It finally happened. After an absence of forty-eight years, I had returned to Chust and Volove, which was now called Meshgherhe. They were towns in which I spent the greatest part of my youth. Those years were the happiest a young boy, and later a young man, could have had. Never again would I be as carefree or my mind as untroubled by worries. Any shortage of money was usually solved with my father's help, or assistance from my uncles and my dear Aunt Klara. Breaking up with a girlfriend was but a temporary and short-lived setback. Those were my only

main sources of concern. I had no serious responsibilities and was surrounded by a wonderful, loving family and many good friends. No wonder that Chust and Volove held such a special place in my heart and mind.

Quite often, I would imagine both places in my mind's eye and remember some of the incidents I lived through. Unlike reading a book page by page or chapter by chapter, I jumped from one event to another in no particular sequence. My desire to revisit those two places did not diminish as time passed, nor did my acquisition of the distinguished titles "Golden-aged" and "Senior Citizen" lessen my ambition to see my beloved Chust and Volove once more.

Throughout the years, I would visualize our house, the lumber mill, the Kucera hills - that could be seen from our veranda, the other majestic mountains, the River Rika and the many other places I roamed with my friends. Naturally, I realized that I would not find anything as it was forty-eight years ago, especially knowing that most of the people I had known were no longer there.

Nevertheless, I was hoping to meet one or two of my old gentile friends and possibly some Jews who had survived the Holocaust and stayed on in Volove or Chust.

I will summarize some history to refresh the reader's memory. Starting in 1938 with certain sections and finalized in 1939, Carpathia became a part of Hungary. In 1944, the Jews of Carpathia, as well as most of the Jews in Hungary proper, were deported to various concentration camps, mainly to Auschwitz. The only exceptions were those who served in the Hungarian work battalions and the precious few who managed to save themselves by going into hiding.

In 1945, after the defeat of Germany, Carpathia (Podkarpatska Rus) became part of Czechoslovakia again. In a "friendly" agreement, enforced by the might of the Russian Army, Carpathia became part of Russia, and was henceforth called Zakarpatska Oblast.

The borders were soon closed. Travel in the USSR by foreigners was restricted to the diplomatic corps and a few special individuals or groups. Tourist travel was nonexistent.

After the accession of Mr. Gorbachev and his reform of the hard-line communist regime, travel restrictions were slowly abolished. Tourism, a good source of foreign currency, was encouraged. Together with our good friends and in-laws Magda and Tommy Freiman, Helen and I visited Russia in 1989. The government still restricted travel to many places, including Carpathia. Uzhorod was an available destination, but other places were either prohibited or not recommended by Intourist, the official Russian travel agency. At that time, we could not plan to visit Chust or Volove, and didn't.

With the growth of tourist travel in Russia, I began to seriously plan a visit to Chust and Volove. Even so, it took three years of talking, planning, postponing and debating with each other and with our children and friends, before Helen and I finally got our act together.

If necessary, I intended to travel by myself. Later our nephew Benny Kirschenbaum expressed a desire to come along. At a very late stage, our cousin Mark David, Elvi's son, expressed a desire to join us, but our timing was just not suitable for them and, by that time, all the arrangements had already been made.

Helen would not let me go alone, so the trip started with the two of us going. I mentioned our intention to visit Czechoslovakia, the Ukraine and Budapest to our in-laws, Magda and Tommy Freiman, and they decided to come along. Other very good friends of ours, Sara and Jack Honigwachs, also decided to join us. We made it clear to them that a trip to Chust and Volove, and possibly all the way to Wyszkov, was the main purpose of our journey. They agreed readily. Our itinerary included a 3-day visit to Chust, Volove and other places as time would permit.

Tommy and I planned our excursion with extreme care. We had to take into account Saturdays, on which Jack would not travel. We secured reservations for all the places we wished to visit, including Uzhorod, the capital of Carpathia, the only Carpathian city to have an Intourist hotel. We had to leave open only the question of our accommodations in Chust and Volove. There are hotels in Chust and also in Volove, but they are not recommended for tourists. We decided to take our chances sleeping in a substandard hotel for a night or two, but could not make any reservations through Intourist or any other agency. Reservations had to be made in person. We left this part of our tour unplanned and our decisions would have to be made on the spot. A difficulty with our tour to Chust and Volove later arose when we were told in Prague that the insurance on our minibus was not valid in the territories of the former USSR. In fact, we were forbidden to take our bus into any part of former Russia. This, of course, made our mission much more dangerous.

We had a wonderful time for the few days we stayed in Prague. We then left to drive the length of the country, stopping in Piestany, the famous mineral springs that provide an almost magical cure for arthritic and rheumatic conditions, up to the high Tatras at Stary Smokovec and further to Strbske Pleso, then down to Kosice, the place where Tommy and Jack were born. Until this point, everything went as planned and we visited aU the places we had intended to see. We decided to disregard the warnings about travel in the Ukraine and to continue to Uzhorod, where we had reserved rooms at the Zakarpatski Hotel.

The description of crossing the border between Slovakia and the Ukraine, and then crossing from the Ukraine into Hungary, could fill not one chapter, but several. The line of vehicles waiting to cross the border stretched for a considerable distance. Thanks to Tommy's ingenuity, with some help from me, we somehow managed to maneuver our œbus to the front, ahead of dozens of vehicles. Knowing the Slovak and Russian languages was a distinct advantage. But even more effective was our daring ruse to pin Canadian buttons on our shirts and tell the Slovak and Ukrainian officers that we were a Canadian delegation late for an agricultural conference in Uzhorod. They let us through ahead of everybody.

We arrived in Uzhorod around noon on July 21, 1992. Upon checking into our hoteL we were warmly welcomed by the public relations director, a very pleasant lady who provided us with a guide who spoke English very well. Magda was born, raised, and lived in Uzhorod until her deportation. She and her family lived in a very fine section of the city, where they owned a nice house. She did find the street and the place where the house once stood, but the house itself was demolished to make way for a commercial structure.

By sheer chance, in Uzhorod, we met a Mr. Herman Moskovics with his wife Sara-Zlata, his older brother, and a third man whose name I do not remember. It turned out that Herman's wife was from Bilky, Helen's hometown, so I took them up to our room where Helen was ready to retire for the night. After a mutual introduction, Mrs. Moskovics fell on Helen's shoulder, with tears freely rolling, and yelled out: Don't you remember me? You used to give me potatoes from the kitchen where you worked and you were once almost caught by the SS guard." They stayed with us past midnight, while Tommy and Jack entertained the others. Then, they all came up to our room. Magda and Sara also came in to greet the guests. They told us about their lives there. They all received a pension equal to about $ 10 per month. Somehow they manage to live on that. All three received monetary gifts from our entire group, that would supplement their income for a few months.

We were also told that Uzhorod has about 20-25 Jewish families, many of them too old to emigrate. The young ones are either intermarrying and staying there or are trying to leave for America or Israel.

We took precautionary measures for our van by hiring a guard for the overnight parking. The guard was recommended to us by Intourist, so we felt reassured that our little bus would probably not get stolen.

Early in the morning on the 22nd of July, we left for Chust and from there on, we would play it by ear. We got off to a good start but lost about an hour due to the lack of proper road signs. We arrived in Chust just before noon.

I did not recognize the city I thought I knew so well. It took me fifteen minutes just to get oriented. I finally found the former hotel Korona - an impressive building as I used to know it - now only half the size and dilapidated. We could have gotten two rooms, but there was no parking available, and there was nobody we could hire to dependably guard our bus. Intourist had warned us against the local hotels and the serious danger to our vehicle. We stayed for about two hours. We bought coffee at a coffee shop on the former market square and bought rolls from a vendor outside. That was our lunch. The cost of a roll, three coupons - the present temporary currency of the Ukraine - about two cents in our currency. The big house my Great-grandfather Ira Pikkel once owned, later sold to the Kraus family, is now a school, with two large bells in the yard. Gone are the beautiful gardens with the fountain. The house my Aunt Klara lived in is now completely changed as was the house of my Zeide's sister, Deachel. Filiak Street, where we lived, did not change all that much, except the bungalow style houses are now in need of some major repair. Of the three synagogues that once existed on the market square, only one remains. The sign on the gate reads: "The keys can be picked up from Mr. .................. at the following address.................. .·"·

We were constantly surrounded by people, crowding around our van, trying to get a glimpse inside, probably to see what could be acquired one way or another. Two of us had to remain on constant watch, as we did not dare to leave our van unattended.

After everybody had had their roll and coffee, we decided to leave for Volove and stop in Chust again the next day. We were hoping to secure accommodations there. We left for Volove around 2:30 p.m. and arrived there an hour later. To my surprise, the hard pressed dirt highway of my time was now replaced with a well-kept paved road, properly marked with a painted white line, just as we know them here.

We passed Iza, Horincevo, Berezna, Nizna Bistra, Vuckovo, all places I had traveled dozens of times, and where I knew practically every bend in the road. It was all different now.

Sometimes I noticed familiar landmarks, but for the most part I did not know where we were. We arrived in Volove and drove through the town's main street. There was not one landmark that I remembered. Our house was nowhere to be seen. We drove back the same street again, nothing familiar. Helen thought she recognized the house. I looked, but could not see how this could be the house I was looking for.

We decided to start looking for a hotel. We were told of two hotels, one on top of a hill, which turned out to be the Kucera, the other right in town, on the main street. This one looked old, dark and not very clean, so we opted for the ten kilometer ride up the hill. The area was something to behold, fit for a cover of the National Geographic Magazine. However, the inside of the hotel was a different story. It was a filthy, dirty place with an even dirtier restaurant, that had no food, no drinks except water, and no clean glasses. We had to wash the glasses ourselves before we could use them.

To add insult to injury, there were no vacancies. When I told the manager that we would pay in dollars, he showed us two rooms with three beds in each room and a bathroom located between the rooms. We were willing to take that, even though it was very far from minimal acceptable standards. But these two rooms were only available in about an hour, providing the guests who had reserved the rooms would not arrive. They were already overdue, but he would give them another hour of grace. After waiting for more than an hour, the manager told us it would take another two hours before he would know if the rooms would be available. However, he offered us another room which we could have immediately. This room was on the second floor, containing five beds but the toilets were on the first floor. There was no bathroom for the second floor, not even a sink for washing. We did not immediately reject it, but decided to re-explore the hotel in town. The manager promised to keep the room for us, but I knew that we would not be back. I could not put our friends through this. It was just too filthy and primitive. It would be like regressing to the middle ages.

The hotel in town was not much better, and could only provide us with four beds. As the innkeeper said: 'Tour beds and that is all." She gave us directions to a tourist hosteL which was not very far from her hoteL telling us that maybe we had a chance there. Indeed this was a new place on enclosed grounds, where our van would be reasonably safe. It had rooms with showers, although the problem was getting them. The lady in charge told me, ·"·Yes, we could accommodate you, but the manager is around somewhere and will be here shortly. Only he can decide."

I started a conversation with the lady in charge, telling her I was originally from Volove and it was important for me to stay here overnight and see the places where I grew up. As we spoke, a young man, who overheard us, told me he was from Volove, visiting some friends here at the hostel. He said he knew lots of people in town and if I would name some of the friends or neighbors I knew, he would maybe know some of them. I knew there would be no use in asking about the older generation. But maybe he would know some of my gentile friends that I went to school with or played football with. He did not know some names I mentioned. He knew others, but they had either moved or were no longer alive.

One name finally clicked, Volodya Alexander. Yes, he lived here and he would take me to him. By this time, the manager of the hostel had still not shown up. The lady in charge told us not to worry. She would be there until 11 p.m. and we would not have to sleep on the street. So we left to meet Alexander. We followed the car of our newly-acquired friend, and after a short search, he found the right house. The middle-aged man who came out to greet me was obviously not Volodya, but probably his son. He had a face and stance like Volodya's, but he looked no older than 45.

My guess was right. Volodya's son told me his father was here now for his sumrner vacation after moving to Kiev in 1955. The son also told me he had heard of me from his father, who had told him about our football team. EIe called his father, and we both instantly recognized each other. He said to his son: "This is Tibi, the football player, the one I told you about, the one I played with on the same team." We embraced and he answered many of my questions.

He said the house of my Zeide and the lumber mill still exist. They are both on the main street in the same locations as before, but they look very different now. The mill is much smaller and can hardly be seen from the street. Before, it stretched for several hundred yards along the highway.

"Remember, Tibi," he said, "when you left, Volove had a population of 8,000. After the deportation of the Jews, the population shrunk to about 5,000. Now we have a population of 15,000 people."

I said goodbye to Volodya and to the kind man who had led me to him. As we shook hands, I tried to push some money into his hands. But he refused, without even looking at the bills. He was just a nice man trying to do a favor for a former citizen of Volove.

Using exact directions, we proceeded to the main street and found our house without difficulty. Helen recognized it right away from the shape of the windows - she'd seen them in an old picture we have at home.

The structure and surroundings had completely changed. The veranda was no longer there. Nor were its windows, which stretched the full length of the house and gave the back of the building a certain character. The iron fence in the front, which was used to protect the flower garden, was no longer there. The street had been raised and widened, so that the little hill in front of the house disappeared completely and the house itself was just barely above street level. The big yard where we used to play, the stables, the woodshed, the huge gardens with its trees and fruit shrubs were no more. The grounds were covered with asphalt. And behind the house was a huge building, an ugly monster, which looked like a warehouse and completely blocked the view so the Kucera was no longer visible.

The house itself contains a research facility for respiratory diseases. The synagogue no longer exists. Neither do the rabbi's quarters nor the Mikve, the ritual baths. In their place stands a building which contains a restaurant and several other stores. The entrance to the house is now in the back, although the side entrance still shows the stairs where the main entrance had been originally. Furthermore, the house has been joined with the neighboring office and residence of the former county governor, forming a long but faceless structure. The front of the house, which used to be covered with fancy, white stones, is now plain concrete, covering the entire frontage, so that our house is uniform with the governor's building. Only the roofs of both buildings remain the same, showing exactly where each structure originally started and ended.

The beautiful tree near the fence, which separated our house from the synagogue, is still there, but now it is--outside the property, at the edge of the driveway leading to the warehouse in the back of our house. We took some pictures, but it was already getting dark--hopefully, they will come out reasonably well.

Before we were able to get inside the yard of the house, we met a man who asked us what we wanted there. He was an older man, possibly the watchman, I thought. I told him I wanted to look around because I thought this was the house I grew up in. He asked me, "Are you a Friedman?" "Yes," I said, "I am!" He then proceeded to name all the Friedmans, starting with my Zeide Shmiel Itzak, all my uncles and even cousins from the Chaim Friedman clan. He also knew "Avrumzo" as he called him - my father. He showed me where the synagogue once stood and explained in great detail all the things I already knew. He named all the Jewish people who had returned after the Holocaust to stay in Volove. There were only a handful of them, some of whom I used to know. But there are none left anymore. Volove is now Judenfrei, free of Jews. But the last Jew of Volove proved to the world that Hitler and his murderous horde did not succeed in their aim. The last Jew of Volove left last week - for Israel.

As it turned out, the man was not a watchman. He was the publisher of the "Meshgherska Gazetta" and he invited me and our whole group to be interviewed the next morning. Some dignitaries would also be present, and he promised to mail me the published interview. We agreed, hoping that accommodations would be available, as promised, at the hostel. It was late by that time and we were all hungry. A small crowd gathered, among them the director of the spa sanatorium in Sojmy.

There are only three restaurants in Volove and none of them are very good. By the time we got to them, after 6 p.m., they were all out of food. The director of the spa, an M.D., invited us to come to the sanatorium, where his cook would prepare us some food.

We were more anxious to see what had happened to our accommodations. We had a firm promise from the lady in charge of the hostel that we would not sleep on the street. Now, we wanted to see exactly what we would be getting. The director came with us and he finally found the lady in charge, who had made that promise. The manager of the hostel still was not there, so the good doctor from the sanatorium got on the phone and located the missing hostel manager. Since all this took quite a while, the ladies prepared some sandwiches from the bread and cheese we carried for such emergencies. To make the story short, the hostel manager refused to give us any rooms, saying they had been reserved for other guests. The Doctor took us all back to Sojmy, where he arranged for three rooms in his Sanatorium. With each room on a different floor, with no elevators and no secure place for our van, Magda, Sara and Helen began to feel uneasy - especially about staying among the sick. They were also suspicious about whether this was some kind of conspiracy to get our little bus. So we decided, even at this late hour, to leave immediately and drive all the way to Uzhorod. We knew we could get rooms at the Hotel Zakarpatski, where our bus would be guarded.

We arrived in Uzhorod well past midnight. I was very depressed for a while because I felt I had accomplished only half of my mission. After an early morning interview in Volove, we were to be taken to the cemetery. They had warned us that nothing was left there. All the headstones were down, with many missing; the graves were hardly visible. I nevertheless would have liked to see it and take some pictures. I was also supposed to meet some old timers, whom I may have known. And I had also intended to drive all the way to Wyszkov, which was only thirty kilometers away. On the return, I had hoped to stop in Chust and get in touch with some of the 15-20 Jewish families left there. But lack of accommodations spoiled all those plans. Maybe I should have come by myself, as I had originally intended. Maybe October would have been a better month - not so many local tourists; a hotel room for one person would have been no problem. Maybe this, maybe that. Hindsight provides many excuses.

Our reservation in Budapest was for the 24th of July, so we decided to stay one day in Debrecen. We did not regret our decision--Debrecen is a beautiful city and we spent a very enjoyable day there.

Except for the "glitch" in Volove and Chust, our whole vacation was very pleasurable and the company was excellent. We all had a good time. My admiration goes out to all three ladies in our group. They were punctual, innovative, always in good humor, and generally a great asset to our venture. They endured the long exhausting day in Volove probably as well as the men, if not better. Jack is the type of man with whom I would like to vacation anytime. Cheerful, easygoing, just a plain pleasure to have along on a long journey. Tommy, a fine warm human being all the time, deserves extra praise. He was our saviour on many occasions. He did most of the driving and was very helpful at the border crossing. In short, everybody contributed to the great success of our outing.

Big Hedi from Philadelphia was another person who contributed to the success of our vacation. We met on the last day of our stay in Budapest. She had spoken to my cousin Elvi who told her that I was leaving shortly for a vacation which would include Budapest. Big Hedi was also coming to Budapest for a prolonged vacation. She phoned me, and low and behold, we figured out that we would be arriving almost simultaneously. I gave her the name of the hotel where we would be staying and the rest is history. After sixteen years of being out of touch, we finally met again, spending a pleasurable afternoon together. Helen, Hedi and I had lunch at the hotel and later we visited her apartment, which was only a short walk away. At dinner, we introduced her to our Montreal friends and left with the hope that we would stay in closer contact from now on.

When I phoned her the next morning to say our final goodbye and to thank her for the fine afternoon we had spent together, I said "I hope it will not take another sixteen years to be in touch again." She replied, "We could not afford another sixteen years."