Eva Ackermann - December 6, 1982
Life Under the Regime
The new regime, do you remember the name of the regime?
No.
Do you remember Admiral Horthy?
Sure. The funny thing is that I met him--that was after the war. It was unbelievable but uh, we went to uh, Austria. My husband and I went to uh, well I remember his regime, yes. I remember Gömbös--Gyula was the uh, uh...
Prime Minister.
Prime Minister, yes.
Do you remember Imredy?
Uh, yeah, I uh, my recollection you will find is very poor when it comes to--that time of my life was uh, I wanted to uh, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old, I wanted to live the life of uh, care--being carefree. I uh--it didn't uh, faze me so much what went on in the--I remember very well in uh, '44 I think, '43 or maybe--no '44 when the provinces where taken to uh, at that time we didn't know, concentration camps. The other towns, by provinces I mean uh, beside Budapest, from everywhere else. Because Budapest was only left, everywhere else everybody was taken.
Was this under Szálasi?
Yeah, Szálasi. Uh, uh, Szálas...
Szálasi.
Yeah, Szálasi. Yeah, I remember, him I remember, yeah. The headquarters was in uh, Andrássy Ut. sixty.
Was that the name of the street?
Ut. Ut. is an avenue. Andrássy is a name uh, probably an historical name...
A nobleman--Andrássy was...
I don't want to be embarrassed, probably a general or someone, that name and sixty, there was a, a place to remember, because they took and tortured people there. It was like uh, uh you talk about uh, like a torture chamber. It was their headquarters.
Whose headquarters?
Szálasi, Szálasi was, uh...
The fascist...
Yeah, that was the headquarters of the fascist party.
You remember the name of the party?
Nyalis, Nyalis...
Nyalis...
Yeah. That's--Nyalis--is like the Nazis, that was the name of the party.
Do you remember then in the '30s when they first began. Did you ever--were you aware...
Uh, I was, uh not really. As a matter of fact, I was very patriotic. That's how I was raised in school. Uh, I, I sang the hymn with all my heart and uh, that's why I'm so uh, angry today, not today, but right after, from when I realized what was happening, that's why I got so very, very angry because I was--I guess I was a Hungarian first before I was Jewish, although I came from a religious home, I still was--I wore the uniform on March fifteenth. It was uh, a day of liberation and probably didn't even know exactly why, but I got carried away. That's how we were raised.
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