We come to a block of houses barricaded with boards. This used to be the Institute for the Blind, the Deaf and the Mute. Péter prepared me for the tough guards at the gate. You can neither go in nor out. The guards inside are Jewish labour camp inmates. Once in you are safe. I was to be there for a few days until Péter would have my I.D. There was no time for further explanation. And Károly?" - "Don't worry". I climbed the fence. They both helped me over. I jumped down and within seconds flashlights were directed at me. I was approached and surrounded in no time. They were all labour camp detainees. "How dare you break in? What on earth do you want?" they raged. "I want to see my mother and grandmother and then I'll be on my way." "Do you think you can just drop in like that?" They take me to the "office", where the caretaker of the institute, Mr. Kanizsai, receives me. My papers are checked. He verifies my story and looks up my mother in the register as well as my grandmother. After some questioning as to where I learned about their whereabouts, I am accompanied to the gym on the main floor.
Oszi Stern, the nice-looking young man from Csaba saw me and began to shout my name. He said he would take the good news to my mother so that my sudden appearance should not give her a heart attack. The large room was jammed tight with wooden bunks. There was room for four in each compartment - two upper, two lower for sleeping. I found the two of them in the middle of the room in a lower bunk. I embraced my mother and my grandmother. We just hugged and kissed at such unexpected happiness and we cried and cried - there was no talking. My mother was fifty-seven, my grandmother seventy-nine. Had they been deported it would have meant the end. There was no time for chatter.
Familiar faces smile at me from the upper bunk. Böske Brüll and her daughter Ica. They reach out their hands. Böske was the wife of a very dear friend and colleague, Dr. Ferenc Fischer. He has been in labour camp since 1943. Böske manages to find some place for me. I was certainly grateful. She seems quite at home at this place. I am dead tired, hardly any sleep the last two nights, since that Monday when they got us up at dawn to take the train to Pest. It has been such an incredible time since then.
November 29.
We are in the camp of the lucky survivors who were ready to sacrifice themselves for Israel and the Holy Land, the Rabbis and their families and many others.
My mother and grandmother belong to the latter. Mrs. Magda Heim whom I have already mentioned, had brought her aunt up here and had her rescued from Csaba's tobacco exchange, the temporary station for the deportees. Magda played the role of the guardian angel. It was her husband, no penny-pincher, with his great connections to the Gestapo who saved her mother and sister. He was very much into rescuing and he did not forget his friends, nor his dentist, Dr. Oszkár Szamek along with Oszkár's family. Mrs. Heim succeeded in achieving her goal.
Lajos Peli from Csaba was the Gestapo's henchman. His troop together with the German and Hungarian Nazis were incredibly cruel. During an inquisition they forced confessions from their chosen victims. They were driven from their homes with no hope of ever returning. They were grilled regarding the whereabouts of their valued possessions such as gold, silver and other treasures.
"If you don't speak up, you'll be shot" and so it was, many perished. Oscar had been subject to the beating and the frisking. A storm trooper took the roll call. Oszkár wondered "What's next? Where will they take me?" He was ordered to give the name of each member of his family and this is how it came about that besides his immediate family, my mother,(his sister-in-law), my grandmother (his mother-in-law) were kept at the police station for two nights. Then the following morning they were ousted from Csaba and sent by train to Pest. When they arrived at the Nyugati station they were marched to Kolumbus street. Had Oszkár suspected that the storm troopers had no further torture on their agenda, he could have saved his cousin Lily and her young son as well. Oszkár would forever be grateful to Magda for the part she played in their rescue.
This is why Éva stayed behind with her parents. My sister Zsuzsi's friends were the Count Almássy family. Their game keeper, Sándor Nagy hid her in the forest. Albeit it was a secluded farmstead, it did not escape the nosy neighbour's eye, who snitched on them. The police took Zsuzsi to the ghetto in Nagyvárad. The inmates were to be loaded on to a deportation wagon. Zsuzsi's presence of mind saved her. It was by accident, that she was put in a cell with corpses. She hid here. When they were clearing the ghetto, the cell was not checked.
The following night she spent in the gendarmes' room, in one of the beds. She woke up with a start, when the gendarmes returned to their room and hid behind a pillar, waiting for them to leave. Looters and robbers came next day to plunder the ghetto. She left with them carrying a chair and climbed over the fence. She set out toward Sarkad. On the way she met a gypsy girl - they exchanged clothes. The rest of the trip was partly by train back to Remete to the forest in the cover of the night. She stayed in a clearing near the Nagy's, hiding in a haystack. As Jóska, one of their younger boys, passed near, she called to him. The Nagys sneaked food to her and sent her telegram from the Gyula Post Office to the "Mester"9.1. This is how Péter, with death defying courage, came to Zsuzsi's rescue and smuggled her on to the midnight train for Budapest.
It was Böske who arranged a pass for me at the camp. Now I am legal. Great! In the evening I was told that I had visitors from town and that I should go to the fence. It was Zsuzsa and Péter. We spotted each other at the edge of the fence; they were so young with bright smiles - no sign of the hard times we were all experiencing. Péter asked me for my papers to enable him to prepare my exit from the camp and for a life underground. He assured me that the "Refugee Office" would have my papers next day with the Udvarhelyi's deputy lieutenant's authorization for refugee status in Budapest. A birth certificate would prove my gentile background. My age would be give as past conscription age limit, which was then in effect.
"Your new I.D. will be a real masterpiece. No officer would question its authenticity. But you must make yourself look fifteen years older!"
November 30, Thursday.
I now have a resident permit - no longer a visitor. I am entitled to three meals a day with civil rights. But I have to work for these rights. My assignment is sentry duty. I hope that my turn won't come and my new I.D. will help me out of here! That night according to plan, I await Peter's arrival. I wait in vain. I look for him everywhere, even outside the enclave - where is he - was this just a promise that he could not keep?
December 1, Friday.
No Peter. I hope nothing has happened to him. At night the dormitory glitters in the candle light. The candles are lit everywhere. It is Friday evening.
December 2, Saturday.
I meet Éva's classmate - Jenő Lindenfeld from Gyula. I had heard of him, but we have never met. He plays beautifully. He is very talented - blind since birth. He used to go to Csaba - he and Joli Bacher. They were pupils of the editor of "The Chord of Csaba." He knew Éva's parents and looked back happily at his last concert. He tells me what he had played and who sat around the piano. His descriptions were so vivid as if it happened yesterday. Then he introduces me to his blind companion, a young piano student, Laci Schlesinger. They hold and squeeze my hand and are so happy to have someone hear their story. Their hope is to be able to get out of this hell.
Its to be a short night. I am scheduled for sentry duty at 4.oo am.
December 3, Sunday.
The relief guard wakes me up well before four o'clock. The stars are still in the sky as I begin my shift at the place indicated within the compound along the wall, where I will walk up and down until eight o'clock. But it is not even daybreak when police start jumping over the fence. "This is a protected area!" I shout, but one of them comes directly to me "Leave your post immediately." They take over: The compound is no longer a protected area and is to be disbanded. "You'd better give me your watch and anything that is gold and all your money. The Nazis are coming and the whole compound will be destroyed." Well, I almost threw, up. The Royal Hungarian Police can't be threatening us without good reason. In the meanwhile the soldiers have surrounded the compound inside with guns at the ready. There is no question of escape. They warn us to be quiet or they shoot to kill...The occupants of the compound had no idea what was going on. I sneaked into the gym where everyone was still sound asleep. First I woke my mother, then Böske. It wasn't easy to get them to understand the new turn of events. I had to keep repeating to explain the situation.
"They can't break up the compound - it is under the protection of the International Red Cross." Finally with some urging and prodding they started dressing and packing the absolute necessities. The "rumour" was soon picked up and everyone understood.
At exactly six o'clock the Arrow Cross - about forty or fifty in black uniforms - rushed in. These were determined executioners. No one was allowed to leave. The order came to line up in the yard with all our valuables. This did not go too smoothly. The armed Labour Camp Inmates on top of the building tried to prevent the Arrow Cross from entering, but the Arrow Cross began to shoot. The compound's caretaker and Kanizsai were shot. We didn't dare to leave the hall, we awaited our fate, paralysed with fear. Then a young soldier showed up. He was gentle and kind and went around comforting the old and the disabled, assuring them that the order did not apply to them. They will be allowed to stay. There was cruelty and compassion simultaneously. It was quite incomprehensible. Later we were to learn that young Jews had infiltrated amongst the Arrow Cross shock troops. They were living incredibly dangerous lives. My grandmother was permitted to stay.
After this we were hustled out to the courtyard. The scare tactics served their purpose. There was absolutely no resistance and all the orders were swiftly carried out. Somewhere in the distance gunshots could be heard but here only the shouting of the Arrow Cross. They produced an enormous trunk. The order was given that all jewellery, valuables, such as gold and silver and of course money was to be deposited into the trunk. We were told that "after all, you won't need these things any longer!" My mother was still wearing her little gold chain necklace, a souvenir from the old days. She was standing beside me. It was difficult for her to part with it. I saw the trunk getting nicely full..., even without her necklace. I told her to hang on to it.
After this we parted. They were setting up the ranks for the march - women in one line, men in another - younger ones separated from the older ones. We set out in the bright sunshine. We had no idea where we were heading.