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Hungary Remembered
Leslie Rübner
[Written in 2011]
Hungary has the third largest Jewish population in Europe outside of Russia (which is only partly European). Most are Neolog Jews (similar to Conservative), of which the world famous Dohány Street Synagogue belongs. This neo-Byzantine building, recently renovated by the Emanuel Foundation of Tony Curtis, has a most lavish and ornate interior with two stories of Ladies’ gallery, a huge organ and twin platforms half way in the shul, with spiralling staircases leading up for the Rabbis to make their sermons. It is considered to be one of the largest and most beautiful shuls on the Continent. There is also a small, but influential Orthodox community, providing Kashrut and other religious services of the highest standard. There are plenty of Shtibels and Shuls to choose from. Both the Orthodox and Neolog have a good selection of schools, cheders and kindergartens. There are even strictly kosher restaurants.
When the Magyars entered the Carpathian basin at the turn of the 10th Century, they found an established Jewish Community greeting them. A Turkish tribe, the Khazars (with Jews among them), and other peoples, joined forces with the Magyars, to conquer the land. Some of them settled down there. In 1349, during the reign of Louis the Great, Jews were expelled from Hungary for “causing the Black Death”. The expulsion was decreed officially in 1360, though by 1364, they were allowed to return. Hungarian Jewry suffered the same terrible treatment as the rest of Europe. The Kings of Hungary prohibited the Crusaders from entering, for fear of destroying everything in their path on their way to the Holy Land, thereby saving the Jews from the fate of the communities along the River Rhine.
1848 was probably the most important year in central European history. A string of popular uprisings shook the Hapsburg Empire. March of that year saw the Hungarians trying to shake off the Austrian yoke. Jews were there with the rest, standing up to be counted. Calls for granting them equal citizenship were made by the greatest of the Hungarian poets, Sándor Petöfi. The revolt was crushed with Russian and Croatian help. Emancipation was granted towards the end of the 19th Century after Austria and Hungary came to an understanding, creating the short-lived Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although the Jews of Hungary felt part of the society, but of course they were not.
About the same time in the small town of Tiszaeszlár, a young girl was found drowned in the River Tisza. The Jews were blamed for murdering her to provide blood for the preparation of matzot. By this time even the Russians thought that blood libels were too barbaric.
>Read Leslie's article 'Tiszaeszlár, the Blood Libel' for more information<
The First World War saw the end of Austria-Hungary. The Treaty of Trianon awarded most of historic Hungary to the neighbouring countries. Thus, Slovakia and Croatia were born, Transylvania went to Romania, and even parts of the western borders were awarded to Austria. Slogans demanding a Polish-Hungarian border with a Jew-free homeland abounded.
In 1917, as in Russia, Hungary had a Communist Revolution. Most of the leaders - as in Russia - were Jews. The head of this regime, Bèla Kun, was also Jewish. Under the leadership of Rear-Admiral Miklòs Horthy, with Romanian help, the Hungarian Communists were defeated and replaced Red Terror with White. And so the Hungarian Jewry’s great tragedy (as well as that of the rest of European Jewry’s) began.
Horthy naturally sided with fellow Fascists and followed Hitler’s lead. The first Jewish law was passed, limiting the ability for Jews to make a living. University places were severely reduced to Jews. The second law barred Jews from all the professions and trades. They were forbidden to own businesses or properties and Jews were now not allowed to attend universities. All the men were called up to forced-labour, helping the German War effort. My father, for example, ended up in the Russian forest of Bryansk, clearing mine fields. From his unit, as from all other units, more than 90% perished. He survived and was marched across Europe to a Concentration Camp in Germany.
>Read Leslie's article 'The Story of a Slave Labourer' for more information<
1944 saw Germany occupying Hungary. Instead of resistance, great enthusiasm greeted them. We were first put in Jewish blocks of flats with huge yellow Stars-of-David advertising the type of tenants staying in those places. We were under curfew and were allowed out shopping and attend to our needs between 2pm and 4pm. People over the age of 5 years of age were obliged to wear a yellow star on the left breast of their outer garment. My younger brother, under the age of 5, was sent out before 2pm to beat the crowds and buy the basic necessities. One time my mother saw him through the window, being stopped by the police. You can imagine her shock. On returning, my little brother said, “Is it true that I am Jewish between 2pm and 4pm, but a Christian the rest of the time?” Needless to say, that was the last time he broke the curfew.
In the meantime, deportation to Poland, Austria and Germany had started in the provinces. Since the Hungarian Jews were the last ones to arrive, most were gassed upon alighting from the cattle carts. Before the war there was reputedly a million Jews in Hungary, today there is less than 100,000. My mother, brother and I were not in the Ghetto, but were hiding in a building under Papal protection (90 Dob Street, Budapest VII).
>Read Leslie's article '90 Dob Street' for more information<
Towards the end of 1944, Horthy, seeing the inevitability of defeat, sued for peace. He was quickly replaced in a coup d’etat by Szàlasi, the head of the Arrow Cross. Despite the imminent defeat by the Red Army, all these thugs were concentrating on rounding up Jews and murdering them. The main modus operandi was to tie them together and shooting them into the Danube River.
During January 1945, the Red Army besieged Budapest. Since the Germans were determined to halt them on the Danube, this beautiful City was destroyed. Luckily the winter of 1945 was extremely cold, otherwise if hunger did not take us, an epidemic would have. The dead were left where they had fallen. One evening, sitting in the cellar hiding from the bombs, we heard knocking from the cellar next door. Suddenly the dividing wall came down and German soldiers were scuttling through in a great hurry, not looking left or right, running straight up the stairs and disappearing at the door. Some time later two Russian soldiers came through at a leisurely pace looking for them. This was like the Messiah has ridden in on his white donkey.
How wrong we were.
After the war we had to return to the Jewish House because our original home was bombed and was just rubble. Russian soldiers were everywhere. They were a different type to those we met on Liberation Day. These men were bent on stealing, looting and rape. When one of them came in the front door, my mother jumped out through the window. We survived by my mother stealing wood from bombsites and bartering belongings for food. All these mattered not when my father entered the flat, having walked back on foot from a Concentration camp in Germany. He re-engaged himself in business with reasonable success.
The Hungarian Workers Party came to power in a rigged general election. Their first action was to nationalise all businesses, including my father’s. He was thrown into jail, accused of stealing his own money and transferring it to Israel.
In the early 1950s, during the Doctor’s trial in the Soviet Union, anti-Semitism, always just under the surface, came into the open again. Fortunately, with the death of Stalin in 1953, things changed for the better and my father was released with a clean slate.
23 October 1956, the beginning of the Hungarian uprising, is a date deeply burned in my mind. This changed mine and my family’s lives forever.
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