leading to the Holocaust increasingly began to affect her daily life. In 1942, when Agi was 11, her father was taken away to a Jewish forced labor unit on the Russian front , never to return. At age 13, Agi went to the Spanish Embassy to get protection papers, returning late when Jews were regularly shot on site for curfew violation. These papers saved her life and those of her brother, George Sarlo, and her mother. After the war, she got a degree in history in Budapest and worked as a correspondent for communist Hungarian radio. In 1952, she married Anthony Lakatos Linhardt III. During the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, Agi fled Hungary with her husband, brother, and 2 year old son, Peter. Refugees, speaking no English and with virtually no money or possessions, Agi and her family moved to Los Angeles and, starting from scratch, built rich new lives for themselves. Years after the birth of her second son, Paul, Agi went back to school and received a Masters of Library Science from UCLA in 1969, formalizing her lifelong love affair with books and literature. She went on later to become the school librarian at Crenshaw and Sylmar High Schools. After her divorce in 1972, suffering from depressions, she became an active and courageous member of Alcoholics Anonymous, not only turning around her own life through 18 years of sobriety, but generously helping her fellow AA members whenever she could. In her retirement, she traveled with her man, Daniel Wilner, all over the world and wrote her memoirs*. Agi led a rich and active life, loving and being loved by her friends, family and grandchildren, Alex and Katie. She will be missed. RIP Westwood Village Memorial Park.
* Agi's memoirs are available online at http://members.aol.com/linhardt/Agistory/
9 September 2002; pml