Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Larry Brenner - December 13, 1981

So, but things got worse and worse and I, in 1942, I asked my parents to let me go up to Budapest. I have in Budapest uh, relatives, my father's sister and a brother were living there and I would like to go in a trade. I didn't know exactly what will happen to us, but I knew... I had some kind of a feeling that we'll have to leave Hungary. Voluntary or involuntary, I didn't know that. Because the situation is such that uh, even if peace comes, it won't be the same, and for me to go overseas, I, I, naturally I felt with the family and everything, in order to make a living it's uh, easier if you have a trade in your hand than with uh, any other profession. So, my father was against it, saying no, no you go to the big city, Budapest, you forget uh, about your Jewishness. You, you, you, I can't be assured that, how kosher you will be and, and you will daven every morning and every evening. That was his biggest worry. Nevertheless, I kind of begged my mother and I explained to him... her that it has nothing to do with my... for me to just run away from home and, and to run away from Jewish tradition, which was part of it. I don't know if it's part of it. Anyway, I did want to go up there. So finally he agreed. In 1942 I go up, I went to Budapest and I took up uh, my uh, father's... Had three sister and a brother, and uh, they helped me, they gave me a home. My sisters... Uh, his sisters they gave me a home there and I learned. I found a place where I could serve as apprentice as a toolmaker. And, uh...

Excuse me. Your father had, had come back from the labor camp.

Oh, my father came back from there. Yes, yeah, yeah. Maybe for the six months or eight months. Okay, I'm sorry.

It's all right.

Okay. It was nothing. It just was... This was uh, but it was a shock to us because it never happened before. But what, how it happened, why it happened, I don't remember exactly. I know we were worried about it, but he came back with no, no uh, physical, me... he probably has mental, but that's... but he wasn't tortured or anything like that.