Gábor Sólyom: Memoirs of Bor Labour Serviceman 1145
Gábor Sólyom:
Memoirs of Bor Labour Serviceman 1145
"I can see you, Kóbi, I can see you," we heard the shout, and the weary labour service crew - each of them holding twelve bricks - dragged and heaved themselves past the podium. It was a ramshackle affair, boarding hastily nailed together, and perched on it was a wiry Hussar sergeant major, o-legged and dark-faced as a gipsy, probably in his early fifties, flicking us every now and then with the riding crop he held. He did it when he saw the march getting too slow, or if anyone carried one brick less, or a broken one.
It was early autumn, 1944, and one of the high festivals of the Jewish calendar, called Yom Kippur [1] . The customary "long day" fasting was celebrated by the labour servicemen of Bor [2] by order of Sergeant Major János Császár, this way: pointless marching up and down, from dawn to dusk, with a brickload of some forty kilos. I was among them, eighteen years old and just graduated. To make the task somewhat bearable, I distributed the weight evenly by strapping two loads of 6 bricks each, one hanging on my chest and one on my back. I passed the podium with an even stride. These events took place at the Bor copper mining area, in the Berlin lager camp [3] , just before the great retreat [4] commenced.
But the story didn't begin here. Early spring in 1944, Hitler occupied the country on March 19, forego Horthy's withdrawal from the war, a plan hatched by the Regent as the Germans plainly faced defeat. The occupation brought with it a strain of severe anti-Jewish measures. Confinement to designated, star-marked living quarters [5] , prohibition of free travel, expulsion from workplaces, restriction of public transport, confiscation of radios, and to crown it all, the obligation to wear the yellow star [6] .
Our family had suffered dearly by April. My father was arrested in a street raid, and never returned. My brother was taken from our home early one morning on conspiracy charges.
I was in my final year of high school at the time, preparing to graduate. I had little time for studies, for I was summoned to so-called Junior Firefighter's Duty, meaning 24 hours of duty followed by 48 hours of rest.
To this background, drafting orders were posted up one summer day, calling for all Jewish men aged 18-42 to report for labour service [7] by midnight, June 4th.ű
At this point I'd like to elaborate on my childhood and the family background from which I was wrested by the whirlwind of brutalities that followed from the German occupation.
I was born into a petit bourgeois family. My father was a traveling salesman, away from the family all week, visiting rural hat salons to peddle the wares of a hat manufacturer he represented. My mother, like most women of the time, was occupied with the household and bringing up my brother and me.
My father was a son of an eight-child country Jewish family, where the offspring's education was, for lack of funds, limited to completing the six-grade elementary. In contrast, my mother came up in a five-child middle class family in the capital. After the untimely loss of the father, the children's upbringing fell upon the wealthy uncle. My mother only completed four years of her civic schooling, yet she showed a strong interest toward literature and music, and showed talent as a pianist. From her I learned the love of books and music.
As with most Jewish families of the time, I was brought up to love my homeland. As soon as I'd learned my letters, I started devouring the greatest of Hungarian writing: the historical novels of Jókai, Mikszáth, Gárdonyi, Ferenc Herczeg, Irén Gulácsy, and János Kodolányi. Most of these books were presents made to me from my uncle. Between ages eight and ten, it was due to this literary influence that I aspired to follow the example of Sándor Kőrösi Csoma [8] and seek out the old Hungarian heartlands in Asia.
My patriotism was cooled somewhat in 1936, when I was ten years old, and enrollment to high school proved unexpectedly difficult. Despite my flawless elementary school record, I could only gain admission to the state Szent István Gymnasium with a recommendation from the district chief rabbi, who held Bible classes there.
Those days very few Jewish children were admitted to state schools. It was how I learned the Latin phrase "numerus clausus", which means closed number, and was used to refer to a regulation repressing Jews in all fields of life. Until the end of my fifth form in 1941, I was an excellent high school student. However, with the sudden death of our principal Pál Nagy, things changed. The principal succeeding him brought a different mentality to our school, in accordance with the times. This soon became apparent in my declining grade average.
I can still see my German teacher struggling with embarrassed gestures to explain why I am to receive the minimum passing grade at the end of term - despite my excellent marks.
My thus far excellent grades in Hungarian Language and Literature were also diminished, and hardly made a secret of the reason why, when my mother inquired. Looking back, this seems quite a minor discomfort compared to how the "endlösung" or final extermination of Jews was in progress in most German-occupied countries at the time. But for me, the adolescent boy, the serial injustices caused deep injuries indeed.
Tension was also rising at home. Because of the anti-Jewish laws [9] my father had lost his job, and was forced to make a living illegally. The constant stress brought about his diabetes and rapid physical dilapidation.
Such were the circumstances of the dawn of 1944, the year of final ruination for Hungarian Jews.
On June 4th, I bid my mother a tender farewell and loaded with a heavy backpack, I made my way to the freight rail station of the Józsefváros district. My enlistment started on a blue note, as I stumbled on a protruding cobblestone on the way, losing my balance. My heavy pack slid sideways over my nape and pinned me to the ground. I continued my journey with a sizeable lump on my forehead.
Alighting the freight wagon – which was waiting ready to depart – another surprise awaited. In the darkness I made out an intense argument in a language that seemed altogether alien, something Scandinavian perhaps. I was surprised, I thought the draft had called for Hungarian citizens only. Later I learned the young squabblers were inmates of a home for deaf-mutes, who were also under obligation to enlist.
Arriving to the town of Jászberény, the thousands reporting for labour service were housed in enormous barns, which had been purposefully emptied. The following day was taken up by receiving the newly arrived, and I met many acquaintances and schoolmates there.
On the morning of June 6th, Lieutenant Colonel Iván Zentai gave the order and we were lined up in straight rows. Ivan the Terrible – as he was known – walked along the rows and pointed his riding crop at selected people. They were stood to wait in a group apart. Most of my friends and acquaintances were in the other row. I had no notion of the priorities of selection, and I figured under the circumstances it is better to be among friends, so when the lieutenant turned his back I didn’t hesitate to join their group. This turned out to be a rash choice, albeit a lucky one, because I survived after all.
The group of selects went on to Bor [10] , a town I had never even heard of. The second big event of that particular day was the Allied landing in Normandy [11] . This marked the long-awaited opening of the second front and new hope for the war’s eventual end. We were informed from the newspapers of June 7th that were brought to our long, tarrying freight train by the people of Jászberény.
Before our departure we bought fresh milk from the milkmen, this combined with the peas’ porridge lunch led to disastrous results during the trip. All fifteen hundred of us got diarrhea.
Relieving ourselves on a moving train was a difficult challenge, but the inventive solution presented itself: the next customer in line crouched in the doorway to empty his bowels while two others held his arm so he wouldn’t fall.
The train clattered through Budapest without stopping. As we passed through Ferencváros station, I managed to jettison a postcard addressed to my mother, hoping for a kind stranger to deliver it. My mother did in fact receive it along with another postcard I wrote her from Jászberény. Here are my two consolatory messages to my mother, which were preserved thanks to her prudence.
„Jászberény, June 8th, 1944
Dearest Mother!
I'm writing this card from Jászberény. We're waiting to start off, but don't know yet where we're heading. Dearest mother, don't worry about me, I'm doing fine and teamed up with a lot of boys I know. I'm aching for news from home, but I can only give you a return address once we've arrived to our station. Food is tasty and we have washing facilities. I hope this trip will be to my benefit. Be sure to write me a reply and give news on Dad and Imi. Kisses from: Gabi.”
Witten in the margins of the card are a few lines from my cousin's husband, whom I met accidentally in Jászberény. The second letter went:
„June 11th, 1944
Dearest Mother!
This card I'm writing from the train. I am feeling terrific. I have found many comrades. So far it all feels like an excursion. As we started off I had minor incidents, so I lost a few things including my flask. Once we've arrived and we're allowed parcels, I'll ask for a new one. Any news from Dad and Imi? Please excuse my handwriting, the train is shaking. I hope you're not living by yourself anymore. Again, I ask you not to worry, a little exercise will only do me good. Incidentally, we've just passed through Budapest. Kisses to all relations and to You from: Gabi.”
This latter card was posted by somebody from the town of Simontornya, as inscribed on the postage stamp mark. Even in that hate-fuelled world, there were good hearts. From that location, I guess we must have gone toward Kaposvár and Pécs and crossed the border to Croatia.
There were forty people to a wagon. Everyone had room to lie down. We were also fed, the train was sidetracked and we were given food. Our journey lasted about a week, and the only notable event took place in Serbia, just before Nis, where a British air raid ravaged the town. I could have slept through the whole thing, except for our wagon commander, Szekeres - who wore the white ribbon of the Catholicized [12] , and got his position as an officer in reserve - gave a shout, "everybody down!" This interjection was superfluously self-important, typical of him. He did manage to frighten us all awake, so we all listened to the blasts in dread, close as they were. Lucky for us, our train was stopped right out on the open track. We later saw that the station had been bombed by the allies. The heroic staff [13] had locked our doors and ran into the fields for cover.
We arrived to the little Serbian town Zajecar, and transferred from our regular train tracks, which ended there, to a narrow gauge track that led us to Bor. We arrived there in the evening hours. Bor was a little mining town, copper was surface-mined there, and the mine was under French ownership until the Second World War. It came into German hands after their occupation of France and the conquest of Yugoslavia. According to an agreement signed between the Hungarian and German governments in 1943, the Nazi empire demanded labour in return for copper. In a year's time, three thousand labour servicemen suffered the dreadful conditions here. In the beginning, under Lieutenant Colonel Balogh, those forced to labour here were treated quite humanely. However the situation changed with the promotion of Ede Marányi [14] to Lieutenant Colonel, perhaps for the very purpose of suspending humane management.
We knew nothing of all this. We arrived to find ourselves facing a ragged bunch of emaciated labour servicers marked with enormous yellow stars front and back, but we were strictly forbidden to talk with them. Our morale was dampened further by our dinner of boiled rotten potatoes, which we were forced to eat. Anyone caught trying to dispose of it was beaten mercilessly by the overseers. They walked up and down the rows shouting, "Jews, your dainty days are over!"
This welcome set the tone for our fate to come, and broke down the hopeful mood set deep in our youthful optimism. Later events only reinforced the process, making it plain that we are regarded despicable pariahs or hostages at best.
We were sorted into camps. Several camps were established in the mountains around Bor in order to provide labour for the construction of a rail track to Belgrade. The camps were named after various German and Austrian towns. We were positioned in the Bregenz lager camp, arriving at a forced march of several hours. We were put up in newly-built wooden barracks, these were furnished with double-decker bunks. Our daily routine consisted of reveille at five, followed by breakfast and labour duty from six, a lunch break from noon to one, return to camp at half-six, dinner at six, and curfew at nine.
Our rations for a day: seventy decagrams [slightly over a pound and a half - the translator] of German military black bread, for breakfast a half basinful of coffee or soup, lunch of pot barley or potatoes (with meat twice a week and Sundays), and pasta for dinner. For youths at hard labour, this wasn't nearly enough, so we were constantly famished. We were getting a third-rate military supply, yet even this was apparently tithed by our overseers.
On day two, our boots were confiscated and we were given wooden clogs, in order to prevent escape. We were then required to mark our clothes, front and back, with a stenciled star pattern in yellow oil paint. Besides easy recognition, the aim of this exercise was our humiliation. Lieutenant Colonel Marányi introduced it, and it was only mandatory in Bor. Whoever needed to relieve themselves at night was obliged to shout along the way, "Humbly reporting to the guards, I’m going to the latrine!” They told us it was necessary because of the partisan threat
Reserve Lieutenant István Rozsnyai was camp commander. He was a lean, bespectacled and menacing man in his mid-forties, a bank official in civilian life. No sooner had we got there, he had us lined up on a hillside before some six hundred inmates, and held us a "sermon on the mount" of the most vulgar offenses including, "Jews! Your prosperity is finished, no more will you exploit Christians! You'll have to work with sweat and blood, or else face dire consequences! This is a war zone, violations of discipline or attempted escape are capital crimes!” After that introduction, reporting for work seemed like a walk in the park. Our labour teams of ten to twelve workers were only escorted by an overseer and a white-ribboned labour serviceman, as well as the Todtist to coordinate the work.
Before I carry this story any further, I must explain about the white ribboned servicemen. This regulation colored ribbon was required to be worn by persons deemed Jewish, with two Jewish grandparents, but were either born Christian or converted to some form of Christianity. They lived in separate barracks, and they were selected for supervising labour brigades and commanding the Jewish barracks. They weren't required to wear yellow stars. All this was in accord with the Divide and conquer principle effectively used since Roman times. Their supplies and treatment were otherwise the same as ours.
Our labour supervisor was a rural Austrian master mason of about sixty, wearing Todt uniform, and turned out to be a quiet, good sort named Franz Ramäder. He had blind faith in German victory. One summer day, when we'd got friendly enough with him, he said, "Once our work here is done, we'll all go to the seaside in Holland and construct dams." In answer to our questions, he stated that we will be treated decently, but for lack of opportunity to settle down, we cannot have families or offspring, of course. All this he was saying as Allied forces were already advancing on the Western front.
Work wasn't too hard, only for most of us who've never performed manual labour before. Our tasks were deforesting, digging trenches for the rail tracks and building the embankments. For us eighteen year olds, open-air physical labour in July might even have been fun, if only it weren't overshadowed by our forceful removal from our homes, to the mercy of our overseers, the likes of Sergeant János Császár, our in-chief on duty. He did everything he possibly could to occupy labour servicemen in their free time with some activity or other in the camp. We could always hear his rowdy carousing. He mainly shouted the following obscenity: "Gypsies fucked my mother, Vlachs fucked my mother, Hungarians fucked my mother, but Jews never fucked my mother!"
Apart from his introductory speech, Lieutenant Rozsnyai made no further appearances, leaving the management of our camp to this delirious sadist. We were all weary of Sundays, when instead of work we were forced to report for interrogation at ten in the morning. This meant that for any miniscule breach of regulation, culprits were hung from a rafter for two hours, or alternatively twice one hour. The form of punishment was regularly administered in the armed forces, whereas the offender's hands were tied back and he was suspended from a beam, so that only the toes remained in contact with the ground. This position severely strained one's physique. It usually led to a loss of consciousness, whereas the offender was let down again, brought to using water, then punishment was resumed until the cutoff.
On one occasion I was due to be punished this way - though to this day I have no idea what I had committed - as one white-ribboned Róna from our group informed me that he had been ordered to produce one person for interrogation. So he asked my forgiveness, having selected me.
On Sunday morning I felt suddenly ill with fever, and asked my bunkmate to report me sick at the interrogation. Soon enough, little Doctor Halász showed up with a thermometer, and diagnosed a 38 degree fever which left me incapable of reporting for interrogation. This wouldn't nullify my punishment, of course, merely postponing it by a week. However, fate was kind enough to spare me from this trial, because within a week, two hundred of us were transferred one morning to another camp, the so-called Straflager [penitentiary camp - the translator]. I had managed to avoid my punishment for good.
We spent the morning before our transfer to the Straflager in the sparkling sunshine, on a hillside outside the camp. We were waiting for the trucks to pick us up, when Lieutenant Colonel Császár suddenly showed up and started a lengthy and incomprehensibly slurred speech, insisting what a great time we've been having here, and we shall regret the day we ever had to leave him and this camp.
During our time at Bregenz lager camp, we acquired a decisively important piece of news. At the latrine near our work station, an issue of the German Army's Balkan Front newspaper, the Donauzeitung was hung for hygienic use, and on one of its pages I read this news item: "Romania had broken off its allegiance to Germany on August 23rd, 1944, General Antonescu has been placed under arrest, and the country has quit the war." This event brought forth for all of us the hope of liberation. The regular and imposing morning parades of American Air Force Liberator bombers had ceased when they were transferred to bombing of the oil targets in Ploiesti, though their sight had been so dear to our hearts.
As far as the conditions at the Straflager went, Lieutenant Császár's prophecy proved painfully accurate. Even from the outside, this lager was nothing like any military facility we had seen, while Bregenz still fit the picture. This was a real prison camp.
Just outside Bor town limits stood a couple of filthy, ramshackle barracks behind a barbed wire fence. They were bare except for the triple-decker wooden bunks. Our rations offered no condolence. Half a basin of coffee for breakfast, a lunch of gruel soup or yellow pea porridge. All this came garnished with something sticky made of cornmeal, which was referred to as bread. We were lucky to at least occasionally quell our hunger when Serbian women would appear at the barb wire and offer plum jelly pancakes to purchase.
Working conditions were much worse too. Several mates and I were laying the water pipes for the mine's water supply, standing knee deep in a ditch of cold groundwater. Our supervisor was a man in his sixties who wore civilian clothes, had a gastritic and ever-grumpy appearance, a master sewer constructor. One time my leg was cut on a rock. The wound did not heal, because I was kept standing in water. I only avoided a serious infection by coincidence: the Balkans were under evacuation, and our work here was suspended.
There were two resident overseers: a corporal named Juhász, and an ethnic Transylvanian private of immense stature. Juhász was a sadistic drunkard, a printer by trade, who got drunk every night and picked out a labourer at random to beat about with a wooden clog. Anyone whose countenance he didn't like was dangled from the rafters for two hours, and for no other reason.
One morning, I woke to find one side of my face enormously swollen from a bad tooth. "What's the matter, Jew? Who were you fighting last night?", Corporal Juhász asked me, when I reported to ask for medical treatment. After I replied, he declined to take the matter of reforming my face into his own hands, instead he was kind enough to allow me medical attention. Little Doctor Halász, who had delivered me from punishment once already, now rid me of the abscess on my gums in his primitively equipped office. The enormous juggernaut Romanian seemed kindly, but occasionally - to illustrate his loyalty in front of Juhász, his boss - he would give out breathtaking smacks.
Hygiene was limited to one shower a week. We had a mentally retarded man of about forty in our barracks, short and frail, who let himself go completely and neglected himself for weeks. As a result he was infested with lice, which soon infected the rest of using the barracks. These pests cause great suffering once rampant, an incessant itching that makes you feel as if every part of you were moving, even when you're completely still. The situation became intolerable, so we were all paraded to the town's disinfecting facility, where all our clothing was treated with hot steam. After we'd spent a few weeks there, the German High Command of the Balkans ruled that unless the Balkan Peninsula is evacuated, the advancing Soviet Army would cut off the retreat. So the order was given to evacuate the mountain camps around Bor, and inmates were retained in the town. This was executed during the first week of September in 1944. We were placed in the Berlin lager camp in Bor, and a smaller group went to the lager camp Brno.
The evacuation process was planned in two further stages. The first group consisted of Bor labourers with over a year behind them, they had the advantage over the newly arrived. We watched in envy as some three thousand were marched homeward on September 17th, 1944. Some were resolved to go home at any cost and did anything to get into that first march. A schoolmate of mine surrendered his precious watch to a Sub-Carpathian young man who knew he wouldn't find any of his family there.
If only they could see the future, they wouldn't have been so eager. Only seventy of them survived to the end of the war.
Until our departure, we spent our time in the evacuated Berlin lager, at the mercy of the sadistic overseers Lieutenant Colonel Császár and Corporal Juhász. They both carried on their beloved hobby: torture. Császár in the day, and Juhász at night, now with far more human material at hand. One night, Corporal Juhász beat up Vilmos Somogyi with a wooden clog beyond recognition - he had been a well known publicist at the Evening Courier.
So our time passed until September 29th, 1944, the day of our departure. We were given a single day's rations for the whole march, which would take about two weeks to complete. Donning our confiscated boots, we headed for Pozarevac. About three hundred labourers unfit for the march were left at the local hospital.
About two and a half thousand labour servicemen were escorted by a hundred and twenty overseers in groups of forty at the front, middle and rear of the march that stretched over the highway. Because of the partisan threat they were all equipped with machineguns, which was a menacing sight to behold. To our incredulity, a couple of white-ribboned cronies were among the gunslingers, including our commander Szekeres. (Traitors are everywhere. Why else would the "Jewish councils” [15] have collaborated with German and Hungarian authorities throughout the deportations?)
After some forty kilometers' walk, we passed the ashened remains of the Heydenau lager camp at the end of our first day - the barracks had been burned during the evacuation.
The second day of our march led us winding along a serpentine path in a drizzle of rain, with forest on both sides. We heard machinegun chatter from the forest, and all two and a half thousand of us hit the ground for cover and waited motionless. Was it friend or foe? We soon got our answer. The order was passed by word of mouth from front to the back: overseers are to lay down their guns where they are and head on up the path. Then the next order came: continue the march forward! About five hundred meters' walk brought us to the following sight: three partisan officers on horseback stood by the side of the road, red stars on their caps. Tito's partisans [16] the crowd murmured. At a respectful distance, the disarmed overseers stood behind them. There stood the despicable Lieutenant Rozsnyai and Corporal Juhász, their faces twisted in fear. Beside the partisan officers stood a previously escaped Sub-Carpathian boy from our camp, smiling and acting as interpreter. The marching ranks were led from the path into the forest. After half an hour's walk we arrived at a wellspring, the partisan guard's base. We found out later that there were only ten partisans there, the patrolmen of a larger unit who knew of our departure and were waiting for us in the forest.
From a book by Ágnes Godó, Hungarians in the Yugoslavian liberation wars [17] 17, I later learned that the command of Partisan Division 14 was notified on September 18th about the evacuation of the Bor camps, and that inmates were being marched East on the Zagubica–Petrovca highway. The 9th Brigade of Division 23 was on duty in the area, and were ordered to perform a raid. Simultaneously, Division 25 started toward Bor.
We spent a short spell at partisan headquarters, then our march continued along a mountain path to arrive at the town of Majdanpek. Along the way I noticed how the more decent overseers - with the help of somebody - had swapped their uniforms for yellow-starred suits. The juggernaut Romanian private of the Straflager had done so, too. The majority acceded to this in silence, but when Lieutenant Rozsnyai appeared among us dressed in a yellow-starred suit - the gift of a secret helper, to this day he remains unknown - there was a general outrage and with a joint effort he was quickly stripped of his ticket to escape.
After a short military tribunal trial in Majdanpek, the overseers and officers identified by senior labour servicemen, including Lieutenant Rozsnyai and Corporal Juhász, were sentenced to death and executed by the partisans. Corporal Juhász was hung from a beam for two hours before he was done away with. I did not witness these events personally, but a mate of mine watched it all and told us. Most of us eighteen-year-old adolescents were not prepared mentally to see executions, not even if they were just.
The partisan major had meanwhile arrived in town, and greeted the liberated prisoners. During his interpreted speech he asked us if we wanted to join the partisan army. His words were received with loud enthusiasm, and the ex-prisoners joined unanimously.
It soon became apparent that the overseers' guns could only arm two or three hundred men. Food supplies were also scarce for two and a half thousand, so partisan command decided to divide the liberated into groups of one hundred to hide us all in the mountains with the aid of one partisan and one shepherd mountain guide to each group. This began our journey along mountain paths that lasted nearly a fortnight. We had to keep off the main routes where German Army units were retreating.
On the way - for lack of provisions - we ate raw corn on the cob, or toasted it when we could build a fire. We once met a shepherd with his flock of goats grazing, who slaughtered one of his flock to feed us. Another time we took shelter for the night in the last house along a village road, which was the schoolhouse. Our partisan escort came in shouting to warn of German armored vehicles coming up the road. We barely had time to slip our boots on and run for the cliff in front of us. We clawed our way up to get away from the road. Looking back, we saw the procession crawling along the road. Fear of certain death had turned all of us into mountain climbers extraordinaire, even people we would then consider old, at forty-two.
We had spent two weeks trekking the mountains around Bor, when news reached us that Soviet forces had liberated the town. Our partisan companion promptly dispelled our team and told us we were free to go back to Bor or to Romania.
As the town was nearby, I made my way to Bor. I was coming down from the thick mountainside woods surrounding the town to a winding hairpin path when a military truck appeared. As it passed in front of me, I saw through the branches a Studebaker's open platform and a slant-eyed, oil brown faced Kirgiz soldier wearing a red starred cap. The truck was going toward Bor. I was finally overcome with joy, and the feeling that I was free at last.
We found shelter in the empty barracks of the Brno lager with my companions who'd arrived to Bor from the vicinity. We spent a few days there, but nobody could manage our provisions in the ransacked town. Pál Justus, a subsequently well-known social democrat, tried lobbying with the town management to get us provisions and a ride home, but to no avail.
Then I resolved to take charge of my fate. In the morning several mates and I stood out by the road to Romania, where I waved down a Soviet military truck, and the driver gave a hearty wave for me to climb on up. I soon reached the border, where I took the ferry over the Danube from the last Yugoslavian settlement, arriving to the little Romanian harbor town of Turnu Severin.
It was Sunday, October 15th, 1944, and the town radiated an atmosphere of peace. Men and women went out wearing their best clothes. You can imagine their bewilderment when they saw this ragged bunch, wearing huge six-pointed yellow stars on their fronts and backs, and a five-pointed red star on their soldiers' caps.
We saw no sign of the war whatsoever in the town, and word had already passed of an announcement by Horthy that Hungary is quitting the war. We were elated at this prospect as we walked on to the town's railway station to catch a train straight home to Budapest.
The conductors and passengers on board the fast train to Temesvár looked upon us in great reverence as Tito's partisans, and so of course we travelled without fare or ticket, and on first class.
We arrived in the evening hours only to learn that the Hungarian pacification had been compromised, and Germany's acting puppet Szálasi [18] 18 had taken over power. Our homecoming was squashed.
Jewish community people were awaiting us at the station, for here our brothers in faith had survived the war unhurt [19] . We were given a delicious dinner of rich goulash soup and a sweet bread called kalács, all in the churchyard. We were all famished, so we ate greedily, and this necessitated some emergency medical aid later in the night. The following morning, Jewish townsfolk showed up, each to take in one Jewish ex-prisoner.
At the churchyard selection scene, a man of about forty stepped up to me. He said he will take me to his sister's family. He was a bachelor, and couldn't accommodate me, but his sister would. The head of the family, Mr. Popper was a wholesale import-export tradesman of poultry and eggs, and lived together with his wife and three children and the mother-in-law in a four-room apartment. I was put up in the room used for an office. Mattresses were put on the floor for my temporary bedding, a heavenly pleasure after all those nights I spent on wooden bunks.
During the days that followed, they also gave me clothes to wear, so I regained my civilian appearance. It was then that I had a look around town.
I was walking down Main Street in gentle October morning sunshine, when a Romanian soldier spoke to me. From his questioning tone I assumed he wanted directions to a street. Of course I couldn’t answer him, so he got suspicious. He asked for identification, which I gave over to him compliantly. By this time we'd been given the so-called "dovada", a Russian-Hungarian-Romanian language identification card issued by the Jewish community of Timişuara. He was noticeably unhappy with this, and decided to take me in to the military office, though I tried communicating myself any way I could.
On our way we met that rather simple-minded comrade of mine who'd appeared earlier in the Straflager, sleeping in the bunk under mine. He approached unwarily to inquire where I was heading with the Romanian soldier. I had no time to tip him off, for the soldier had him by the arm and obliged us both to come along to headquarters. His faced glowed with glee at catching two presumable spies red-handed. At the headquarters he reported withes to the officer on duty, handed us over and left beaming with pride at his job well done. Taking our papers, the sergeant sat us both down on the corridor benches and left us alone, to wait for the major to get back from his lunch break. We waited idly while my simpleton mate kept whinging about his ill luck at having run into me. As time dragged by my stomach insistently reminded me of due lunchtime. Hunger got a hold on me, and tossing all reason aside I decided to quit this forcible arrest and quench my hunger. I told my mate I was going to the latrine (as I originally did intend to) and coming back. Contrarily, I walked out the gate before the armed soldier standing on guard there. The guard took no notice, probably taking me for a client who had finished his business.
Leaving the building, I walked to the corner at a leisurely pace to avoid attention. I turned the corner into an empty alley, and took off at a dead run, to get as far from the scene as possible. At my temporary home, grandma was already worried about me being late for lunch. Without telling what happened, I dug in to my lunch at an astounding pace. I was busy with my third helping of walnut noodles (no great feat considering my appetite at the time) when the telephone rang. Her son was on the line, the one who introduced me to the family, and now enquired about my whereabouts. Grandma told him I was at the table eating lunch. His son then briefed her on what had happened (I suppose there were records of the labour servicemen's whereabouts, and this is how he was notified), and he urged me to return to headquarters before they issue a national warrant for me. I obliged with mixed feelings, though he assured me I would come to no harm.
Contrary to this promise, the soldier I had slipped past at the gate took me to the basement with a colleague of his. Here he used a supple steel rod to persuade me of my escape's wrongfulness, and that in future I should avoid taking such foolish steps. Finishing his lesson, he placed a finger on his lips signaling that I should avoid mentioning this form of education to the major, or else it may be re-administered. As we finally gained audience with the major, he told me in broken Hungarian that it was wartime and they have no clue to our intentions in coming to Romania. Indeed our intentions, I thought to myself, pleasure seekers, or tourists maybe? He expressed his hope that our behavior will continue to be orderly. With these words, he kindly dismissed us. In the days that followed, I did my best to keep clear of Romanian uniforms. This special attention toward them remains with me today. All through my labour service duty I had eluded direct physical aggression, only to suffer it from "allied" hands after my liberation.
In time the family took me in. I grew especially attached to the two boys, fourteen-year-old Frédi and Robi, who was twelve. They looked upon me as a brother. Their sister was my age, perhaps this was the very reason she treated me disdainfully, and we never got friendly.
Returning home one day I saw a Soviet officer's cloak hanging on the coat rack by the door. I entered the room to find a middle-aged, bespectacled major conferring with Grandmother in German. From our introductions I learned he had also been quartered with the Poppers, so we had to pull together to make room. The younger boy, Robi became my roommate, and together we could listen to Mr. Popper's night-long Romanian business telephone calls. He never failed to apologize afterward.
I must mention a point of interest, that once the major - who was a doctor by trade - found out who I was, he immediately switched to speaking Yiddish [20] to me. He too was Jewish. It took me great pains to convince him that where I'm from, assimilant Jews don't speak that particular German dialect, whereas most East European Jews do. That said, I saw by the look on his face what he later articulated into words, namely that he couldn't consider me a "real" Jew.
And so winter closed in, and we listened excitedly to radio news about the Soviet Army's advance. The siege of Budapest commenced on the Christmas of 1944 with the city's circumvention, and went on till mid-February 1945. We had no news of what befell our loved ones there.
In February I thanked the Poppers for their hospitality and took their leave. Using my well-tried method, I stood by the highway, bearing a pack stuffed full of edibles, courtesy of my hosts. I waited for hours before a Soviet military truck pulled over, and after a brief coordination with the driver I climbed in next to him in the cab. I could only plan my trip for short distances at a time, so I approached Budapest on board freight trains, trucks, and even a peasant's cart. I rode a freight train's brake tender to Dunaharaszti station, but I was obliged to get off because the tracks had been bombed in the siege. Making my way to the station, I ran straight into the friendly, flailing arms of a Soviet officer. The invitation, I found out soon enough, wasn't addressed at my person, but to hauling the sacks full of grain off the train and into the warehouse. I produced my "dovada" and amid much gesticulation, I explained I was a forced labourer under the Germans and am on the way home. The friendly officer made clear his position that if I had laboured four months for my German captors, I may as well work a day for my liberators. He spoke so convincingly, I accepted his argument unconditionally, and I spent the day hauling the fifty-kilo sacks from the train into the warehouse.
When my work was done, the next morning I undertook the final stretch of my journey. I was given a ride to the Soroksár road by a peasant with a cart. When our ways parted, I said goodbye to the old peasant man sitting on the dickey, and carried on by foot.
In the downtown area along the circular boulevard from Boráros square to Blaha Lujza square, most of the buildings were in ruins, the tram tracks torn up and pointing skyward like exclamation marks. The streets were empty, horse carcasses abounded. I turned onto Rákóczi road and went on toward Keleti station, where the same sight greeted me. I was at the corner of Rottenbiller street, only two blocks from home, when a Soviet gendarme emerged from the ruins of the Debrecen Restaurant, about twenty years of age and wearing a green cap, calling out to me "Davay! Davay! Dokument yest [21] ?" Compliantly, but palpitating, I produced my "dovada" which he studied closely, reading it and let me go my way. He told me, "Pashli damoy [22] !" During these minutes I meditated on the stories I had heard about these document controls ending up with people put into POW camps.
I walked on downhearted, and turning onto our street I saw that all five or six buildings after that corner were knocked flat, probably by carpet-bombing. It was much later I learned that so-called chain bombs were used during the air raids, that is a chain structure placed between two bombs to destroy the buildings between the bombs. "If only I may find our house intact," I asked the heavens. My prayer was answered, I found that on the next street block where we had lived, the red brick walls stood completely intact. Considering the surrounding rubble, it seemed a genuine miracle.
My mother stood on the hanging corridor cleaning a carpet when I appeared at the doorway from the staircase. Nothing further could stop me from finally embracing her, who was most precious for me in the whole world.
My mother was the only one of my closest family who made it through the Arrowcross terror and the ordeal of the siege, in a Swedish protected house.
I learned of the terrible fate of the first homebound group (step one) from the survivors' testimonials. I heard that at the time of the retreat, Sergeant Császár was rescued from Bor by Lieutenant Colonel Marányi via his own aeroplane. The sadistic sergeant was recognized on the streets of Szeged in 1945, and it was later established that he actively participated in several executions. The People's Tribunal sentenced him to death by hanging. Marányi fled to the West. I was told by an associate from the Holocaust Documentation Center that he was drowned in the Seine (with some help) in 1957, in Paris.
My brother Imre returned after the war, in May 1945, after thirteen months imprisoned in Mauthausen. My father was starved to death in the in February 1945 at the Mühldorf lager camp.
[1] Yom Kippur is the Jewish festival of atonement, also called „the long day”. Observant Jews must abstain from all food and drink in a 25 hour fast.
[2] During the Second World War, labour servicemen were forced to work in the copper mines, and constructing the Bor– Zagubica –Petrovac railway leading there. Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti was prisoner in the Heidenau lager by the railway construction.
[3] The Berlin lager camp was the largest one in the Bor vicinity, and among the worst reputed. It was established in 1942 to capacitate 2500 prisoners.
[4] Construction of the Bor– Zagubica –Petrovac railway was thwarted after August 1944, with Romania’s quitting the war, the rapid German retreat and an increasing threat from the partisans. By German orders, all camps were evacuated in the area . They planned to march the labourers to Germany to continue working. Most of the detained were executed during the marches.
[5] Based on the ordinance enacted on June 16th, 1944, all Jews living in Budapest were consigned to designated houses, until a central ghetto was established. These houses were required to be marked by a large, six-pointed canary yellow star of 30 centimeter diameter on a black background 51 by 36 cm. A three-day transit period was decreed for their occupation, but this was modified to 8 days to make it fulfillable. The ordinance affected some 200 thousand Jewish people .
[6] The ordinance of March 31st, 1944, ruled that all „Jewish persons” over the age of 6 must display on the left side of their outer clothing a 10×10 centimeter canary yellow six-pointed star, while outdoors or indoors .
[7] An institution unique to the Hungarian Holocaust. For some reason, the Home Defense Act of 1939 proscribed unarmed service for those men qualified as unfit for armed service. Originally this law was not targeting Jews, but it gave ground to antisemitic measures as it was carried out. Jewish conscripts bore armbands first with the Hungarian national tricolor, later changed to yellow colored, while those people of Christian faith who were nevertheless regarded Jews wore white armbands . They performed labour for the Army, including road repairs, fortification work, building barriers on the frontline, and demining. Labour servicers’ lives generally depended on how antisemitic their assigned overseers were. Labour service affected some 60 thousand people during the war.
[8] Sándor Körösi Csoma (b. Kőrös, Apr. 4th, 1784 – d. Darjeeling , India , Apr.11th, 1842) linguist, establisher of Tibetan philology. As a student he determined to find the remnants of the „Asian Hungarians”. Between 1823–24 in the Zhangla lama monastery, amid dire conditions, he laid the foundations of Tibetan linguistics. In 1842 he started for Greater Tibet in search of the Hungarian ancestors, contracted malaria on his trip and died.
[9] Before and during World War II, Hungarian legislation brought and carried out numerous discriminatory measures against its citizens deemed Jewish in anti-Jewish laws. Most important were the 1938 Law on „Ensuring the balance of society and the economy”, the 1939 law „Limiting the expanse of Jewish participation in public and economic life”, and the 1941 law "Amendment to the 1894 Marriage Act with necessary measures to ensure racial purity".
[10] See note 2.
[11] A key operation in WWII, D-Day saw the landing of British, American and other Allied forces on the shores of Normandy. This opened up the Second Front.
[12] 1 2See note 7.
[13] Soldiers performing military duty while guarding the labour servicers.
[14] Ede Marányi commanded the Bor camps from 1943, and became infamous for his inhumane treatment of detainees. After the war, he escaped West amid mysterious circumstances, and thus managed to avoid being brought to justice.
[15] Jewish Councils were established according to German orders, following the country’s German occupation on March 19th, 1944, imparting the will of the collaborating German and Hungarian authorities on Jews. In rural Hungary these Councils only existed for the weeks it took to deport the complete Jewish population by early July.
The Budapest Jewish Council was set up on March 21st, a very controversial organization that many hold to be the Jew’s betrayers, others say they had done all that was in their power to protect the condemned .
[16] Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) was Marshal of Yugoslavia after WWII. During the war he commanded the most significant partisan force, effectively combating the occupying German military. By the end of the war, they’d practically managed to liberate Yugoslavia without Soviet aid.
[17] Ágnes Gódó’s book was published in 1972, in it she idealized Hungarian participation in the partisan war led by Tito, as politically required at the time. (See also under note 16.)
[18] Ferenc Szálasi (1897-1946): Radical right wing politician, founder of Arrowcross and Hungarian Supremacist parties. On October 15th 1944, Hungarian government attempted to quit the war which Germany was obviously losing. The plan failed, and the Germans brought Szálasi and the Arrowcross party to power. In 1946, Szálasi was given the death sentence for his war crimes by the People’s Tribunal.
[19] Temesvár (Timisoara) belonged to Romania, and local policy decided the fate of its Jewish inhabitants. General Antonescu, the Romanian „Conducator” led a very controversial Jewish policy during WWII. Joining the campaign against the Soviet Union in 1941, Bessarabia and Bukovina were annexed to Romania, and Jewish populations were slaughtered under autonomous initiative. Plans to deliver the Romanian Jews to the Germans were signed with Eichmann’s representative in September, 1942. Antonescu subsequently cancelled the deportations. Romania was the only European nation that started eliminating its own Jewish population on its own initiative, but ultimately refused to deliver their Jews to the Germans .
[20] A West-Germanic language, mother tongue to the Ashkenazi Jews (German Jewish migrants to Central-Eastern Europe) that developed in Medieval times as a German dialect. The dialect also incorporates Hebrew-Aramaic and Old French elements. It became a common language for the European Jewish Diaspora.
[21] Russian: Come on, come on! Have you got identification?
[22] Russian: Go home!