Vera Schey - June 10, 1994
Neighbors
I don't think. They were not educated people. They really didn't know. All they knew that, that this Jewish employer's daughter who I worked for, for I don't know, five or six years and was very good to me, now has to leave her house and her home because this is the law. So I'll help her. This was, this was about it. Um, the neighbors they, they were, they to me were, were really the most outstanding because there was no previous basis for them to be helpful or to care. And they were people uh, he especially. He had a tailor shop and a very, very exclusive, very--and he knew whoever uh, this apartment where we were and where my mother, the shop was, the uh, best fashion street in town, so it was exclusive stores. So he also had a very exclusive clientele and he was an excellent tailor. But he was afraid of his own shadow. He was afraid of the Jews, of the Germans, of the Russians, of anybody in spite of the city. That's why I think so highly of him.
Why do you think he did it?
I think something in him must have brought out some human feelings. I really don't know, because as I say, it was not a--not based on previous friendship. And, and he was a sca...he was so scared. After it was all over and we were back in our own apartment and the Russians were the occupants of Budapest and uh, he was scared to death of the Russians. So was I, by the way, but that was for a different reason. But for instance, money was--on the very end and everything was getting back to pretty much normal. Uh, three Russian uh, a captain, a lieutenant and his wife came to him to order clothes. They heard about him being such a famous tailor.
Huh.
And they had fabrics, which they bought at a store or whatever, I don't know. I suppose this hi...hierarchy that did not steal. But anyway, they had fabrics and they wanted him to make suits for them. And they came on a uh, one day. And I remember him running over to us. "Come help me, I don't know what they want and I'm scared to death and, and I don't..." They didn't speak, naturally, Hungarian and he didn't speak Russian. So my mother and I went over and one of them was a Jewish man and he spoke French, fluently. So my mother spoke fluently French, I spoke French too. So we negotiated that they wanted suits and they would give them rice and they would give them flour and they would give them lard and whatever. Which they did, I mean, it was a totally legitimate uh, thing. And this Jewish man, the other one was his, his wife. This Jewish man was a doctor. He was a l...lieutenant in the Russian Army and a doctor. And he befriended us and he became our mentor. He helped us in so many ways and he took us everywhere and... It was. Uh, but this was purely accidental, but I'm just mentioning that he was so scared when he saw those Russians. Even so, they were high uh, you know, they weren't the, the regular soldiers who came to steal and rob, which we went through that too. Anyway uh...
Little girl.
The little girl.
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