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Part 4: Memories of the War
Leslie Rübner
Dob Street, a narrow and neglected thoroughfare cuts through the Budapest Jewish Quarter. Before the 2nd World War, an Orthodox Jew, having been born here, could live out his or her life without ever leaving the district. Here one could find everything a Jew required. The Orthodox Community Centre encompassing the famous Kazinczy Synagogue and the kosher butcher shop was here, where in the basement the poultry shochtim (slaughterers) were busy. In another part of the cellar was the community’s matzos factory. Passing through an inner gate, on the right-hand side was the shul (synagogue), a wrought iron chuppa (marriage canopy) adjoining its wall and on the other side of the yard was my school, the Orthodox elementary school.
Turning right at the bottom of this court, the first door was leading to the “Toyras Emess”, the Talmud Torah. Next to it was the “Shass Chevra” where one could always find a minyan (quorum of 10 men over the age of 13 required for public worship/prayer) going on, one could listen to some Talmudic discourse or just sit, sipping tea and learn by oneself. On the other side of Dob Street was the kosher grocery store. There was also a bakery, a wine cellar and a meat processing company and a bookshop.
My younger brother, my mother, my grandfather and I stayed in a small flat in Akácfa (Acacia) Street off Dob Street. Our dad had been away for years by now. At first, he had served as a soldier in the Hungarian Army, but because of a government’s decree, no Jew was allowed in the Hungarian Forces, and like thousands like him, was enslaved in a labour camp. Two of the three rooms were sublet to generate some income for the family. A Jewish refugee couple from Austria (or Czechoslovakia) occupied the large living room with windows to the street. The box room was taken by a Hungarian woman, a stenographer who needed space for herself and her belongings. We stayed in the room overlooking the courtyard.
Hungary was the first European country to introduce anti Jewish laws. The Numerus Clausus was introduced as early as 1924 limiting the number of Jewish students in the universities, in line with the size of the Jewish population, to a maximum of 6%. In 1939, further legislation reduced Jewish participation in the economy to 6%. This same law, for the first time, defined Jews as a separate race. In January and February 1942 in a pogrom, the Hungarian police and Army murdered over a thousand Jews. On 22nd March 1944, the Hungarian authorities ordered all Jewish businesses to stop operating.
Any thinking person had seen what was coming, so when an opportunity presented itself, my mother applied to send her boys away. Carl Lutz, the Swiss vice-consul organised the rescue of about10,000 young Jewish children to Palestine. David, my little brother, refused to go, saying if his mother was not going, neither would he. As it happened, when the time came, we were too young to look after ourselves, so we were left behind.
In May 1944, Germany occupied Hungary and took possession of all Jewish communal properties. The Orthodox Centre became a German military headquarter and the Nazis converted the beautiful synagogue to stables.
By the 2nd of June 1944, the entire Jewish population of Budapest had to move to 2,600 appointed Jewish houses marked by a 30 cm diameter canary yellow six-pointed star on a 51 cm x 36 cm black plate. All Jews over the age of five were compelled to wear the same yellow star on the left breast of their outer garments. As our block of flats was not appointed as a “Jewish House”, we were compelled to move. But in the Jewish blocks the Aryans could stay as long as they simply put up a sign “THERE ARE NO JEWS IN THIS FLAT”. My mother left most of her possessions with our Christian tenant. As for the Jewish tenants, the Arrow Cross took them away after the German invasion. Fortunately, they survived the War, and hired a man with a pushcart to transport their meagre belongings a couple blocs to the Jewish house. When the cart was full, the man simply wanted to steal all our possessions. Protection of the Law was no longer extended to the Jews, so he could have got away with it, but for one of our Christian neighbours. She was a loud-mouthed fishwife all the people of the block were afraid of her; it was only HER who came to our mother’s aid.
“While this woman’s husband is in Russia, you are at home trying to steal his wife blind!” she shouted at him.
While the pushcart owner was busy with the argument, my mother managed to throw her belongings down to the basement and we had to carry them one by one to our new address, a single room with relatives.
Further restrictions followed. All the Jews were placed under virtual house arrest. The curfew was lifted only between two and five in the afternoon. The authorities later eased this by letting us out at 11 o’clock. Even the food we were allowed to buy was curtailed. For example only vegetable oil with low fat content was permitted. By today’s standards, this was good healthy food, but for the Hungarian taste buds, the fatter the food the tastier.
My brother, David, being under 5 years of age was not required to wear the yellow star so, to avoid the crowds, our mother sent him shopping before 11 o’clock. He normally bought dairy products from the shop opposite. Mother churned the cream into butter to overcome the ban. One morning, as he left the building a police officer approached him asking if he was Jewish. On his return he told us what happened.
“I answered that I was a Christian. Isn’t it true that I am Christian in the mornings and Jewish in the afternoons?”
Of course, that was the end of that.
As for anything else, one day my mother was queueing for oil at the Jewish grocery store, diagonally opposite the German Headquarters, that used to be the Orthodox Centre. Suddenly three German soldiers came in and their leader demanded to know if there were any non-Jews in the store. Of course, they were all Jewish women. He ordered the women to go to “do some cleaning work across the road”. As they were marched across, they passed great-grandfather’s block of flat and my mother pulled her neighbour into the gateway. No one saw them, but when they knocked on the door, the whole household had a fright in case they were followed and would not dare let them in.
One morning we received our ‘call up papers’. We were ordered to report at a horse racing ground. We arrived there with rucksacks on our backs filled with clothes and, as instructed, with food for three days. There were so many people that one could hardly move. The Arrow Cross patrolled the area. We were ordered to wait at a certain point. Groups of people were escorted out to some railway station; I only found out recently that they were taken to the Auschwitz. Suddenly an announcement came through the public address system that mothers with babes in arm are allowed home. Mother lifted my brother in her arms, ordered me to hold on to her skirt and as bold as brass walked out in clear view of the Arrow Cross. No one stopped us. At the flats the gate was shut. After persistently ringing the bell, the Caretaker came out and refused to let us in, but eventually she relented.
15th October 1944, the fascist regent of Hungary, Rear Admiral (in a landlocked country) Miklos Horthy, signed an armistice agreement with the Soviet Union. The Hungarian army ignored the Regent’s order, therefore Horthy abrogated the armistice in response and appointed the leader of the Nazi Arrow Cross Party, Ferenc Szálasi, as Prime Minister. When we heard about the armistice, were all got excited, and eagerly tore the yellow star from the facade of the building - placing it in the centre of the courtyard where we jumped on it, spat on it and danced around it, in total euphoria.
By the afternoon reality set in. The Arrow Cross Fascists surrounded our block of flats and tried to enter the steel re-enforced, locked gates kept them out. They were randomly shooting into the flats. They also tried to blow the gate in. As a child of six, I was petrified and suggested to my mother that we hide in the wardrobe. She told me, with regret, that bullets can find you anywhere! Eventually the inevitable happened - the Arrow Cross broke down the gate. They went from flat to flat, ordering all ‘men’ over the age of five to assemble in the central courtyard downstairs. My grandfather, an old and sick man, was not able to move fast enough for the young monster with a gun who screamed at him "Are you, a woman or a child?”. In the courtyard, we stood in line surrounded by the Arrow Cross with their cocked rifles trained on us. I do not remember what happened next, but my grandfather and I were back in our room unharmed.
It became imperative to find a safe refuge quickly. My mother went out every day looking for places in one of the ‘protected houses’. There were always such huge crowds outside that it was impossible to get in. These searches were time consuming and one day the curfew found her still in the streets. Worried that she might be arrested, she tried to cover up the yellow star with her handbag. She was arrested by the police and was taken to the Arrow Cross headquarters at 60 Andrassy Avenue. In the interrogation hall people were mercilessly beaten, there was blood on the walls, floor, everywhere. As the police handed my mother over to two uniformed Arrow Cross men for interrogation the blood froze in her veins. But instead of beatings, her interrogators expressed concern about her husband and her family’s fate. She was not touched. When released, she was warned not to conceal the yellow star, but obviously she did just that. Until her dying day, my mother believed that her two Arrow Cross men were Jewish boys who had infiltrated the Fascists.
We could not find a place in any of the protected houses, but a cousin of my mother’s managed to get my brother and I in to an orphanage under Vatican protection set up by Angelo Rotti, the papal nuncio where the Red Army liberated us in January 1945.
This is my story. Mine had a happy conclusion, but it could easily have ended very differently.
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