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Emerich Grinbaum - January 8, 2001

Why wouldn't he leave?

He was, he was a kind of a, a person who not only an optimist,he was a, a, a incurable optimist. But he had some ideas, number one. He wasat that time, forty-eight. He thought-first of all he says that he's a photographer.So he works, he can make a living anywhere.

Anywhere.

Second, he didn't want to believe that they are-it's going tobe Russia. He didn't want to believe. Although we saw that it's going to beRussia. But they still, the borders were open. Either Hungary or Czechoslovakia,we are going-so, what to leave. They, they, we don't have to leave. We gotback, he, he started working, he started making money. He got back his, hisatelier, photo atelier. That was a different story, I don't want to, to annoyyou how did he get, but he got back. He started working. And he made goodmoney so we could-in couple of months he could- we could buy furniture andclothing and everything, you know. So, he'll, he, the, the Russian give thefirst year, first year give us uh, possibility everybody, there, there wasno, no strict Soviet uh, socialist. And it was good you know, those peopleyou know, they saw the Russian behaved very bad, they, they, they were uh,uh, raping, all, raping, Russian soldiers and very, they were being-but theysay that, okay, that's a transitional period, you know. And that was another.I remember my father had some strange idea. He trusted western countries,the America and England and France. And he knew that-I knew that it was true-thewestern countries guaranteed Poland to retain Galicia. That was originallybefore the war. So if Galicia is Poland, that this cannot be Russia becausethat was between. So that cannot be Russia. That would be either Hungary orCzechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia.

Of course uh, the Russian persuaded Roosevelt or Truman, whoever,that Galicia uh, started belonging to, to Russia. So if Russia that belongsto, to also. So that was some ideas. He didn't want to be begged and we begged,because we saw that's nothing here. Because we, we knew, we knew that uh,uh, that's not going to happen. We saw how the Russian behavior and we listenedto the radios. But my father always wanted uh, to happen what he, he believes,he, he, he hopes I mean.

Do you think he may have harbored some hope that your motherwould still come back?

That's why-not at that time, in the beginning. So we went everydaywe were waiting. Everyday we were waiting uh, the train who, who came fromBudapest or from Pa...Prague. We were waiting. Sometimes we went out, butusually we tried to figure out who came. And people came and we always askingdid you see this, did you see that, I mean, they're together. Oh, that wasfirst week. That was one of the reasons we came back to find mother or somerelative. But you know, the more we, we realized that she went with the childyou know, and everybody saw there was no hope.

How many people that you knew, I mean friends of the familys...stayed in Munkacs? I mean wasn't he aware that people were leaving oneafter another?

Mm, you know what, majority left. Majority. I don't know what,not-majority left. So before the war Munkacs had approximately 15,000. No.The majority were killed. So they came back, a lot uh, came back. And majorityleft. Several hundred remained. Several hundred, then-we had more Jews becausefrom all the villages uh, they came to Munkacs. There, there was practicallyno Jews left in the villages. So all over the area they came to Munkacs orBeregszasz or uh, so that's why we had, I might say, up to 1,500 or 2,000Jews after the war before the, before immigration in the seventies.