All of us from Novi Bečej are well acquainted with the beautiful two-story building with an Einfort (arched passage) entrance on the main street, located between the Miloje Čiplić Elementary School and the Sakač family house. Today, on the ground floor of this building, to the left of the entrance, there is a commercial space (formerly the Trocadero café), while on the right is the headquarters of the Tourist Organization of the Municipality of Novi Bečej.
On the floor above the café are the offices of the Local Community Council, while above the Tourist Organization are the premises of the Directorate for Planning, Construction, Settlement Maintenance, and Environmental Protection.
This building is known to our fellow citizens as the Pulai House. It was built by the Pulai (Pulay) family, wealthy landowners originally from Transylvania (Erdély), in the mid-19th century. Their properties, including houses, arable land, meadows, pastures, and forests, were primarily located in that part of Hungary, with only a small portion in Novi Bečej.
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the house was home to Roman Pulay and his wife Amalia Oberbigler (Oberbiegler), along with their daughters Amalia and Edita. The girls were educated at the Turskobečej People's School. The elder, Amalia¹, volunteered as a nurse after the opening of the auxiliary hospital (Lazaret) in 1914. After the death of their father Roman and mother Amalia, and following the end of the Great War, Edita left Novi Bečej, while Amalia married Veliček Stanislav and remained in the large house.
The Pulai family were patrons of various cultural and humanitarian efforts. Mrs. Pulai, Romana, was one of the founders of the Red Cross in Turski Bečej and donated two stained glass windows to the Roman Catholic Church in our town.
Worth mentioning is also the construction of a chapel at the Roman Catholic cemetery in 1861, dedicated to Saint Catherine. It was intended to be a family ossuary for the Pulai family; however, no one was ever buried there. On a stone plaque located on the outer wall of the rear part of the chapel, the names of the builders—Daniel Kresman and Emerich Pulay—are inscribed in German.
The chapel is a single-nave structure of harmonious proportions, conceived in the Gothic spirit, with a bell tower above the entrance and a semicircular apse at the opposite end. The facades are adorned with niches and pilaster strips. Above the entrance is a scene of the Crucifixion, and two shallow niches with crosses complement the decoration of the front façade. The interior is divided into two bays and an altar area, separated by pointed arches resting on consoles and pilasters².
According to the accounts of our elderly locals—Janoš Harča (Harcsa János), Eržebet Santo (Szántó Erzsébet), and Margita Bito (Bitó Margit)—we learn that the original painting of Saint Catherine was kept in the chapel until the early 1950s. During those years, the chapel was neglected, and the ravages of time left visible marks. It was also broken into several times, so much so that the doors could no longer close properly. It was frequently looted. Janoš, Eržebet, and Margita confirmed that the painting of Saint Catherine had not been seen in the chapel since 1960. According to Janoš Harča, around that time the painting was moved to the Church of Saint Clare for safekeeping. However, it was lost from there as well.
After many years of neglect, the chapel was at risk of collapsing. At the initiative of priest Mihalj Kovač (1926–2011) and Janoš Šoti, and with permission from the heirs, the chapel was restored in 2000. A significant role in organizing and collecting funds for the renovation was played by longtime municipal official and socio-political worker Đerđ Bordaš. Funding came not only from churchgoers and the Roman Catholic Church, but also from private companies and social organizations. The restoration project was created by the architectural bureau of Andraš Fabijan, who also supervised the works.
The chapel’s interior, although modestly furnished, is very beautiful. Opposite the entrance is an altar above which now hangs a large painting of the Coronation of the Virgin Mary. This artwork was transferred from the Church of Saint Clare (previously located on the balcony near the choir) after the chapel's renovation. Another valuable painting depicts Saint Anthony of Padua. New benches are placed on the left and right sides of the interior, as the original ones had disappeared. The chapel’s bell, used during Catholic burials, was brought from the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Clare in Novi Bečej.
Since the chapel’s restoration, Catholic faithful regularly visit it on feast days marked in red in the Catholic calendar, bringing flowers and commemorating the holidays with prayer and song.
¹ Pulai Amalia, affectionately known to locals as Aunt Lilika (Lili néni), had three children: Veliček Pubika, Andraš, and Kitika (Kitti). In the 1970s, Kitika moved with her sons Palika and Endre from Romania to West Germany. In the early 21st century, the Romanian government returned a significant portion of the family's estate and properties through restitution. Pulay Amalia was born in Turski Bečej on February 17, 1898. She spent her final days with her daughter Kitika in West Germany.
² S. Bakić, Architectural Heritage in the Municipality of Novi Bečej, Materials for the Study of Cultural Monuments of Vojvodina XX, Novi Sad, 1999, pp. 9–54; Documentation of the Provincial Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Novi Sad.
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