Return to Memoirs

CHAPTER 2

My mother was fifteen years old when World War II began. Under my grandmother's capable management, their textile business was running very successfully, but things began to change. The war itself didn't come to that part of the world till 1944, which was quite late, but things began to change, to become uncertain, to become threatening, especially for the Jews.

"Actually, the war broke out in 1939. Things started- life started to change from then on, but we were still able to live at home. It was fairly normal because the war started in Poland and in Germany."

"It didn't come to Slovakia."

"It didn't affect us yet, Czechoslovakia.

Then they took-- Poland took part of Czechoslovakia, and Hungary took a part of Czechoslovakia, and Germany took a part of Czechoslovakia. They dismantled Czechoslovakia completely. That was 1941 [actually 1938-39]. I was very heartbroken, because we grew up in Czech schools, we had Czech friends. It was Czechoslovakia, that's all. I was born into- it was like my country. I was terribly heartbroken. I cried when that happened."

Lucy Davidowicz, again, writes, "In 1938 about 135,00 Jews lived in Slovakia, of whom 40,000 lived in the territory ceded to Hungary (Ruthenia and Subcarpathia). About 5,000 emigrated voluntarily before the war, leaving about 90,000 Jews, 3 percent of the population.*(page 377-378)

Hungary's policies before and during the war can best be understood in the light of her revanchist goals. In November 1938 Hungary joined Germany in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, annexing some Slovakian districts and a part of Subcarpathian Ruthenia. In March 1939, when Slovakia declared itself an independent state, Hungary occupied the rest of Ruthenia. In August 1940, Hungary received northern Transylvania from Rumania under the Vienna Award. As repayment, Hungary joined the Tripartate Pact on November 20, 1940.* (page 379)

After Munich and the Vienna Awards, Hungary added another 250,000 to its Jewish population of 400,000: 75,000 Jews in former Slovakian territory, 25,000 in the Backa basin of Yugoslavia, and 150,000 in Transylvania, for a total of 650,000 Jews in Greater Hungary. There were, besides, some 100,000 Christians, who were regarded as "racial" Jews and subject to anti-Jewish laws.

In August 1941 the Hungarian government rounded up some 17,000 stateless Jews in its annexed Ruthenian territory and pushed them over the border to Kamenets-Podolsk in the German held Ukraine, but the Germans complained that the Jews disrupted their military communications. After the Hungarians drew off several thousand to be used as slave laborers, the German Einsatz-kommandos massacred the remaining 11,000. Several thousand Yugoslav Jews in Backa were also massacred by the Hungarian occupying forces at Novi Sad."*(page 381)

My mother continues, "But we lived fairly normal lives till about 1941. For the first time they started to deport some couples, because supposedly they were Polish nationals, that they didn't have Hungarian citizenship papers, that they are Polish nationals. Their parents were Polish. One of my aunts from Sukernitze [near Kiralyhaza], she was also deported at the time with her whole family. Three children she had. One was my age, a very good friend of mine. We were very close and [she had] older two brothers."

"Because the father was born in Poland."

"Yes. But this was my mother's sister [Ruchel]. Actually her husband didn't have papers, his parents didn't have papers. He wasn't born in Poland but he had no papers and he fell in that category, the 'goirel' (lottery). They disappeared. We used to see them very often because they lived not far from Kiralyhaza."

"You never saw them again."

"Never again."

My mother's older brother, Mendel Wolf, was also very vulnerable at this time because he was at the age to be drafted into the army, and was classified 1A. But he was never called, and my mother thinks perhaps that was due to the fact that he had missed a table during his work up, and that may have resulted in a bureaucratic foul up. In any case, it was considered a miracle at the time.

Mendel Wolf was a very intelligent young man. When they were very little, while playing, he often used to beat up my mother, as children do, and she couldn't wait to grow up and get even with him. Of course when they grew up, they got along quite well. He was a very brilliant Talmudic scholar, and though he had no formal education, he was self taught and was knowledgeable in world affairs as well. His father Shiya wouldn't allow him to go to secular school, because he didn't want him exposed to western, secular, influences. My great uncle Yidel told my mother that though her father Shiya, his half brother, was a 'talmid chochem' (an excellent scholar), he believes that Mendel Wolf was an even better scholar. He said that at the age of eight or nine, he could learn better than his thirteen year old uncle Yidel. And at his bar mitzvah, when he was thirteen, he gave a two hour 'drosha' (speech) that astounded the attending rabbis.

In 1939 when Kralove Na Tisza became part of Hungary, and

became known as Kiralyhaza, as allies of the Germans, the Hungarians took away the licenses of Jewish owned businesses. It was a terrible tragedy when the license was taken away- family life revolved around the business. For a while, they continued running their enterprise through the use of a Jewish widow's license that hadn't been confiscated yet. They gave that up as my grandmother increased her travels to Budapest, where she traded in currency, gold, and textiles. She was quite successful in this endeavor also.

During one of her stays in Budapest, sometime in 1942, my grandmother Mariam succeeded in getting legitimate Hungarian citizenship papers for her entire family. The reason that she attempted to get them was that some Jews were being sent to labor camps with the excuse that they were not Hungarian citizens, as had happened to her sister Ruchel in Sukernitze. This made Mariam nervous because her husband, my grandfather Shiya, also did not have these papers, as his parents had been married in Poland.

Getting those papers proved to be of great value for our survival. The Vogel family did not have these papers because when Shiya and Mariam got married, Kiralyhaza was under Czech rule. Hungarian birth and marriage certificates were now needed for both of them in order to get Hungarian citizenship papers. However, the government was not issuing those papers to Jews anymore.

Furthermore, Shiya's parents had not been legally married, but had been married only under a "Chupa", in a religious ceremony. Shiya's mother's maiden surname was Petranker, which was not a Jewish sounding name, and legally that was his name also. As a result, the individual citizenship papers that Mariam was able to get for each member of the family listed my mother as Irene Petranker instead of Irene Vogel. That was a much less Jewish sounding name than Vogel. Those legal Hungarian citizenship papers, with an authentic government seal, and with the Christian sounding name, were an important factor in giving my mother the impetus and courage to try and escape the Jewish Ghetto and deportation. Obtaining those papers needed a great deal of money, influence, persuasion, and the services of a special lawyer. It was a tribute to my grandmother's ingenuity and competence that she was able to get them. Unfortunately they were to prove useful only for my mother and myself.

"Hungarian Jews had been emancipated in 1867, but resentments on the part of the non-Jewish population- because of the territorial losses after World War I, chaotic economic conditions, and the abortive Communist dictatorship of Bela Kun- were vented on the Jews. Horthy came to power as a blaze of pogroms raged in Hungary, particularly in the provinces. The violence was followed by various administrative measures eliminating most Jews from public service and restricting their admission into universities. From 1924 to 1933, under the conservative regime of Count Stephen Bethlen as Prime Minister, the situation of the Jews somewhat stabilized, but in the mid-1930's, under the impact of National Socialism in Germany and its Hungarian admirers, anti-Semitism intensified.

May 24, 1938, a month after Hitler's annexation of Austria, the Hungarian parliament, in an effort to appease Hitler and prevent seizure of power by the Hungarian Nazis, enacted its first anti-Jewish law, prepared by the Horthy Government, despite the bitter opposition of the Smallholders and Socialist parties and Bethlen's conservative followers. The law limited employment of Jews in private business firms to 20 percent. A year later, a more far-reaching anti-Jewish law was passed, defining the status of Jews, barring them from leading positions in the media,

prohibiting the issuance of new trade licenses to them or the renewal of old ones. The law also barred further admission of Jews to the professions until their share fell to below 6 percent. It authorized the government to expropriate with compensation, Jewish landed property. Jews could no longer acquire Hungarian citizenship by naturalization, marriage, or adoption. Voting rights of nonnative Jews or those whose forebears were not permanently resident before 1868 were canceled." Lucy Davidowicz *(page 380-381)

"Meanwhile my older sister Rivka got married."

"When did she get married?"

"I think in '40, 1941.

And my- Mima (aunt) Ruchel was her name, my mother's older sister, she came yet to the wedding, to my sisters wedding. She made, she prepared stuffed veals, big ones."

Rivka, my mother's older half sister, married Mendel Wolf Hauptman, a second cousin from Jilnice, which was near Kiralyhaza. Mendel Wolf was a name that kept reappearing in my mother's family because many boys in the family were named after Mendel Wolf Drummer who was my mother's maternal great grandfather. The many Mendel Wolf's were differentiated by their last names or by the towns they came from, like Mendel Wolf the Orshover, who came from Orshova in Carpathia, and who helped my mother after the war. The original Mendel Wolf Drummer lived in Jilnice and had several children, at least six, maybe more. One of his children was Avrohom Drummer who married Yenta Gitel Baumgarten from Kiralyhaza, the two of whom became my mother's maternal grandparents.

Rivka and her husband had two children in the next couple of years, a boy, Simcha, and a girl, Malkele. They continued to live in Kiralyhaza where they had a small general store. According to my mother, Rivka had inherited their mother's excellent business abilities. She had been very active for many years before her marriage in the family business and had been a super saleswoman.

My mother was next, and at the age of eighteen they started talking about "shidduchim" (matches) for her. It was high time she got married. Her mother was particularly anxious for her to get married as she was her oldest daughter and the war was making everyone uneasy.

In 1942, the cousin Mendel Wolf Drummer, from Orshova, introduced my father's name as a candidate for a "shidduch". His name was Chaim Meyer Friedman, but he was called by his middle name, Meyer. He was a young man of 19 at the time, still living at home and learning Talmud at the Yeshiva. It is customary for chassidic young men to learn Talmud in a Yeshiva until they get married. At that point, they received a dowry from the bride's family and often went into business with her family, or their own family business, if they had one. It was the parent's responsibility to set up a young couple so that they could earn a living. Woe betide the young woman with no dowry, no matter how beautiful, or how nice, or how smart! Fortunately, my mother's family, with six girls to marry off, was well to do, and my mother had a decent dowry.

My mother and father met about three times and it was decided, mostly by their families, but with the young couple's approval, that the marriage would take place. My mother wasn't thrilled with the match, as my father was quite young, shy, and not especially handsome. She had met some other young men who appealed to her more on a superficial level. However, her father was impressed with Meyer because he came from a fine family, could learn Talmud very well, and had what he termed "Yiras Shamayim", religious devoutness, or literally, a fear of God. The expression indicates a devout belief and diligent practice of Orthodox Judaism. It turned out, as it often did in these family arranged marriages, that my parents got along quite well after they were married. According to my mother, and the people who knew him, Meyer was quiet, intelligent, gentle, and a good husband and father.

They were married in August 1942. My mother was 19, and my father was 20 years old, as Orthodox Judaism encourages men to marry early. The wedding took place in the nearby town of Seilisch, Hungary. Both families were quite large, and the wedding was well attended by both sides despite the war. The young couple stayed at my mother's parents' home for about two months after the wedding. Then they went back to Kosice, Czechoslovakia, to live with my father's parents. [Kosice had also been annexed by Hungary in 1938. It was returned to Czechoslovakia after the war.]

It was very difficult at that time to set up an independent household, to get an apartment, or set up a business. Jews weren't allowed to do business anymore, and it was impossible to get an apartment. There wasn't room to stay with my mother's family, but the Friedman family had a bedroom they could give the young couple. They had 10 children, and Meyer was number four. However, his older sister, Shari, was married and living in Budapest, and his two older brothers, Moshe Leib and Mendel, were married and living with their in-laws. Shari had three children, Moshe Leib had two or three children, and Mendel had one child. The younger children were Irene, 18, Herschel, 16, Edith, 14, Avrohom, 13, Sarah, 10, and Lily, 9 (ages approximate).

Elimelech Dovid and Miryl Friedman, my paternal grandparents, had a large and very elegant apartment in an exclusive part of town in Kosice, Czechoslovakia. It overlooked a park and the Tarysa River. There were three large bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen, and off the kitchen, a maid's room. In 1942, Jews were no longer allowed to employ non-Jews, so the older girls were given the maid's room as a bedroom. This allowed a bedroom to be provided for my parents. The apartment was very beautifully furnished. My mother remembers a big grandfather clock, heavy, antique, dark wood furniture, and lace curtains. And most exciting of all, it had an indoor bathroom with a flush toilet and hot running water. It was the most modern and elegant apartment my mother had ever seen. It was very much a case of the country girl coming to live in the big city for the first time. She did not feel very comfortable, which was not surprising under the circumstances. It was a new, strange environment for her. She was the new daughter-in-law living in the same house with her in-laws, which is never an easy arrangement, and everyone was tense because of the war raging all around them. Not surprisingly she was homesick for her family.

"I missed my home. I had a very warm home. It was a warm home, and you know, I was a daughter-in-law, and I got far away from home, far away, and I missed my home."

The Friedman family was financially well off, at least until the war, as was my mother's family. They were also a prominent family in the Jewish society of Kosice. Meyer's father had been a banker before the war. Now he was dealing in 'valuten', illegal currency, on the black market, as were many Jews trying to keep afloat. He had been, at one time, the 'Rosh Hakohol', the head of the Jewish Community of Kosice.

The young couple did their best to fit in with the family's life, though it was not an ideal situation for anyone. My mother helped out with the housework and cooking, and my father continued to study Talmud at home and at the "Bais Medrash", the house of learning, which was usually located at the local shul. Everyone was under a good deal of strain because of the war and because of their uncertainty about the future. My mother's fondest dream at that time was, "To set up a home of my own, even one room."