Very helpfully, the author begins with a concise history of Hungary, which helps a reader not quite as familiar with it, or with the language, and so on. There are a couple of extraordinary tales of adventures, one involving an extraordinary young man from an extraordinary family, that really are worth reading, just to know it wasn't all bad Germans and pathetic victims.
The story of Yolie travelling to Paris and helped by a German woman who was officially Nazi, and the extraordinary character, Josef Cséh or Joska, a blond blue eyed tall beautiful Austrian- Hungarian who fell in love with Rose and helped her whole clan in Budapest move to safety, there is a staggering tale of Joska travelling to Auschwitz to rescue Anci; that he promised, as demanded by Rose, to retreat if he were endangered, and did so after meeting the S.S. at gates of Auschwitz, and not only managed to survive but go rescue another three girls in Vienna, is merely more cake! And topping is halfway, that Anci had been sent to work in Bremen the day before this knight had arrived at gates of Auschwitz.
The description of what he - Josef Cséh - saw and how he felt from border of Poland to gates of Auschwitz is just priceless.
At the end he describes how much he owed Joska, and was glad he could help. But one has to wonder, was it enough? One is overcome just by reading about it, and this family experienced it, but then Joska was off his way post war and finally Rose had to separate, which broke both their hearts; he never married again, although at the time of publication he was ninety four and in good health, and Thomas helped him from the moment he could get around the bureaucracy. But was that enough? Joska deserved a life filled with love, more than anyone else.
Then one thinks of Raoul Wallenberg who saved thousands of lives, and was sent by Russians to Siberia, denying it all. Schindler didn't do that well, either, although his people are grateful and remain so, and Israel acknowledged it.
Is it the force of evil that, stymied in its aim of complete destruction of human civilisation, by these few heroes, apart from FDR and more, turned and picked these individuals and destroyed their lives, their world instead? FDR died far too soon and his opposition has forever attempted to not only destroy his legacy but to tarnish him too, personally and politically.
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What lucky chance kept one from beginning it until middle of the Covid-19 lockdown, nationwide, that makes one fear even a stroll on the roof top of the apartment complex - for fear of touching a surface touched by another, or encountering a neighbour that one must then politely keep away from - and what serendipity made one begin reading it now, one has no clue, but thanks are due to the author for writing it.
And, unknown to him, thanks are due to the author for writing it in this unique style that reminds one of someone loved, someone now long departed from earth, somone who strained every fibre of her being in circumstances no less brutal, to keep her brood smiling, so we could grow in sunshine of her smile!
And no title could be more appropriate for her memory, either.
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The author doesn't quite escape racism and European colonialism.
"From 1943 to 1945 the Danube had more bodies floating than the Ganges."
That statement could be true any day, not limited to Nazi era.
To begin with its a completely unnecessary comparison, and for that matter, he hasn't a clue about facts of the case. So it could only have been a deliberate dig for no good reason.
Gangaa isn't a small quiet stream as most rivers of Europe are, especially so in comparison with most rivers of india. Gangaa is one of the most dynamic, one of those with the strongest flow. It would be playing with your life to try swimming in Gangaa, even as close to its source as at Badrinath.
Of all the rivers of india, Gangaa is considered the most holy, and people not only worship her, they also do savour going to bathe in the river; but it's not used for disposal of dead bodies, except by corrupt municipal officials who pocket the money they get paid for cremation of an unclaimed body.
Unless, of course, he refers to the death of several million by starvation in Bengal during British rule when they stole the harvest and let Indians starve to death during the wars, despite FDR sending ships full of grain to help, which Churchill didn't allow to proceed further than Australia, stating flatly that he didn't see anything remiss about Indians starving to death. That wasn't different from the falsely named Irish potato famine, which was also British stealing the harvest and letting the natives die.
Then it was entirely possible some bodies were disposed off by letting them directly into the holy river, but from what one has read, they died everywhere in the Bengal countryside, and the British dealt with it by merely clamping silence on the media. Which, then, was easy, unlike now.
Hence their friend Gandhi turning around and telling them point blank to quit India in 1942, unlike the usual stance of the softer congress leaders.
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"Contemplating the German character one can only conclude that they knew they didn’t have a chance, even from the start."
Not true. Few were as realistic as to know they were doomed, and when they knew, they did try to stem the tide. They weren't heroes fighting a doomed but worthy cause, they were out to destroy civilisation, enslave humanity and own the earth for their own selfish ends, till the end. When they lost, most ran with huge amounts to other lands, escaping persecutions and with no thought of facing or of those left to suffer.
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"Someone opened a factory in our county, and mass production relegated Dad to the dust bin of obsolete occupations. So, to the consternation of my mother, he now spent his time honing the only other skill he had heretofore developed, that of being a social butterfly. Long before the conveyer belt took root in our little corner of paradise he’d already had a great deal of experience hanging out, drinking, and playing cards with his pals, on a part time basis. So, he fell into it full time as comfortably as the Germans took to goose stepping.""War isn’t much good to anyone, but it’s always been especially tough on Hungary. From the time of Attila right up to when our beleaguered family was forced to flee the tranquil rural village of my birth, the similarly set upon Hungarians defied the odds and came out last in nearly every armed conflict in which they had the woeful misfortune to become involved. Their one claim to fame, Attila, did manage to unite the barbaric Hun tribesmen, and earn a decent reputation as a fierce warrior, but after his death the troops fled eastward, abandoning to anonymity for another five centuries this as yet unnamed domain. Then, in the waning days of the Dark Ages, the Magyars swept into the Danube Valley, setting a high-water mark against which all Hungarian history would henceforth be measured.
"The mysterious Magyars made some decent progress in their campaign through Europe, but having breathed the air of debilitating doom that seems to permeate this unique nation which would one day spawn Bela Lugosi and the Gabor sisters, their martial prowess had seen its best days. Any further attempts at raiding westward met with decisive rebuff from German King Otto, and so, the once mighty tribe reasoned that this fertile land, which would forever bear the name of their difficult dialect, was about as good as it was going to get. They hung up their stirrups, settled down for a few hundred years, and greeted the new millennium as good Catholics.
"While the Magyars did not take a back seat to anyone when it came to sweeping through unsettled river basins, by the time the Mongol hordes arrived in the unlucky thirteenth century, they had long since become farmers, and were mercilessly overrun. Only the death from illness of the fierce horde leader sent the superstitious Asians back from whence they’d come, to live forever bereft of the benefits of a cuisine boasting that most pungent and mispronounced paprika.
"Freed from the yoke of the oppressive though organized Mongols, chaos ensued, and no opposition could be mustered to prevent an Italian nobleman from coming in and taking over. He and his heir managed to marginally expand the borders, only to have them quickly reduced again. This set up a fateful pattern which Hungary would forever follow. Forces, anxious to expand our frontiers, like a second string offensive football team, marched again and again against like minded foes, with never a first goal to their credit. But the hearty goulash nurtured hope in the breast of each new generation, and they continually came out of the huddle determined to give it another try. And each new campaign resulted in an even smaller homeland. One Hungarian noble, who was actually of Romanian noble descent, did manage to offer a brief respite of triumph, by stopping the Ottoman Turks’ eastward advances. However, the real victory of these nobles was to condemn most of the not so noble Hungarian population to eternal serfdom. Perhaps it was such a dismal fate, to forever be chattels of the crown, that made them less than enthusiastic soldiers, for they were subsequently defeated by the Turks, Hapsburgs, Russians, French, Italians, Prussians, Serbs, British, America, The Third Reich, and, if you choose to believe the more xenophobic among my countrymen, the Hebrew Nation. All this history helps explain my father.
"With imperial expansion left to the more successful European powers, landlocked Hungary settled into developing culturally from within, and by the time mechanized means of production overtook the rest of the civilized world our now peaceful population had evolved into a cabaret society. Scores of sidewalk cafes and bistros took root along ample tree lined boulevards, and generations of its citizens became bonvivants. Their carefree lifestyle suggested that Hungary was unconcerned with industry and progress, and that being a good mixer was considered by the general populace to be an admirable avocation, though you could not count my mother among their number. We were poor, and she resented my father’s unemployment. She, and all my brothers and sisters, worked, but not my father. And not me. I was a kid."
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"After Hungary eats it naps, or in our family’s case, my parents fought, and then we napped. Most of the time they argued in German. Hungarian Jews weren’t inclined to speak Yiddish as so many other European Jews did. They considered it a bastardization of German, and we were very class conscious and didn’t want to do anything that we considered vulgar. So, in order to keep things from the kids, my parents spoke German. They didn’t formally teach it to us, but after a while we picked up on much of it. We did use some Yiddish, much like everybody does in America nowadays. Words like schlep and goniff. But when it came to insults we stuck with Hungarian, which suffers from no lack of highly descriptive and vile epithets.
"Hungarian is especially effective for insulting outsiders, because it’s a language that doesn’t sound like any other. Romance languages are spoken in dozens of countries and have thousands of words in common. And the inhabitants of Slavic countries can practically read each others’ newspapers. But the Magyars weren’t imposing enough to spread their tongue beyond a trio of countries: Hungary, Estonia and Finland. The marauding side of the Magyar clan must have split up somewhere in western Russia, with half heading south to the Danube Valley and the other half north to frigid Finland. The weaker pat of the northern bound band probably stalled in the future Estonia, while the hardier ones pushed on until the ensuing snows trapped them. When the frozen Finnish winter reached crisis level they probably ate their horses to survive, thus ending forever their chances of further sweeping through foreign lands. Finding the female companionship there exceptionally appealing, they embraced their fate, and stayed. They’d already eaten their horses, so they had nothing to offer these new conquests save their exotic language. It caught on, and the future field of linguistic geography would for years delight in tackling the riddle of this odd tongue. Stymied by the sounds of my native land, scholars had to invent a unique class of dialect, Ungaro-Finn. But to hide what you say from a Hungarian child you speak German."
"So, we were living the lives of typical Hungarians. At least that’s how we felt. Then Adolf started ranting, and he promised Hungary the return of some of the land they had lost, naturally, to neighboring Czechoslovakia in some previous conflict. The carrot was too tempting, and once again our brilliant leaders exhibited their nearly infallible consistency, and picked the wrong side."
Eldest sister Yolie was sent to Paris on Orient Express to meet an uncle who'd help sell a family heirloom to help with finances so the family could move to Budapest. But Jews were not allowed to carry or own valuables.
"For millions of Jews breaking the rules became a necessity of life. If you were a European Jew, and obeyed every legal invention imposed by governmental authorities between 1934 and 1945, it was suicide."
"The train sped forward and crossed into Switzerland. Once inside she numbly went through another inspection, brief compared to what she had been through in Germany. She didn’t even have to leave her compartment, as the Swiss officials came on board. But her clothes were inspected, whereas the Frenchmen’s were not. Years later she learned the reason for this. Before she left Germany the officials there had made a small mark in her passport, a capital J. This alerted the so called neutral makers of cuckoo clocks to the presence of a Jew, and some possible wealth there to be gained. So, they searched Yolie, leaving the gentile French alone.
"The Swiss were the Nazi’s willing bankers, but would elude being identified as such for nearly forty years, until international pressure forced them to return a portion of the Jewish wealth they had stolen."
"After Hungary eats it naps, or in our family’s case, my parents fought, and then we napped. Most of the time they argued in German. Hungarian Jews weren’t inclined to speak Yiddish as so many other European Jews did. They considered it a bastardization of German, and we were very class conscious and didn’t want to do anything that we considered vulgar. So, in order to keep things from the kids, my parents spoke German. They didn’t formally teach it to us, but after a while we picked up on much of it. We did use some Yiddish, much like everybody does in America nowadays. Words like schlep and goniff. But when it came to insults we stuck with Hungarian, which suffers from no lack of highly descriptive and vile epithets.
"Hungarian is especially effective for insulting outsiders, because it’s a language that doesn’t sound like any other. Romance languages are spoken in dozens of countries and have thousands of words in common. And the inhabitants of Slavic countries can practically read each others’ newspapers. But the Magyars weren’t imposing enough to spread their tongue beyond a trio of countries: Hungary, Estonia and Finland. The marauding side of the Magyar clan must have split up somewhere in western Russia, with half heading south to the Danube Valley and the other half north to frigid Finland. The weaker pat of the northern bound band probably stalled in the future Estonia, while the hardier ones pushed on until the ensuing snows trapped them. When the frozen Finnish winter reached crisis level they probably ate their horses to survive, thus ending forever their chances of further sweeping through foreign lands. Finding the female companionship there exceptionally appealing, they embraced their fate, and stayed. They’d already eaten their horses, so they had nothing to offer these new conquests save their exotic language. It caught on, and the future field of linguistic geography would for years delight in tackling the riddle of this odd tongue. Stymied by the sounds of my native land, scholars had to invent a unique class of dialect, Ungaro-Finn. But to hide what you say from a Hungarian child you speak German."
"So, we were living the lives of typical Hungarians. At least that’s how we felt. Then Adolf started ranting, and he promised Hungary the return of some of the land they had lost, naturally, to neighboring Czechoslovakia in some previous conflict. The carrot was too tempting, and once again our brilliant leaders exhibited their nearly infallible consistency, and picked the wrong side."
................................................................................................
Eldest sister Yolie was sent to Paris on Orient Express to meet an uncle who'd help sell a family heirloom to help with finances so the family could move to Budapest. But Jews were not allowed to carry or own valuables.
"For millions of Jews breaking the rules became a necessity of life. If you were a European Jew, and obeyed every legal invention imposed by governmental authorities between 1934 and 1945, it was suicide."
"The train sped forward and crossed into Switzerland. Once inside she numbly went through another inspection, brief compared to what she had been through in Germany. She didn’t even have to leave her compartment, as the Swiss officials came on board. But her clothes were inspected, whereas the Frenchmen’s were not. Years later she learned the reason for this. Before she left Germany the officials there had made a small mark in her passport, a capital J. This alerted the so called neutral makers of cuckoo clocks to the presence of a Jew, and some possible wealth there to be gained. So, they searched Yolie, leaving the gentile French alone.
"The Swiss were the Nazi’s willing bankers, but would elude being identified as such for nearly forty years, until international pressure forced them to return a portion of the Jewish wealth they had stolen."
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"For centuries the Jews of Europe had become accustomed to being uprooted. Enlightened rulers would, upon occasion, invite Jews to their lands, only to have their heirs reverse that decision and force them to migrate somewhere else again. Or some backwoods bigot, on his tenth vodka of the night, would begin chanting ‘Christ Killer’ and the Rabbi would have to grab the Torah and flee. But in Western Europe the last hundred years had seen a renaissance of tolerance towards our tiny nation, and Jews finally came to experience a measure of security unknown to them for too long. Eastern Europe Slavs, on the other hand, still clung to their established ethos of hatred. Even if fickle potentates periodically relaxed their prejudice there was scant protection afforded us from pogroms or disenfranchisement. But Hungary had long been a haven. You could be a judge or a boxing champ. It never seemed to be an issue. There were the occasional anti-Semitic comments from some sectors now and again, but it was never government sanctioned. But all that was about to change. And it wasn’t going to do anybody any good to pretend otherwise."
"Little children will learn quickly enough in the playground to shy away from a traitorous playmate. If little Bobby picks little Billy to be on his team, then pushes him down, the rest of the gang will have enough sense to beware. Little Adolph spit in his hand and shook hard with little Joe. They were on the same team, and the European schoolyard was divvied up fair and square. A year later, when that German scamp caught Joey off guard with Operation Barbarosa, it still didn’t occur to little Nicky Horthy that the same fate might await him and his pals.
"America’s allies had beaten Hungary twenty years earlier in the Great Game, and now, in Great Game number two, they were lined up against each other again. If that wasn’t an omen for Hungary she must have been as drunk on the early successes of the Nazis as the Nazis were themselves. She wasn’t occupied yet, as were France, Holland, Poland, and others. She could still switch sides, and join Joey and his mates. She could be smart for once, be a winner. Any child with a lick of sense could look at a world map, compare the vastness of Russia and America with Germany, and draw the inevitable conclusion. But, like children who experience early success with their aggression, they were turning into bullies. And like all such belligerents they live in the ephemeral here and now, blind to tomorrow’s uncertainty. Hungary’s prospects appeared to be on an upward trend, but it was just hoisting itself higher and higher upon its own petard. And, in fulfilling that infamous Shakespearean metaphor, it would manage to abet the murder of half a million Hungarian Jews."
The Weisz clan considered options. But fleeing involved getting to a port, which would be through territory controlled either by nazis or their allies, and same was true of any country within Europe where Jews were safer.
"We later learned that, even if we could have gotten to a European port to escape, there was nowhere to go. Most countries had already met their Jewish immigration quotas, and despite international awareness of the Nazi’s treatment of Jews, short of knowledge of the death camps, they did not relax their quotas. Simply put, we were surrounded and trapped. The only other alternative was to hide.
"Hiding required the cooperation of a gentile who was either sympathetic to the plight of the Jews, and willing to defy the Nazis, both German and Nyilasok, or who simply needed money. Whether you had sympathy for the persecuted victims of fascism, or were motivated to help for purely mercenary concerns, the fascists discouraged such displays of empathy through brutal repression. If you were caught helping you would be shot, if you were lucky. If you were unlucky you would be tortured first. Then your body would be hung from a lamppost or tree, decorated with a sign proclaiming ‘Jew Lover.’ You might also be beheaded."
" ... The only other glimmer of hope was a quick win by the Russians on the eastern front. The British were never going to make it this far east, and the Americans were still a dream. So, for now, we saved money, a commodity that we reasoned might help when it came to hiding.
"We didn’t just save any kind of money. We saved gold. If we knew nothing else we knew that people always wanted and accepted gold. Whether you were Jewish or Christian, or even a Nazi, gold was universally desired. So, since our move to Budapest we had been converting whatever wealth we could get our hands on into small gold coins called Napoleons. They were about the size of a dime, and easy to hide. ... It wasn’t for travel, because we already knew we couldn’t pay our way through a thousand miles of war torn Europe. The gold would have to go toward bribes. Bribes to escape arrest. Bribes to buy false identity papers. Bribes to pay for a hiding place. Our family was a large one, three generations worth. The Weisz clan had fled the countryside for the anonymity of Budapest, and we now numbered around forty. We couldn’t imagine how many Napoleons it would take to hide us all. We just had to collect as many Napoleons as we could and stash them. Time was growing short, and the noose was getting tighter every day."
"For centuries the Jews of Europe had become accustomed to being uprooted. Enlightened rulers would, upon occasion, invite Jews to their lands, only to have their heirs reverse that decision and force them to migrate somewhere else again. Or some backwoods bigot, on his tenth vodka of the night, would begin chanting ‘Christ Killer’ and the Rabbi would have to grab the Torah and flee. But in Western Europe the last hundred years had seen a renaissance of tolerance towards our tiny nation, and Jews finally came to experience a measure of security unknown to them for too long. Eastern Europe Slavs, on the other hand, still clung to their established ethos of hatred. Even if fickle potentates periodically relaxed their prejudice there was scant protection afforded us from pogroms or disenfranchisement. But Hungary had long been a haven. You could be a judge or a boxing champ. It never seemed to be an issue. There were the occasional anti-Semitic comments from some sectors now and again, but it was never government sanctioned. But all that was about to change. And it wasn’t going to do anybody any good to pretend otherwise."
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"Before Nazi atrocities came Nazi bureaucracy. The officious Aryans always made the enactment of laws their first step. After all, they didn’t wish to appear uncivilized. Ultimately, from their bureaucratic point of view, they never did anything that was against the law. They simply made it illegal to be a homosexual, a Gypsy, a Jew, a communist, a mentally retarded person, or anyone else they found objectionable. Despite the fact that their hostilities sprang from der Fuhrer’s seemingly uncontrolled hysteria, they applied a veneer of method to their madness. Every subsequent aspect of their aggression was conducted with precise calculation, and under strict bureaucratic approval. It’s a fact! If some prospective victim found a loophole through which to escape liquidation the Nazis would allow it, albeit begrudgingly. For example, the citizens of neutral countries, such as Sweden and Spain, were exempt from the usual persecutions. Theoretically, a bearded Rabbi, bearing a Spanish passport, could have safely approached Hitler, addressed him in Hebrew, and lived to talk about it, such were the established guidelines. .... They could behave like rapacious jungle beasts, just so long as they kept count."
"Hitler was on the offense in France, Russia, England, Holland, Belgium, and Denmark, but all I cared about was soccer."
"When I was still a tyke back in Gyongyos, lusting for a bike, Hitler’s more considerable avarice prompted him to make a pact with Stalin that assured peace between the paranoid powers. A mere year later, however, the number one Nazi reneged and sent a five hundred mile wide blitzkrieg across Mother Russia’s western frontier. I confess that these events in no way mitigated my obsessive desire to acquire a bicycle."
Eldest brother Josef was drafted into Hungarian army when Hitler invaded Russia and demanded Hungary, an ally, share in the battle on East front. He planned to surrender to Russians and escape nazis.
" ... The front line Russian soldiers were themselves chosen from among the ranks of their nation’s own surplus humanity, country bumpkins, short on sophistication, and long on grit. Naturally, Soviet generals rewarded these brutes’ naïve patriotism by sending them in as first wave bullet takers. War production was so behind in the workers’ paradise that there was only one rifle for every two soldiers. The Red high command reasoned that one of those troops would get killed soon enough, and voluntarily bequeath his weapon and bullets to his comrade. The exadmiral who ran our own army had the same low regard for his starting team, and considered them good for being little more than human targets on which to expend their enemy’s precious fund of munitions. It was suicide to be in the front lines, so Jews were considered ideal for the position."
" ... Previously, Hungary had always identified itself with a maternal designation, just as Russia always had, but being officially affiliated with the Germans, we now had to defend someplace called the Fatherland. ... "
"Too much of his training had consisted of propaganda lectures and films about how subhuman his enemies were. They’d be fighting Slavs, and the less than human Slavs were only fit to serve the Aryan Third Reich as slaves. And if they couldn’t be slaves they were useless and deserved to be annihilated on the spot. Much to his chagrin, Josef soon discovered that subhumans are pretty good shots. His fellow soldiers were dropping all around him at a frighteningly efficient rate. And the friends he had made in the barracks were lying on the ground all around him, screaming and bleeding. The Hungarian troop’s immediate superiors, sergeants and an occasional officer, had the utmost confidence in their new conscripts, and to show their staunch support they positioned themselves behind their brave boys, threatening to shoot anyone who didn’t exhibit the required level of valor. Any reticence in manifesting one’s courage was construed as cowardice and addressed with far less hesitation. So, Josef prayed and advanced. Keeping his head down and pulling his trigger enough to make him sound dangerous, but not so often as to expend the limited amount of ammunition he was issued, he crept forward. Every inch he crawled toward the Russian lines was another inch further from the axis that would sacrifice him and imprison his family. ... "
"Before long he was out of range of his superiors who would shoot him in the back. And they weren’t the sharpshooters they’d have to be to pick off a deserter across enemy lines. ... He envisioned himself as part of the liberating army that would forever free Hungary from the grip of Nazi tyranny. He’d make it to the Russian front, wave a white flag, surrender and introduce himself. The Russians would hang on his every word, eager to learn any tidbit of intelligence about the enemy position, and the dreadful situation in Hungary. They’d give him a new uniform, a shot of vodka, a slap on the back, and call him tovarich. Night would fall soon, and Josef would feel safe enough to cover the hundred or so yards that now separated him from his soon to be comrades in arms.
"Unfortunately for my brother, the front line Russian soldiers considered anybody coming their way in an axis uniform to be the enemy. These troops were bullet takers, just like Josef. But unlike Josef, they were not in the least bit inquisitive or intellectual. Nobody spoke Hungarian, and Josef didn’t speak Russian. His smiling and yammering merely annoyed them. They took away his rifle and forced him to sit down in the cold mud. Josef tried to explain to them that he was a Jew, forced to fight. But they wouldn’t listen. It’s true that there had been situations when a willing Hungarian or Czech deserter was greeted into the Soviet ranks by a more educated officer, eager to have a clever motivated Jew join them. But Josef’s situation was more routine. He was taken prisoner and sent to the Siberian salt mines. In that frozen tundra he would be a slave, with about as much chance for survival as an inmate in a concentration camp. We, of course, knew nothing of it. Simply and sadly, Josef was gone."
" ... So 1940 was a mixed blessing for me. I missed a brother, but I got a bike."
"Rose was like having a celebrity in the family. She was a phenomenon! She had the beauty, poise, and charisma of a movie star. When she walked into a room she caught everyone’s eye, and it was a rare week when a cadre of eligible bachelors wasn’t kicking down the door. Who could blame them? She was warm, charming, and intelligent. And she looked like Ingrid Bergman. That’s not the exaggeration of a sentimental family member. You only have to see a photograph of her to agree. But whether or not you noticed the striking similarity, she was possessed of the same radiant natural glow. Her eyes, hair and skin all exuded health and vigor. And when she aimed that beautiful broad smile at someone they were captivated. Not that she thought of herself as an enchantress, nor did she employ her feminine charm to any selfish end. She was completely without guile. And everybody, from little children and small animals, to adults, were attracted to her. She brightened all our lives. In short, she was just the sort of person the Nazis liked to kill.
"Rose was engaged several times, but always broke it off. I can’t remember their names, or why she ended things, but by the time she got engaged to Nick we didn’t take it seriously. At least not until she married him. ... "
"Horthy had the naiveté of a child, while not quite the brains."Before Nazi atrocities came Nazi bureaucracy. The officious Aryans always made the enactment of laws their first step. After all, they didn’t wish to appear uncivilized. Ultimately, from their bureaucratic point of view, they never did anything that was against the law. They simply made it illegal to be a homosexual, a Gypsy, a Jew, a communist, a mentally retarded person, or anyone else they found objectionable. Despite the fact that their hostilities sprang from der Fuhrer’s seemingly uncontrolled hysteria, they applied a veneer of method to their madness. Every subsequent aspect of their aggression was conducted with precise calculation, and under strict bureaucratic approval. It’s a fact! If some prospective victim found a loophole through which to escape liquidation the Nazis would allow it, albeit begrudgingly. For example, the citizens of neutral countries, such as Sweden and Spain, were exempt from the usual persecutions. Theoretically, a bearded Rabbi, bearing a Spanish passport, could have safely approached Hitler, addressed him in Hebrew, and lived to talk about it, such were the established guidelines. .... They could behave like rapacious jungle beasts, just so long as they kept count."
"Hitler was on the offense in France, Russia, England, Holland, Belgium, and Denmark, but all I cared about was soccer."
"When I was still a tyke back in Gyongyos, lusting for a bike, Hitler’s more considerable avarice prompted him to make a pact with Stalin that assured peace between the paranoid powers. A mere year later, however, the number one Nazi reneged and sent a five hundred mile wide blitzkrieg across Mother Russia’s western frontier. I confess that these events in no way mitigated my obsessive desire to acquire a bicycle."
................................................................................................
Eldest brother Josef was drafted into Hungarian army when Hitler invaded Russia and demanded Hungary, an ally, share in the battle on East front. He planned to surrender to Russians and escape nazis.
" ... The front line Russian soldiers were themselves chosen from among the ranks of their nation’s own surplus humanity, country bumpkins, short on sophistication, and long on grit. Naturally, Soviet generals rewarded these brutes’ naïve patriotism by sending them in as first wave bullet takers. War production was so behind in the workers’ paradise that there was only one rifle for every two soldiers. The Red high command reasoned that one of those troops would get killed soon enough, and voluntarily bequeath his weapon and bullets to his comrade. The exadmiral who ran our own army had the same low regard for his starting team, and considered them good for being little more than human targets on which to expend their enemy’s precious fund of munitions. It was suicide to be in the front lines, so Jews were considered ideal for the position."
" ... Previously, Hungary had always identified itself with a maternal designation, just as Russia always had, but being officially affiliated with the Germans, we now had to defend someplace called the Fatherland. ... "
"Too much of his training had consisted of propaganda lectures and films about how subhuman his enemies were. They’d be fighting Slavs, and the less than human Slavs were only fit to serve the Aryan Third Reich as slaves. And if they couldn’t be slaves they were useless and deserved to be annihilated on the spot. Much to his chagrin, Josef soon discovered that subhumans are pretty good shots. His fellow soldiers were dropping all around him at a frighteningly efficient rate. And the friends he had made in the barracks were lying on the ground all around him, screaming and bleeding. The Hungarian troop’s immediate superiors, sergeants and an occasional officer, had the utmost confidence in their new conscripts, and to show their staunch support they positioned themselves behind their brave boys, threatening to shoot anyone who didn’t exhibit the required level of valor. Any reticence in manifesting one’s courage was construed as cowardice and addressed with far less hesitation. So, Josef prayed and advanced. Keeping his head down and pulling his trigger enough to make him sound dangerous, but not so often as to expend the limited amount of ammunition he was issued, he crept forward. Every inch he crawled toward the Russian lines was another inch further from the axis that would sacrifice him and imprison his family. ... "
"Before long he was out of range of his superiors who would shoot him in the back. And they weren’t the sharpshooters they’d have to be to pick off a deserter across enemy lines. ... He envisioned himself as part of the liberating army that would forever free Hungary from the grip of Nazi tyranny. He’d make it to the Russian front, wave a white flag, surrender and introduce himself. The Russians would hang on his every word, eager to learn any tidbit of intelligence about the enemy position, and the dreadful situation in Hungary. They’d give him a new uniform, a shot of vodka, a slap on the back, and call him tovarich. Night would fall soon, and Josef would feel safe enough to cover the hundred or so yards that now separated him from his soon to be comrades in arms.
"Unfortunately for my brother, the front line Russian soldiers considered anybody coming their way in an axis uniform to be the enemy. These troops were bullet takers, just like Josef. But unlike Josef, they were not in the least bit inquisitive or intellectual. Nobody spoke Hungarian, and Josef didn’t speak Russian. His smiling and yammering merely annoyed them. They took away his rifle and forced him to sit down in the cold mud. Josef tried to explain to them that he was a Jew, forced to fight. But they wouldn’t listen. It’s true that there had been situations when a willing Hungarian or Czech deserter was greeted into the Soviet ranks by a more educated officer, eager to have a clever motivated Jew join them. But Josef’s situation was more routine. He was taken prisoner and sent to the Siberian salt mines. In that frozen tundra he would be a slave, with about as much chance for survival as an inmate in a concentration camp. We, of course, knew nothing of it. Simply and sadly, Josef was gone."
" ... So 1940 was a mixed blessing for me. I missed a brother, but I got a bike."
................................................................................................
"Rose was like having a celebrity in the family. She was a phenomenon! She had the beauty, poise, and charisma of a movie star. When she walked into a room she caught everyone’s eye, and it was a rare week when a cadre of eligible bachelors wasn’t kicking down the door. Who could blame them? She was warm, charming, and intelligent. And she looked like Ingrid Bergman. That’s not the exaggeration of a sentimental family member. You only have to see a photograph of her to agree. But whether or not you noticed the striking similarity, she was possessed of the same radiant natural glow. Her eyes, hair and skin all exuded health and vigor. And when she aimed that beautiful broad smile at someone they were captivated. Not that she thought of herself as an enchantress, nor did she employ her feminine charm to any selfish end. She was completely without guile. And everybody, from little children and small animals, to adults, were attracted to her. She brightened all our lives. In short, she was just the sort of person the Nazis liked to kill.
"Rose was engaged several times, but always broke it off. I can’t remember their names, or why she ended things, but by the time she got engaged to Nick we didn’t take it seriously. At least not until she married him. ... "
................................................................................................
"Little children will learn quickly enough in the playground to shy away from a traitorous playmate. If little Bobby picks little Billy to be on his team, then pushes him down, the rest of the gang will have enough sense to beware. Little Adolph spit in his hand and shook hard with little Joe. They were on the same team, and the European schoolyard was divvied up fair and square. A year later, when that German scamp caught Joey off guard with Operation Barbarosa, it still didn’t occur to little Nicky Horthy that the same fate might await him and his pals.
"America’s allies had beaten Hungary twenty years earlier in the Great Game, and now, in Great Game number two, they were lined up against each other again. If that wasn’t an omen for Hungary she must have been as drunk on the early successes of the Nazis as the Nazis were themselves. She wasn’t occupied yet, as were France, Holland, Poland, and others. She could still switch sides, and join Joey and his mates. She could be smart for once, be a winner. Any child with a lick of sense could look at a world map, compare the vastness of Russia and America with Germany, and draw the inevitable conclusion. But, like children who experience early success with their aggression, they were turning into bullies. And like all such belligerents they live in the ephemeral here and now, blind to tomorrow’s uncertainty. Hungary’s prospects appeared to be on an upward trend, but it was just hoisting itself higher and higher upon its own petard. And, in fulfilling that infamous Shakespearean metaphor, it would manage to abet the murder of half a million Hungarian Jews."
................................................................................................
The Weisz clan considered options. But fleeing involved getting to a port, which would be through territory controlled either by nazis or their allies, and same was true of any country within Europe where Jews were safer.
"We later learned that, even if we could have gotten to a European port to escape, there was nowhere to go. Most countries had already met their Jewish immigration quotas, and despite international awareness of the Nazi’s treatment of Jews, short of knowledge of the death camps, they did not relax their quotas. Simply put, we were surrounded and trapped. The only other alternative was to hide.
"Hiding required the cooperation of a gentile who was either sympathetic to the plight of the Jews, and willing to defy the Nazis, both German and Nyilasok, or who simply needed money. Whether you had sympathy for the persecuted victims of fascism, or were motivated to help for purely mercenary concerns, the fascists discouraged such displays of empathy through brutal repression. If you were caught helping you would be shot, if you were lucky. If you were unlucky you would be tortured first. Then your body would be hung from a lamppost or tree, decorated with a sign proclaiming ‘Jew Lover.’ You might also be beheaded."
" ... The only other glimmer of hope was a quick win by the Russians on the eastern front. The British were never going to make it this far east, and the Americans were still a dream. So, for now, we saved money, a commodity that we reasoned might help when it came to hiding.
"We didn’t just save any kind of money. We saved gold. If we knew nothing else we knew that people always wanted and accepted gold. Whether you were Jewish or Christian, or even a Nazi, gold was universally desired. So, since our move to Budapest we had been converting whatever wealth we could get our hands on into small gold coins called Napoleons. They were about the size of a dime, and easy to hide. ... It wasn’t for travel, because we already knew we couldn’t pay our way through a thousand miles of war torn Europe. The gold would have to go toward bribes. Bribes to escape arrest. Bribes to buy false identity papers. Bribes to pay for a hiding place. Our family was a large one, three generations worth. The Weisz clan had fled the countryside for the anonymity of Budapest, and we now numbered around forty. We couldn’t imagine how many Napoleons it would take to hide us all. We just had to collect as many Napoleons as we could and stash them. Time was growing short, and the noose was getting tighter every day."
................................................................................................
"By the end of 1943 we had to wear a yellow Star of David on our clothes. It had actually been a law for two years, but now the Nazis insisted the Nyilasok get tough and crackdown. Regretfully, they were ready, willing and able to comply. The Hungarians, indifferent for so long as to whether or not you were a Jew, now embarked on an industrious campaign to make up for lost time. They were keen to show their Nazi masters what reliable partners they could be when it came to hatred. So eager were the Magyars’ pathetic descendents that they would come to surpass even the Germans. In their attempt to kill every Jew in Hungary they would commit more murder in a shorter time period than any other country involved in the Final Solution. Hungarian leaders became more obsessed with an internal aggression against a small and defenseless sector of their own population than with the external war threatening their existence. If they could not prove their metal on the field of combat then they would at least demonstrate how fierce they could be as bullies. In 1943 things started to get bad. 1944 fell on the Danube valley like a shroud.
"Everyday we heard new stories of Nyilasok terror. They beat up Jews. Neighbors turned in their neighbors. People disappeared. Life was cheap and getting cheaper."
"And before long the stories of brutality became reality before my eyes. On the way home from school one day I saw a gang of fiendishly laughing Nyilosh punks beat up an old man. He had a long beard and the yellow star, and they kicked him and hit him until he managed to run away."
"Not long after quitting school I had an occasion to go out, and I witnessed two hoodlums beat a boy of about twelve to death. I’m sure he was dead. They beat him, laughing all the while, and there was blood everywhere. Once the boy stopped screaming I was certain he was dead. There was blood everywhere, and I realized that at any moment mine could mingle with it. I was only a kid, but I had already seen more than most adults see in their lives. I was ten, going on fifty."
"We knew the Russians weren’t far off. If only they could make a small advance we might be saved. We didn’t believe the Red would persecute Jews. After all, the communist founder, Lenin, had preached that anti-Semitism was a counter revolutionary notion. Of course, we didn’t really think of the Russians in a political sense. It was immaterial to us if they were communist or Bolshevik or any other persuasion of socialist. They were fighting the Nazis, and that’s all that mattered. Their ground forces were on the offensive, and we prayed for the atheists to come and save us."
"The Jews who had remained in the countryside could be easily identified, with or without a star, and they were all rounded up and sent to the ghettos or camps. Their neighbors whom they had known for years, even generations, turned them all in.
"The first step of the Hungarian cooperation for the final solution was the same as every other European country with a Jewish population, to isolate them. First, a move from the country to the big city was mandatory. After some time certain buildings in the big cities were designated as either Christian or Jewish. Finally, the inhabitants of the Jewish buildings would be herded into one neighborhood called the Jewish ghetto. From there it was easy to load them onto trains and transport them to the concentration camps for slave labor or liquidation.
"For now, our family was mostly intact. Anci continued to bring food to Sandor, and mother was kept busy hiding Napoleons. She wanted to have more of the gold coins at the ready, so she hid them behind the boards of our coal bin and those of our neighbors. She figured that as long as they didn’t know to look for them they’d be safe. Only a bomb could expose them, and if a bomb hit what else mattered?
"The coal bins were also used as air raid shelters. And when the allies bombed you had to find shelter. ... There was actually a maze of ancient tunnels under Budapest, which might have made great shelters, but we didn’t know it at that time.
"Now the Nazis were more visible on the streets. We heard radio broadcasts, but had long since stopped believing them. The Nazi ministry of propaganda told Hungarian radio what to say and their newspaper what to print. And according to these two sources the axis never lost a battle. But some news trickled back from the eastern front, and we took courage from reports that the Nazis were retreating from Russia. Perhaps they’d met their match after all. Maybe the communist totalitarians would defeat the fascist totalitarians. We hoped so. Meanwhile, we horded gold and thought of a plan."
"By the end of 1943 we had to wear a yellow Star of David on our clothes. It had actually been a law for two years, but now the Nazis insisted the Nyilasok get tough and crackdown. Regretfully, they were ready, willing and able to comply. The Hungarians, indifferent for so long as to whether or not you were a Jew, now embarked on an industrious campaign to make up for lost time. They were keen to show their Nazi masters what reliable partners they could be when it came to hatred. So eager were the Magyars’ pathetic descendents that they would come to surpass even the Germans. In their attempt to kill every Jew in Hungary they would commit more murder in a shorter time period than any other country involved in the Final Solution. Hungarian leaders became more obsessed with an internal aggression against a small and defenseless sector of their own population than with the external war threatening their existence. If they could not prove their metal on the field of combat then they would at least demonstrate how fierce they could be as bullies. In 1943 things started to get bad. 1944 fell on the Danube valley like a shroud.
"Everyday we heard new stories of Nyilasok terror. They beat up Jews. Neighbors turned in their neighbors. People disappeared. Life was cheap and getting cheaper."
"And before long the stories of brutality became reality before my eyes. On the way home from school one day I saw a gang of fiendishly laughing Nyilosh punks beat up an old man. He had a long beard and the yellow star, and they kicked him and hit him until he managed to run away."
"Not long after quitting school I had an occasion to go out, and I witnessed two hoodlums beat a boy of about twelve to death. I’m sure he was dead. They beat him, laughing all the while, and there was blood everywhere. Once the boy stopped screaming I was certain he was dead. There was blood everywhere, and I realized that at any moment mine could mingle with it. I was only a kid, but I had already seen more than most adults see in their lives. I was ten, going on fifty."
................................................................................................
"We knew the Russians weren’t far off. If only they could make a small advance we might be saved. We didn’t believe the Red would persecute Jews. After all, the communist founder, Lenin, had preached that anti-Semitism was a counter revolutionary notion. Of course, we didn’t really think of the Russians in a political sense. It was immaterial to us if they were communist or Bolshevik or any other persuasion of socialist. They were fighting the Nazis, and that’s all that mattered. Their ground forces were on the offensive, and we prayed for the atheists to come and save us."
"The Jews who had remained in the countryside could be easily identified, with or without a star, and they were all rounded up and sent to the ghettos or camps. Their neighbors whom they had known for years, even generations, turned them all in.
"The first step of the Hungarian cooperation for the final solution was the same as every other European country with a Jewish population, to isolate them. First, a move from the country to the big city was mandatory. After some time certain buildings in the big cities were designated as either Christian or Jewish. Finally, the inhabitants of the Jewish buildings would be herded into one neighborhood called the Jewish ghetto. From there it was easy to load them onto trains and transport them to the concentration camps for slave labor or liquidation.
"For now, our family was mostly intact. Anci continued to bring food to Sandor, and mother was kept busy hiding Napoleons. She wanted to have more of the gold coins at the ready, so she hid them behind the boards of our coal bin and those of our neighbors. She figured that as long as they didn’t know to look for them they’d be safe. Only a bomb could expose them, and if a bomb hit what else mattered?
"The coal bins were also used as air raid shelters. And when the allies bombed you had to find shelter. ... There was actually a maze of ancient tunnels under Budapest, which might have made great shelters, but we didn’t know it at that time.
"Now the Nazis were more visible on the streets. We heard radio broadcasts, but had long since stopped believing them. The Nazi ministry of propaganda told Hungarian radio what to say and their newspaper what to print. And according to these two sources the axis never lost a battle. But some news trickled back from the eastern front, and we took courage from reports that the Nazis were retreating from Russia. Perhaps they’d met their match after all. Maybe the communist totalitarians would defeat the fascist totalitarians. We hoped so. Meanwhile, we horded gold and thought of a plan."
................................................................................................
"Anci was sent to Auschwitz. If mother had not gotten off that trolley to come back to us during the air raid she would have certainly gotten arrested along with Anci. Women her age were immediately gassed upon arrival at the camps.
"Not long after Anci’s disappearance Rose’s husband Nick was also stopped in the street and arrested. We didn’t know it, but he too was sent to Auschwitz. Anci’s fiancé Andrew vanished next."
" ... Everyday the Nyilasok was getting more brazen. They had issued guns to teenage hoodlums, and gave them the power to stop whomever they wanted. They could arrest you if they wanted, shoot you and throw your body into the Danube. ..."
" ... Sandor had been clearing up some rubble when a brick fell off the top of a wall onto his head. He died almost instantly.
"By the most horrific of coincidences, a friend of Rose actually witnessed it. She called her, and Rose came at once. But there was nothing to be done. His evil task masters had no need of a dead Jew, so they let her cart him off in a wheel barrow. She had wrapped her beloved brother’s cadaver in a sheet and pushed the barrow ten miles to the Jewish cemetery. There she paid some people to bury him. She returned home with the bloodied sheet and hid it under a bed. It was a full two weeks before my mother happened upon it. Until then Rose had kept the truth from my mother. Sandor had been mother’s favorite, because he worked so selflessly for all of us. He had been a boxing champ, and an ideal son. Certainly the Nazis would be glad to hear of his demise.
"Rose, now Maria, made a promise to herself to fight to save us all. It was a vow she meant, but even then she knew it was more bravado than common sense."
Rose met someone who pursued and proposed; she risked telling him, and he promised to help the entire family, and proceeded to find new identity papers for the whole clan, which had to be mostly bought; the Weisz family gold helped.
"Anci was sent to Auschwitz. If mother had not gotten off that trolley to come back to us during the air raid she would have certainly gotten arrested along with Anci. Women her age were immediately gassed upon arrival at the camps.
"Not long after Anci’s disappearance Rose’s husband Nick was also stopped in the street and arrested. We didn’t know it, but he too was sent to Auschwitz. Anci’s fiancé Andrew vanished next."
" ... Everyday the Nyilasok was getting more brazen. They had issued guns to teenage hoodlums, and gave them the power to stop whomever they wanted. They could arrest you if they wanted, shoot you and throw your body into the Danube. ..."
" ... Sandor had been clearing up some rubble when a brick fell off the top of a wall onto his head. He died almost instantly.
"By the most horrific of coincidences, a friend of Rose actually witnessed it. She called her, and Rose came at once. But there was nothing to be done. His evil task masters had no need of a dead Jew, so they let her cart him off in a wheel barrow. She had wrapped her beloved brother’s cadaver in a sheet and pushed the barrow ten miles to the Jewish cemetery. There she paid some people to bury him. She returned home with the bloodied sheet and hid it under a bed. It was a full two weeks before my mother happened upon it. Until then Rose had kept the truth from my mother. Sandor had been mother’s favorite, because he worked so selflessly for all of us. He had been a boxing champ, and an ideal son. Certainly the Nazis would be glad to hear of his demise.
"Rose, now Maria, made a promise to herself to fight to save us all. It was a vow she meant, but even then she knew it was more bravado than common sense."
................................................................................................
Rose met someone who pursued and proposed; she risked telling him, and he promised to help the entire family, and proceeded to find new identity papers for the whole clan, which had to be mostly bought; the Weisz family gold helped.
................................................................................................
The author doesn't quite escape racism and European colonialism.
"From 1943 to 1945 the Danube had more bodies floating than the Ganges."
That statement could be true any day, not limited to Nazi era.
To begin with its a completely unnecessary comparison, and for that matter, he hasn't a clue about facts of the case. So it could only have been a deliberate dig for no good reason.
Gangaa isn't a small quiet stream as most rivers of Europe are, especially so in comparison with most rivers of india. Gangaa is one of the most dynamic, one of those with the strongest flow. It would be playing with your life to try swimming in Gangaa, even as close to its source as at Badrinath.
Of all the rivers of india, Gangaa is considered the most holy, and people not only worship her, they also do savour going to bathe in the river; but it's not used for disposal of dead bodies, except by corrupt municipal officials who pocket the money they get paid for cremation of an unclaimed body.
Unless one dies in an accident while bathing or boating in the river and body is lost, normal procedure for India is cremation, before ritual of submerging the ashes in the river, preferably Gangaa, or ocean. There is no ritual burial in water as such. So any given time, that statement above had to be true.
So any body seen flowing with the strong current of the river in Gangaa is an unfortunate, unclaimed one, not a routine occurrence.
Unless, of course, he refers to the death of several million by starvation in Bengal during British rule when they stole the harvest and let Indians starve to death during the wars, despite FDR sending ships full of grain to help, which Churchill didn't allow to proceed further than Australia, stating flatly that he didn't see anything remiss about Indians starving to death. That wasn't different from the falsely named Irish potato famine, which was also British stealing the harvest and letting the natives die.
Then it was entirely possible some bodies were disposed off by letting them directly into the holy river, but from what one has read, they died everywhere in the Bengal countryside, and the British dealt with it by merely clamping silence on the media. Which, then, was easy, unlike now.
Hence their friend Gandhi turning around and telling them point blank to quit India in 1942, unlike the usual stance of the softer congress leaders.
Joska found papers for several of the family, and a building they could live in, and he planned to have the two boys placed with families through red cross. But nazis decided to convert their current building into a Christian one, so they would have to leave sooner. Rose sat with her little brother who couldn't sleep.
"She held me in her arms, and softly sang, “Es geht alles voruber. Es geht alles verbi..”
"It was the refrain from a song that was known all over Europe. It was in German, but everyone sang it. It said, “This will not go on forever. Everything has an end.” It was just a pop song, but it became an anthem, promising a brighter tomorrow to Europe’s oppressed. It gave hope to us that the Nazis would be defeated and there’d be peace again. Everyone sang it except the Nazis."
The author doesn't quite escape racism and European colonialism.
"From 1943 to 1945 the Danube had more bodies floating than the Ganges."
That statement could be true any day, not limited to Nazi era.
To begin with its a completely unnecessary comparison, and for that matter, he hasn't a clue about facts of the case. So it could only have been a deliberate dig for no good reason.
Gangaa isn't a small quiet stream as most rivers of Europe are, especially so in comparison with most rivers of india. Gangaa is one of the most dynamic, one of those with the strongest flow. It would be playing with your life to try swimming in Gangaa, even as close to its source as at Badrinath.
Of all the rivers of india, Gangaa is considered the most holy, and people not only worship her, they also do savour going to bathe in the river; but it's not used for disposal of dead bodies, except by corrupt municipal officials who pocket the money they get paid for cremation of an unclaimed body.
Unless one dies in an accident while bathing or boating in the river and body is lost, normal procedure for India is cremation, before ritual of submerging the ashes in the river, preferably Gangaa, or ocean. There is no ritual burial in water as such. So any given time, that statement above had to be true.
So any body seen flowing with the strong current of the river in Gangaa is an unfortunate, unclaimed one, not a routine occurrence.
Unless, of course, he refers to the death of several million by starvation in Bengal during British rule when they stole the harvest and let Indians starve to death during the wars, despite FDR sending ships full of grain to help, which Churchill didn't allow to proceed further than Australia, stating flatly that he didn't see anything remiss about Indians starving to death. That wasn't different from the falsely named Irish potato famine, which was also British stealing the harvest and letting the natives die.
Then it was entirely possible some bodies were disposed off by letting them directly into the holy river, but from what one has read, they died everywhere in the Bengal countryside, and the British dealt with it by merely clamping silence on the media. Which, then, was easy, unlike now.
Hence their friend Gandhi turning around and telling them point blank to quit India in 1942, unlike the usual stance of the softer congress leaders.
................................................................................................
Joska found papers for several of the family, and a building they could live in, and he planned to have the two boys placed with families through red cross. But nazis decided to convert their current building into a Christian one, so they would have to leave sooner. Rose sat with her little brother who couldn't sleep.
"She held me in her arms, and softly sang, “Es geht alles voruber. Es geht alles verbi..”
"It was the refrain from a song that was known all over Europe. It was in German, but everyone sang it. It said, “This will not go on forever. Everything has an end.” It was just a pop song, but it became an anthem, promising a brighter tomorrow to Europe’s oppressed. It gave hope to us that the Nazis would be defeated and there’d be peace again. Everyone sang it except the Nazis."
................................................................................................
"Between 1944 and 1945 the Weisz family, and all Hungarian Jewry, faced their hardest times. Their army, as well as the whole German gewermacht, was outflanked, outnumbered, and outgunned. It was obvious that the Russians would plow through. Plus the Americans and the Reds both were bombing away. The fascists knew their cause was lost. But nothing dissuaded them from carrying on with the killing. And when the Hungarians didn’t display the required resolve to overcome inertia, Third Reich administrators were installed to replace them. The SS took over and packed the Budapest ghetto tighter than ever."
"Sixteen hours after John moved in with the old watch maker the Gestapo moved into the Red Cross Orphanage. As it was now headquarters of an important Third Reich facility orphans were hardly desired there. So the ever efficient Nazis took the thousand Christian Hungarian orphans down to the Danube and machine-gunned them into the river. End of story."
"Between 1944 and 1945 the Weisz family, and all Hungarian Jewry, faced their hardest times. Their army, as well as the whole German gewermacht, was outflanked, outnumbered, and outgunned. It was obvious that the Russians would plow through. Plus the Americans and the Reds both were bombing away. The fascists knew their cause was lost. But nothing dissuaded them from carrying on with the killing. And when the Hungarians didn’t display the required resolve to overcome inertia, Third Reich administrators were installed to replace them. The SS took over and packed the Budapest ghetto tighter than ever."
................................................................................................
"Sixteen hours after John moved in with the old watch maker the Gestapo moved into the Red Cross Orphanage. As it was now headquarters of an important Third Reich facility orphans were hardly desired there. So the ever efficient Nazis took the thousand Christian Hungarian orphans down to the Danube and machine-gunned them into the river. End of story."
................................................................................................
"While Normandy Beach was being overrun by the allies the Nyilasok and the Nazis were doing their worst to the less attractive tribes of Hungary. The Eastern front edged closer every day, and the Western was growing more threatening to fascist concerns by the minute. With a million of its enemies already on freed French soil, any sane military analyst of the Third Reich should have stridently recommended the commitment of every uniformed German and Hungarian man to fight at either of the two fronts. But the murderous bullies could not relent in their cowardly, pointless war against old men, women and children. My accusation of cowardice is hardly controversial, so I’ll dedicate the rest of this brief chapter to the futility of their endeavor."
The author proceeds to give his analysis about nazis, comparing them to their much loved legendary Teutonic knights, and the doomed warrior Siegfried. But while temptingly plausible for anyone who would rather thus excuse them, it's simply incorrect, faulty, false. None of them had any possible delusion that they fought for a good cause, for any part of human civilisation, or furthering it. It was plain that their conduct, especially regarding humanity other than blond Germans, was about perpetrating evil beyond imagination and employing every possible fraud for the simple cause of enslaving humanity to German ownership of all lands, all people and thus furthering expansion of Germany to encourage reproduction of Germans simultaneously, a cause that wasn't new but had been practiced off and on for over a millennium, particularly since crusades, when Germans went conquering and killing Prussian instead of the much further land of Israel. In short, Nazi ideology was, is, evil, and most of them knew it, especially the ones older than teenagers and those that had actually partake in the killings.
"Contemplating the German character one can only conclude that they knew they didn’t have a chance, even from the start."
Not true. Few were as realistic as to know they were doomed, and when they knew, they did try to stem the tide. They weren't heroes fighting a doomed but worthy cause, they were out to destroy civilisation, enslave humanity and own the earth for their own selfish ends, till the end. When they lost, most ran with huge amounts to other lands, escaping persecutions and with no thought of facing or of those left to suffer.
"You could have papers proclaiming you to be Hitler’s own son, but it didn’t help during an air raid."
Most people sheltered in basements or in subway stations, but the eleven year old saw they were death traps. He chose to run out, look up, and run counter to the direction of the planes. Which was easier when it was Russian planes, closer and visible. U.S. planes flew much higher up.
"The force of the blast sends countless shards of jagged metal of all sizes ripping through the air at a thousand miles an hour. If whatever it hits is inanimate it crumbles and burns. If whatever it hits is animate it dies and is left unrecognizable. The impact of the explosion alone flattens everything for two hundred feet all around. If you’re within a block of one going off the force of the shock wave crushes your organs and you pass your last seconds in excruciating agony. Another block beyond that and it can still fling you against the wall like a rag doll, crushing your bones. Sometimes a plane was shot down or simply crashed on its own. The planes fell, totally out of control at two hundred miles per hour, spinning off pieces of propeller and fuselage. On the way down their seventy caliber machine guns might also be firing, spewing out their giant rounds in all directions. When they crashed it was ten times the explosion of one of their bombs. All the gasoline went up in a fiery ball and rained down liquid death. Worse, it might still have some of its bomb load on board, which could all go off at once on impact. It’s chaos. Buildings fall. Bricks and glass become deadly projectiles. People run, scream and die. You see countless pieces of human torsos on the ground. Arms and legs fly by, and blood rains down as if the clouds were wounded. Even after the bombers pass the ensuing firestorm sucks the oxygen out of the atmosphere around you and you choke. It’s a nightmarish hell. And though I had my running and dodging, I only survived because I was lucky."
"While Normandy Beach was being overrun by the allies the Nyilasok and the Nazis were doing their worst to the less attractive tribes of Hungary. The Eastern front edged closer every day, and the Western was growing more threatening to fascist concerns by the minute. With a million of its enemies already on freed French soil, any sane military analyst of the Third Reich should have stridently recommended the commitment of every uniformed German and Hungarian man to fight at either of the two fronts. But the murderous bullies could not relent in their cowardly, pointless war against old men, women and children. My accusation of cowardice is hardly controversial, so I’ll dedicate the rest of this brief chapter to the futility of their endeavor."
The author proceeds to give his analysis about nazis, comparing them to their much loved legendary Teutonic knights, and the doomed warrior Siegfried. But while temptingly plausible for anyone who would rather thus excuse them, it's simply incorrect, faulty, false. None of them had any possible delusion that they fought for a good cause, for any part of human civilisation, or furthering it. It was plain that their conduct, especially regarding humanity other than blond Germans, was about perpetrating evil beyond imagination and employing every possible fraud for the simple cause of enslaving humanity to German ownership of all lands, all people and thus furthering expansion of Germany to encourage reproduction of Germans simultaneously, a cause that wasn't new but had been practiced off and on for over a millennium, particularly since crusades, when Germans went conquering and killing Prussian instead of the much further land of Israel. In short, Nazi ideology was, is, evil, and most of them knew it, especially the ones older than teenagers and those that had actually partake in the killings.
"Contemplating the German character one can only conclude that they knew they didn’t have a chance, even from the start."
Not true. Few were as realistic as to know they were doomed, and when they knew, they did try to stem the tide. They weren't heroes fighting a doomed but worthy cause, they were out to destroy civilisation, enslave humanity and own the earth for their own selfish ends, till the end. When they lost, most ran with huge amounts to other lands, escaping persecutions and with no thought of facing or of those left to suffer.
................................................................................................
"You could have papers proclaiming you to be Hitler’s own son, but it didn’t help during an air raid."
Most people sheltered in basements or in subway stations, but the eleven year old saw they were death traps. He chose to run out, look up, and run counter to the direction of the planes. Which was easier when it was Russian planes, closer and visible. U.S. planes flew much higher up.
"The force of the blast sends countless shards of jagged metal of all sizes ripping through the air at a thousand miles an hour. If whatever it hits is inanimate it crumbles and burns. If whatever it hits is animate it dies and is left unrecognizable. The impact of the explosion alone flattens everything for two hundred feet all around. If you’re within a block of one going off the force of the shock wave crushes your organs and you pass your last seconds in excruciating agony. Another block beyond that and it can still fling you against the wall like a rag doll, crushing your bones. Sometimes a plane was shot down or simply crashed on its own. The planes fell, totally out of control at two hundred miles per hour, spinning off pieces of propeller and fuselage. On the way down their seventy caliber machine guns might also be firing, spewing out their giant rounds in all directions. When they crashed it was ten times the explosion of one of their bombs. All the gasoline went up in a fiery ball and rained down liquid death. Worse, it might still have some of its bomb load on board, which could all go off at once on impact. It’s chaos. Buildings fall. Bricks and glass become deadly projectiles. People run, scream and die. You see countless pieces of human torsos on the ground. Arms and legs fly by, and blood rains down as if the clouds were wounded. Even after the bombers pass the ensuing firestorm sucks the oxygen out of the atmosphere around you and you choke. It’s a nightmarish hell. And though I had my running and dodging, I only survived because I was lucky."
................................................................................................
Here, as if to outdo both, the story of Yolie travelling to Paris and helped by a German woman who was officially Nazi, and the extraordinary character Joska, a blond blue eyed tall beautiful Austrian- Hungarian who fell in love with Rose and helped her whole clan in Budapest move to safety, there is a staggering tale of Joska travelling to Auschwitz to rescue Anci; that he promised, as demanded by Rose, to retreat if he were endangered, and did so after meeting the S.S. at gates of Auschwitz, and not only managed to survive but go rescue another three girls in Vienna, is merely more cake! And topping is halfway, that Anci had been sent to work in Bremen the day before this knight had arrived at gates of Auschwitz.
The description of what he saw and how he felt from border of Poland to gates of Auschwitz is just priceless.
"Mr. Hargitay earned a few meager forints repairing watches in his apartment, but every time he repaired a watch John would sabotage it."
Finally Mr Hargitay asked Joska to take John away, since he'd destroyed his business.
"Joska’s powers of persuasion were formidable. He convinced Gestapo agents to release prisoners, and chased off armed Nyilasok gangsters with his fiery tongue. He even cajoled total strangers into selling their precious papers. But he met his match in Mr. Hargitay.
"It was a fact that John had no papers. He was born John Nonasi, and he stayed that way. Fortunately, that surname only identified him as someone from the town of Nonas, and not necessarily a Jew. And combined with the classically Christian first name of John, and his turned up nose and red hair, he was in no immediate danger of being stopped. Still, it was a risk for anyone to walk around without identity papers.
"As walking around was out of the question, Joska just took him to 63 Hungaria Korut, and made him stay indoors. To this day I think it was John’s plan all along. Anyway, the whole family was happy to have him. And happier yet were they that the Russians had crossed the border into eastern Hungary. Of course, this was not the flag waving, rejoicing kind of happy. It was more like going to the dentist. We were glad that we were getting rid of a bad problem, basic to our well-being, but afraid of the pain that accompanied the process."
Here, as if to outdo both, the story of Yolie travelling to Paris and helped by a German woman who was officially Nazi, and the extraordinary character Joska, a blond blue eyed tall beautiful Austrian- Hungarian who fell in love with Rose and helped her whole clan in Budapest move to safety, there is a staggering tale of Joska travelling to Auschwitz to rescue Anci; that he promised, as demanded by Rose, to retreat if he were endangered, and did so after meeting the S.S. at gates of Auschwitz, and not only managed to survive but go rescue another three girls in Vienna, is merely more cake! And topping is halfway, that Anci had been sent to work in Bremen the day before this knight had arrived at gates of Auschwitz.
The description of what he saw and how he felt from border of Poland to gates of Auschwitz is just priceless.
................................................................................................
"Mr. Hargitay earned a few meager forints repairing watches in his apartment, but every time he repaired a watch John would sabotage it."
Finally Mr Hargitay asked Joska to take John away, since he'd destroyed his business.
"Joska’s powers of persuasion were formidable. He convinced Gestapo agents to release prisoners, and chased off armed Nyilasok gangsters with his fiery tongue. He even cajoled total strangers into selling their precious papers. But he met his match in Mr. Hargitay.
"It was a fact that John had no papers. He was born John Nonasi, and he stayed that way. Fortunately, that surname only identified him as someone from the town of Nonas, and not necessarily a Jew. And combined with the classically Christian first name of John, and his turned up nose and red hair, he was in no immediate danger of being stopped. Still, it was a risk for anyone to walk around without identity papers.
"As walking around was out of the question, Joska just took him to 63 Hungaria Korut, and made him stay indoors. To this day I think it was John’s plan all along. Anyway, the whole family was happy to have him. And happier yet were they that the Russians had crossed the border into eastern Hungary. Of course, this was not the flag waving, rejoicing kind of happy. It was more like going to the dentist. We were glad that we were getting rid of a bad problem, basic to our well-being, but afraid of the pain that accompanied the process."
................................................................................................
" ... When I went to church with the Debrecens I prayed to Jesus to protect me from his followers and open the way for the Reds to come in. ..."
"Whatever well earned insult you may wish to hurl at the Nazis, you must allow that they were efficient. Despite the constant destruction of rail yards they continued to fill cattle trains with human beings and send them off to their factories of industrialized murder in Poland. They shipped half a million Jews there, with almost none making a round trip. But, there were a few successful rescue attempts.
"In one case, a multimillion dollar bribe rerouted a train to Switzerland, and saved nearly seventeen hundred people. And the famous Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, set up neutral ‘Swedish Houses’ to save another fifteen thousand, personally financed by American President Franklin Roosevelt. Motivated by an avarice that nearly matched his homicidal inclinations, Adolf Eichmann himself proposed a bribe of fifty thousand trucks full of much needed materials to ransom the Jews of Hungary, but the logistics were impossible to work out. And there were other Joska Cséhs as well. But, by and large, the Jewish presence in Hungary was rapidly vanishing."
" ...Then, finally, November brought snow and the blessed atheist Russians."
" ...And with the speed of an artillery round the rumor that the Russians were finally on the outskirts of the city spread to the inner city and the apartment of the Debrecens.
"As soon as I heard it I became so anguished over my parents’ vulnerable proximity to the onslaught I sped out into the streets, making a beeline for Hungaria Korut. ... "
" ... And if anybody would have chanced to spot a kid running through the barrage it’s unlikely they would have entertained joining me for an interview. So, I was safe from inquisitive Nazis for now. I just had to contend with the Red gauntlet of a million cannon shells. That I made it, and in one piece, is testimony to the insane unpredictability of this world."
" ... The Reds had taken four years to get this far, and they were here for the sole purpose of kicking Kraut heinie. The German war machine had laid siege and waste to Moscow and Stalingrad, killing millions, and the time for righteous vengeance was now at hand. They had one objective, to kill and destroy until not a hint of resistance remained. We of course did not take any of that personally. We saw them as our liberators, and had no fear of them directly. After all, we reasoned, the artillery assault was not aimed at us. It was meant for our common enemy, the fascists. No shell had the name Weisz written on it. The Nazis, Nyilasok, and Hungarian army were in their cross hairs. Not us. Our saviors were here to rid Hungary of its oppressors. We just had to keep our heads down and keep out of the crossfire."
"About sixty people, all the inhabitants of 63 Hungaria Korut, were in the vast basement coal bin, as wide as the entire building. Three quarters of that rank was composed of the Weisz and Krausz families. And the others were too concerned for their own safety to worry about anyone’s foreskin. Everybody’s official religion was orthodox survival."
" ... And it went on for over a month. No invasion. No soldiers. Just artillery shelling. If the Red Menace intended to wear down our will to resist it was most persuasive. And, if the uniformed members of our society still felt resolute before the relentless Russian onslaught, they certainly didn’t speak for us civilians. We were more than ready to surrender. Actually, there didn’t even seem to be a battle going on at all. The shooting seemed to be coming exclusively from the east. We heard no salvos from our side being fired in response. Later we found out the Germans had definitely gotten the message and were organizing a complete pullout, leaving Hungary to tend with the subhuman commies on its own."
" ... When I went to church with the Debrecens I prayed to Jesus to protect me from his followers and open the way for the Reds to come in. ..."
"Whatever well earned insult you may wish to hurl at the Nazis, you must allow that they were efficient. Despite the constant destruction of rail yards they continued to fill cattle trains with human beings and send them off to their factories of industrialized murder in Poland. They shipped half a million Jews there, with almost none making a round trip. But, there were a few successful rescue attempts.
"In one case, a multimillion dollar bribe rerouted a train to Switzerland, and saved nearly seventeen hundred people. And the famous Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, set up neutral ‘Swedish Houses’ to save another fifteen thousand, personally financed by American President Franklin Roosevelt. Motivated by an avarice that nearly matched his homicidal inclinations, Adolf Eichmann himself proposed a bribe of fifty thousand trucks full of much needed materials to ransom the Jews of Hungary, but the logistics were impossible to work out. And there were other Joska Cséhs as well. But, by and large, the Jewish presence in Hungary was rapidly vanishing."
" ...Then, finally, November brought snow and the blessed atheist Russians."
" ...And with the speed of an artillery round the rumor that the Russians were finally on the outskirts of the city spread to the inner city and the apartment of the Debrecens.
"As soon as I heard it I became so anguished over my parents’ vulnerable proximity to the onslaught I sped out into the streets, making a beeline for Hungaria Korut. ... "
" ... And if anybody would have chanced to spot a kid running through the barrage it’s unlikely they would have entertained joining me for an interview. So, I was safe from inquisitive Nazis for now. I just had to contend with the Red gauntlet of a million cannon shells. That I made it, and in one piece, is testimony to the insane unpredictability of this world."
" ... The Reds had taken four years to get this far, and they were here for the sole purpose of kicking Kraut heinie. The German war machine had laid siege and waste to Moscow and Stalingrad, killing millions, and the time for righteous vengeance was now at hand. They had one objective, to kill and destroy until not a hint of resistance remained. We of course did not take any of that personally. We saw them as our liberators, and had no fear of them directly. After all, we reasoned, the artillery assault was not aimed at us. It was meant for our common enemy, the fascists. No shell had the name Weisz written on it. The Nazis, Nyilasok, and Hungarian army were in their cross hairs. Not us. Our saviors were here to rid Hungary of its oppressors. We just had to keep our heads down and keep out of the crossfire."
................................................................................................
"About sixty people, all the inhabitants of 63 Hungaria Korut, were in the vast basement coal bin, as wide as the entire building. Three quarters of that rank was composed of the Weisz and Krausz families. And the others were too concerned for their own safety to worry about anyone’s foreskin. Everybody’s official religion was orthodox survival."
" ... And it went on for over a month. No invasion. No soldiers. Just artillery shelling. If the Red Menace intended to wear down our will to resist it was most persuasive. And, if the uniformed members of our society still felt resolute before the relentless Russian onslaught, they certainly didn’t speak for us civilians. We were more than ready to surrender. Actually, there didn’t even seem to be a battle going on at all. The shooting seemed to be coming exclusively from the east. We heard no salvos from our side being fired in response. Later we found out the Germans had definitely gotten the message and were organizing a complete pullout, leaving Hungary to tend with the subhuman commies on its own."
................................................................................................
"By the end of January Budapest, and all of Hungary, was completely liberated. After five years of Nazis and Nyilasok we were free. But there weren’t many of us left to enjoy that freedom. The fascists had done their job all too well. Before the Russians smashed their way in, half a million Jews were deported and murdered. Only five thousand were left alive in Hungary. It was a big success story for the Nazis, eagerly abetted by the enthusiastic collaboration of Hungarians who had fallen prey to the lie of racial superiority."
"The same park that I had fled through, Liget Park, was now the venue for public executions. The Nazis and Nyilasok members who had been clearly identified by their victims or their relatives, were taken to a part of the park called the Octagon and hanged. For about six weeks, every Saturday, the public was invited to witness these public executions. Anywhere from five to twenty at a time were taken there in trucks. Then they were led through the vengeful mob to the gallows. The Russians made no attempt to protect the convicted from the wrath of the people who were there to see them die. By the time they even got to the rope they were beaten half to death. These were the nastiest, most vicious and sadistic fascists, responsible for routinely murdering defenseless civilians. People threw rocks at them, spat on them, and hit them with their fists or anything they wanted. There was no sympathy for them from any side. And they were left to hang for continued pelting. Even the teenaged Nyilosak punks were strung up. And while their bodies twirled at the end of the rope, copious amounts of warm saliva dripping off them, their victims’ friends and relatives visited upon them every manner of mutilation imaginable. War crime definitely does not pay."
"The war was over. The anti-Semites lost, and Hungary seemed ready to go back to the way things were before. It’s a funny thing about anti-Semites. They always lose. That’s not an opinion, or the gloating of the victorious survivor. It’s just history. I’m not extrapolating any conclusion. I’ll leave that up to the scholars."
................................................................................................
"A few more weeks transpired and it seemed clear that Nicholas was not coming back. So, Rose and Joska were married. Two weeks later Nicholas came back from Auschwitz.
"Rose was numb. She had been living with Joska as his wife for almost a year, and had accepted that Nicholas was dead. His own parents did. So, she calmly explained to him what Joska had done for her and her family, and Nicholas graciously bowed out. Actually, he was extremely grateful to Joska and showed it. They even remained friends. Nobody in the family resented Rose’s decision. At least Nicholas survived, and we were all grateful for that. Then somebody else came back."
"Anci had been liberated by the British. When they were getting close to Bremen the Nazis loaded all the prisoners on to a train to take them somewhere for liquidation. Fleeing as they were from the allies, who were in hot pursuit, they chose to simply abandon the train and leave the prisoners to suffocate inside the hot cars, as was so often their plan at that time. But British troops discovered the train and took Anci and the others to a nearby vacation resort where they kicked everybody out and housed them until they could determine what to do with them. Soon she was on another train, but this time a safe one, all the way to Budapest."
"She’d been through an unimaginable man made hell, which words were too weak to recount. It was too unbelievable to tell, anyway. Of course, Mother would believe it all, but why torture her with the tale? Anci’s silence restored to her something that had been torn from her, her dignity. For, in addition to the physical brutality, there was the utter dearth of respect for human life that reduced these afflicted beings to mere shadows of people. They were stripped of health, wealth, and ultimately even the nobility of character that elevates a person from among the beasts. Finally free to decide for herself, she chose to revive her lost individuality through silence. After uncountable days of subjugation she cherished her emancipation by embracing the sublime license to do or say nothing. Anci had groveled her way through unbelievable oppression. And whether anyone would believe her or not, was inconsequential. She wished never to be linked to that lost year again, and only her silence would grant her that wish. No external force would ever exercise its sway over her again, not even her adoring family’s concern. Her refusal to talk testified to the restoration to her of that singular privilege enjoyed only by humanity, free will. And she would relish that freedom forever. And loving her as we all do, we let her live her life unfettered by the challenge of curiosity. Back in that drab kitchen in 1945 Anci reclaimed her dignity. And she never looked back. To this day we do not talk about what they did to her. But what we do know is that she was one of the lucky ones. She survived.
"We celebrated Anci’s return, and Joska was especially glad to meet her. And when word got out that she was back the boy who had always accompanied Anci’s shy suitor showed up.
"His name was Robert Frater, and he had the thankless task of bringing her the sad news that Andrew, her betrothed, had died in Auschwitz. But Robert had made it, and now he wanted to marry Anci. Apparently, he had always been in love with her, but had been beaten to the punch.
"It had been a year since she had disappeared into that black Nazi hole, but here she was, in the bosom of her family, planning on marriage. There was no actual wedding celebration. Who could dream of parties at that time? Despite the lack of opulence however, it was a union with lasting effect. They would stay married for over fifty years. But it was a childless marriage. Auschwitz is just a haunting memory, but its effect was permanent, whether you talked about it or not. As a result of the experiments she’d undergone there she could never bear children. But I’m happy to report that as I write this she still lives. Into her eighties she has still not spoken about what they did to her. And years later, when I sought compensation for her from the ever officious German government, just as millions of people already had, they explained their verification process, which consisted of two examinations. In reply to this, Anci simply stated, “Not if you guarantee me one million dollars would I let another German doctor touch me.”
"We had gotten our lives back, as meager as it now was. Before the war, we were Hungarians, and being at a sort of a European crossroads we were well accustomed to the ebb and flow of human migrations. In the big historical picture the Germans hadn’t even lasted all that long. Then the Russians came and kicked out the Germans. We were grateful, and willing to give them every wrist watch we could find, but after a while we started wondering when they too would be leaving. After all, there wasn’t anyone else to come and kick them out. Not that they were oppressing us. They just weren’t leaving, that’s all. I mean, after five years of Nyilosak and Nazis, we knew what oppression was, and the Red army presence hardly constituted that. But they weren’t leaving. We weren’t afraid of them, exactly. But everyday they got more comfortable and more entrenched. Once they’d rubbed out anything that looked half German or Nyilosak they stopped the killing. But they weren’t leaving. They were restoring basic utilities and infrastructure. But they weren’t leaving. Hungary had a long dismal history of seeing her borders shrunk as the result of ill advised military campaigns, and World War Two was the worst yet. We had to give back every inch of land the Germans had awarded us, and it was starting to look like our whole country was nothing but spoils of war. But the Russians weren’t leaving. Even though they’d achieved a resounding victory by January the war was still not over. While they pushed on to Berlin there were still a few die hard fascist pockets of resistance in the Hungarian countryside to mop up. So, they had a legitimate reason to hang on. But when the Germans unconditionally surrendered four months later, bringing the Nazis just nine hundred and eighty years short of their goal of a thousand year Reich, we thought the Russians would surely pack up and go home. “Job well done, and we’ll never forget you! Spaceba! Chadasho!” By now though, they’d officially declared war on Japan, prolonging an official state of hostilities, and their presence, longer yet. And four more months later, when Japan also surrendered, we were ready to bet, and give odds, they’d be eager to beat a path back to Mother Russia. “Have a safe journey home, and don’t forget to write. Oh here comrade, you forget my grandfather’s watch! Dosvedonya.” But the Russians weren’t leaving."
"We had nothing to fear from the ubiquitous occupation forces, or reprisals for any animosity towards us over the war, because every atom of antipathy and revenge in their beings was one hundred percent dedicated to Germany. They loathed it uber alles.
"Deutschland had wrought a legacy of misery in Russia that would never be forgotten. Even during the most antagonistic years of the cold war, whatever hatred Moscow felt for forces outside their nation was still reserved for the Germans. America had not caused death and destruction to Mother Russia, but Germany had, and on an unforgettable scale. The Russians might have begrudged Yankees their opulence, but they did not hate them for it. They didn’t want to blow up Disneyland, they wanted to visit it! But if the world would have turned its back for a day, Russia would have vaporized Germany just to get even. In any case, Hungary was now in Stalin’s pocket, and we would have to get used to it. Our leaders, true to form, had gotten in bed with losers, and we were now paying the price. For centuries Hungary had made these rotten choices, and seen her lands either disappear or fall under the sway of foreign potentates. Perhaps such geographical and societal uncertainty are contributing factors in the equation that gives Hungary the highest suicide rate in the world. You quite literally don’t know where you stand. In any case, after a few months it became clearer than the Danube that Hungary had gone from fascist domination to communist domination. The Russians were here to stay."
"And when I remember the war, and not a day goes by when I don’t, one image stands out above them all. It isn’t a fearsome soldier or gun toting hooligan. It isn’t one of the uncounted victims. Instead, it’s the visage of an elegant gentleman, offended by the cruelty of our oppressors, and determined to turn the tables on them and deprive them of their innocent quarry.
"Josef Cséh stood up to the fascists and lived a long life to tell the tale. He’s ninety four and has outlived all those bastards. In his youth he risked everything to help total strangers, a family of Jews whom he never met. He was brave and dauntless, and worthy of praise, more so than I can tell. Of course, I know he was not alone in challenging the Nazis. There were many like him, who also took a stand and defied evil. There were real Christians, like the Debrecens, who helped hide the Kovacks, Moscovics, Faragos, and me. And there were many others who hid Jews, both adults and children, and they deserve thanks and praise as well. But I leave those acts of gratitude to those who were rescued by them. I do my duty, and I thank the courageous individual responsible for my own salvation. I thank Joska and try to repay him over and over again. But how can I really? He saved my life. He saved the lives of my parents, and my sister, and nearly forty other relatives. If he had done nothing but rescue those three girls from the Vienna ghetto he’d have earned his fame. He is a hero, and I proclaim it to the world. You cannot imagine the fear in which Europe lived. Ninety nine percent of the people who lived under the heel of the Nazi boot trembled in terror. But Joska looked in the face of fear and spit in its eye. He would not hand over one victim or cooperate with them in any way. They could go to the hell as far as he was concerned. No submission to tyranny. No kowtowing. No surrender. He did not tremble before their threats and their guns. He stood toe to toe, unarmed and alone, against the worst bloodthirsty scum that has ever crawled on the Earth, and backed them down over and over again. Grateful I am he saved me, and proud to know him and be able to help him."
"By the end of January Budapest, and all of Hungary, was completely liberated. After five years of Nazis and Nyilasok we were free. But there weren’t many of us left to enjoy that freedom. The fascists had done their job all too well. Before the Russians smashed their way in, half a million Jews were deported and murdered. Only five thousand were left alive in Hungary. It was a big success story for the Nazis, eagerly abetted by the enthusiastic collaboration of Hungarians who had fallen prey to the lie of racial superiority."
"The same park that I had fled through, Liget Park, was now the venue for public executions. The Nazis and Nyilasok members who had been clearly identified by their victims or their relatives, were taken to a part of the park called the Octagon and hanged. For about six weeks, every Saturday, the public was invited to witness these public executions. Anywhere from five to twenty at a time were taken there in trucks. Then they were led through the vengeful mob to the gallows. The Russians made no attempt to protect the convicted from the wrath of the people who were there to see them die. By the time they even got to the rope they were beaten half to death. These were the nastiest, most vicious and sadistic fascists, responsible for routinely murdering defenseless civilians. People threw rocks at them, spat on them, and hit them with their fists or anything they wanted. There was no sympathy for them from any side. And they were left to hang for continued pelting. Even the teenaged Nyilosak punks were strung up. And while their bodies twirled at the end of the rope, copious amounts of warm saliva dripping off them, their victims’ friends and relatives visited upon them every manner of mutilation imaginable. War crime definitely does not pay."
"The war was over. The anti-Semites lost, and Hungary seemed ready to go back to the way things were before. It’s a funny thing about anti-Semites. They always lose. That’s not an opinion, or the gloating of the victorious survivor. It’s just history. I’m not extrapolating any conclusion. I’ll leave that up to the scholars."
................................................................................................
"A few more weeks transpired and it seemed clear that Nicholas was not coming back. So, Rose and Joska were married. Two weeks later Nicholas came back from Auschwitz.
"Rose was numb. She had been living with Joska as his wife for almost a year, and had accepted that Nicholas was dead. His own parents did. So, she calmly explained to him what Joska had done for her and her family, and Nicholas graciously bowed out. Actually, he was extremely grateful to Joska and showed it. They even remained friends. Nobody in the family resented Rose’s decision. At least Nicholas survived, and we were all grateful for that. Then somebody else came back."
"Anci had been liberated by the British. When they were getting close to Bremen the Nazis loaded all the prisoners on to a train to take them somewhere for liquidation. Fleeing as they were from the allies, who were in hot pursuit, they chose to simply abandon the train and leave the prisoners to suffocate inside the hot cars, as was so often their plan at that time. But British troops discovered the train and took Anci and the others to a nearby vacation resort where they kicked everybody out and housed them until they could determine what to do with them. Soon she was on another train, but this time a safe one, all the way to Budapest."
"She’d been through an unimaginable man made hell, which words were too weak to recount. It was too unbelievable to tell, anyway. Of course, Mother would believe it all, but why torture her with the tale? Anci’s silence restored to her something that had been torn from her, her dignity. For, in addition to the physical brutality, there was the utter dearth of respect for human life that reduced these afflicted beings to mere shadows of people. They were stripped of health, wealth, and ultimately even the nobility of character that elevates a person from among the beasts. Finally free to decide for herself, she chose to revive her lost individuality through silence. After uncountable days of subjugation she cherished her emancipation by embracing the sublime license to do or say nothing. Anci had groveled her way through unbelievable oppression. And whether anyone would believe her or not, was inconsequential. She wished never to be linked to that lost year again, and only her silence would grant her that wish. No external force would ever exercise its sway over her again, not even her adoring family’s concern. Her refusal to talk testified to the restoration to her of that singular privilege enjoyed only by humanity, free will. And she would relish that freedom forever. And loving her as we all do, we let her live her life unfettered by the challenge of curiosity. Back in that drab kitchen in 1945 Anci reclaimed her dignity. And she never looked back. To this day we do not talk about what they did to her. But what we do know is that she was one of the lucky ones. She survived.
"We celebrated Anci’s return, and Joska was especially glad to meet her. And when word got out that she was back the boy who had always accompanied Anci’s shy suitor showed up.
"His name was Robert Frater, and he had the thankless task of bringing her the sad news that Andrew, her betrothed, had died in Auschwitz. But Robert had made it, and now he wanted to marry Anci. Apparently, he had always been in love with her, but had been beaten to the punch.
"It had been a year since she had disappeared into that black Nazi hole, but here she was, in the bosom of her family, planning on marriage. There was no actual wedding celebration. Who could dream of parties at that time? Despite the lack of opulence however, it was a union with lasting effect. They would stay married for over fifty years. But it was a childless marriage. Auschwitz is just a haunting memory, but its effect was permanent, whether you talked about it or not. As a result of the experiments she’d undergone there she could never bear children. But I’m happy to report that as I write this she still lives. Into her eighties she has still not spoken about what they did to her. And years later, when I sought compensation for her from the ever officious German government, just as millions of people already had, they explained their verification process, which consisted of two examinations. In reply to this, Anci simply stated, “Not if you guarantee me one million dollars would I let another German doctor touch me.”
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"We had gotten our lives back, as meager as it now was. Before the war, we were Hungarians, and being at a sort of a European crossroads we were well accustomed to the ebb and flow of human migrations. In the big historical picture the Germans hadn’t even lasted all that long. Then the Russians came and kicked out the Germans. We were grateful, and willing to give them every wrist watch we could find, but after a while we started wondering when they too would be leaving. After all, there wasn’t anyone else to come and kick them out. Not that they were oppressing us. They just weren’t leaving, that’s all. I mean, after five years of Nyilosak and Nazis, we knew what oppression was, and the Red army presence hardly constituted that. But they weren’t leaving. We weren’t afraid of them, exactly. But everyday they got more comfortable and more entrenched. Once they’d rubbed out anything that looked half German or Nyilosak they stopped the killing. But they weren’t leaving. They were restoring basic utilities and infrastructure. But they weren’t leaving. Hungary had a long dismal history of seeing her borders shrunk as the result of ill advised military campaigns, and World War Two was the worst yet. We had to give back every inch of land the Germans had awarded us, and it was starting to look like our whole country was nothing but spoils of war. But the Russians weren’t leaving. Even though they’d achieved a resounding victory by January the war was still not over. While they pushed on to Berlin there were still a few die hard fascist pockets of resistance in the Hungarian countryside to mop up. So, they had a legitimate reason to hang on. But when the Germans unconditionally surrendered four months later, bringing the Nazis just nine hundred and eighty years short of their goal of a thousand year Reich, we thought the Russians would surely pack up and go home. “Job well done, and we’ll never forget you! Spaceba! Chadasho!” By now though, they’d officially declared war on Japan, prolonging an official state of hostilities, and their presence, longer yet. And four more months later, when Japan also surrendered, we were ready to bet, and give odds, they’d be eager to beat a path back to Mother Russia. “Have a safe journey home, and don’t forget to write. Oh here comrade, you forget my grandfather’s watch! Dosvedonya.” But the Russians weren’t leaving."
"We had nothing to fear from the ubiquitous occupation forces, or reprisals for any animosity towards us over the war, because every atom of antipathy and revenge in their beings was one hundred percent dedicated to Germany. They loathed it uber alles.
"Deutschland had wrought a legacy of misery in Russia that would never be forgotten. Even during the most antagonistic years of the cold war, whatever hatred Moscow felt for forces outside their nation was still reserved for the Germans. America had not caused death and destruction to Mother Russia, but Germany had, and on an unforgettable scale. The Russians might have begrudged Yankees their opulence, but they did not hate them for it. They didn’t want to blow up Disneyland, they wanted to visit it! But if the world would have turned its back for a day, Russia would have vaporized Germany just to get even. In any case, Hungary was now in Stalin’s pocket, and we would have to get used to it. Our leaders, true to form, had gotten in bed with losers, and we were now paying the price. For centuries Hungary had made these rotten choices, and seen her lands either disappear or fall under the sway of foreign potentates. Perhaps such geographical and societal uncertainty are contributing factors in the equation that gives Hungary the highest suicide rate in the world. You quite literally don’t know where you stand. In any case, after a few months it became clearer than the Danube that Hungary had gone from fascist domination to communist domination. The Russians were here to stay."
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"And when I remember the war, and not a day goes by when I don’t, one image stands out above them all. It isn’t a fearsome soldier or gun toting hooligan. It isn’t one of the uncounted victims. Instead, it’s the visage of an elegant gentleman, offended by the cruelty of our oppressors, and determined to turn the tables on them and deprive them of their innocent quarry.
"Josef Cséh stood up to the fascists and lived a long life to tell the tale. He’s ninety four and has outlived all those bastards. In his youth he risked everything to help total strangers, a family of Jews whom he never met. He was brave and dauntless, and worthy of praise, more so than I can tell. Of course, I know he was not alone in challenging the Nazis. There were many like him, who also took a stand and defied evil. There were real Christians, like the Debrecens, who helped hide the Kovacks, Moscovics, Faragos, and me. And there were many others who hid Jews, both adults and children, and they deserve thanks and praise as well. But I leave those acts of gratitude to those who were rescued by them. I do my duty, and I thank the courageous individual responsible for my own salvation. I thank Joska and try to repay him over and over again. But how can I really? He saved my life. He saved the lives of my parents, and my sister, and nearly forty other relatives. If he had done nothing but rescue those three girls from the Vienna ghetto he’d have earned his fame. He is a hero, and I proclaim it to the world. You cannot imagine the fear in which Europe lived. Ninety nine percent of the people who lived under the heel of the Nazi boot trembled in terror. But Joska looked in the face of fear and spit in its eye. He would not hand over one victim or cooperate with them in any way. They could go to the hell as far as he was concerned. No submission to tyranny. No kowtowing. No surrender. He did not tremble before their threats and their guns. He stood toe to toe, unarmed and alone, against the worst bloodthirsty scum that has ever crawled on the Earth, and backed them down over and over again. Grateful I am he saved me, and proud to know him and be able to help him."
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March 20, 2020 -
April 03, 2020 - April 06, 2020.
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March 20, 2020 -
April 03, 2020 - April 06, 2020.
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