Emanuel Tanay - March 16, 1987
Liberation
After the liberation, you were sent to a camp, a displaced persons camp?
Oh, no, no, no, no. I was then in Budapest and I was you know, certainly not welcomed by anyone, the Russians were suspicious of us, too. How did you survive, you went and said you were a Jew who survived, they right away suspect that you must be some kind of a traitor, how else would you survive? Um, but ultimately, no I traveled, remember my mother and sister and I were there together, we did not, I did not know what was the fate of my father, so I traveled. And the war devastate Europe, the war wasn't over yet. I traveled by top of trains, trucks, so on. I traveled all the way to Poland to look for my father. And in fact, I traveled between Budapest and Poland five times. The last three times I went with my sister and on those occasions, I also smuggled some goods, you know like silk stockings or things of that sort, which were in very, very short supply in Poland and you could get them in Budapest, and try to make some money also. But my mother remained in Budapest and ultimately then, we moved when I discovered, pieced together the story that my father wasn't coming back, because at first I was given misinformation that my father was alive. Then we moved to western part of Germany, Munich and arrived there in September of `45.
How did you and your mother and your sister finally deal with the news about your father?
We heard the first that he was sent to camp already in Budapest before the end of the war by some people who came from Krakow. Uh, how did we deal with this? I can't really tell you very specifically because it came sort of slow in slow increments, you know, it was pieced together. I was first told a story by a survivor, or a member of our community who when I came back a few times to look for my father finally, set me aside and said you know, I've been told to tell you. [pause]
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