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Emery Gregus
Occupation and
Liberation 1944-1945
Aftermath: The Postwar Years
Remembrances
Chapter 13
The
next six weeks are memories of dark November-December afternoons, which
were filled with constant worry and preoccupation. Where was I going
to find refuge for the night? I was afraid to go back to my quarters,
but in the end, with no other solution at hand, I usually returned to
my rented room. Now and then I visited Nelly who, with Panni, lived
in the Dombai Pension under the guise of someone who is fleeing the
bombings from the countryside. On occasion, I spent a night there without
the knowledge of the landlord ---at least that is what I believed, --but
as it turned out after the Liberation, the landlord knew all along about
my being there. I also visited my Aunt Cili who, as before, continued
to live in a house specially designated for Jews in Lipotvaros. My visits
to her are fraught with more and more danger as the Arrow Cross men
now have embarked on a fervent campaign to round up the inhabitants,
especially the younger members of such houses. The Arrow Cross collected
the younger group and shipped them off to the western regions where
the concentration camps still existed, or when no transportation was
available, they force marched the Jews westward to their death.
One
day I was on my way to visit my Aunt Cili, and just as I was nearing
the house, I caught sight of a long line of Jews from an apartment being
herded away single file by the Arrow Cross. A strange emotion suddenly
seized me. I felt both immensely sorry for them and immensely relieved
that I was spared such a fate. Here I was, a Jew, without the Jewish
star, roaming the streets of Budapest as a Christian.
I
continued to visit Jucika (my brother’s girlfriend) who lived with
her sister in a room on the Kalvin Square. I often popped up for a visit
now and then, as did my sister Nelly and her daughter Panni. There were
usually a few people around when I went to visit. Often Jucika’s
brother was there (he is still considered Christian). One night Jucika’s
younger sister, Klari was there with a young man with whom she is in
fatally in love (and this in the strictest sense of the word). Both
Jucika and her sister were always hospitable and friendly whenever I
arrived, regardless if there was any inherent danger on the horizon.
The
middle of December arrived, and incredible as it seemed, we could almost
hear the faint rumblings of the Russian cannons. On Christmas Eve we
were all invited to Jucika’s home. Amazingly, we even exchanged
gifts with one another! Her protector, the furniture manufacturer, was
not present, most likely he was spending Christmas Eve with his family.
From my sister, Nelly, I received a pair of sturdy lace-up boots. To
this day, I don’t know how she got hold of something as valuable
as this because there was nothing available in Budapest at the time.
Around ten or eleven o’clock the question arose as to whether I
should to stay there and spend the night, or risk returning to my rented
room in the darkened city at midnight. They probably weren’t keen
to have me stay, but on the other hand, they would not deny me a night
either. Nelly who didn’t live too far away, decided to return to
the Dombai Pension with Panni, and I, after much thought, came to the
conclusion that there were too many people at the house and I decided
to return to my home. As it later turned out, Klari’s boyfriend
decided to spent the night there. On the way home I could hear the Russian
cannon fire in the distance and was quite aware of the increasing intensity
of the guns. Oh! What music to my ears! Perhaps, liberation was not
far off! Maybe it wouldn’t be too long now and liberation would
be close at hand!
The
trip back to my room took me close to one and half hours, far longer
than usual. I was forced to snake around buildings in the pitch black
of night (the city was darkened to avoid being easy target for the Allied
bombers) and finally, under the protective cover of the shadowy gloom,
I reached my room off the Lenke Plaza. I succeeded in sneaking up to
the third floor without anyone noticing, and lay down in my bed.
In
the meantime, during the night, the noise of the cannon fire continued
to grow louder and louder and the next morning I met up the Vagi couple
who was renting the other room in the apartment. We both realized that
we were the only ones remaining in the apartment; the other tenants
were already in the basement bomb shelter and the landlord and his family
had by now run off to the countryside for safety. The Vagis offered
me breakfast and we soon recognized that the increased noise of bombardment
must only mean that the apartment was in direct line of the Russian
attack, which was based from the opposite side of the rail embankment
facing the apartment. We were getting the full brunt of this Russian
attack. It was by now dangerous to remain in the apartment. The Vagis
decided to descend to the bomb shelter to join the others, but I told
them I would prefer to remain in my room. What I didn’t tell them
is that I am afraid to present myself to the 30 or so tenants and subject
myself to their curiosity and questions as to who I am, where I came
from and why I am not in the Hungarian army.
At
night shrapnel hits my room, the window is shattered and the glass shards
fall onto my bed. I push my cot to the corner next to the window to
avoid being hit. It is very cold—it is now Dec 24th, 25th, and
26th. When the bombing subsides, Mrs. Vagi, who by now is cooking on
the communal wood-stove in the bomb shelter in the cellar, climbs the
three flights of stairs to bring me some warm food. I spent the next
few days in my room under my duvet, wearing my winter coat. On New Year’s
Eve the bombings became so intense that I come to the decision not to
spend another day in such a perilous situation, and I reluctantly decide
that the danger of staying in my room is greater than the danger of
joining the 30 other potentially dangerous tenants.
Hoping
that no one will notice me, I surreptitiously descend from the third
floor staircase early the next morning and pretend that I am just arriving
home from the city. I go down to the bomb shelter and no one particularly
asks too many questions. No one inquires as to who I am, where I am
coming from or what is happening on the streets of Budapest. I run upstairs
to fetch my folding bed and set it up in the only remaining space under
the window facing the railway banks behind which the Russians continue
to bombard.
Here
is the first occasion that I meet the other tenants of the apartment
to whom in the past I was so frightened to show myself. My fears were
not unjustified. Among the group is one fervent Nazi, who, had he known
I was Jewish, would have easily had me arrested without any qualms.
The rest of group is mostly seemingly harmless Christians, or so I think,
and disinterested, or neutral as to my identity. In the cellar everyone
is looking out for himself. Either they are genuinely indifferent or
subconsciously do not want to be made aware of the identity of the new
fellow now occupying the neighbouring bed in the bomb shelter.
It
was the law in Hungary at the time that every apartment had to house
a tenant who was a chosen member of the Arrow Cross and it was their
function to oversee the conduct of the other tenants in the apartment.
In my building, this dubious honour fell to an elderly widow and her
40-year-old spinster daughter who had completed her medical studies
in Germany. She was quite publicly hoping for a German victory, and
when in the beginning of February, she heard on the radio that the Germans
had made a successful counter-offensive at Ardennes; she jubilantly
came to tell us the good news. She was still desperately hoping that
everything would work out for her in the end. It turned out that she
was had a very high regard for the German poet Erich Maria Rilke, about
whom, at the time I could still converse. This seemed to gain me her
good graces, so much so, that after a couple of weeks, when the Vagis,
who were struggling to feed me, asked the others in the bomb shelter
whether some of them might help and share their rations with me. The
widow and her daughter agreed to lend the Vagis a helping hand. The
irony of the situation was that by now I was eating every day at a different
family, just like in the Jewish communities of the olden days when the
Bochers (young students) went from family to family each week for their
next meal.
In
the meantime, there is no more water in the house, and I join with the
others to dig a well and a small latrine in the inside garden of the
house. All our private affairs were thus conducted here, under the open
sky. The tenants who live on the first floor, two young women, did not
descend to the bomb shelter, but stayed in their apartment. The danger
on the lower floors was far less dangerous than on the floors higher
up. Of the little group in the cellar, one is a Hungarian soldier, the
other a good-looking chap from the provinces. They regularly visit the
young ladies upstairs and spend the night with them. Both these fellows
were Jews, as it turned out later, and it is a mystery to me how this
fact could be kept a secret from the women. (It was either very dark
or perhaps fondling was not in fashion in those times!).
The days are spent with the routine necessities of daily life. As I mentioned previously, in the bomb shelter there is a young man dressed in military uniform who is attached to a nearby military unit in the city. During the day, he heads off to the barracks and returns loaded with all kinds of provisions. From these provisions, this soldier is able to feed his friend (the boyfriend of one of the first floor women), the friend’s younger brother, as well as the aunt and uncle all of whom are with me in the bomb shelter. They all live off these rations and cigarettes. On liberation day, it is revealed that all these individuals are Jews. The man playing the role of soldier turns out to be a Jewish fellow named Weiss from Losonc. Two years later I met him again as a functionary of the "Bricha," a group engaged in illegally smuggling Jews from Bratislava to Israel. Weiss was a Zionist activist and helped my sister Nelly escape to Vienna. However, for the time being, he plays the role of the Hungarian soldier, he is very popular in the bomb shelter plying everyone with coffee, cigarettes and food.
The
bravery of individuals such as this Jewish fellow, playing the Hungarian
soldier is unimaginable and later it became clear that there were many
individuals like him. Remarkable as it seems, there were Jews who were
even playing the role of members of the Arrow Cross Brigade. Brave men
such as these mingled with the most dangerous anti-Semitic murderers
and strived to survive in the lion’s den. In my mind, there was
never a braver kind than the "cowardly Jew" as was portrayed
by Christian folklore. Prejudice was so strong that many times the Jews
themselves believed the myth of the Jew as the cowardly race.
One
day in late January, someone runs over to our bomb shelter to tell us
that in the neighbouring house, five or six Jews were discovered and
shot on the spot. The Arrow Cross did not approach our house, because
as the last one on the street, it was left totally exposed to the Russian
cannons and shelling. Shocking to imagine, I survived being shot to
death because the house where I lived was even too dangerous for the
Arrow Cross persecutors to come near!
The
worst of winter had set in, the weather was bitter cold, and naturally
there was no heating. I spent the greater part of the day, dressed in
my winter coat under the covers. When I was very hungry, I reached into
my pocket to nibble on a piece of dry bread that the Vagis had given
to me. Once a day, someone prepared a warm meal, which consisted of
beans, porridge or soup. Dried beans were the mainstay of survival.
In those times, the inhabitants of Budapest hoarded and stored these
beans as provisions for the future. How long would the siege last? Nobody
knew.
I
would lie beneath the cellar window, and the Russian cannon fire intensified
over time. Now and then I was afraid that a bomb would find me. But
apparently, the cellar walls were more resistant than one would have
thought and were able to withstand the constant shelling.
Alongside
the outside walls of the house, trenches were dug, and those, like our
soldier friend, who needed to leave the cellar, made their way these
ditches. The German troops occupied the upper floors of the house and
from the windows they positioned their weapons to fire back at the Russian
troops who were positioned on the opposite side.
I
lay in my bed practically the entire day from January 1st until February
11th, the day we were liberated. All the while, I imagined the scenarios
that would take place once the war ended and I would be reunited once
again with my family. All the while, I imagined newer and newer variations
of this scene. At the time, I still was unaware that every member of
my family who had been deported had been taken to their death. I imagined
that my brother Karcsi would return safely from Russia. Even as a little
boy, I adored my brother Karcsi. He was the one among all my siblings
who played with and amused me the most. I shall never forget, when I
was about 10-11 years old, my parents were going out for the evening
and my brother Karcsi had wanted to go with them. Perhaps they were
planning to see a movie or visit relatives and Karcsi could have easily
gone along. I cried bitterly because I didn’t want to stay at home
alone (although the maid would have been in the house), but it seems
that I longed for the company. Karcsi felt sorry for me and was willing
to stay and keep me company. He offered the following proposition: in
exchange for my place next to my mother at the dinner table, which was
probably my right as the youngest member of the family, he would be
willing to stay with me at home. Just as the biblical Esau, who sold
his birthright for a plate of lentils, I gladly went along with his
proposition.
I
remember after my parents left for the evening, I sat on my parent’s
bed and Karcsi re-enacted the then popular musical operetta of Lehar
" The Land of Smiles". He played the role of the Chinese prince,
the Prima Donna, the Soubrette, and the dancing chorus line. Even today,
I recall what happiness this night brought me. I do not think that ever
since I have experienced a greater theatrical thrill.
I
shared a bedroom with Karcsi, and my bed was close to the light switch.
Every night, when the time came, he would turn to me and say, "Mr.
Assistant, let us close the shop!" And each and every night I laughed
at this same little joke. I found his humour irresistible.
On
a cold November morning in l942, Karcsi walked out through the garden
gate of our home, which bordered on the Okolicsanyi Restaurant. I knew
that on that very day he would be taken to a labour camp in the Ukraine.
I ran to the window so I could see him until the absolute very last
minute. My heart broke when I saw him leaving. Those who did not live
through the wartime years and the experiences that came with those times,
do not know what is true anguish and heartbreak. This scene is vivid
in my memory even today, almost 58 years later. I was painfully aware
of the possibility that I might never see him again. During the war,
I kept up the connection with his girlfriend Jucika, believing that
I might perform some obligation to my brother if could be of some service
to her.
In
Kassa, during the war, when Jucika and I were visiting my sister Vali,
I would conscientiously accompany her home through the darkened city
streets, as someone who is fulfilling the survivor’s duty for the
departed one. In Budapest, as well, more for my brother’s sake
than mine, I tried to keep up contact with her.
When
we were liberated in February l945, my first sortie was to her Kalvin
Square apartment, where on Christmas Eve l944 I said goodbye to her.
What happened after I left that Christmas night has been told and filmed
many times as confirmation of the unimaginable cruelty of the Hungarian
Nazi regime. At dawn, the doorbell to the apartment rang. Someone had
denounced them as Jews in hiding and the Arrow Cross came to arrest
Jucika, her sister Klari and Klari’s boyfriend. In these frenzied
times, the Arrow Cross wasted no time, and took them straight to the
Danube. Klari’s boyfriend had already once experienced this "taking
to the Danube" and knew exactly what was to happen. He told the
two women to throw off their shoes and jump into the river before the
Arrow Cross had a chance to shoot them. When they got close to the river,
they all began to run, their hands tied behind their backs. The boyfriend,
who survived this first experience, was not so lucky the second time.
The Arrow Cross shot him and he fell dead. The bullets also hit Jucika
and her sister, but they managed to jump into the frozen Danube and
tried their best to stay above water with their hands tied. After some
time Klari sank and Jucika was pulled out of the water by a policeman
who threw her a rope, which she bit onto with her teeth. She was then
taken to hospital. When Jucika saw her sister drown, she later told
me that after her sister, Klari, had witnessed the shooting of her boyfriend,
she lost all will to fight for her survival. Jucika survived the war,
married, emigrated, bore children, married again and worked diligently
her entire life. She was a wonderful mother and grandmother, and I am
convinced that she never forgot my brother to the extent that the existence
she lived after the war was somehow an imitation of her life. She recently
sent me the letters Karcsi had to sent her from the labour camp some
58 years ago, as by now I was the only witness of her former life.
But
for the moment I am still daydreaming about the future in the cold bomb
shelter, lying in my overcoat, while the Russian grenades strike the
wall above my head. I try to imagine the future. How and under what
conditions would I be reunited with members of my family, a miracle
that may shortly come true? Who survived among the girls I knew in Kassa?
What would the reunion with these girls be like? Whatever happened to
Medi’s girlfriend with whom I missed an encounter at the theatre
due to the cancelled performance as a result of the German invasion?
Similar to Stendhal’s barren bough, which is thrown into the stalagmite
cave and is adorned until it becomes a sparkling crown, I decorated
almost unknown persons with such qualities, and I glorified future encounters
to sprout miraculous outcomes.
In
approximately the sixth week of the siege, Mrs. Vagi and I find ourselves
alone in the corner of the cellar discussing how much longer such a
situation could continue. Mrs. Vagi and her husband have been feeding
and caring for me during this time. During our conversation, she reveals
to me that they are not escapees from the provinces as I was led to
believe, but Jews in hiding, and for some time now she knows that I
am Jewish too. She knows my true identity ever since the chance encounter
between her husband and our mutual friend from Kassa, Pali close to
our home in Budapest. By then, we both knew it was only a matter of
days until the Russians would storm the house.
On
the night of the 11th of February, the constant shooting and the noise
of the machine gun fire suddenly stopped. In a wartime situation, one
doesn’t realize under what noise exists, until the noise ceases.
In the morning there was a deadly silence. During the night, the Germans
had evacuated the house and we now waited for the Russians to appear.
I
cautiously emerged from the bomb shelter and saw Russian soldier running
along side the wall of the house with a bayonet in his hand. The Christian
members of the shelter were very nervous. The Nazi spinster doctor,
who had finished her studies in Berlin, now asked me if I would pretend
to be her husband. I was then 22 and she was over 40 years old. The
rumour was that the Russians did not rape married women. I don’t
know what I promised her but one thing I knew for sure. As soon as the
Russians arrived, I would head promptly in the opposite direction, so
that in case there was a counter-attack, I would be as far from the
Germans as possible. At 11 o’clock the Russian soldiers appeared,
and the first thing they did was to rape the two pretty young women
who lived on the first floor. The women’s two Jewish boyfriends,
now in the bomb shelter showed no inclination whatsoever to rescue them
by declaring themselves to be their husbands.
Now
the fellow, who had been dressed as a Hungarian soldier, put on his
civilian clothes, came over to me and introduced himself:" I am
Weiss from Losonc and introduced his friend, and the friend’s family
as a Jewish family from Pest. We all had only one thought. We had to
get from Buda to Pest, which had been liberated 3-4 weeks previously.
Weiss now gave me a bottle of honey and cigarettes from the provisions
he had brought over from the army storehouse and I put these into my
inside pocket. By 12:00 o’clock, the seven or eight of us from
the cellar were on our way through the mushy snow to Csepel where it
was rumoured one could reach Pest by boat. The bridges had been completely
destroyed by the Germans. Now for the first time in my life did I see
a dead body. He was a Russian soldier and he must have been dead for
some time because his skin was completely black. We did not grieve much.
We had only one goal in mind and that was to cross the Danube to the
other side.
We
reached the point were boats were ferrying groups of people over to
the other side. I believe Russian soldiers were organizing this evacuation
and the soldiers asked nothing in return. I suppose it was then still
considered a patriotic duty to offer assistance to those who were fleeing
the Germans. After several hours wait, my group from the cellar boarded
one of the small boats and reached the Pest side of the Danube. The
first person I saw by the shore when I arrived was Marika, an old flame,
who was waiting with her cousin for one of the survivors crossing from
Buda. I thought it was an omen and a special turn of fate, but when
I told her about this event much later, she couldn’t recall it
at all.
The
Jewish family from Pest which whom I had stayed in the shelter in Buda
took me with them to their bombed out apartment. I survived the freezing
cold night in a room without windows in some sort of bed and in the
early morning I set out to discover whom among the survivors I could
find, or what information I could find about them. Pest had been liberated
4 weeks previously and I hoping that perhaps I might find some of my
family alive.
My first route took me to my Aunt on the Karpat Street. Yes, they were alive and had survived the risks of living in a Jew-designated house even in the worst Arrow Cross times. I found out through my Aunt that Nelly and Panni were still alive and I could meet them shortly there at my Aunt’s house. They had survived the siege in the bomb shelter of the Dombai Pension. Even though the siege had been four weeks shorter in Pest than in Buda, many thousands of Jews had been summarily shot and thrown in the Danube by the Arrow Cross. On the 13th of February, the Germans evacuated the Castle in Buda, and Buda proper and then, finally we were freed.
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