Charlotte Firestone - March 11, 1982
Hungarian Leaders
Uh, let's talk a little bit about a couple of other things, about the Hungarians. Do you remember um, Admiral Horthy?
Yeah, he was in Budapest.
What did people talk about him at all?
Yeah. Sure.
What did your family think about him?
He was an anti-Semite.
What about uh, other Hungarians...
You know, it wasn't--when two men get together, you know, in the house, they were talking about politics. No one but men were involved. You know, every family had a big family and that women had a lot of responsibility and a lot of work, not to think of politics.
Did you every hear names like Imrédy?
Yeah. I happened to be in Budapest and Imrédy, they hung him, Imrédy?
Do you remember what he did, who he was or what he did?
I knew he was a big anti-Semite. Killed a lot of Jews.
How about Sztójay or Szálasi?
Szálasi?
Szálasi?
Yeah. Maybe the other one I would know, too, yeah he was a big anti-Semite, too. They were all living in Hungarian in, in old Hungarian, not the new occupied...
Budapest...
Yeah.
Did you hear any stories about them at all.
At that time, we didn't hear nothing. It was everything hush, hush, you know, we didn't--and as I said, Munkacs was far from Budapest and the communication wasn't so uh, other than was a newspaper, but they never, uh, write things--wrote things like that.
When the Germans came, were there any laws passed right away about what Jews couldn't do or should do?
Well, when the Germans came, they, they closed the Jewish stores. They, already, right away, they couldn't go out after uh, five o'clock on the street.
Public transportation was there?
There was not--no transport. There was no transportation, because there were no cars at that time, you know, there was uh, um, horses and buggies, you know, if you wanted to go to the, to the station, you know, with packages, then you rented a horse and buggy and they took you out.
What about the arm bands? When did that come?
As soon as the Germans came, came and the SS came in a couple of days later. Every Jew had to put on a uh, um, star. A yellow star.
On the, on the pocket.
Here, on the--yeah.
On the chest and an armband, too?
No. Armband had--just that time then uh, then the ones who went out to the, to the, to the um, ghetto. Those people who were able to move around, you know, even during the day. They had the armbands. They had to have permission, you know, for certain things...
There were no Jewish police at that time.
No.
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