Emerich Grinbaum - October 3, 2000 & January 8, 2001
Round-ups
And that's when it led to, to um, Munkacs, Munkacs Jews being...
Munkacs Jews, they took us in, in March--in, in, in, in May...
Right.
Száasi came later. The Germans, when they, they came in March and then they put in a ghetto and then immediately. Szála...we were in a, I was in a camp when it did happen. I just read about it.
Had you heard of Eichmann?
Who? Eichmann? Not until the war. After the war.
After the war.
I never heard about him. Although, reading, reading the, the history you know, Eichmann was allegedly in Munkacs. I remember one of the tall--big building. There was the headquarter of the Gestapo. I saw people gath...I don't know maybe Eichmann was there, I don't know who was. Because the deportation in that area, the headquarter of the wh...the whole area was in Munkacs. So Eichmann probably was there, but I don't know.
I'm going to stop for a second. [interruption in interview]
...and General. And they, and then they stuck Lakatos government with Horthy. What influenced the German, I don't know, but if you read, there was no mentioning that, that was just a, a Hungarian decision.
Yeah. Arrow Cross party.
Arrow Cross, that's Száasi. No, that's later.
Tell me about the Arrow Cross, because...
I--you open?
Yeah. Was there an Arrow Cross presence in Munkacs before March?
They were, but they didn't have much, much to say. They were incitement uh, okay, but the, they one, were not in the government, so they didn't have much influence at that time.
But they were there, you knew they were there.
They were there, some different, not only Arrow Cross, different uh, right wing fascist organizations.
I see, I got it.
Oh, an interesting story if you want. Uh, in 1943 there was, they called not Arrow Cr...Cross--Boros Szëvetség--that was close to Arrow Cross, they were some other fascist organization. And, and they organized the, the, the, they influenced the, the movie, there was a big movie theater, the only one at that time to show the Jud Suss, the Jew Suss...
Yeah. Jud Suss.
...during Yom Kippur. And the movie theater was very close to the, bo...big shuls. They're small city. So they knew that after Jud Suss you know, they were, there would be riots. So they, the Boros Szëvetség they, they organized this stuff later. We, we...
What does that mean?
Boros Szëvetség. The Union of Boros, but who was Boros? I don't know. But this is type of this. They didn't called themselves. Arrow Cross, but close. And they organized that.
They were a fascist group.
Fascist, very much so. And we learned that later. We didn't know uh, about that. So they showed Jud Suss okay. And the Jewish uh, uh, Kehilá you know, they had plenty of money at that time. So they, they bought all the tickets for the whole day you know, so not to. So they closed. But this uh, thugs, some of the thugs you know, not the reg...not the reg...regular public, thugs broke into the movie theater anyhow uh, and they show, th...and they, they, the m...they show, they saw the movie. But there was no, no, no riots because they were, now...
Did you see the movie?
No.
You've never seen it.
I read the book, but I n...never seen the movie.
Really, you read the book.
Book, right. I never seen the movie because--you saw the movie? Kehilá
Yeah.
I, so I, I, I know they, what it was all about, but. So they showed Yom Kippur. They especially, they organize. I don't know how this, the, the Union mana...managed and they wanted you know, riot after that. But the Jews bought the, the, the, the, the Kehilá bought the whole--every, for every sa...every, the, the tickets. So they was not mad. Some thugs broke in anyhow, but uh, but it was nothing.
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