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CHAPTER 4

Finally, we were safely out of the station and in Budapest, a place we could hide in and perhaps ride out the rest of the war. We arrived in Budapest about a week after we had left Kosice. What to do next, where to go now? My mother didn't have the address of her sister and brother-in-law, so she decided to visit her mother's friend who lived in a Jewish neighborhood called Kiralyutza. Her name was Mindya Steinmetz, and my grandmother Mariam used to stay with her when she traveled to Budapest on business. My mother took a tram to Mindya's house. She had been there once before when she was 16, when her mother had taken her on a business trip as a special treat. They had stayed a week that time, and it had been my mother's first and only previous trip to Budapest.

When we finally got to Mindya's house, we stayed there for two days and Mindya was able to get in touch with my mother's family. Shari and Cheskel lived in a suburb of Budapest with their three children. They came to the house and took us back to their home where they were able to put us up in one of their children's rooms. After a few days my father and his sister Edith came in from Kosice, and joined us there in his sister's house. His sister Irene was already there, visiting.

"So I got off. Once I got off at the station, off the train, I was in Budapest. Nobody knew me. I took the tramway and I started to get to Kiralyutza. In Kiralyutza I had my mother's friend. She used to go on business trips she stayed always there. Mindya was her name. I got to her. My mother used to sleep there, board there, stay there when she was in Budapest. I knew her, I was there. When I was sixteen years old, my mother took me out to Budapest once for some special trip and I spent a few days, a week, in Budapest at the time, so I knew Mindya. And Mindya got me in touch with Shari and Cheskel, because they lived out of town like, in the fancier sections, Shari. Mindya lived in the center, in the Jewish section."

"So you stayed there about a week."

"No, just about two days. I contacted Shari, and then Chaskel and Shari came down, and we went down to Shari's, and she gave me a room, a children's room. I stayed a few days and your father came out."

"How did he come, how did he make it through the station?"

"Well, he cut off his beard, and he got false papers, and it took him a few days and he succeeded to come out [with his younger sister Edith]. A single person, and cut off beard, and with a light suit, very modernly dressed. He always wore black everything. Now he wore a very 'goyish' (non-Jewish) outfit, I mean a 'goyish' outfit especially made. They made sure, the people then, they dressed very much like 'goyim' (gentiles), like the peasant 'goyim'. Something he dressed up and he came, he came out. He had no special difficulties. He brought us, I remember, four or five hundred dollars, he brought us with him. That was a lot of money that time and I lived on that money. I kept on cashing it in the Jewish section during the whole time, and I lived on that money."

We all stayed in the apartment for a few weeks. It was very crowded and my parents began to look for an apartment of their own. Also, since it was a Jewish neighborhood, and the family was known to be Jewish, it was necessary for everyone to move to another place where they wouldn't be recognized.

Around May or June 1944, my aunt Irene went to a real estate agent to try to get a separate apartment. She was about nineteen at the time and she was going to share the apartment with us. She succeeded in getting a studio apartment in a brand new building on the outskirts of Buda. Budapest is divided into two parts, Buda and Pest, by the Danube River. The area was called Budafolk. The apartment had a foyer, a large room, a kitchen and a bathroom. It was quite nice, very clean and new. Irene, my mother, and I, were the first tenants to move into the building. It was situated at the outskirts of the city and across the street there were only fields. But they were near a train station, and the basement was a reinforced steel shelter, which was unusual, and which was to prove very useful later on.

"And so we stayed a few weeks in Shari's house. And Irene lived also there, and we started to look for an apartment. Irene went to a real estate agent. She got a beautiful, a nice apartment near the Kellenful, a suburb of Budapest, Buda. Actually, it was still the city, the outskirts of the city. We got in a new building, the first tenant moved in there. We got like a studio apartment. A big room, and a separate kitchen, and a foyer, and a nice big closet, and a bathroom. Nice apartment, modern, it was a nice apartment. Nice location. Across the street were just fields and the station [not] far away. There was a station. It was open spaces, nice, no traffic from the city."

"How did she get it, from a real estate agent?"

"Irene could get anything, she was so beautiful. She went down, a young man came down with her. He didn't realize that she's [not alone], I'm there too. She took it alone, and he came down, and she rented it. He rented it to her and he wanted to be in contact with her. But then Irene said that, 'My sister-in-law is moving in with a baby, that we share an apartment.' He was very disappointed. I remember him yet."

"He was Hungarian?"

"Yes. He was extremely anxious to please her, to get her the apartment.

We decided that Irene and me and the baby going to move in. Until they don't make the ghetto, Mayer is gonna stay in Shari's house because it's safer, because for a man it was always much harder. He always had a bigger risk, so as long as possible he is safer there. And later, if they have to go in the ghetto, then he'll come out, he'll move in with us.

So I had a beautiful apartment. We got dishes. I got a crib there. Irene got some furniture. Irene got the furniture from Heidi, Shari's sister-in-law. Heidi gave us furniture from her daughter's room. She doesn't remember. I told her that [recently] but she doesn't remember. I even remember the color, it was light blue. And we started to set up house and get used to the neighbors. Get to know the neighbors and the super as 'goyim'."

My parents then discussed whether my father should move in the apartment with us right away. Irene and my mother moved in first because they wanted to investigate the situation and their surroundings. They wanted to see what kind of people would move into the building and its environs. They wanted to see how safe it would be before my father joined them.

One of the problems was that there were frequent air raids, as the British and American planes were bombing the city, and the Russians were engaged in land battles with the German troops. That meant that all the tenants had to go down to the basement air raid shelter very often. It was more dangerous for my father in the basement with all the people, any one of whom might get suspicious of a dark haired, dark eyed, Jewish looking man. This would have been dangerous for him as well as for us. He would have had to stay in the apartment during the air raids.

"Mayer Friedman came too or he had left already?"

"No, he was still at Shari's. I moved in with Irene, and Mayer was still there because we wanted to get acquainted a little bit, see the surroundings, see the situation, because there were siren raids every night, every second night. English and American planes were coming, they were attacking, they were bombing. It was war, it was regular war, open war that time against Hungary and against Germany.

And the Americans and English were bombing. Russians were on the ground and they were bombing. We had to come down to the- we must go down to the basement. [It was] dangerous to stay up, [but] he won't be able to come down there."

"They were checking?"

"The people. The whole house comes in. It was dangerous. It was risky. Somebody might get suspicious, you know, or something. Dark hair, dark eyes."

There was a further problem. It concerned bringing his 'tallis and tefillin' (prayer shawl and phylacteries) to the apartment. After Bar Mitzvah, Jewish men are required to pray every weekday morning with their phylacteries wound around their arms and head. As he was a very religious man, he was reluctant to part with them, yet taking them along increased the danger of our being caught. He would postpone joining us as long as he could, to minimize our danger. This, unfortunately, proved to be the wrong decision. But who could know at the time what was the right thing to do? Every possibility had its pros and cons.

This is how my mother describes the decision my parents arrived at regarding the advisability of my father's moving in with us.

"So I said to Mayer, he'll come out. But you know, we were discussing the 'tefillin and tallis'. Should he bring it or shouldn't he bring it. So that kept him. He said he'll stay as long as he can there, because he's not sure, if he brings the 'tallis and tefillin' he might endanger us. Somebody might come to look for something. They come in, accidentally, the super came in, whatever. She has the key from the house and we'll be out or so. We were thinking about it. Then he said, 'You know what, as long as Shari and -', Shari and Cheskel were also looking for an apartment, and till they're there, he'll stay there. Once they go away, he'll move in. Then he'll decide with 'tallis and tefillin' what to do.

Meanwhile, Shari took an apartment also, on 'goyishe' papers. But they still lived in their old home because they still didn't take them to the ghetto, so they still felt safer there. As long as possible they stayed there.

Then Mayer came down. He came down to the apartment and we were talking. And we decided, soon as possible, soon as Shari's going to move out of the house there, he's going to come and move in.

Then before he left, that afternoon, when he decided he's going back, he was discussing how difficult it's going to be to live here. To bring in 'tefillin', to bring in the 'tefillin' here, he's going to jeopardize everybody else. If somebody's going to come in, or looks, they're going to be suspicious or something, if they find 'tefillin', then we all lost, that it's very risky. He was very hesitant to move in. And he said, Cheskel is talking something about, he has somebody who has some connections, and he advised they should go to Slovensko, to Slovakai. And maybe he should go also. And of course I was against it because I didn't trust the Slovaks. From past experience what I knew about them, I didn't, somehow I didn't feel it's going to be safer there than here.

The idea was that they go first. The men going to go first. Chaskel wanted to go, and Mayer, and a cousin, I don't remember his name. The three men are going to go with somebody who's going to take them to Slovakai. He's going to 'shvertz' (smuggle) them through the borders. At the time, to them it seemed a good idea, that it's a better chance because they didn't know what's going to happen in Budapest. Nobody knew it. They knew that the whole country was already in the ghetto's. Besides they started to deport already people [in Budapest]. The news started to come in to Budapest that they deporting all the Jews from the ghettos. They don't know where they are taking them, but they taking them away in wagons, in cattle wagons. They fill up the wagons to capacity. It just didn't look good. And so, that's why they were thinking of maybe to leave Hungary, to go to Slovokai. Slovakai might be better now. And they going to leave first, the men, and then we going to go after them. The next transport we'll go.

I was very, very reluctant to go, because from my experiences from traveling with a baby, I had a terrible experience. It was very, very hard. And I felt somehow, I had an apartment, and settled, and I was on 'goyishe' papers, I was hoping. It was already 1944 and everybody knew the war won't last too long. The Nazis were losing on all the fronts. Rumania turned against them and all over they were losing. The Russians were advancing on all fronts. So to me it seemed this won't last another year. In a few months this has to end. And I figured I had the 'goyishe' papers, they're good papers, I have an apartment.

Irene had a friend, a Polish man, he was already six years, or five years in the ghetto in Poland. He went through hell, he knew a lot. He said he doesn't trust Budapest to stay, it's dangerous. That Slovakai, Slovensko went through a lot, it's already more safe there, because they went through all this occupation, with the deportations, and occupations, and they'll be strangers there; that they'll be better off if they go to Slovakai, back to Slovakai than to stay, not to Kosice but deeper to Slovakai, better than to stay in Budapest. Budapest is a very dangerous place now.

And he talked into Irene also, and Chaskel too, to go. So Irene at the time decided she's going. She came down, Irene came down, that Cheskel and Mayer and she, they decided they're going to Slovakai and I should come too. I said 'I'm not going no place. I'm with a baby. I traveled for almost a week and I almost lost the baby on the way. I feel safe. Whatever's going to be here, I'm gonna, I hope I can make it out, get over it here. The war is not- the Russians are already here and here, the Germans are losing on every front, and I feel I can hold out.'

As a Christian I was here already a few weeks. The super was very nice to me, was baby sitting. She had no babies, she loved children. And the neighbors, there were some very nice people I had [as] neighbors. Very nice Hungarians, not anti-Semitic, you could see it. And they were nice neighbors. And next door was living the 'Bobover Rebbetzin' (the wife of the Rebbe of Bobov, a town in Poland), a Jewish woman, with a brother, and mother, and two children. And I decided, I was afraid to go. I didn't trust that trip at all. And I said to Irene, 'Tell Mayer not to go. I'm not going and he shouldn't go either.' And you know, you're twenty, twenty one years old, you think so you'll go and you'll come back, and I'll come after, that's the right way to do."

"But they wouldn't cover your husband, those papers."

"No."

"So he was in more jeopardy than you were."

"Of course. He was a man, also more jeopardy. I wasn't as a married woman on my papers. I was as a girl who had a baby, and I had a boyfriend who is- my neighbors I told, the super also when I rented the apartment- I have a boyfriend who is in the army. He's on the front. It happened. It wasn't unusual, it happened between the 'goyim', women who had babies and they weren't married.

It was a very big decision to make, what to do. But I decided I can't. I feel I can't go through again traveling with a baby. An adult person, a grown up traveling, it's different. But with a baby it was unbelievable hardships. And it was just too risky to take a baby. By then you were already run down and sickly a lot. So I just felt, I have a room, and Mayer brought a few hundred dollars, so I had money, and I had the papers, and I was hoping that the war is going to end. We knew it, everybody knew that the war is gonna end already. It can't last too long. So I decided I'll stay. And I said the same thing to Mayer, he should stay.

And he was discussing it, and hesitating about it, and didn't know what to do. And when he left he said, 'Well I don't know what I'm going to do.' But looking at the baby he said, 'Well this is going to be, this is the hardest thing for me, I don't know if I'll ever see the baby again. I hope I will see it but I don't know. But this is the hardest thing for me to do'. And he left.

I was hoping that they won't go. So a few days we spoke yet on the phone. And one morning Irene came in. No, Irene started to work by then, she was working. So she wasn't home all the time. She used to leave in the morning and she came home. One evening she came back and she said, 'Well' she says, 'Mayer and Chaskel and his cousin, they decided that the best thing is if they leave, and they left. And they still feel that you should also- when they arrive there they'll send 'shlichim' (messengers) and you should also, Shari and you should also come.' So that was that. They left.

In two days I got a post card from Mayer, he's on his way. And that was the last post card I had. On the way, while they were going to the border, before crossing the border, Chaskel changed his mind. I don't know exactly why and what. I guess he had years. He turned back, he said he's not going. He decided he's going back. And Mayer and his cousin went on and Chaskel came back to Shari. And a few days later we heard they were caught. And we didn't know what happened to them."

"How did you hear they got caught?"

"I don't remember exactly who told, how, but I just remember I got the news that they were caught. We didn't know, all the time till the war didn't end, what happened to them.

So they left, they went, Chaskel and Mayer, and Irene didn't go. But Irene came, she picked up her clothes, and she's going."

"So what made her change her mind?"

"I said she's crazy to go."

"So she listened to you, you mean?"

"Yes. But Mayer and Chaskel, they were set to go. They left, they went, and Irene came back and she said to me that they left. I was very upset, I was crying, and I was very mad at Mayer, why he did that. Well anyway, he was gone. I got one postcard from Mayer, they are on the way someplace.

After the war I heard that they got into a transport. That they were going from Hungary, one of those towns, and just mostly old people from old age homes, selected homes, and they caught them at the border, and they put them in [the transport of] these old age people. They didn't take them to work even, they got straight to Auschwitz. They didn't have a chance because if they would have come from Kosice, regular, with the younger people, with young and old, they could have been- it could be they would never survive because very few survived in general- but there was a possibility. But this transport, I heard, they went straight to the- Auschwitz. So that was that."

My aunt Irene stayed in the apartment with us a while longer but she was restless. She wanted to get away. A few weeks later, about August 1944, she met another Jewish young man from Poland, who told her of a German plan to exchange Hungarian Jews for supplies from the Allies, via Switzerland. It meant interning yourself with the Germans for eventual exchange. He said it was genuine, a good deal, that he was going and that she should go also. Irene decided to follow his advice and to go with the transport to Switzerland, and she tried to convince my mother to come along with this transport. Again my mother tried to dissuade her.

My mother made up her mind, she wasn't going. The thought of giving herself up to the German's was insane to her. How could anyone trust them? She wasn't going to take a chance. She tried to convince my aunt not to go, but she didn't succeed. My mother went back to my other aunt, Shari, to tell her of her sister's plans in the hope that she might be able to dissuade her. Shari didn't even know of Irene's plans. So they went, in a last ditch effort to prevent her from going. The Jewish internees in this transport were in an embassy courtyard. They called Irene to the gate to try to change her mind, but she wouldn't. My mother didn't think she would ever see her again. It turns out that she made it in the end, and she even met her future husband on that very transport. But it took them a long time to get to Switzerland. They didn't hear from her or about her, till after the war.

"And Irene, Irene had no 'sitz fleish' (patience) anyway. She stayed with me for a few more months. Then came another Pollack, a nice young man, who said to Irene, 'There goes a transport, 'me tit sech interneeren' (we intern ourselves) with the Germans' and they take you. An exchange is going to be with Switzerland,' something. She should go, it's a good deal and he's going too. He was going too, this Polish man."

"Wait a second, Mayer left Budapest when? You got to Budapest before Pesach, after Pesach?"

"To Budapest? After Pesach, right after Pesach."

"Right after Pesach. And so he must have left after Pesach. You got this new apartment in May or June, and he left around June 1944?"

"Yes.

A few weeks later, Irene was there. We had no [problems], we got along."

"So let's say this was June, July. When did Irene leave, around August, September?"

"Around August Irene dropped in again, and again with the suitcase, and she's throwing her clothes in the suitcase again, and some money I should give her. You know we had money together, and she's taking some money, and she's going with this transport. It's a very safe transport, it's a very good transport. The Satmerer Rebbe was going on this transport. I don't remember knowing at the time."

"But they made it!"

"Yes. But it was very risky."

"Could you have gone?"

"Yes. He said, this Polish man, I can come with Irene. I didn't want to go again. I didn't want to travel with a baby. To go travel with a baby, to feed a baby, to, to- it was so risky to- a baby can't survive. Grown up could survive things. Babies couldn't survive things like that. How long can a baby survive? How? So I figured, the only chance to survive, if I want to survive with a baby, is stay put. Whatever is going to be, here I have a chance. I felt there I don't have a chance. They were in Bergen Belsen for months, in Germany, in a Nazi camp, with SS. Plenty people died there. Irene's husband's first wife died there, in childbirth.

So again I said 'No, I made up my mind, I'm not going. If I have any chance- if I'm a single person, like you it's a different story, but I would advise you not to go either because you don't know.' 'Losen interneeren' (to let yourself be interned) to the German's, it was just beyond my belief to do that. I just wouldn't trust them. If I have no choice, they intern me, they take me. But to go on my own will? I couldn't see it- and said to- and begged Irene not to go, but she made up her mind she's going, so she left.

I remember I went over to Shari. Shari didn't even know about it. I went over, I packed you up and I took you back to Budapest where she lived. And I said to Shari, 'Irene came, she packed up, she left. I don't trust them, I don't like this thing, and go and get her back. Go try to get her back.'

I remember we went back to- we went there. I knew where it was. It was I think the Swiss Consulate or someplace. We got Irene to the gate and she wouldn't come. She was behind gates already, locked up behind gates, iron gates, [in a] back yard, tremendous iron gates. And I never thought I'll see her again. She left. We didn't know of her till after the war. We didn't hear- we knew they got to Bergen Belsen, we heard something, but we never had contact, we never got no- nothing. We didn't know about Irene [till] right after the war. We knew that she's in Switzerland. [Strangely enough, my husband-to-be, Henry, and his family, were there in Bergen Belsen at that time, and he remembers that transport from Hungary. He was nine or ten years old.]

You know, they had difficulty, they were hungry, but they made it. Not everybody, a lot of people died. First of all they didn't exchange everybody either."

"So you couldn't get her back."

"So Irene left, that was that saga."

My mother was on her own now in the apartment. She had some money left, and she even managed to go down to the proper office to get ration cards for food. She was able to get milk, bread, sugar and other staples. Few of the Jews hiding as Christians dared to do that, so they had to buy food on the black market. It was risky, but she took her chances, because of her papers, and succeeded in getting the ration cards.

"I went down to the office and I got my ration cards, and I got milk every day fresh, and I got bread enough, and I got whatever was rationed. I got everything. And I was able to buy fish for 'shabbos'. I bought fish. And I even made 'chulent' once or twice (a baked bean and meat dish left overnight on the fire to keep warm and eaten at the Sabbath midday meal, as it is not permissible to cook on the Sabbath. It has a very strong, distinctive, and delicious smell. It is strictly a Jewish dish.) Then I stopped because I came in from outside and you could smell it and I got scared. So I got cold feet, I didn't make 'chulent' any more. And it was fairly, you know, considering, those few months there till December, were fairly normal. I had what to eat."

"Had your hair grown in yet by this time?"

"Very little."

"So what were you doing, still wearing a 'sheitel'?

"No. That's another story, the 'sheitel'. My hair started to grow in and it was a different shade. I couldn't comb it up. My hair was lighter or the sheitel was darker, one was lighter than the other, or darker. So I had a brilliant idea, I'm going to dye it. I bought in the five and ten some dye and I dyed it. And the 'sheitel', it was human hair, it shrunk. It got so small and so matted, and artificial looking, I couldn't wear it. I had no choice but to take a 'tichel' (kerchief), and just say I was sick and I had to cut my hair. I got a rash on my scalp, I had to cut my hair. I have to wait till it grows back. They seen me before with hair, so they seen I had hair."

"You mean the 'sheitel' was so good you couldn't tell it was a 'sheitel'?"

"Yes. I had hair, human hair, made two beautiful 'sheitels'. Beautiful, long hair. I let my hair the same way. That time long hair looked very good on me. They were beautiful sheitels, they were so natural. It didn't look like a sheitel."

"Obviously, because you got away with it."

"Yes. Also, I wore many times like a bandanna. When you're twenty, anything looks good on you, you can wear anything, so I got away with it. But once I washed it, it was finished. So I just wore a 'tichel' and my hair started to grow in, slowly. For a long time I had to wear a 'tichel'. It was safer than the beautiful 'sheitel' with a 'tichel', because going down, almost nightly we had to go down sometimes."

The next few months, till December 1944, were fairly bearable. We had food, some money, and relative safety. My mother lived from day to day and concentrated on surviving, by not getting caught or hit by a bomb.

Though we were relatively safe for the moment, she was alone and lonely. The only contact with family, and it was dangerous to pursue, was with her sister-in-law Shari and her family. They had found another apartment, and were now also in hiding on forged papers as Christians. It was dangerous to meet them too often because we never knew if they were still safe. If they were caught, and my mother came looking for them, she might get caught also. She also took a chance occasionally and visited her mother's friend Mindya, who still lived in the Jewish neighborhood, which had now been converted into the Jewish ghetto. She took the chance because she was so lonely and starved to see someone who knew her family. They had put the remaining Budapest Jews in the ghetto and they had to wear yellow stars, but they had stopped deporting them because they couldn't get them through the enemy lines.

"I was very heartbroken because I had no more contact with my parents. I didn't get no more letters. I heard that they [were] deporting there in Carpathia. Mayer was gone, your grandparents in Kosice were gone, Irene was gone. Shari and Cheskel was there. I used to meet them. I used to go down, travel down. It wasn't too good to travel to each other. We didn't go too often because I was afraid. I never knew, I get there, they were on 'Goyishe' papers, on false papers, they lived someplace different. But I never knew if they caught them and I got there, and if they caught them, then they catch me, what are you doing there, they can check. So we didn't see each other too often.

I used to go down to Mindya, to Kiralyutza. I was very lonely for- I was lonely. So I used to go down to Mindya sometimes. I felt very good to talk to Mindya. Her father was there."

"She had false papers?"

"No, they lived in the ghetto. In Budapest they didn't deport everybody. They stopped. They put'em, concentrated them in ghetto, a few Jewish streets, but they didn't deport [anymore]. They stopped deporting because they couldn't get through the Russians' [lines]. Something happened, they couldn't deport."

"When did they stop?"

"July, August, they couldn't deport anymore. In Budapest they got stuck, the people. So they were with stars, and they were rationed, and they were 'of tsuris' (in trouble), but they were there."

"Wasn't it dangerous for you to go there?"

"I didn't go often, but I just had to sometimes. I just felt I must go, so I went. I didn't have a star, I went like non- Jews. [They] were able to go in ghetto if they wanted to. So I went as a non-Jew. A few times to Mindya I went."

Fortunately my mother had some nice neighbors in the building itself and she was able to associate with them. "Socially I see the people, with neighbors. The super was very nice to me, extremely nice to me. I have a feeling they suspected that I'm Jewish."

"But they didn't say anything."

"No, because they were so protective of me and of you. And I had another neighbor, a 'goy', who kept on telling me she has a Jewish boyfriend. Very- a lady like. She reminds me of someone here. A very elegant woman, in her mid-fifties she was at that time. And she had a Jewish boyfriend, and they got him, and she lost him, and she was very bitter, and she kept on talking to me always about it. She was very nice to me. I also had a feeling, she- she also has the feeling that something- I'm not kosher, if I'm Jewish or not Jewish, or I'm a runaway, or something. So I had a few people who I was quite close."

Meanwhile, Shari and Cheskel had moved to another apartment. Towards the end of October, they began to get nervous that their neighbors were getting suspicious of them and they had to leave their new apartment. So, the whole family, Shari, Cheskel, their three children, and Cheskel's father and stepmother, moved into our studio apartment. We were old people, young people, and babies, all cramped into a studio apartment consisting of one room, one bathroom, a foyer and a kitchen. As can be imagined, it was an extremely tense and strained situation.

"Shari came before we went down in December this last time to the bunker. She came about four or five weeks before that."

"Why did she leave the other apartment?"

"Because it got suspicious there. She had to flee that place. Something, the neighbors, she got suspicious, they had to leave. They had no place where to leave so they all came. She had there already, Cheskel had his father and his step mother there. They also came. Shari, Edith, Cheskel, and all the children, except Susie was with me before already. She stayed with me for a few weeks."

The situation got so tense, and my mother became so unhappy, that she decided to try and move out of the apartment and find another place to live.

"Okay. So they came, the whole 'mishpucha' (family)."

"And I don't have to tell you, under the circumstances, overcrowding. You know what overcrowding does. Young people, children, old people, and danger and fear, and not the easiest people to get along with. Shari is very, she's critical. She's too critical of me. I was younger, and I was a country girl. She was a sophisticated person. She thought very much of herself, and she made me feel inadequate, and I was very unhappy. I don't remember too much details, I just remember I wanted to run away and there was no place where to run.

And they made me miserable. You know, nobody's clean enough for her. And she heard a story that our house wasn't so clean at home, somebody told her that we didn't have such a clean house. It's true. It's true. My mother didn't care for the house. We had a big business and we had 'meshorsim', cleaning girls. And you know how they do if the 'balebusta's' (housewife) not in the house. The house wasn't the most important thing.

There was love and closeness, and we were close. Every sister liked the other sister, and it was warm. I was very happy. I had a very happy childhood. Besides my grandmother wasn't well, but otherwise we had a very happy childhood. Parents were happy together, they were very happy, they were very devoted. That's number one. That's the nicest thing in a family for children. And my sister got married and she was happily married. And we had 'parnusa' (a livelihood), and we had a tremendous big family. I took it for granted at that time, big family, uncles, aunts. I thought it's normal."

"It was normal then."

"That's why I miss it so much, because I had it, I knew what it is. They used to come and go. One uncle came, the other came, and one came, then the other came, and there a wedding, and here a wedding, and this one had children. There was always something going on, and a 'yontev' (holiday), it was beautiful. I see American families here and they have that. And we had nice family. It wasn't sophisticated, it was small town, but it was a 'balebatish', respectable, family. Well learned in 'Yiddish' (religious subjects), very well, 'Talmid Chuchem' (a scholar), my father was one of the- I don't know in how many, in thousand maybe one could learn like my father, and my brother. And they used to come to him to 'bentsch' (bless), when a child was sick, he should bentsch the 'cappele', the 'yarmulke' (cap), and he should put it on the child back. You know how much, what that means? He wasn't a 'Rebbe', or a 'smicha' (have rabbinical ordination). But this is how they thought of him. If he 'bentsches' something that meant that the child would get well. And honest, and correct. Even the 'goyim', the customers, trusted him so much. You know, he was such a nice human being that you don't find. So he was- but we didn't live so high class, we lived simple.

Anyway, it came to a point that I was- [I] seen the best thing would be if I could move out. So I took a chance, very risky thing what I did. I don't know if I ever told you that. I went in the 'Nyilos's' den (The Arrow Cross, Hungarian Fascist Party and Nazi collaborators). That was the- the 'Nyilos' were worse than the Nazis. They caught somebody- the Nazis maybe deported, or they were systematically, according to the rules they went, the superior what they said- but these 'Nyilos', if they caught somebody, on their own they took him to the Doneau [Danube River], and they shot him on the spot, and they threw him in, by the dozen, Jewish people. At the end, September, November, October, Budapest, whoever they caught, they were looking, chasing, they were chasing, getting people on the street with yellow stars, going in the houses and catching people. They were just drunk. They were drunk with power and they were [the] worst. Real haters. Real Jew haters. Violent, anti-Semites, beyond belief, beyond belief, these people. You couldn't imagine such hatred, such inhuman- one human to the other. To a dog I couldn't be like that, to a dog or to a cat, like they were to human beings.

I just started to read, somebody wrote now a book about a Swiss, what was his name? Wallenberg."

"The one from, not S-, Norway."

"Sweden."

"Sweden."

"Somebody worked for him in the Swedish [embassy], and she was trying, they were saving Jews. So she said she was going out, this woman, she was a secretary for Wallenberg. She was going out nightly to the Doneau because the 'Nyilos's' were taking people, caught people, and chaining them, tying them to- chaining or roped one hand to the other, throw them in the water, shot one, and throw the whole bunch, the rest would drown. That one pull them in and the rest drown. And that was ten, fifteen rows. That's what they did. I want to, what I'm trying to explain is the inhumanity. But I didn't know that, I just read now this story what she wrote.

And this woman was jumping in the water and saving, cut with a scissor, and cut the rope, it must have been rope, she cut people off. Once they got under water, they, the Nyilos's, they left. And she was saving a lot of people, she and Wallenberg. You'll come across this because she wrote, there was a documentary on television, and she's the one who is on television. She was working with him. She lives here in Long Island someplace, this woman. So things like that they did.

And I went to those, you know, I must have been a little bit stupid too, because at twenty one you're very brave. I left you there [in the original apartment] and I went with another woman, from Slovensko, she lived next door, a Jewish woman, she was one of them. The two of us went. We went to the Nyilos's and we came in and I said, 'I live in a house where it's overcrowded. A lot of people came in from the country. They fled here and it's terribly crowded. Could I get a Jewish apartment?' A Jewish- that was the only thing to get then. There were a lot of ghetto people, could I get a Jewish apartment."

"When was this, October, November?"

"December we went in, four weeks before December [1944]. I came in. I remember a 'Nyilos', he looks at me and he asks, then I had already quite a bit of hair, I had no scarf, he looks at me, 'Are you Jewish, or are you not Jewish?', some kind of question. And I, right away I said, 'Of course not! Of course not!', without hesitation. By then I was trained already. Many times I came across, I had to play the role as a Christian, and I was a Christian by then already. But I remember how my knees were shaking. I had a coat on and I thought, thank God I have a coat on because let him not see my knees shaking. My knee was regular shaking when he asked me, 'Are you Jewish?'

'Okay', he says, 'I'll give you an address, here.' And he wrote me out an address and a letter to the super, give her this and this apartment."

"How do you spell 'Nyilos'?"

"'N-y-i-l-o-s'. That was a party, 'Nyilos' party."

"And they were in charge in Budapest?"

"At the end. After a while, when Germany was losing on all fronts, by then. And Rumania, they, how you say that- turn coats to the Germans, against the Germans- and they were afraid the Hungarians would do the same thing."

"Would do it too, so they put up the 'Nyilos'."

"So they put up the 'Nyilos's' like for protection."

"So they took over the government? "

"They took over the government."

"They were like the Quislings, the fifth party, they were the collaborators."

"Yes, Yes, Yes. Something, somehow, they made sure, they felt they were safer with them because they were losing on all fronts. It was like the last stages for Germany."

Per Anger, a Swedish embassy attache, in his book, With Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, describes the situation in Budapest at that time.

"On October 15, 1944, the arrow crossmen, with German help, staged a coup and deposed the Lakatos government...

Horthy gave in to superior force. He was forced to resign and to name Arrow Cross [Nyilos] leader Ferenc Szalasi the new head of government, in return for the promise of asylum for himself and his family in Germany, as well as reunion there with his son, Miklos [whom the Germans had kidnapped]. The family was taken away and subsequently held prisoner in Hirschberg castle in Bayern, where they were freed by American troops at the war's end. Concerning Miklos, however, the Germans did not keep their promise. When his wounds had healed, he was put in concentration camps, first in Mauthausen and then in Dachau, where the Americans found him....

Eichmann and his henchmen returned, and for Wallenberg a hectic and dangerous period now began. But he never gave up, no matter how hopeless things looked....

Soon the persecution of the Jews reached a pitch that defies description. At night, we could hear the shots of the arrow crossmen's submachine guns when Jews, after being robbed of everything including their clothes, were shot down naked and thrown into the Danube....

Meanwhile, two Russian armies were rapidly approaching, one from the south under marshal Tolbukhin, and one from the east under Marshal Malinovsky. Soon only the way to the west was open from Budapest....

Thousands of people were seized where they walked, where they stood. Women in high-heeled shoes and men without overcoats were driven on foot the 125-mile-long way to Hegyeshalom, at the Hungarian-Austrian border...."*(page 67-68)

"And I went. I went in to the super, presented the letter, I got an apartment. A beautiful, clean apartment. What I remember most was a piano, a baby grand piano, and on the piano was a letter, a leather book case cover, and on top of the book cover was a letter written, 'This was a very loving home. Please don't ruin it. We hope to be back here.' I remember I burned the letter but I kept that book. I think I still might have it. I must look for that, I had it many years.

I stayed in this apartment a few weeks."

"Where was the apartment?"

"In Pest. But then Pest started to fall in, they were coming closer, the Russians, very close, we had to fled. That area was evacuated."

"Did that woman come with you? Was she sharing the apartment?"

"Yes. She was sharing the apartment. We had to evacuate because whole blocks they were bombing, sections, and I had no place where to go. I was going back to, I got back to Shari and the rest of them. But it was already 'tzi Ne'ilah' (the end) because three or four days, we were all going down to the bunker. In the bunker we separated. She didn't want to know me. I was on my own, completely on my own. And I latched onto a family, a mother and a daughter, and a little nephew, he could be fourteen, fifteen years old, from the country. And the woman, the daughter lived in Budapest. She had a job there and the mother came out to live with the daughter, an older lady. And that little boy came out to try to get a job. So I had my mattresses next to them, and this woman, the mother, was baby sitting for me. They became very friendly with us."

"They weren't Jewish."

"No, but they were like my family. They helped me in every way. I stayed with these people there, and the daughter used to play with you, and sing you, and rock you."

"How old was the daughter?"

"She was around twenty eight, twenty nine. She had a French boy friend who was in the bunker also. He ran away from the Germans. He was from the French army, resistance, or in the army, and he was caught and he was in concentration camp in Germany. He fled, he came to Budapest, and they became boy friend [and girl friend], and they were in love, very much, the daughter with this French guy. He was caught. When the Russians came in they took him away and he never came back.

Shari and Edith, and all of them, they ignored me completely. It got to a point, I don't remember why we were so mad at each other. I really can't recall. I just remember that we didn't talk to each other, and she really hated me, Shari. 'Ich mein nebich nisht tzi- (I mean nebich not to talk ill of the dead,) [she died of cancer in the 1970's. She was in her seventies.] Why did she hate me so much? I was left there alone with a child and she knew I don't have a man with me. She had Chaskel, Edith, she had a lot of people around. She had bigger children than I. She should have never done that. Anyway, that was the situation and I made the best of it. In December we went down to the basement and we didn't go up anymore to the house."

For about two months all the inhabitants of the apartment house stayed in the bomb shelter in the basement. There had been talk of the coming battle, as the Russians were practically at the gates of Budapest, so my mother had started her preparations for possible days and nights in the shelter. There were storage cubicles for each tenant in the basement, and she brought down potatoes, carrots, onions, and some bags of home-made zwieback for me. I was fifteen months old at the time. She had originally thought that she would be able to go back to the apartment every now and then to replenish her stocks, but it was impossible. The top floors of the building were hit by bombs and were demolished. Our apartment was on the first floor and was spared, but there was no knowing if and when it might be hit.

"Around December, November, December they started to strike the city. How do you say strike in English? There was a special Hungarian word for it."

"Attack."

"It wasn't an attack, like from all sides, from the air, from the infantry, from katyushas [Russian guns]."

"They started to try and take the city."

"Yes. To conquer the city, and that was, started out serious. The bombings were day and night. In December we went down to the basement and we didn't go out anymore. I started to take down- no, they were talking about that, that the Russians are coming closer, we should bring down food to the shelter. I dried bread, cut up dry toast, like double- you know, toasted bread. Twice baked they call it here."

"Zwieback."

"Zwieback. I made a few bags of, a few bags of zwieback. And I brought down potatoes, I remember, and carrots and onions. We all had little cubicles, storage in the basement. Every tenant. So I filled up my cubicle with food, and baby food, and rice, and whatever I could I took down, because we figured it could be days that we won't be able to get out. They were months, non-stop. We got stuck in the basement for two months. December, January, we didn't go up. It was bombed. Upstairs was shattered. My floor was the first floor, mine wasn't, but two floors up was completely destroyed, and next door around it. A few bombs fell around us.

So we got stuck in the basement and it was horrible. The bombs fell day and night. The noise was sometimes, when it fell over the house, when the house was hit, it was deafening. You thought that- many times we thought that we're finished. I thought we'll never get out. Even if we survive, the basement will be buried. It was impossible. The food got short. You got sick. You had terrible diarrhea. You wouldn't eat. You stopped talking. You were already getting- you started to walk a little bit, talk a little bit. The baby stopped talking and walking and was lying there just very, very helpless. There was no doctor. There was no medicine. [It] come to the point I couldn't give you even a tea because the pipes were shut off. We had gas pipes. They were shut off. The water pipes were shut off."

"What did you use for a bathroom?"

"Pails. And we used to try to get to the door and open the door to empty the pail. And you took your life in your hand if you open the door to empty the pail, but it was unbelievable the smell, and the stink, and the stench. Nobody washed. It was unbelievable. You cannot describe it. A candle wouldn't burn, there was no oxygen, very little oxygen. How people can survive is really- you would never believe it. People die, healthy people, in good circumstances, with doctors, with medication, in hospitals, and people don't survive many times. There people survived unbelievable, impossible conditions. Survived, most of them."

"You had water?"

"No. We had to go- it was winter, it was snow, a few feet snow. So you had to open up the door and grab in the snow. That was our water. So if I wanted to make tea for you, I had to- I had on a gray suit. I put on a suit, and a jacket, and a 'tichel offen kop' (a kerchief on my head), and that, I slept in that, and I lived in it. Because, I had two, three, dresses, they were dirty, and somehow in the suit I felt most comfortable, for sleeping and to get out.

I remember I walked out a few times to get some snow. And the ammunition, they were flying, the shells were flying, the katyushas were flying. I remember, around me the wall was pocked with bullets and I was passing, and I was, you know, it was nothing to be hit, nothing. But I had to go and get the snow and nothing happened to me. But I spoke to God, I really talked to him. I said to him, 'Look, there's a Jewish child down in there. If something happens to me she'll be a 'goy'. She'll never be a Jewish child. If you want her to be a Jewish child, and if you want her to survive, I must live.' Honestly, I talked like that.

And I went out and I brought water. And the super made me from shoe polish boxes, round, three nails on a board, three nails, and on top of the shoe polish box- and she gave me like medicine, gasoline, or naphthalene, to make a little flame. And I cooked on that. And a little pot on that gasoline I put up and I cooked tea and water for you. A little potato I put in the water sometimes, a carrot I put in. Dried bread I soaked and I made you dried bread. I think that dried bread saved your life.

So we stayed, we struggled. It was hell for them, and it was hell for us, for the whole bunker. It was impossible, but somehow we survived. Till one day the Russians, they took the block, they took our section [of the city]. It was occupied. [End of] January, 1945. One evening fighting was going on. We heard a lot of shooting, and Katyushas, and we could distinguish between a katyusha and between [other guns]."

"They were fighting in the streets, taking street by street."

"Streets. Apartment by apartment, house by house. They were already upstairs in our house. We heard already rumors they're upstairs a day before, but we didn't see nobody yet.

One evening, the door opened up, the Russians came. I somehow wasn't [afraid]. The Jews were all waiting, that was our salvation. We didn't know they're raping, and that its no picnic, it won't be a picnic. But I was very lucky I spoke Russian, Ukrainian Russian. I went to Russian school."

Per Anger again, "It was said that, as a reward for taking Budapest, the Russian soldiers were given free rein for three days of looting and rapine in the city. Many stories have already described the suffering that the civilian population had to undergo during these days. Much has also been written about the Russian soldiers' primitive naivete, how they would shave themselves in toilet bowls thinking they were washbasins, and how, for lack of other strong drink, they would imbibe gasoline. or how they could show touching feelings for small children at the same time that they could impulsively and heedlessly, especially in a state of drunkenness, shoot down innocent people.

In contrast to this stood the German killing, more cold- blooded and systematic.

We were forced to experience both kinds."* (page 139-140)

My mother spoke Russian, a Ukrainian Russian dialect. She wasn't afraid of rape since she thought she didn't look very attractive in her rumpled and dirty man's suit, her kerchief on her hair, and her generally unkempt appearance. She hadn't heard yet about their attacks on women of any age and description. She had two factors in her favor; first she spoke their language, and second, she had a baby. They had a lot of respect for babies. Many of them had babies at home and they had a soft spot for them. Therefore, many people in the shelter expected her to speak to the soldiers.

"So the Russians came in."

"Yes, that was a very memorable evening. Everybody knew that I spoke Russian."

"You were the only one who spoke Russian?"

"They spoke Polish, the Bobover Rebbetzin, but they had a man with them, and a little boy. They were afraid. They didn't know if, the next block could be a German yet. Maybe they're here today and tomorrow they're gone [the Russians]. Maybe they are very anti-Semites, if they know that they're Jewish. You know, men they can find out, or whatever. They didn't want to say yet they're Jewish yet. And they all knew that I speak- they speak Polish, and I speak Russian. Ukrainish is very similar to Russian, so they all expected me to go to, I should go to them. And with a baby also, somehow, they respected baby. They all had babies at home, a lot of the Russians. They had a soft spot for a baby.

They came in and I was- somehow I wasn't scared. The way we looked, I mean, I didn't think I'm going to attract anybody as a female. I had a scarf on my head, and a man's suit, and worn out, and dirty. We looked like really scarecrow.

And anyway, I went over and I got to them , and I said, 'Welcome here. We were really expecting you. I'm from Carpathia, Porkapatska Russe, couldn't get back, I got stuck here. I couldn't get back home. My folks live in Carpathia and I'm so glad you're here. And we heard,' I'll never forget, I gave them the speech, 'We heard the rumors here, the Hungarian army, they told us, the Russians, that they're very uncivilized. They treat very shabbily the people, the population, and I'm sure it's not true. It's propaganda. That's all not true because I know, I lived with Russian people, and they are the most intelligent and kind people. I grew up with them.' And I just didn't want to say I am one of them, I was afraid they'll think I'm Jewish maybe, or so. So I just said, 'I grew up with them, and all my friends, and as children, so I know the Russian people very well. I'm also Hungarian, I speak Hungarian too because they speak in Carpathia Hungarian too. I'm a mixture. My family, we had Russians, we had Hungarians.' And they listened to me and they shook their heads, and they looked around, and they went away. They didn't take nobody [as hostages], they didn't bother nobody. Everybody 'hut auf ge'eitemt' (breathed a sigh of relief), you know.

"You sighed with relief."

"Yes, because the first thing when they came in, they schlepped women out. They took men, men especially. They took them on marches, many people never came back."

"So how come they took the Frenchman?"

"Later."

"They came back?"

"Next day they came back, in the morning. Then the fighting stopped on the streets. Next morning they came back. They brought me bread, Russian's army bread, squares, hard bread. It must have been whole wheat or whatever. I didn't like it, it was so hard, like a rock. It was a real good bread, black bread, very good bread. But you know how hungry all of us, it was delicious. They brought me 'shinkes' (sausage) from pig's, smoked. I didn't know what 'shinkes' is. I had no idea what it is.

And they brought me food. For the baby, they said, for the baby, the child. Flour. They brought me a few things. That same group next day came back. And everybody was very happy that I'm there.

And then we started to go out, to walk out, to rummage for food. Everybody started to go out a little bit. There were warehouses across the street, the railroad, the station. The Germans were trying to get out and the railroad cars [were full of] sour cream, cans, big, and potato sacks, and bread. All kind of food was in the freight cars. So we started to go to there, everybody was going and bringing some food. And we started to go further sometimes.

One day we came came back, and another group of Russians came, and they took men. They got together a few men, and this Frenchman was one of them. The Bobover was with him and a whole bunch of men. The Bobover came back. He spoke Russian, not Russian, Polish. The Frenchman never came back, never came back.

And we were going around for food, I remember. I came in with this, with this couple I used to go. With the daughter we used to go for food and the mother was staying with the baby, taking care of you, and we used to go for food. We came in one warehouse, something, and there was like a soldier lying on the floor. We thought he's asleep, eyes open. I said to her, 'Let's go out, there's a soldier, he's sleeping.' And she said, 'Oh he has open eyes.' Then I said, 'If he has open eyes, and he doesn't move, then he's not alive. If he would be sleeping, his eyes would be closed.' So we went in, we got lentils, peas, a few bags."

"But you were still in the bunker then?"

"Yes, we were still in the bunker then, but it was open. We could get out. So one day we came back and the Russians came in, and they said we should pack up. We had to evacuate because the fighting wasn't over yet. It might come closer, back here. I don't know, from Buda, in Pest. We should evacuate, especially children, we should go. So I packed."

"Where?"

"To the suburbs, further out. This side was free completely. The other side, Pest, they were still fighting. But the side of Buda was taken, captured [by the Russians]. Buda, the Doneau divides the city, and they were heading, the Hungarians [and Germans] were mounting an attack. We should go.

So I packed up. It was snowing that day. It was cold. One of the Russians brought me a sled. I remember the sled had a support back. I dressed you up and I put you down in the sled. [I was now about one and a half years old.] And we couldn't take much, you know, I had to shlep the sled. And there wasn't much you could shlep. And we didn't know where we go, how far we go, how long we go. We started out in the morning, and almost half the bunker was following me because they wanted to- stories were going around, it was very difficult. They were raping women, and children, and old ladies, and old women and young children."

"It was true, though."

"Oh yes."

"But if you spoke Russian they were different?"

"Yuh, yuh. Not just me, but the whole bunker was almost saved."

"It's interesting why the fact that you could speak their language made such a difference. They thought you were one of them somehow if you could speak their language?"

"You're not a Hungarian, you're not a German."

"I see. You weren't the enemy."

"I wasn't an enemy to them.

"They considered Carpathia part of Russia, [which it is today] so once you were Russian, they wouldn't hurt you."

"Yes. Yes. So we left, we came, a whole morning. The baby was sitting in the sled, the face was full of snow. The head and the face was full of snow because it was snowing nonstop. I kept on brushing off the snow. Five, ten minutes, the snow was filled up again. Wasn't crying, the baby. The baby was so lethargic. And it felt already better, you know, it was already a few days [of] food. I was cooking. So you started to get to yourself a little bit.

We got to a summer home, a very beautiful summer villa, someplace, in the evening. And they all came in with me, the whole bunker."

"And Shari too?"

"No."

"Where did she go?"

"They went someplace else, I don't know where. We got to this house. There were two sisters, two old ladies."

"Where was this, near Budapest somewhere?"

"Out in the suburbs already. I don't remember the name. A beautiful summer resort place. Private homes. Beautiful. I remember the apartment. It was like a beautiful, gorgeous villa. Big, tremendous big, because half of the bunker was with me there. And we found there two old maid sisters, Jewish. They were both raped. [By Russian soldiers. They weren't the owners of the villa. They had also come there as evacuees from the city.] We stayed there for quite a few weeks in this house there."

"What did you eat? What did you do for food?"

"Well, we walked around in warehouses."

"There were warehouses there?"

"There were abandoned- the Germans were running, and they left food. All over there were warehouses, railroad cars, storerooms."

"Luckily it was winter so it kept."

"It was winter and it kept. In the basements of these summer homes, in the basements there was potatoes, carrots, left. They left food there."

"So the people who had been living in those houses, they were not there?"

"Not many. It was a summer resort. They were in Budapest mostly. So we stayed there a few weeks, trying to keep warm."

"Yeah, how did you keep warm? What did you wear?"

"Firewood, coal, somehow. We find something in the houses there. We washed what we had. The only thing was the food. The most important thing, we shouldn't get sick. And wear? We wear, it didn't matter. And you didn't want to look good. We even used coal on the face, and dirt. We wanted to make ourself ugly and old."

And so the war finally was over for us. But that was not the end of our voyage. We had a long way to go yet till we could settle down to a safe and orderly existence. And things would never be the same again for my mother. Her old life, a life that I would never know except through her stories, vanished forever.