About this time someone had returned from Auschwitz. It was the frail, no longer young Eta Goldfin, who had been carted away. She was the very first person who could tell me something about Éva. "I don't know the exact date. Éva and I caught scarlet fever at the same time. We both ended up on the isolation ward at the hospital, but we haven't seen each other since. Isn't she back? I was sure she would be home by now."
I go back to sorting letters, sheets of music, the photos from the basement - trying to organize everything - when a sweet young girl comes in, Ancsi Prónai, a colleague's daughter. She had been deported - but not from Csaba. She was snatched from the streetcar in Budapest and taken to Auschwitz earlier than the Csabai people. Miraculously she managed to get away from there in May.
She knows about my sorrow. She was afraid if left completely alone, I would go insane. Ancsi, the little angel, was watching over me, trying to help. Together we look at the photographs, the wonderful memories.
She tells me: "I know Éva was in great shape. She would have recovered from the scarlet fever bout. Don't give up hope. Éva will be back." On another occasion: "Éva was so beautiful, they wouldn't mistreat her."
My work, chatting with friends and acquaintances - these were my tranquilizers. Ancsi has no idea to this day how much she helped me. I still hoped...
The second eye-witness was Vali's sister-in-law, Mrs. János Vámos - Erzsike. She was quite a bit older than Éva, very elegant even after Auschwitz.
All she knew was what Eta Golfinger had already told me - the scarlet fever. But Eta had not seen Éva after again she was taken to hospital.
"Even with her hair chopped off, she was still so beautiful." The stories about the scarlet fever and the hospital gave me a glimmer of hope.
Jucika, Károly Varga's wife dropped by . "Gyuri, I came to tell you about my dream-last night. Your wife was coming home, with her little sister. My dear grandmother reassured me too: Éva will be back:"
A colleague from Szeged, Dénes Návai, wired me. "The Csabai people are in Linz". Oh, if only it would be true.
"Éva where are you? If only I could see you!"
The next to return was Bözsi Horvath. She told me a lot. She and Éva were together in the same prison block. "We had to stay standing for hours. She collapsed. This was three weeks after our arrival. She developed a high fever and was taken to the Birkenau Hospital for contagious diseases in another section." She has not seen Éva since. Apparently, when Éva was discharged she was transferred to another camp. For a while Bözsi was able to keep an eye on Éva's little sister Lili until about August 13. Some of this group were taken to Ravensbruck. Lili was among them and has not been heard from since.
Bözsi Horvath believes in facing the facts. "When I was hospitalized on August 21 in Birkenau, Éva wasn't there any more."
I talked to Mrs. Imre Bíró, a widow, who owns a ladies' dress shop. She had just got back and had been with Éva in Auschwitz until her hospitalization. Later she and Lili were taken to Ravensbruck. Then they got separated and she lost track of Lili. She was positive that when they were brought to Auschwitz, Éva's mother was one of the first to be "choosen". She can't remember anything after these events. The few who did return to Csaba, returned without their mates - the husband without the wife - the wife mourning the husband.
Jenő Weisz was the only lucky one - his wife did get back, a quiet religious lady. She tries to comfort me. "You must have faith."
No, it was all beyond me. Even in my wildest dreams, I could not envisage the horrors of Auschwitz. It took many years before I had the courage to visit the site and face its reality. I had to see how it was schemed and connived right to the final stage - the crematory...
Bözsi Horvath recovered from scarlet fever. They must have taken Éva straight from the hospital.
,,Die Körper der verstorbenen Höftlinge werden laut Befehl vom 4. Januar 1944 mit Autos direkt ins Krematorium gebracht, die auf ihren Rundfahrten zu den Nebenlagern die Leichen zum Krematorium in Birkenau fuhren.'' (Hefte von Auschwitz 12, Verlag Staatliches Auschwitz. Museum 1970. page 130).(Documentation in German taken from the Museum of Auschwitz in 1970 regarding the transportation of the bodies to the crematory.)
In 1944 entire families would be exterminated.
Dr. Ignác Szamek, chief medical officer at the Hungarian Railroad company had at one time been András L. Áchim's31.1 doctor. This eighty-four year old physician, had been given the highest award when he graduated to become a most respected was deported. He was deported with his wife, daughter and son-in law, the granddaughter with her husband, and the couple's little girl! No one from this family was ever to return.
Dr. Lajos Szamek, Dr. Ignác Szamek's son, was an obstetrician in Csaba. Upon his return from forced labour camp, the SS at Pusztavám surrounded his unit. The two hundred and sixteen men were forced to dig a deep trench and the SS gunned down the all the Jews. This is how this wonderful forty-eight-year old physician died beside his comrades. His wife and two children were put to death in Auschwitz. Fourteen members of this family were exterminated.
Dr. Lajos Szamek's cousin, Dr. György Szamek, a bril1iant student at Csaba's High School, graduated in law and practiced at Makó. He along with his family were taken to a camp in Austria. As the Red Army was advancing, the SS Commandos blew up the camp on April 13 in 1945. Out of the seventy-seven captives only Mrs. Imre Szepesi, nee Dr. Sára Szamek managed to escape - one week before the camp was liquidated.(Her husband died of a heart ailment in 1933) Another bright Szamek was György, a chemical engineer. He was expelled from the university in Szeged in 1932. He was tried and accused of being a communist as had been Dr. Sára Szamek's husband, Imre Szepesi. Both had been tried in court, but Szepesi died in jail. György Szamek fled the country and tried to continue his studies in Prague and Bologna, but was not permitted to stay in either country. Finally he did succeed in getting his degree in Zurich, and from here his friends in Pest helped him immigrate to Holland where he became chief chemist at a pulp and paper mill. His beautiful sister Vera joined him. Early in 1945 both fell into the Nazi hands. Their widowed mother, Mrs. Jenő Szamek - Klári néni - a staunch and feisty communist waited in vain for her children's return in her little apartment on Wahrman street.
And all this is just a drop in the ocean.