[interruption in interview]
Q: And you said, even though they were... A: About... We were very good Jews—don't misunderstand—very good Jews, but we were not very much occupied with any kind of... It was a natural thing that there was a holidays and it was a natural thing that we are a kosher household because we couldn't imagine it any other way. Q: Yeah. A: It was in a very modern, natural that we went to the beach and we were not because I kno... that's what I'm saying because there were girls who were brought up in a more religious way, they could not go to the beach. And they... I remember they were wearing dresses with long uh, sleeves. And, but uh, we very much assimilated. Q: Okay. A: That sometimes I just uh, didn't... I never, as a child it never oc... occurred to me that I'm a Jew. I couldn't imagine myself being anything else, but it was just natural. You were, you were the high class in the whole city. The Jews were the lawyers and the doctors and the engineers and the intellect world. And where there wasn't a Gentile they were assimilated with the Jews too, so they had uh, bridge games with the Jews and parties with the Jews and everything. So, it was very lovely, very modern uh, very nice. Title: Other Affiliations Q: Now you mentioned that your father belonged to a shul, a synagogue. A: Yeah. Q: And did you have any other religious affiliations other than the synagogue? Belong to any other religious organization? A: No, there was no, no... In Europe, you don't have those things. You don't. You go to the synagogue, you get dressed, and my father put the, those hard round hats, you know... Q: Yeah. A: and the nice charcoal grey coat. On Saturday you had to do this, it was social too. Q: Yeah. A: It's religious and social too. Q: Yeah. A: So. Q: Okay now, did you have any... Did you or your family have any political affiliations? A: No. Q: Okay. A: No, no. Q: And uh, now you say you were educated in the, you were in sixth grade when the Hungarians came? A: Sixth high school Q: Six grade high school A: Yeah, sixteen years old. Q: Was this the uh, gymnasium type high school that you were in? A: Yeah, gymnasium, yeah. Q: Okay. And did you, did you encounter anti-Semitism before the war? A: No. Not in my circles. No, I don't. I don't remember. I'm sure there were some, but not in that uh, the, the city talked about or, or you felt it or... Q: What about personally, like in the playground, the kids... A: Never. Q: saying things to you. A: Never, never. Q: Nothing like that? A: Mm-mm, never. Title: Plans for Future Q: Okay. And uh, do you... What were your plans for your future before the war? I know you were just a child. Did you have any thoughts what you were going to do... A: What's that? Q: before the war? A: The same thing my sister went up to, transfer to the university. My brother started, as I say, law but he couldn't finish it because already it was problems so he was uh, working in a Bank of Daniel they called it. So it was, in Europe it was different uh, working in a bank than this here. Q: It was better? A: It was very highly... Q: Oh. A: you know... Q: Yeah. A: so. And uh, naturally I would have gone to school. Q: And did you have any specific goals? A: No, who has... Sixteen years old you don't. Q: Yeah. A: I had, I had problems to go to the beach and go to the pool... Q: Sure. A: and have young man going around. Q: Sure. A: I didn't think of serious. I was younger anyways at home. Q: Yeah. You were the youngest one, yeah. A: I was the youngest one, so. Title: Start of War Q: Okay, now uh, where were you when the war began? A: When the war began. Well, our war began earlier than the war, the German war because, as I say, we lived in Czechoslovakia, and we grew up in Czechoslovakia, which was lovely. And um, the Hungarians came in, as I say, in 1938 and I remember back as a young girl, sixteen years old, and my mother didn't let me go out on the street because it was trouble going out on the street, but we sneaked out once and we saw the Hungarians uh, on the corner. On the street there was a Royal Hotel and they were stationing and laying down on the, on the sidewalk there and everything. So, maybe the second or the third day we had a, a... By the name of ??? uh, he was a gentry, he was gentry, a Gentile, gentry, you know. It's Hungarian, some type of gentleman. Had a little Franz Josef beard and he couldn't hear well. That was maybe the second or the third day when the Hungarians came in and he was walking on the street. And they said, ah, you're Jew. And he didn't understand and he was smiling and he was nodding with his head and they beat him with so much that I, I don't remember if he lived it through or not, but I remember that incident. And I remember that right away they went to the Temple, which was right across the street, the main street, the most beautiful temple. I don't know if you've ever been in Temple Beter here, it was on, on uh, Woodward. Q: I've seen the outside. From the outside it looks pretty big. A: The inside, the beautiful temple with the paintings on the, on the ceiling. And uh, it was just... And the, and the windows, that type of a temple we had. So I remember that they broke into the temple and the trouble started right away. I mean, it was just uh, terrible, so uh, we were restricted going out on the street too much. And that was about, uh...[interruption in interview]
Title: Hungarian Takeover Q: Okay, where did we leave off, uh... A: About schools. Q: Okay. And uh, before the war, I think you were talking about the incident out in front of the hotel. A: Yeah, the hotel. Q: Yeah, yeah. A: That's right. My first memory goes back that the Hungarians came in and, uh... Q: And what did you think about it then, what you saw? A: Terribly scared. First we were not scared. First, when we heard that the Hungarians will come in that my father grew up under Hungarian regime. Because in Europe the history is very funny. Twenty, for twenty years you are Czech and then next twenty years you are Hungarian and then the next, so. So, you know, just after the First World War in 1918 when, when they established Czechoslovakia. And uh, my, my father's mother son was Hungarian and he went to Hungarian school too. So we, we uh, we thought ourselves Hungarians even under the Czech era because in 1938 they, they had a, a... How do you call it when you... [Asking husband] Poppi? How do you call an ??? ? Husband: Census. A: Census... Q: Oh. A: taken. So, you have to, what nationality you are, so my hu... my, my father wrote in Hungarian. That's why I had trouble in Czechoslovakia and then I came to the United States to, to have a visa or being, to live in Prague, because we lived in Prague after the war because they hated the Hungarians because they took away their countries, in, in country in '38. So, my husband had a, a, an awful lot of uh, problems with my, in that identification that I was a Hungarian. So, what do I do in Czechoslovakia then and how should I come up in the Czech ??? if I was Hungarian? Q: Mhm. A: Then I say that we associated so much with the Hungarians that my, my father wrote in 1938 that our nationality is Hungarian... Q: Mhm. A: you know. So, he thought that the Hungarians will come in, so he was in the war and he was in uh, an officer, so Hungarian. But just two or three days, just took two or three days to find out that those are not the Hungarians under Franz, Franz Josef, you know, because the Jews didn't have any problems then. So, that's when the real problems started. Title: Defining Identity Q: Okay. And um, what about, how did your family feel about these kinds of things? Like you mentioned about these soldiers beating up this Jew outside the hotel. How did your family—you had mentioned how you reacted—how did your family react? A: My family, that, naturally very disappointed, terribly disappointed. We couldn't, we couldn't imagine that uh, anything like that could happen to us. Q: Yeah. A: We are Hungarians first, Jews second. Naturally, we were Jews by religion and we were very good Jews, very religious. But the feeling was Hungarian. Hungarian everything. Hungarian schools, Hungarian mother, Hungarian cooking. No Yiddish cooking, Hungarian cooking, everything. So, can you imagine how you think you're set? My, my... We had to go back what, 1848 to prove that everybody was Hungarian, and they could prove it. As a matter of fact, my father was called up to the police once and we got scared very much because we couldn't imagine why he was called up. At that time you just mention police and you were scared and can you imagine, they come and they get you. So, the problem was that, that he had a document that they had a Polish houseboy in the house, in my great grandfather's house. So, they called up my father to ask him how come that that was a Polish boy houseboy in the house and not a Hungarian. So can you imagine? So my... Can you imagine my, my father standing there not to be able to answer. As a matter of fact, I had that document and I lost it. You know, you houseclean constantly? Q: Sure. A: It was a ??? going back to the families and everything. So, for that stupid reason, my husband – my, my dad was called up to the police station. Thank God they let him out because he said that he can't account for what happened I don't know how many years back as you can see, from 1848. The family lived there, the family housed there in the city and everything, everybody knew us. So, I come back, this, this, they tried to do every kind of a stupid thing just to, just to get you in trouble. Q: Yeah. A: So, it was a terrible disappointment, a terrible disappointment for my family and, and for all the Jews because they were religious Jews there, mind you, who held the Golden Cross or whatever in the First World War. They were heroes. Because as much as religious Jews were in Hungary—in our town too—they spoke Hungarian. You know, you will find today to uh, religious Jews maybe with a payes and they will not talk Yiddish, they'll talk Hungarian. Q: Hm. A: That was a very interesting uh, situation there. And not Czech. Because we had a Czech government. Q: Yeah. A: But Hungarian. The Czech people who came over to, to work there, the offices and thing like, that they had to learn Hungarian because they could not exist. Q: Huh. And when you saw things like this, when your family saw things like this, what, what did you, your family plan on doing? Did they plan on staying, did you plan on moving? Did you plan on fleeing the country? A: I can't even answer that because, first of all, you didn't know what's coming. We didn't know about the Germans, which the Hungarians compared to, to the Germans were nothing, so we knew that we were not going to be as free, and we will not be able to live as nicely and freely and, and, and doing uh, the Jews going to Temple and observe the holidays and have the matzah and no problem being a Jew. I don't know about... I had, we had no problems because some countries they had the numerus clausus, you could not go, for instance in Hungary, in Budapest, to colleges. But in Czechoslovakia you, you could go to colleges, you know, without any problems. So, we, we knew that some kind of trouble will come. But uh, uh, an established family with a future, with the children, with the schoolings, with uh, with, with, with our background in the city... And where to go? It, that never occurred. As a matter of fact, there's still another little incident, which I just found out from this uncle of mine who unfortunately died in Europe who came out in the First World War, before the First World War, that he shouldn't have to be in the army. He told me, you know I, I sent your father a ticket to come to this country. My uncle in New York said that. That maybe it would be better for him. At that time he was a young man yet. Q: He wasn't married? A: He wasn't married. Q: Oh. A: He didn't want to come because I didn't send a first class ticket. That's what, my husband heard that too. I never knew about that. You know, it's, I just met my uncle here. So, it was an es... such an established family. And as I say, you had trouble in Poland, let's say, you had trouble in Russia, you couldn't go to school, you couldn't buy that... They'd had no, we didn't know any... anything. We could never, never ever imagine that they could take the Hungarian Jews or take us away from our home or we would have... As I say, we knew that we're having some small trouble, but you, you didn't think that this is going to stay like that. Q: Yeah. A: 'Cause every regime changes brings some kind of a, you know... Q: Different. A: Yeah. Title: Restrictions Q: And um, now what were your initial changes in your daily routine? How did, once the trouble began how did your daily routine change? What kind of changes did you go through? A: An awful lot of changes. First of all, we couldn't go freely on the streets because my parents were afraid for us children to go on the street to be, especially young girls. My brother didn't work in the bank anymore, by the way. He... You see, this, hazy my memory already because these were such, so many changes that you didn't have time to get used to one change and then another one came already. I think he left the bank and he went to ano... a small town someplace, at a small town to work, something which I don't remember. Ah, some type of an office work, something. My father didn't work anymore. And later on he established a... See this, you have to be European to know about he had to, like, for instance if somebo... somebody uh, somebody—how should I explain?—a big firm wanted to know something about a smaller firm in our city or in a small city or something, some information... Q: Okay. A: financial business informations or you had to go to the offices to look up something, you know. So, then you send them in and they send money for it. And that was a mail order something, which was pretty good because you needed business information. Nothing uh, bad or anything, but as businesses go, they had to, uh... I, I don't know. Q: Yes, like a credit report. A: Some kind of something. I don't, I was a little girl, I didn't understand too much about these things. I just know that lots of letters came and then they, they paid with stamps, I remember that too. Q: What kind of stamps? A: Stamps what you get ??? stamps that you can sell and uh, get money for something. Q: Oh, I see. A: I don't know. I just, I don't know why it was, I just remember that it was. Q: Yeah. A: If I, if I recollected, recollected correct... correctly, I don't remember. Q: Yeah. A: And, uh... Title: Restrictions 2 Q: And what about in your daily routine? How did your daily routine change? A: Why, well my daily routine changed a lot, why, because I got up in the morning and I went to school and I came home and in the afternoon I went ice skating and I went to play tennis and I went to take German lessons and I was busy. And then all of a sudden, no school. So, no school, hanging around at home. Everybody is a little bit nervous. Everybo... don't go here, don't go there, you couldn't go there, you have to be there by, back by five o'clock. My mother standing in the window waiting. If you didn't come back uh, five, five minutes later, you know, if you came back. Q: Sure. A: This constant worry. And uh, it is, there was con... this constant worry that something happened. Normally Jewish parents are very much... Q: Sure. A: afraid of, for, for their children, especially when things are not right and in a small co... small town, all the foreigners, all the, the, the, the army, the things coming and going. But the younger can't sit at home constantly. No, but these things settled. After awhile, it settled a little bit. It wasn't that chaotic all the time, you know. And then it just settled down and then when the routine started. Again, going to the, to the, out to the beach, going bicycle riding. And what every young girl does. Q: Yeah. A: We went home, naturally we didn't have the nice white bread and all the good things to eat. We had bread like, not here the Russian rye that you think is delicious and you want to buy because it's brea... black. But I remember my mother's teasing with her eyes, in her eyes, giving us this black bread and we told her that it is fine, there's nothing wrong with it, it's good. You're a young girl, you have to lie, who cares. Q: Sure. A: But my mother thought that it's a terrible thing to eat this black bread and not as much as you want from it because there was just certain amount you can get and you have problems already buying things. Q: Could the Gentiles get all the bread they wanted? It was just the Jews? A: Gentiles could do anything they wanted. Q: And did you have to, you didn't have to wear yellow stars or anything? A: Not yet, we are not with the Germans yet. Q: Uh-huh. A: We are with the Hungarians yet. Q: So, how did they know you were Jews if you didn't have an identification somehow? A: Uh, not because I looked, I looked Jewish or anything, but if you, if somebody wants to harm you, couldn't they find out if you are a Jewish girl or not? If somebody would come on the street and asked me, I would have had the chutzpah to say I am a Jew. I would never deny it that I am a Jew. It never even occurred to me that I shouldn't. It was so natural to me at being a Jew as, as the sun comes up. I couldn't imagine myself... I wouldn't go... As I said, I wasn't a rel... brought up in a religious atmosphere, I would never walk with a, with a Gentile boy on the street. Never, it would be degrading. I wouldn't. I mean, we were just raised that way. Q: Yeah. A: Not being a Zionist. Nobody was a Zionist or anything. But this, this was a natural. I couldn't imagine myself being anything else but a Jew, just a natural thing. Title: Budapest Q: And uh, were you in a ghetto? A: Yeah. Q: Okay, how and when was it formed? A: The ghetto? Q: Yeah, that you were in. A: Well, before I was in the, in the ghetto, I have uh, an awful lot to tell you Q: Please do. A: because after about three, three or four years... As I, I met my husband when I was sixteen years old. He was already, I met him already when he was in the Czech army, he was an officer in the Czech army when I was about fourteen years old or so. And he was walking with my French lady professor on the street in the uniform—Czech uniforms are very nice, very beautiful—and I remember my brother came home, he was seven years older than I was. And I asked him that who was that handsome Czech officer who walked with this Mrs. Brody, that was my uh, uh, teacher's name. And he said, you know what, you are a little son of a gun nothing to ask me such questions yet. Because in Europe a big brother is a big brother. A fourteen-year-old girl is not like a fourteen-year-old girl in this country. You have no right to notice any officers or any young men or anybody. It's none of your business. So, he didn't even say nothing to me. I remember. But then once I was walking and we had a kind of a social thing in Europe that we had a beautiful wide boulevard and the girls and their young men got dressed in the evening, come home from the offices and eat a light supper, because we had our main meal at noon. Q: Lunch, yeah. A: That's right. And then everybody went out walking. And then, you started out walking with a, with your girlfriend and then a young man saw you coming and he wanted to take you, then just "Would you like to come with me?" And, and you just walked. And you met everybody and there were benches and you sat down and eat, eat uh, there was sidewalk coffees. So it, and ??? where you used to go in and pastries. But that was already in the Hungarian era, as I say that it was uh, calmed down. And then they just left us alone for there were a lot, always some incidents, but we just tried... Young people are always, we let our parents worry about our future and our things and we just went out and we did our, our business. But later on, things became a little bit, very sticky. So, my mother and father sat down and said that this is going to be, not going to be good. We can't let my... those girls walk outside on the street. European girls did not work in stores or whatever. You went to school, you went to university, you studied. After that you, you did whatever you wanted to do. But there was no such a thing as summer job or jobs for girls or my daughter should go and work for somebody. There was no such a thing, you know. So, we were free constantly. You couldn't... So, it's not going to be good. So, my mother said to my father that I was always talented with my hands. I was always drawing or painting. As a matter of fact, I'm painting now, all these oil paints I do... Q: Oh. A: And uh, designing dresses and things like that. So, my mother said it would be a good idea to send her up to Budapest, which is a big city. She has no Semitic features. She can get lost, rather, there. And on the other hand, she can learn something too, because we never know what the future will bring. Maybe it will be handy for her to know something. So, they decided that I'm going to go up to Budapest and they are going to send me to learn to design dresses. So, they found a very beautiful place. The, the name was Nagoly, I know, and uh, they sent me up there. But already things were very bad because I remember in Slovakia, which was just a few miles from us, we heard some rumors that they are taking girls to the front to be prostitutes. And we had fam... family there too. And, but we just couldn't believe it. It, it's just unbelievable, we couldn't believe. We heard this and we couldn't believe it. So, but my mother said that there is always a possibility that, that really something is happening there. That time already they called the boys into forced labor camps, you know, under Hungarian. My husband was... At that time he wasn't my husband, he was just... Q: He was an officer in the army didn't you say? A: In the Czech army, but that was when I was younger. He already served his two years. Q: Oh. A: And he was home and he became a lawyer. He was a, a laws... lawyer at home already. He was a lawyer, that time already, five years older than I am. He was that time already. Anyways uh, my brother was called in the, in the forced labor camp. And uh, my mother was very much afraid for, for us girls. And so they sent me up to Budapest. Title: Forced Labor Camps Q: So, your father, brother and your future husband all were in forced labor camps. A: My husband. My dad wasn't anymore. Q: Your dad wasn't. A: I mean, you know, my dad wasn't a young man anymore that time, you know. Q: And when they were in forced labor camps, did you hear from them by letter? Did you hear from them? A: Yes. Yes, once in awhile they sent. As a matter of fact, I have a couple of cards too that my husband wrote... wasn't boyfriend, he wasn't even my boyfriend. Q: Yeah. And when they were in forced labor camp, was there anything suspicious? Did your family or you suspect anything that they were... What was the excuse to put them in a forced labor camp? What did they say? A: [Asking her husband] Poffi. Husband: Yeah? A: You were in the forced labor camp already under the Hungarians. Husband: [Responding from other room] A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so that was the Hungarians idea to pick up the Jews and take them to forced labor camps or under German pressure or what? Under German pressure. Husband: [Talking in background and phone rings] Husband: What happened, Hitler wanted the Jews. Hitler... Well, I don't know exactly at that time yet, but uh, right after we were liberated, so-called, by the Hungarians. They, see, that portion, part was Hungary before. A: I told that already. Husband: And so in 1940, in 1938, after the Munich conference, it became Hungary again. And uh, as a matter of fact, I was even in a Hungarian army unit. So, then they converted that, all the Jews, all the Jewish boys and men from the age of sixteen to sixty went to go... join or be drafted into a labor camp. A: Which wasn't a concentration camp. Husband: Right from the beginning, 1940 on. Title: Forced Labor Camps 2 Q: And what, what were your family's uh, suspicions? Did your family think you were all right? Were you all right? Were you able to communicate? Husband: Most of us were all right. It wasn't uh, it wasn't life threatening... Q: Uh-huh. Husband: at that time yet. Q: And what did you do in the forced labor camps? Husband: Well, we did all, you know, the hard labor. Like uh, if you would be uh, condemned to or sentenced to hard labor. Fortification. A: But it wasn't still a concentration camp, you know. Husband: Build roads, uh... Q: How did it differ... Husband: bunkers. Q: how did it differ from a concentration camp? Husband: Pardon me? Q: How did it differ from a concentration camp? Husband: Well uh, perhaps it was not uh, as, uh... A: Of course, it was very degrading. Husband: Not, it was just... A: Nah, no. Husband: They stood over you, you know, but in some places, it varied. Q: Yeah. Husband: In some places uh, they're quite severe. If you didn't do your job, they might beat you up, or the uh, guards, or they might even kill you or shoot you. In other places it wasn't as bad. But you had to work hard in most places. A: And if you worked hard... Husband: It depended, it depended on the uh, on the commander of the unit or the area where, you know, it was under a uh, a uh, main command where there were several labor camps. And uh, it depended on that until 1942, at which time then it, it became uh, a severe outfit and all the Jews regardless of, of age, as I say, between sixteen and sixty, had to go and, and many of them were sent to the front in Russia. Uh, most of them uh, were then sent to different parts of Hungary uh, Poland, the Ukraine and worked there under... Uh, those beyond the border worked under the top organization, the German uh, what do you call that, the Marine unit, like actually not Marine but they were the uh, you've heard about the ??? organization. They built all the bridges and, and fortifications and, and uh, he, he was executed too, I believe, by Hitler. And uh, so the high command was German and the Hungarian labor units were uh, um, under that organization. Q: Okay. Husband: So, the highest command was German engineer. A: But we were still not under, under German. You know, Germans didn't come in yet. Husband: Well they, they distributed the work or they demanded the work through the Hungarian commander. Q: Yeah. Husband: So, actually we didn't uh, work under, directly under German command. Work in Hungarian command. A: Okay thank you. Q: Thank you. Husband: And of course many of them, many of those especially those who were in the front line ??? many of them, about ninety percent of them, died because they were used as uh, guinea pigs or as uh, instead of using, not guinea pigs but... Q: I think you might mean.... Husband: pigs or, or dogs, they were sent... Q: Decoys. Husband: No, not the decoys, where there were field mines were hidden... Q: Oh. Husband: so they sent them to uh, to detect field mines and be blown to smithereens by them. Uh, many of them were uh, died of exposure. And uh, some of them when the uh, German Hungarian army were surrounded uh, and they became, they fell into uh, ??? prison, prisoners of war. And they treated them just like they treated the Germans. About ninety percent of them died right in those uh, prisoners' camp. Uh, some of them, especially those who came from our part of the country were then recruited by the uh, Czech army, which was at that time under A: Okay Poffi. Husband: Czech government in exile and they recruited those Jewish boys into the Czech army, which was about to be uh, uh, established at that time. A: Okay. Husband: It was... A: ??? Husband: They came back with the Russians on the Russian front. Some of the Jewish boys, of course, they managed to escape to London. They were used there in the, uh... A: Okay, thank you. Q: Thank you. Okay and, uh...[interruption in interview]
Title: Modeling in Budapest Q: Okay, now your brothers and the males went to the uh, forced labor camps and then where did you go? A: My brother went to a forced labor camp and I went to Budapest. Q: Okay. A: And uh, then I, I was there for about two or three days but, as I say, things were already starting to be very bad. So, I met a young man there and he said, look, there's no use for you to start studying now this uh, designing because things are terrible. And you just need something to take you day by day. You are so young that it doesn't make any difference. If things will get better you will study. And if not, it's no use. You should be a model. So, he showed me a couple of things how to be a model. And I went to... He called up a couple of places because in Europe it's like in Paris they have those uh, they don't have too many department stores. Mostly you go and you order your clothes and they have these special houses. And uh, you go there and you, you, they have the materials there and they have live models. And they show... They make the whole, um... I mean, everything is custom-made. You just don't go and pick it up from the rack. They make on your, on your... Like, they cut out a dress for you, just for you. Q: Custom-made. A: For your measurements... Q: Yeah. A: for the model's measurements. Fifty, sixty models. And then uh, somebody comes in. They don't show you the paper, they don't sh... the paper, but there is two or three models and they dress up in all the designer clothes and then you walk around and they buy. Excuse me, you order this or you order that or you order that. So, that's what I did for awhile. And it was a very, very nice, very high-class fashion house by the name of ??? he owned that, his whole family were that. He was an older man and uh, anyways he was trying to make, do monkey business. You know, like you did sometimes, you thought that those models are easy... Q: Yeah. A: to get but hardly they knew that I was a girl who came from a small town and I wasn't that type of a girl and I came there that just, and I did it because I have, I, I couldn't, I couldn't expect my parents to be there and send me money every month and me just hanging around or doing nothing there... Q: Yeah. A: in Budapest, so I, I wanted to work and I did... as I say, I didn't know anything else to do. So, I did it and it was a very beautiful uh, profession, a very beautiful job. And my, when this man uh, just didn't understand uh, my, my way of living and he didn't want, I just left him and I found another place. And I found a very beautiful place and they left me alone and I very dutifully worked there. Very serious work. We had shows, fashion shows and everything and I was paid very nicely. Although I hardly ate a half a hard-boiled egg because if you ate, you will gain weight and all these things, so you couldn't do that. You had to be very careful. But it was very lovely. And um, I had a beautiful time. There were no problems in Budapest that time, Jewish questions in the big city. I was a good-looking girl. I had no problems. I was a very decent girl, very nice girl and I went out, very nicely out to dinners and to uh... And one day, I have to tell you that because this has a lot to do with my story. I, I saw a young man a little bit resembled my husband... my boy... my boyfriend, my boyfriend—I was in love with him as a little girl and he hardly knew I existed maybe—anyways uh, that, that was going on for weeks. When I came down in the city these two yo... two young men come, came constantly after me. But as I say you have to be European to appreciate these things. There was, there was no harm in those little things. It was just a nice way to... You were not afraid because crime like that didn't exist there that a girl couldn't go on the street alone. Q: Yeah. A: Or anything. You didn't go alone into a nightclub or in, no place, even in a restaurant you wanted to go with somebody but this was going on for weeks and weeks. When I came down the two young men came and they smiled and then I smiled back and I went. They didn't have the dare to say something to me and I wouldn't have the dare to, to, to start anything with them. But it was just very nice. And after, it went on for about six or seven weeks, I came down once and they were standing in front of the salon, the, the fashion house where I worked. So, one came said, "Look after all these weeks already, I think we know each other. This is..." He introduced me the one young man and the other young man, the other one. So, anyways we started a very lovely friendship, very lovely friendship. One was uh, a banker's son who was a Gentile boy and the other as I knew, as, as he knew it, a Gentile boy by the name of Erdant Fallagy. And the other one was by the name of Kamil, I don't remember his other name. But these two boys took me all over. We really, really... not boyfriend and girlfriend style, any, any kind, but a very lovely friendship. As I told this Kamil that I have somebody at home who I'm in love with and you re... remind me so much of him, and the other one was very nice too. Anyways, in this couture Parisian, they called it salon, where I worked when I left this other one here, that was, that was beautiful place. One day, I don't remember, it was March or February, I don't remember, I just don't. I remember it was a Sunday morning and the Germans came in, with a big hooray in the city, you know, the Germans and, and thanks, whatever, I don't know. Anyways, the Germans came in and it was a terrible feeling. We knew already that this will be terrible. Title: Life in Budapest Q: Were you known that you were a Jew? Was it known that you were a Jew in Budapest? A: Yes, I was uh, my own name. As I say, there was no problem Q: Okay. A: when I went to Budapest, but just that you had to go, in Budapest you couldn't move from one place to the other. You had to go to the authorities, you had to take out papers and you had to have, have uh, tickets for, for food and stamps for food because you just, could get maybe a pound of meat or a pound of bread. You couldn't get lost. They knew from the moment that you are a Jew all over. In one moment they could find you if you came from there because you had to go right away when you arrive to the police station and take out papers and sign it and whatever. But it was nothing. We were used to, in Europe this kind of life we're used to, but no problem as a Jew. As I say, I worked as a Jewish girl, the second salon where I worked this couture Parisian was not Jewish. They hired me as a Jewish girl; they knew I was a Jewish girl. They are very nice to me. And uh, and then the Germans came in. And when the Germans came in, I got very scared. My mother wrote me cards and letters and I wrote my mot... to my mother. And my mother wrote to me that you should right away get your things and pack your things and come home. And I tried, and the po... and the station they already... You, at the first, the next day when the Germans came in, came uh, thing, we had to wear a yellow star. Q: You wore a yellow star? A: Oh yes, but just when the Germans came in. Not while I was in Hungary for two years. As I say, no problem as a Jew. I did everything what the Gentile girls did. I am sure that there was anti-Semitism there, but I did my job, I did my work. I went out to a nightclub with a young man or something, I didn't encounter any kind of, as I say, the three lovely ladies who owned that, this couture Parisian were not, non-Jewish and I were Jewish and there was no, never, you know. As a matter of fact uh, after the war you uh, they kept me for a, quite a long while working there with a yellow star. But then came a law that you had to let every Jew go. The Jews could not work anymore. This I don't remember. Took two months or three months or, I don't remember that. But they, but things uh, became worse everyday. Every day different kind of orders and different kind of things came in. One day the order came that, as I say, that you couldn't work anymore as a Jew and I was standing... I couldn't go home because you had to have papers. If you didn't have Gentile papers at the station, they took you away right away to concentration camps. So, there was no way for me to go home. And I was alone in Budapest. I didn't have a job anymore. And I don't remember how I lived, money-wise. I don't remember. Q: Or food, yeah. A: Or food. I don't remember. This, that's why I say, because these two boys will have a lot to do with my... So, and the two boys still were, still were very friendly. One day, while I was still working at that, this couture Parisian and I, as I say, I worked a few months there yet after the Germans came in, they kept me as they said, that the lady said, "Olga, as long as we can keep you, we are going to keep you. The yellow star doesn't make anything, any difference to us." I get a frantic telephone call from this fellow, this young man that... Title: Jewish Friends Q: One of your friends was Jewish and one was a Gentile? A: I, I knew that both were Gentile boys. Q: Uh-huh. A: Both were Gentile boys, very lovely two boys. But they weren't, that's what I want to bring out, one didn't even know. He says, I have to talk to you very urgently. So one them, I went down and his eyes were swollen and red and I said, "What happened to you? What, what's the matter?" He says, "This afternoon, my father told me this afternoon that we are Jewish." He was the president of the biggest bank in the city by the name of Fallegy. It was a, probably changed his name back, it's a real Hungarian name. And this poor guy never knew that he was Jewish. But already when Hitler came in and trouble started, the father had to tell his boy that he's Jewish. So, what can I say? I told him I am sorry for you because we don't know what our future will be but you are Jewish and you'll have to just take whatever everybody else will take. I mean... Q: Why did his father have to tell him that he was Jewish? A: Because you had to. I mean, if your, if your grandma... grandfather was converted already a long time ago, but still the father's father was a Jew and to Hitler it didn't make any difference. And the father knew that trouble will start, so his, his son has to know that he is Jewish. Q: Okay. A: And this young man was killed—I don't know if you, anybody told you about that—there was the Danube River... Q: Yeah. A: in Budapest. Buda, Pest, and the Danube River. And one day they took down some Jews and they shot them right into the Danube River. And this young man was one of them, which I found out, an only son. So, he was shot into the Danube River later on. And this, the other one, Ka... Kamil was his name where he sa... I told him, "Kamil, I don't know what's going to happen to me. I can't pay my rent. My parents cannot send me money anymore because there is no way I'm..." My mother sent me a package, some clothes up to Budapest and I opened the clothes and some place, they poured some kind of acid on the package and my clothes came out, I have never seen anything like it. It dissolved. Just like when I opened the package because my mother said that, I'm, because she knew that things are bad already and I will need clothes because winter will come. So, she sent me some things up, so, some acid, I don't know what. But when I took them out it was just nothing. The whole thing, so I didn't have any. And I was very much worried about my parents because that was the last card I got from my mother in the 17th of May. Already they... I knew that they were concentrating them into the Jewish synagogue and they were there in the synagogue. But I didn't have any communications with them. Just sometimes something, you know, you hear. But I wasn't sure. I was, I, I, the, the, the letters, the cards stopped coming. And uh, so I was very much afraid of my, for, for my parents. But I was a young girl in Budapest I had to uh, I, I had to do something with myself. I had to... I knew that uh, where I lived and if I'm not going to pay my rent, they are going to throw me out. I mean, people just had to live, they would, and I would have to eat. And as fate does it, this Kamil had an aunt, this young man. This Kamil's mother was Jewish and then this came out too. The mother was Jewish and the father was Gentile. And he... Title: Jewish Friends 2 Q: So, he's a Jew. A: He was a Jew. His mother's sister was married to a Gentile, a Swiss Gentile by the name of Hugo Geiger, was his name. He was the director of one of the orphanages in Budapest. And they lived in the city in a beautiful apartment and one Sunday... And he loved his wife dearly. It was just unbelievable. They never had children. And one Sunday, he went up to the uh, sixth floor on a balc... balcony, telling his wife that he's going to go down to get some rolls for breakfast. And he jumped off the sixth floor, leaving a letter to his wife that trouble, that things are terrible, terrible troubles are starting. I will not be able to save your life and I won't be able to live without you. I'd rather kill myself. And so he killed himself and he left this, this poor lady alone. That time I think she was sixty years old. A lovely blonde woman. And ??? the woman was alone, had no children, had nobody. So, this Kamil told me, "Listen Olga, you don't have nowhere to live, you haven't got a job, you have nothing. My aunt has nobody, she needs somebody to be with. I take you over there. She interviewed a couple of uh, women and girls, she doesn't want anybody. I'll take you over there, she'll meet you and maybe this will be a wonderful arrangement for both of you." So, he took me over there and the lady met me. And he said, I won't let you go anymore back to your apartment, you'll stay here with me. But I said, I have to go back for my things. And we went back for my things and I remember we came back through a park and that times there were some troublemakers and they beat this boy up, this Kamil who took my suitcase, because I was wearing a yellow star already, you see. He wasn't wearing a yellow star yet because he was a half a Jew. Q: They didn't find out that he was Jewish yet. A: I don't know, maybe half a Jews didn't have to that time, I don't know. He didn't have a star on. I just remember that clearly. It's in my mind because otherwise if I wouldn't have had a, a Jewish star we wouldn't have any trouble. Q: Yeah. A: But first of all they were going on the street with a pencil like that to watch, to put the, to put in the stitches on the yellow star. The yellow star was stitched on your clothes. Q: Uh-huh. A: And if you could put a pen between the stitches, it was enough for them to take you to a concentration camp already. It had to be sewed in so tight. Q: Oh, I see. A: You see. And uh, it was very dangerous to go on the street already. They pulled you into, under the uh, anyplace, a Jewish girl. Not a Jewish girl, but in Budapest a Jewish girl goes, anybody could do anything, nobody would... Q: Sure. A: say anything. So, it was, I hardly went out on the street, it was that dangerous already. So, they beat him up, but I took my suitcase and I walked slowly away waiting for him because he was a big fellow, I knew they won't kill him. He got a beating, but he was fine after and he took me up there. And I was staying... I stayed with this lady for a very, for a, quite a long time maybe for a year or so. By that time, you were restricted already to go out just from eleven o'clock to, 'til one o'clock to do shopping. Title: Rumors and Conversion Q: Was this woman also restricted? A: Yes, she was Jewish. Her husband was not Jewish, but she was Jewish. Q: And they... A: I mean... Q: did they know it? A: Oh yes. Q: And she wore a star too? A: Oh yes. Q: Yeah. A: Sure. She uh, and then later on, there were Jewish houses. You see, they designated some homes, some houses because they were apartment buildings. They had a private home up in the mountains, a beautiful private home but they lived in an apartment in the city at that time, so they stayed in the city. So, in a hall, in a five, six... in Europe you don't have such, I think the, the highest is six, you have to be all six uh, story high. Uh, so one wha... then, there was a, in let's say in every two or three blocks there was a house with a, with a yellow star on the, on the entrance and that was Jews lived there. You had to move out. If the house wasn't a Jewish house then we had to... So, where we lived it wasn't a Jewish house. So, we had to move into another, other house. And she had a friend who was a baroness. And she said to me... And that time all kind of rumors came. Rumors came if you are a house, a housemaid or employed in a household, a cleaning woman or something that, that, then you are not, then they are not going to take you into a concentration camp. So, she took me up to I don't know where to, that I should get a paper that I am employed by this and this baroness as a housemaid or something. So, she put me up and the gentleman was sitting in front of the desk and I go in and the lady comes in and tells her story what she wants me to be a housemaid and the man says, show me your hands. And I showed him my hands and he says throw the paper, take her out. She's not a maid. I didn't get the paper. Then it was if you are going to uh, uh, if you are going to convert, they are not going to take you. So, they took a, a, a priest, a lovely young man, a priest, came, I'm going to convert. I'm not going to convert in my mind, but I'm going to convert because this is my life. And I studied the conversion. One night I, I dream that my father says, Olga uh, that I'm telling my father I'm, I'm... I have to wait for a minute. Q: No problem. A: Uh, so I'm telling my father that I'm going to convert. So, he says, don't. [ [crying] Oh, I'm so sorry. Q: No, please, don't be. A: This is the only thing what makes me emotionally very upset. Whatever I went through it doesn't make any difference. Q: Take your time. A: So, he says, don't convert. Uh, and promise me if you ever have a son. [crying] Okay. Q: No problem. Take your time.[interruption in interview]
A: ...as a Jew. Okay, let's finish with that. So, I didn't. And, uh... Title: Bombing in Budapest Q: May I ask, did you ever have a son? A: No. Q: Okay. A: Uh, what happened after that. Well, after that we just lived our lives. There were bombings constantly. We went down in the basement and we came up and one day... The rumors came always that somebody... They, somehow they knew that they are going to come to this house, the Nazis, and they are going to take all the Jews from this house, and then under, that address, that house. So, one day it came that they are coming, coming to our house. So, this lady who had a, a friend who had a beautiful uh, who had a corset salon in the city. You know, in Europe if you have, live in the inner city, that's the most expensive part of the city. The closer you live in the inner city uh, that's the better neighborhoods they are. So, right in the city she had, and it was open because she wasn't Jewish so she said... She loved me dearly, she... If, if my mother could have been with me, she wouldn't be, couldn't have been better to me than this lady was. She never had a daughter, she never had any children. She didn't let me wash dishes because I ruin my hands. She was just, she just adored me and I too. So, she said, we, we are, I won't let them take you away. Let's go there at night to that salon and we will deal with night there and by the time we will come back, we'll try to find another place. So, we went down there. But you had to wait uh, there was a certain, as I said, just from eleven to one o'clock you could go out on the streets, you couldn't go later on, so there was always everyday bombing. So I, the bombing and the sirens we didn't live far from that place, so when, when they were bombing we ran over to that place and we were there overnight. And uh, we saw the police every minute lighting with a lighter into, with a... Q: Flashlight. A: flashlight into the store. And it was a most miserable night I can remember. It was just something terrible. And she opened the gas constantly. She wanted to kill herself and me. Opened the gas because she knew that there's no way out. She opened the gas and I was young and I closed the gas. And she opened the gas and I closed the gas. Q: This, this woman was a Gentile, wasn't she? A: No, she was a Jewish woman, Q: She was Jewish. A: her husband was Gentile. Yeah, so. Title: Bombing in Budapest 2 Q: Were, were you at the owner of the sal... of the corset salon now? A: No, the lady wasn't there. She was just a very good friend of this lady, so she... Q: Oh, and she let you stay there. A: got the key, she had a key if anything happens... Q: Oh, I see. I see. A: that we should go there because they know that this salon is not owned by a Jew, so we could go there. You know. Q: Ah, I see. A: So, finally it was morning and around nine o'clock there was again bombing and we ran back to the house. They didn't take the Jews. But that's, I'm just telling this little incident that everyday brought something uh, and the papers too, what I had the papers that I told you a few days. Q: Yeah. A: I had a... The houses were in a... in a inner city, the streets were narrow. They were wide boulevards, but there were narrow streets and a balcony here and balcony there. And there was a man and I was a girl and, you know, we were in the house constantly. So, he was in the house constantly and I was in the house constantly. Finally we started waving to each other and everything. And this man, and then we uh, got to know each other and he came over. He was a married man. He took, he sent his wife and his child out to the, to the country someplace. This man, his name was George Krunk uh, hiding and he was in the city. Q: Was he Jewish also? A: Yes, he was Jewish, yeah, mhm. But he, he said he's going to find me some papers, you know. And he found me some papers and then I could go out sometimes without papers. We went out in the evening in a coffeehouse sometimes. But then they were, one day I was coming home and somebody told me that they were looking for me. The police they're looking for me under that name, on, on the paper. So I tore the paper and I gave it to him back and I went someplace for three days to stay, I don't remember where. And I, then I went back. So, that's why I say, I had a paper for a, I don't know, a week or two weeks but then they found out. So, I tore the paper up because it wouldn't have helped me anyway. So. Q: By the way, why didn't you mention that this woman you stayed with... A: Yeah. Q: they had a place out in the country? A: Yes, but they couldn't go there. No, they couldn't, she couldn't uh, I mean, that, that was the house where she had to live, you couldn't leave your residence. Q: Oh, I see. A: You couldn't, you could not. As a matter of fact, that time my husband wrote me a letter. He had a sister who was a pharmacist and her husband was a physician. And she took a job in, very near Budapest. And um, that he, that, because her husband was near in a, in a forced labor camp someplace. So, she took a job as a pharmacist there that her husband should be able to come and visit her sometimes. And then her father came up there and she... he wrote me a letter from the forced labor camp that I should go on that, to this address and try, stay with his father and with his sister and I asked the manager of the house, of the apartment house, the caretaker of the apartment house that he should take me because I couldn't go alone. And we were all set to go that I'm going to leave and I will go there. And then when the bombing came and then the streetcars didn't run, so I couldn't go and that saved my life too because they were taken away and they never came back. And I stayed in that place. Anyways, so all these little incidents, which I don't remember anymore and uh, that the terrible things everyday that they are coming and they are taking us and they are doing this and they are doing that and constantly worrying over, at night if a car stopped... It's, it's terror. It's sheer terror. Title: Politics Q: Did you believe them when they told you that Jews were being taken and killed in concentration camps? A: We didn't know. That time we didn't know. We just knew that Jews were taken. I didn't know about my parents, what happened to my parents, that they're taken. But you had to know um, the history too, that the Hungarian Jews in Budapest especially, they were bar... somebody was bargaining for them. You know, I am sure you know about that, that certain uh, uh amount of uh, trucks have to be given and uh, money for this Jew and for that Jew. That this little, this Budapest, they took the Jews from all over the country, from Hungary, from all over. But the Jews were still staying in Budapest. Just some of them were taken who were unfortunately at the wrong place and the wrong time. Q: Mhm. A: If you were outside and somebody came whether it could have happened to me hundreds of times, but it just didn't. Q: Yeah. A: You know, it just didn't happen. So, then it came one day that the war is over. I mean, the, the war is not over but Horthy was our, our uh, ??? [Asking her husband] Governor? Yeah. The governor, he didn't want to uh, he didn't want to do what. This is politics already, I don't know. Just say it with two words, please, Poffi. What was with Hitler before Szálasi came, I mean with um, with um, Horthy before Szálasi came, when the Proclamatio came, Horthy's Proclamatio? Well, what happened, what was it, just with two words, just tell me. Husband: ??? A: He, he ??? Horthy. Husband: Oh, he was arrested. A: All right. Our governor was arrested and then we thought that this is it, the war is over and everybody was standing out in the balconies, everybody was happy. And next day, Szálasi was the worst, the worst, the worst ever you can imagine who came into power. And no more bargaining with Jews. No more doing nothing. The Jews are going to be concentrated in one place. And we have no more trains anymore because things were not very good in the Front any more. No more trains. We are going to concentrate them and by foot they are, we are going to take them out of the state of Hungary toward uh, Germany through ??? which was a border town and they are going to take them to concentration camps there. So, by ten o'clock in the morning ??? you have to be at the horse racing tracks, it's a huge, like a football field. And, and I just went nicely because there was no way, no way to go, no, nowhere to go. There's this lady, she was taken to a Swedish house. You know, you know about the Swedish and the Swiss houses that they have designated there that they are under their rule. That they can't... But I went. I thought to myself, I am going to go because I just can't take it anymore. I'll go and I'll do what the other ones will do. Q: You could have gone to the Swiss house? A: No, I don't know if I could have gone to the Swiss house. I don't, I don't remem... I don't know. I just know that I went. Q: Yeah. A: How it happened, an order came and you had to go and that's it, and I went. And uh, we went by, by train or whatever to that place and we were staying there for hours and hours and hours until they made um, transports and by foot we started to go. We started to go and there were Hungarian—Hungarian soldier, not German—Hungarian soldiers with the bayonets and guns taking us, hundred and hundreds of people, young and old, and we went. Title: Concentration Camp Q: And where did you think you were going? To a concentration camp, right? And what did you think they were going to do with you? A: I have to think back. I have to make myself twenty years old. I don't know what we were thinking. I really don't know what we were thinking because a certain, after a certain time you use your head and you use your mind and you use your body, you get kind of a little bit uh, really off it and you just think to yourself, you become fatalistic. It's going to be what's going to be. What is bashert for you, it's going to come. And on the way you never know what's, what kind of situations will be and what you can do with yourself, but I just knew one thing that I had to go because I had no family, I had nobody there. I mean, I didn't even know people in Budapest. Q: Yeah. A: I didn't know any Gentiles. I didn't know anybody. So, I just couldn't stay there. And we went and, uh... No, they told us. No, I, this slowly comes back to me that we are going to go to a forced labor camp. And we went to a forced labor camp. We went to the other side of the Danube, over with barges I remember. And um, we were in a camp. The camp's name was, was ??? that's right. It's a small Hungarian village. And we were stationed at the, at the school uh, house, a school yard in stalls. And every morning you had to get up just like the men. Had to get up and go mm, I don't know how many kilometers and dig trenches because they wanted to dig trenches around Budapest that if the Russians or, or whatever attacks will come wouldn't be able to get, get into Budapest, you know... Q: Yeah. A: falling into the ditches. So, there was, there were ??? peasants, huge men, and there were little girls like I was, young girls from... You had to get up at five o'clock in the morning, walk for about two hours, and then take the shovel and dig the trenches and dig and dig. And we got, before when we went out in the morning we got our, our ration, which was a slice of bread, a slice of stinking margarine or whatever. And I think that was it. And was rain or shine or whatever and it was October. It started... Q: Cold. A: October already. And we were there and we did that and uh, on one day we had a free day and we were sitting and if you believe me we were singing and cleaning our shoes. We had no... Where I lived in Budapest maybe had, but I didn't have any winter things with me to take. I just had a little green pair of shoes. And I don't remember pants were not in style that time, I wore a dress and I was going and when I didn't have that I went barefoot and I did the things. But it was fine, I was young and I did it and uh, I hoped that uh, this is going to be over and my parents will be at home and it's going to be over and I go home and I will continue my life as, as I, as it did. But uh, it always came that they are going to take us tomorrow and they are going to take us tomorrow and they are going to take us tomorrow and I had two good friends. I became friends with the girls. One was a young woman a few years older than I was. That was the biggest paper merchant was in the city, Fahir and Weinberger, that was their daughter, big black eyes. And the other one was a young piano teacher by the name of Olga; her name was Olga too. And we became very good friends and she told me, "Well, I am from Budapest and I have family there and we have friends there and they are Gentiles and uh, maybe, maybe we should run away and maybe we should try to go get back to Budapest because we just, we are not going to walk to, to a concentration camp. We are not going to do it because this, this labor camp is not going to stay here forever. The, the things will be done already and then they are going to take us." So I, what can I lose, I'm going to go with you. And now you are going to hear a story. And now I... We went to the station, we walked to the station. And we were, there was a little forest near the station and we were waiting in the forest for this, for the train to come in. You know, I didn't use my head what will be when we get to Budapest that there is no way that you can walk from the station to someplace without the papers that you are Maria so and so. Two Jewish girls, we didn't take out the stars or anything. But you just go... Title: Running Away Q: Yeah. A: You know, you just, you just go. And we, there was a, a big bunch of branches there and we were sitting behind the branches looking out when the train will come and we'll jump on the train. All of a sudden, a Hungarian peasant arrives there and says what are you doing here girls. So, we said well, we are going, waiting for the train and please—I remember I told him—please don't tell the authorities. Please, I'm twenty years old. I don't want to go out of Hungary because I will get lost. I don't know how to speak German. I just... I never had a chance to live yet. Please give us a chance at least just to get on the train because I don't know what will happen to us. Just please give us a chance. He said, okay. Ten minutes later—and we were hiding behind those branches—ten minutes later comes a Hungarian ??? was a Nazi Hungarian, we called him ??? with a bayonet, with a black uniform with a skull on the cap. Right. And he's there. It started to rain a little bit. Get up, go, put your hands up. I had here in my... That time I already had a pair of pants, one of the girls died or something. And he took off the pants and I had already a ski outfit on and a pair of boots. And under my ski outfit I had a grey sweater, which is very important where my father was in the First World War, he had a gray officer's sweater, like an angora gray. And as I told you I was very handy as a young girl and I took it out from the attic one day and I made a beautiful skating sweater up. I embroidered it. And I had that with me and I had that under that—that was the only major thing I had—under that ski jacket. So, I had some cards, as I told you my mother sent some card and my brother and my husband, my boyfriend, not boyfriend, my... I don't know what. Q: Okay. A: And uh, I carried that all over because that's all I carried with me to the concentration camp and I had a, a diamond ring what my mother gave me when I went up to Budapest. I got some diamond rings and I had two beautiful earrings. And I had a, a, something uh, uh, with a picture, with a diamond. I don't know what happened to them. I just remember I had my ring. I took the ring on. And uh, I had them under my sweater and I was putting my hands up, my pictures fell out of my, of here and I wanted to bend down and the man shoved me with the bayonet in my back and he, he picked up the pictures and I didn't see the pictures. He took those pictures. And they took us into a stall, a, a horse stall, full of hay, the three of us sitting there on this side. On this side there was a big camp for girls. This labor camp they went out to work too. I was about five kilometers from that camp because we had to walk there. Uh, and we are sitting there and then there is a desk here and then and a, a Nazi is sitting there and he says to the, he says uh, "Now I want you to know... to come one by one and uh, tell us your name, your address, who should be informed after you're dead that you were shot because you ran away." You know, they would, I will think that they would ever send a, a letter to somebody because there was nobody. I mean, there was nobody to send a letter, but that was it. You had to give your name to send, to send it. So, this one girl gets up on her knees and goes and holds that Nazi around the leg and begging her. Give me your name. Not... Like it would be, I wouldn't step on air, I don't know about anything. Pushed her away. Give me your names. She gave him her name, who to inform after that she was shot because she ran away because if you run away you're going to be shot. You know this was... And then she came back and she sat down I looked at that girl and I don't know if you ever saw, the pupil in her eyes about like this, she just a big black mass, her eyes. And it went through my head... Title: Punishment for Running Away Q: You said she was shot and then she came back? A: No, no. She, as she was interviewed about who to inform. Q: Okay. A: It was in a room. Just desk like that and then she said go sit down and then she came to sit down into that, in the hay. And I looked at her and I thought myself, this girl, this girl is, is going to die, I am not going to die. It's impossible. I can't. I haven't, I have, I haven't lived yet, I can't die. I don't know what told me, she's going to die. I just... And I, just this one, the other one I don't, I don't even remember as much as this one because I looked into her eyes and I can never forget them.[interruption in interview]
Q: Okay. A: So uh, they interviewed the other girl too, and then, uh... Q: You said, you mentioned that you took off your ring. A: Yeah, I took off my ring and I put it, I had to say about the ring in the, in the hay there. Because we were not supposed to even have a pen. You know, nothing... Q: Ah. A: a hairpin... Q: Yeah. A: nothing. That would have been enough to kill you, a ring like that. Uh, so uh, then they, then one comes in, the door is here and one Nazi comes in and tells this Magda with the dark eyes to come after me. So, she goes out and all of a sudden I hear a shot. And I ask the Nazi who was sitting in front of the desk there, what was that? And he was very kind and he said they are shooting birds. So, if you want to believe it, you know, you want to believe it's birds. So, they are shooting birds. And then comes... Yeah, well, and I didn't tell you, but when it come, came to my side they were asking me who to write and I stood up and I said, "I don't have nobody to write to. I am not from Budapest, I'm from Beregszász, from a small town. There's nobody that you can uh, inform after my death." So, they asked me what I was doing, what are you doing in Budapest. So, I told her I was a model in Budapest, I was working, my parents lived in a small town and I can give you their address but I'm sure that they took them away already, so it's no use. So, that was it. So, when the Nazi came back for the other girl, I stood up. This is all a lunatic, I don't know how I did it because I'm not that pushy, or a pusher, I am not, there are just certain things, certain sixth sense tells you what to do. In all this, it's a sheer accident that I'm sitting here. No way, I said, I did anything about it ever. Um, so he pushes me down and he takes the other girl. And then other shot, out from... So, didn't take the whole thing must have been like... I would go to the, to the end of the, my block there. Um, then comes for me. So, I go. The girls are standing there in that camp, you can see the faces in the window watching what's going on. And the way when I see the Nazi coming, I see all the clothes what the girls were wearing on her arm, on his arm. The Nazi was coming back, taking the clothes and throwing it down and taking me. So, I arrive into a big field—so, I want you to know that this is in November already—a big field, empty, no trees. There is a hole in the middle and I see bodies moving in the hole. The girls are not dead yet. So, he's standing in front of it with a gun and he tells me, now you take off your clothes because there are lots of children who have no clothes to wear in Budapest because of the damn bombing, so they have to send clothes there. And I'm taking off slowly my father's sweater. And uh, you know, it was windy, naturally windy, end of November. And I, like uh, like I would have heard something. I don't know. Very slowly I'm taking off my sweater and I'm looking back, backwards because I had a feeling that something is coming in the back. And all of a sudden, I see uh, a skull and I think to myself well, I died already, it was nothing, I died already, I didn't feel nothing, it's fine, I just slipped over. It's fine. Title: Punishment for Running Away 2 A: All of a sudden, I see uh, one of the Nazis coming with a piece of paper. The man was standing as close to me as you with a gun. And the other one. And he said, "Hey, hey, wait, wait, wait a minute." Uh, he's reading a piece of paper that under this and this and this section, this and this and this, we are going to, we are not going to shoot this girl. I don't remember. I just know that he, he read off some, some number and that they are not going to shoot me. That I remember. Uh, he read something more there, but I don't remember because I, I thought I died, you know. So um, and actually it was... I can't tell you my feelings, because under the cir... under circumstances like this you can't tell your feelings. It was just... I remember the movements but I don't remember my reactions or my mind or what... I don't remember if I looked at those girls again or not. I just remember he helping me putting my sweater back and taking me un... at my elbow, back to that uh, a little bit farther from the stall where we were. There was, we had to go up some wooden steps, there was the kitchen, the camp's kitchen and giving me soup. And as I was eating the soup, I woke up already that I'm eating soup and I am not dead and what, what happened. So, I thought to myself I will dare to ask what happened. I said, "What happened? What happened to me and what happened to those girls?" So, he said, and I said, "And I thank you that you didn't kill me." He said, "Don't thank me, thank fate that you are such a beautiful girl and so young that we didn't have the heart to shoot you." And with that, they gave me another Nazi who took me back, back for a few miles where my main camp was where I stayed. And that was a Friday. And then came Sunday. And the church bells were ringing. People went to church and we had an order, everybody out in the schoolyard. And we went out. I don't know it was two hundred girls, three hundred girls, I don't remember. We were standing in two lines like this. There was five girls in front of that digging graves in front. And he said one, two, three, four, five, this goes up to ten. This was the man who was with the gun, who was supposed to shoot me. So, I think to myself, oh my God, what they did to me, they didn't want to shoot me there, but they wanted to bring me back as example that this what happens to girls who will run away. Q: Mhm. Title: Transport and Soldier A: So, they are going to shoot me right in front of these girls here with all the tenth ones. Because when it, when it was, they were standing here, he came to me and he put me right here. I was standing all alone in the middle here and they were... And then he came here and then I said to him, oh my God, you are going to shoot me right here and now. He says no, and he took me into the schoolhouse and he said, said sit down. I sat down to the, in the chair by the children, by the chair. We were sitting there at the desk. He took out all the pictures and the, and the uh, cards that I received from my parents and took out one picture. I'll show you the picture. And he said, now you write. He gave me a pen. With—uh, uh, it's hard for me to translate it to English—well, with thanks and gratitude for not shooting me uh, the date and my name. That's all. You saved my life or something, you know, to, to so and so. Write, to, to write the name on to Boris, I remember his name was Boris. He was a conductor on a streetcar. And he took the card with my name, with the date and everything and uh, and it happened here. And he had silver teeth. I don't know if it was silver, already kind of, it looked silver. And he came there and he kissed me. And that was ever that he touched me, this young man. I want you to know that from here on I went by foot by miles and miles and miles. He was one of the men who came with the transport. At night, we were standing, let's say, at a beach where there were those little dressing rooms, little individual little hut. He opened it, broke off the door, and opened it and let me sleep inside because we were frozen the ground already. At night, it was cold. We got, went, we lay down in the morning and you couldn't get up at night because you are frozen to the ground. And you had to go to the bathroom, the young girls, this man standing there with the bayonets. Can you imagine this feeling, this degradation, this everything and you have to take off your pants and go there. And this man, in the mo... every morning you have to stand in line, you know, it's like an army. He brought a beautiful apple, he threw it to me. He brought cigarettes from the city, he brought roast chicken. This man, I swear to God as I'm telling you the truth, never touched me. Sometimes the peasants if the, if they had some money they gave them some money they lent them horses and buggies and you could go in the transport. Some people who had the money they could sit. Because even they were tired of already going miles and miles. Whoever couldn't walk they were shot. But whoever could walk, walked. And whoever could hire a, a, a, a peasant's horse and buggy could go after that because they got already ??? for weeks and weeks and weeks like that. We even befriended those, those uh, those people who came with us, whoever were human, you know. This man helped me wherever he could. He, he put me up on a buggy for a few miles that I should rest. Then he, then we arrived to another place and then he went, sent back and we had somebody new. But this man had never touched me. As a matter of fact, I had to go, when I came to this country, I had a constant metal taste in my mouth. I haven't had one cavity here. I went from one dentist to the other, I went to doctors to find out why do I have that terrible metal taste in my mouth constantly. Finally I... to a psychiatrist who, and I told him this. Only I never told my children, my husband knows about it. I never told this to... I was telling this and for years my hands were numbing away. As soon as I went to, I wanted to fall asleep, I felt that both of my hands are dead and this metal taste. And as I was telling this, this psychiatrist I had to go for the restitution for the... I didn't, I had no problem in my mind... Q: Right. A: You know, but...He asked me. And I told this story. And he told me that this is from the teeth, the memory of the teeth of that man who kissed me and the hands that were coming down, I was taking off the sweater, you know, my hands are numbing, numbing away as I was taking the sweater off, the movement, you know. Probably I had my hands numb when I taking it, I just didn't notice it. Since then, and I told this story and he told me what it is from, it disappeared from one morning. And I never think about those things, I want you to know. Never. Very seldom I talk about it. Never. So. We went to, to uh, they had camps in this... As people were walking miles and miles and miles, let's say they had to walk uh, twenty miles, twenty-five, thirty miles and there was a camp overnight already when you arrived. Then you can take a r... you could take a rest there. And they had some kind of a mush to give you to eat. And then next day you went farther. And in one camp I remember I took off my shoes and my feet got so swollen in the morning that I couldn't put my shoes back, because you are not supposed to take my shoes off when you are walking that much and I took off... I was very, very much difficulty for me with walking. It was terribly hard on me, I sometimes I thought I'm going to die right there and then. Who was, who was used to walking that much miles? This is a whole country walking through and not walking, without food, without anything, just walking with the, with the, the feeling that if you fall, well if you can't walk they are going to shoot you. You know, this was terrible. Title: Concentration Camp 2 Q: Did you see others shot who fell? A: Oh yeah, oh sure. I was, I was a young girl but there were older people. If I would have to do it today I would never survive it. But I mean there are older people there. So, there was a big fence and there was a small colonel standing there watching the transport going by and I was, I had my shoes in my hand and I was barefoot and the ground was frozen and I went there and I said that, please let me stay here. I can't put my... Because everyday a new transport arrived there, you know, so that you have to cook there, you had to clean there. You had to clean the, the, the toi... there wasn't toilet, the holes in the ground, you know you had to make. And there was work to be done. So, I was almost out of the gates when I went to that, that colonel and I said, look I can't put my shoes back—it was an older man that time—I would work anything. I would do anything, just please let me stay here. And he looked at me and he said, stay. I stayed in there... He sent me to a peasant's house after months and months and months and they warmed water up for me and I took a bath. And I came back and he looked behind my ears and he said, "Next time do better." As I say, there were human beings. And I stayed in that camp for about three weeks. Now in that three weeks, I worked... There were, were old people as I say that they couldn't walk. They put them on horse and buggies. And I dragged them up there, I held them up there, I fought for them to be able to go, rather they should go than the other one. And I was a big help in that camp. I really worked and I got, as, as everybody get dy... got dysentery. You know this terrible diarrhea? Q: Yeah. A: Which I got too because the hygienic was that, it was impossible not to get it. So, I got it and I was laying down in the, in the stall, which was quite clean because we, we... Oh my God, there were people who died and they put them near the fence and they covered them with the hay and then the horses came and the horses ate the hay off the corpses and the corpses were lying there. And uh, I heard one of the officers say that, please go into the officers' kitchen and bring a bottle of wine and give it to this girl, it would be a shame if she would die on us. And they did help me out, I didn't die. They gave me a little quinine and they gave me wine. And in a few days, like a horse I stood up and I, I continued my things. And then, one day the, if they came to send the people away, the transports away who were there, so when they... we had to stand in line. If they came and they took from this half, the officer put me to this half. If they came to put me at, from this, he put me to this, that I stay there. I stay there. And, but there was one day... Title: Transport to Budapest Ghetto Q: Which officer was this? Was this...? A: This, this, there are more officers... Q: Yeah. A: that, who I helped. He was a doctor, a young doctor, was supposedly help the people there, but there, there was no medication, no help, no nothing. It was just that he was a, a, a doctor in the army and he was there. Uh, one day it was no way that I could stay there. I was taken. I was taken a few miles away when all of a sudden I see a young officer there. This lady who had the gar... the, the, the girdle salon had a son who was a Hungarian officer. And when I visited her home with this, with her very good friend the lady who I lived with who took me as a daughter, I saw his picture in the living room, a big picture, a Hungarian officer, very debonair picture and I see this young man standing right there. And I go to him and I tell him that I was in your home a few months ago and you are Aunt Louisa's son and I know you and I know your wife. And he took me out from that transport and he sent me back. He sent me back with a transport who, who the people who were very sick. They could not walk. That time already started being the end of the, end of the war and people knew that they lost and everything, so they were trying already. As a matter of fact, a lot of Hungarian officers and we were going and walking and walking and it was so bleak and so nothing, it was just like zombies, said please don't let yourself go, please hold on, the Russians are not far, it cannot last longer. You took that much already, take a little more. You know what it gives you, how much it gives you? How much, it just, new life would be uh, given to you. All right, I'll try to push another day, I'll try to push another day. They were human beings. Even sometime Germans came with the, with trucks and they were throwing down candy or whatever when they saw this, this, this sea of people walking. It was just, they didn't, they didn't know what to do with us anymore. They were just, just, just walking us and walking us and walking us. Unfortunately who got to the end of the road, they were taken to the concentration camp. But if you stayed in Hungary some way there was always a way somehow. So, this young man sent me back and I arrived and I don't remember how and what but I remember a train station that we were waiting for a train and by train I got back to Budapest. I got back to Budapest to the, to, to uh, it was Teleky Street, under Teleky Street. Four, there were woman concentration camp and there was Teleky ??? Six, there were men in there. There were...Whoever was taken back or whoever wasn't taken out of the city yet, the Jews concentrated in one building another one concentrated in the next building, but don't think that they didn't come and they send new transports constantly. Q: Oh yeah. A: They did send new transports constantly. And they were, they were examining your health. If you were healthy they were taken out, if you were not healthy they were sending you to the ghetto because already they were, it was, there was a ghetto established, which we didn't know because we were taken away before there was a ghetto yet. So, I was there, he was examining me. He said, "What's wrong with you?" I said, I said, I don't know what kind, what I said, some heart business. He looked at me and he smiled and he gave me a, a white uh, uh—now what you wear—with a Red Cross mark on it. Q: A band. A: Band! I'm sorry. White band with a... And he said you are going to take two old people out to the, to the uh, truck outside and you are going to take them into the ghetto. So, it looked like that I am a nurse... Q: Mhm. A: and I was helping out two old people and we were sitting on a truck and they sent us back to the ghetto. So, at least there in the ghetto there wasn't that, that they are going to take us out to the... Title: Budapest Ghetto Q: Why did they put the sick people in the ghetto and the healthy people they took away? Why did they do that? A: Well, because the healthy people they wanted to kill and take away. The sick people they thought they are putting them in the ghetto, they'll die there anyway. Q: Oh, I see. A: With the bombing and with everything they are not going to bother with them anymore. Q: Right. A: The sick and old people, why should they bother with? Q: Mhm. A: It will be less bother for them uh, to, to shoot them or whatever. They'll just take them to the ghetto, death will be anyways uh, destroyed. They should, they are not going to bother with them. So, I went to the ghetto and I was in the ghetto and there I was. I still kept this band and we were bombed, we were bombed day and night and day and night. And in the beginning we had a huge mountain of carrots in the middle of the yard and we took the carrots that somebody had. Yet we had electricity yet and we cooked carrots and we were singing and we were doing the things in the basement of the bombing, the, the buildings were moving around, those huge buildings with the bombing. And then the bombings were over. Then I had uh, I had to go out and see if anybody stayed alive. And I was picking up arms and legs and stomachs and heads. And that's what I was doing. Q: Were you still uh, pretending to be a nurse? A: I wasn't pretending to be a nurse but I had this band, that's what they put on me, that's how I wasn't taken away. Q: Yeah. A: So, I'm not going to take it off because if anything happens, I am a nurse. I am useful for something, you know, and I was useful for something because I did help an awful lot there, you know. Because they sent back from the, from the Front some hundred and thirteen uh, young men who were without arms and without legs and uh, we had to feed them. This was already the Jews made that, that was Jewish already in the ghetto. That, the ghetto had its own policemen... Q: Oh, I see. A: and their own nurses and they brought back uh, from the Front. I don't know how it happened but they brought back some hundred and fourteen, as I say uh, young men who were sick. Q: German or Jewish or what? A: Jewish. That was a ghetto. Q: Jewish. Ghetto, all right. A: Ghetto, just Jews. Q: Okay. A: The Germans came in constantly to scare, and to look around, but there was a, a... As I say, your own little city, the Jewish ghetto. We were not supposed to go out of the ghetto and uh, they had some community kitchens there in the ghetto. You know, Jews they'll be able to survive somehow if it's given a little chance. Q: Any synagogues or... A: Any... No... No, there's no life. I mean, that was not a normal life, there was constant bombing. Q: Yeah. A: You were just trying to survive, to live. No way to live there. It was war times, you know. Uh, they were coming in constantly. And then, finally the, the bombing was so heavy that the carrots went and the water went and the electricity went. We didn't have even a chance to take the dead people out of the basement because there was a bombing, constant bombing. So, we were without water, without electricity, without food together with the dead people in a basement for months. And the little food... I don't remember how it happened that we had, but I never ate it, I always put it under my pillow for tomorrow and tomorrow I never found it. Q: Mhm. A: Somebody else found it. I never learned. I didn't forgive myself to eat that little food what was left, thinking about that day, tomorrow I will be more hungry and tomorrow won't be even that much. But there was people and I wasn't, wasn't even angry and I'm not angry today because I know when it's about your life, you just, you're just not a human being sometimes. Certain people just live day to day, just like animals. Title: Hungarian Soldiers and Nazis Q: You mentioned before that the Hungarians soldiers were sometimes human beings. A: Very good. Q: But were the German Nazis ever human beings? Did you ever see Nazis who were human beings. A: I don't know if they were Nazis, I saw German soldiers. Q: Oh. A: You know, there is a difference between... Q: Sure. A: the Nazis and the soldiers... Q: Sure. A: because the soldiers already lived through and they were coming back from the front or something in huge trucks and they saw, as I say, all these people. And it happened that they threw down something from the, from the trucks and we picked them up and we ate them. I was never with a German Nazi who would be a Nazi. I never encountered that. Q: Yeah. A: I was rather with the Hungarians, the Hungarian officers. And as I, as, as you see from my story that I always had for some reason, I don't know why, and this is a, a, a Jewish feeling, especially for people who went through this hell, why me and how come that I had a gorgeous sister and I had a, a, a lovely brother—I'm not talking about my gorgeous uh, mother and my lovely father—and they were all... And my cousins and, and my friends and everybody who was better and, and more deserving than I was, and I am here. It's just fate, it's just sheer fate. Q: But from your story it seems like part of the reason uh, why you were saved is because you were a beautiful girl. A: Yes, but I wasn't the most beautiful girl in the world. I mean, there, I'm sure that there were thousands of beautiful girls who were killed. Q: Yeah. A: It just happened that I was at the right time that one of the Nazis, I don't know how come, he could have raped me, he could have done anything to me, anything and he ne... As I said, he kissed me once and that was it. And if I tell my story nobody would believe it because maybe if I would hear it from somebody I wouldn't believe it either. Q: Yeah. A: Because Jewish girls were taken as uh, prostitutes and they were uh, experimenting with them and doing anything and you couldn't do nothing, I mean nothing, because you just can't. You, you ask how come that you went and how come you didn't uh, do anything uh, against... You, you could not. Sometimes there are circumstances that you just can't do nothing about. Q: Yeah. A: You just let yourself go. But, but certain days some, some sixth sense who told me I should go to that older officer there and ask him that I can't put my shoes on. I'm sure other girls were not able to put their shoes on their feet. Q: Yeah. A: And I went and I... And as I tell you, I am not pushy and I never was pushy. I never could fend for myself. It just somebody... I was a shy person, I still am a shy person. How did I go to this young man and say, tell him that I saw your picture at Louisa's, at Aunt Louisa's house. It just somebody would tell me what to do. In my whole existence there, some... somebody was higher, something told me what to do. It never came from myself, I don't think so. It's just unbelievable, you know. So, I was a beautiful girl, as a young girl. Today I can say it because it didn't even happen to me for such a long time ago. But there were many of them and they didn't survive. In our city it was very famous for, for their girls, Hungarian girls, beautiful girls, well-dressed, intelligent beautiful girls. How many came back? Not too many. And those two girls were killed. A lovely one was a piano teacher. She was worth more maybe than I was. And that other young woman, who I had to tell her mother where her daughter uh, lies and she went after the war. Because everybody knew about this case, because, as I say, there were hundreds of girls there in that camp, so they knew, they saw me and I came back. And they knew about it. Q: Mhm. A: that I came back. And how did that get that, that poor girl's mother to me and asked well, what happened to her daughter and, and, and where is her daughter. I went and I showed her where her daughter is buried. I don't, I don't reme... yeah, I think her husband was killed too. The other one didn't have a husband. So, it just... That was written for me. The only, only child of my parents who survived this. That's it. Title: Budapest Ghetto 2 Q: Now you were talking about the ghetto. A: The ghetto was a terrible thing. First of all, we thought that they are going to put bombs. They are always saying, what is ??? it's something where they put under it, it blows up the whole thing. Q: Mines? A: Mines. Constantly, they are putting mines under the ghetto. There was one, there wasn't one. I was in one, let's see, I was in one part of the building where I was, I was helping this young man doing everything, whatever they had to do. You know what? They took people out from the insane asylum and they brought them into the ghetto. And there was a gentleman, as I remember back, a most, a most handsome, tall, elegant looking white-haired gentleman who I was always playing... He was always giving tea, afternoon tea. I sat down with him and I was serving, pretending because we didn't have... Q: Yeah. A: tea. I took him to the bathroom, a young girl, I never saw anything like it. I took his business out and I helped him, helped him out. I did everything. Nothing was too much for me to do. It was just... I saw people from one minute to the other go mad. Going into the fields when I was working there with the, at the, those, those camp. People who arrive, let's say in their forties, fifties uh, black-haired handsome men. If uh, three hours later with snow-white hair going completely mad. Completely losing himself. He didn't know where he is. Had to go into the fields to get him back. You don't know what things like this does to people. You know, we were locked in there with the, with the, from the insane asylum as I say, they didn't take them. They were very nice, they didn't shoot them but they just brought them into the ghetto, everybody was brought into the ghetto. They thought they are going to mine this ghetto under anyways, they are going to blow it up. Nobody ever thought that this ghetto is going to uh, survive or anything. It was just uh, but, but life went on, as I say. There was uh, there were moments when we were going into the, to those soldie... those uh, uh, young men who came back and we were making little plays, we were singing for them, to them and doing little plays and entertaining them because they were lying, laying on their back, they couldn't move. We were trying to... I as a young girl I never knew how to cook, but we were constantly cooking. Everybody was telling recipes how to cook and what my mother did and what my... You know you have to cut out the reality and uh, talking, doing silly things and this helped a lot that we did that. So, you go into uh, one building and uh, and you're talking to them and you are going in for, for something into the other part of that building and two minutes later a bomb fell... falls there and you talked with them two minutes ago and they are all just, just splashed all over the place and nobody stays alive. And that, that happened an awful lot too. Now why didn't I stay with them, why did I go in the other room? Tell me. Why was it then when we went out uh, after a bombing and we were doing, because we didn't have nothing to dig with and we dug out somebody who was alive and well and cut on the forehead, which we washed and we put and the other one was completely demolished. It is just fate. Don't you think so? Title: Religious Beliefs Q: Well, this might be a good time to ask a question. Um, after your experiences, did you believe more in God or less in God? A: No, no. I was very disappointed. I lost, I, I never gave a, gave a thought. You know what, that's what I say I believe. I believe that I'm not supposed to uh, wake up my father or my mother when they are asleep because that's a sin. Q: Right. A: And there's somebody sits upstairs with a, with a big beard and writes down you're, if you are a good girl or are not a good girl. We lived together at one time with a judge and they didn't have a kosher household and they were eating ham and all these things and I went there everyday and they wanted to give me. And I said I can't have it, I just have to ask first. And they went out and they said, your father or your uncle said you can eat it. I ate it. You know, I... I don't know, it just uh, I never thought about too mu... too many things to believe in God. It was no other way that you don't, there's, there no other way, I mean I learned to uh, as I say, religious classes and I knew the history of the Jewish history. And I was, I, I wasn't... I, I was aware that I'm a Jewish girl and that's it. I always believed my parents had to do. When there was the holidays and my father went to temple and she, she too... he took off the piece of the ??? and he said, now girl you say that. And I learned in private lessons. You know, in Europe the girls are not as important in the Jewish education. You know, if you can, a little bit read Hebrew and you go to temple in the holidays and you light the candles on Friday evening and you keep a reasonable, a reasonably kosher household, which is not uh, then you are fine. Q: Mhm. Title: Going Home A: And that's how I was brought up, this is fine. But uh, that was just, just normal. But after the war, when I went back home and uh, I didn't kno... neither my mother or my father nor my sister... Yeah, in Budapest after the war when the Russians came in already... And I, there was a special um, office where whoever came back and knew that somebody's alive wrote their name down. You know that if you were in Budapest you could go to that building and find the, the blackboard and see names who's signed in there and who is alive and who is not alive. And that there were no streetcars and there was nothing after the war. And everyday I walked miles and miles and miles and I never found nobody. Even then I didn't know that I'm going to have nobody. You know, then I, then I went back home, which is another story, but this is already after the war story. That's a long story, took me, I don't know, two weeks or ten weeks to get home in, in cattle cars and everything. And I went back home and our, our home was completely ruined, the, the electric wires pulled out from the wall and the garden dug up and, and everything was, was put away ever... I wasn't home, I didn't know my husband came home when I was in Budapest. He went, on leave he went home to our hometown and he went to my parents home. And my mother and... had very nice jewelry and his mother. And so my mother said, "Look Ernie, bring your jewelry. We have up in the attic thousands of bricks, but one brick you can take out and that's a very good hiding place, you'll put the jewelry there." And my mo... my husband said that time if the war is going to be over I'm going to marry Olga. So, my mother said I don't know what's going to happen to us if we are going to stay alive or not. At least she should have that much if she comes home. That she should have some to start a life with, so here is the jewelry. And uh, so we went back. My husband ??? when he came back he got sick and he didn't go right away. When I went back home, when my trouble started already, he was home. His trouble was finished. He came back to Beregszász and already he was at home when I was just taken away that time. I was taken away in October and I came back in April, so he was home by then. But when I came home and we went there, there was nothing there. The heck with it, I don't care. So, there was nothing there, nothing. Uh... Q: They even found the jewelry in the brick? A: Yes. But how, I wouldn't know to this day because thousands of bricks, I don't know. There was a huge... I had that uncle in, in uh, I had one uncle, one man in the family on my mother's side, he was a physician in the town and he came back. And he went because he, he remembered they put up in the attic there were big planks of planks and two planks you could move away and under the plank there was a place. So, they put that, sealed that and those heavy big silver candlesticks and everything. He went there, because I di... I wasn't home. I didn't even know about the jewelry, just my husband told, my mother told my husband. When he went there everything was taken. The whole garden was dug up. Everything was dug up, there was nothing, so... That time I didn't care about these things. Who cares about these things? I want to tell, I mentioned the ring to you which I carried in all, all through the war and all my, my, my happenings there. And one day when I came back after the war I went to that Swedish house and I found the lady, this Mrs. Geiger who I lived with, who she took me in. I found her and we went back to our apartment and there was a huge window ball, huge one and we put some papier-mâché like that and we put in the window and we went and we found a little stove and we put the chimney out there because the whole Budapest, every window was done like that because the bombings broke everything, the chimney. And I took a little wagon and I went all over in the city to find food because we were carving the dead horses on the streets to be able to eat because there was a complete bombed out city with no food, with nothing. So, I went and there were already started clean... they started cleaning away the rubbles and they were making beans, big buckets of beans, the workers. So, I went there and I said that they could give me a little bit of the beans and when I took it home because I felt responsible for this lady. I was a young girl, I could go... I found once in a basement a big jar of, I thought it's oil. I thought that the whole world is mine. My G-d, what's she going to say, I have oil, I found oil. I go home, it was vinegar. So, one day I'm walking on the street and the man comes and he said, "Would you like to buy lentils?" I said, sure, he said... I said, sure—like my hand—he said, "Will you give me your ring for it?" I said, sure. I took off my mother ring, my mother's ring, which I'll never forgive for myself, not because of the value, but my mother's ring. But you were not normal that time, you couldn't think normally. I took off my ring, I gave the man uh, the ring, I took the lentils, I took it home. Three quarter of them were little stones. I almost broke my, my teeth with it. So, these things happened. And uh, it was just unbelievably hard to exist even after the war. With the food and the other one was when the Russians came in, they were raping right and left. I was going out and uh, they were still, there was street fights in Budapest. Street by street, the Russians took the, took the city street by street. On one street there were the Germans fighting and this street the Russians fight, but this was Russian...[interruption in interview]
Title: Russians in Budapest Q: Okay. A: Uh... Q: Street by street, they were fighting. A: Yeah, street by street, yeah. So uh, I went to, to look for this lady and I had to, you see, there, as I told you, there was the Danube and there was Buda and there was Pest. And Pest was already liberated and Buda wasn't liberated yet. And I went here and I wanted to cross the street to go. And then I saw that the, the bullets were coming from there hitting the, the building. So, I was afraid to cross the street. Q: Mhm. A: So, I went into a strange house and I went down in the basement and I laid down because everybody, every basement was with bedding and everything because lived down in the basement for months. So, I went down in the basement and I slept in the basement and when I got up in the morning, everybody was raped in the house because people already went up from the basement. You see, that time they went up already, the war was supposed to be over. They were just accidentally sometimes these uh, these bullets. Q: Yeah. A: But, so they went up in their houses. I couldn't, I didn't know nobody, I couldn't go up there. And I was afraid to, I was standing on the corner, and I couldn't... I told myself, oh my God, how am I going to cross the street? I lived through this, now I will cross the street. I'd never know when this bullet will come. I'm going to go down in the basement here and I'm going to sleep in the basement. And I slept through the whole night. Everybody was raped in that house by the Russians. So, even that time you have to, had to be afraid even that time to walk on the streets ??? One thing you had to tell those Russians that you have VD. Q: Uh-huh. A: If you told that Russian that you had VD then they were, they were so afraid of it, they left you alone, but they were barbarians. Complete barbarians. Every army who comes back after a fight like that, will do things like that, but they were... Q: Was this after the war already? A: Yeah. But they were very primitive anyway, they were washing dishes in the toilets, they didn't know. You'd see those, the trucks full of oriental rugs, paintings, pianos. Whatever they could put their hands on they were taking into Russian, robbing everything, robbing and raping. And it didn't matter if the woman is eighty or eighteen, it didn't make any difference. But you see you, you just had to be afraid even that time. And... Q: Even after the war. A: Oh yes, after the war. Q: Didn't you have your, any men folk to protect you? A: Well, I... At the, in the, in the ghetto where I was, when I said that they came back those hundred and thirteen uh, young men came back by the name of Dr. Sebany, that was his name. And we became very good friends. As a matter of fact, not just friends, but we fell in love with each other. And when the war was over he took me to his parents and he was a, a lawyer and he was a... After the war they established the government and unfortunately he was stupid enough because that was a communistic government already, he became a, a big shot there and, uh... But before that, when we, when the Russians came in, he said I wouldn't have where to go, I mean, I wouldn't have where to go before I found this, this uh, when I came up from the basement, from the ghetto, I mean, this lady wasn't from the ghetto. He took me to his parents' home and the parents were very nice to me, so I lived with, with his parents. And then the government, there wasn't one building in Budapest where the gov... government could establish something, so they went down to Deblitz and that was a smaller town, which wasn't hit so hard with bombing. So, they had that government there. And he was killed after the war, which I found out later. He was killed by, by the Russians. He was put... taken in jail. Remember in Yu... Yugoslavia didn't want to, people didn't want to belong to this communistic... And he went to Budapest and this young man was uh, waiting for him with red carpet and giving the treatment and the, the communistic government didn't like that and they put a lot of them in jail. This government ??? and he was killed after the war. So, I was there, but I still, I mean, I couldn't be, I, I wanted to find this, this lady, I wanted to know if she's alive. Q: Yeah. A: She was the only thing who belonged to me that time, so I went out daily to look for her. Fi... I found her, you know. As a matter of fact, when I didn't go back that night they almost went crazy worrying over me, what happened to me. But then I went next morning, I told them what happened to me. And then I found out that my husband is—he wasn't my husband, but—I, I went home and uh, I wanted to find out who I belonged more to, to my husband or to this young man. But my heart somehow told me that he knew my parents, and he told my mother that he's going to marry me and going to take good care of me. And I thought that this is a piece of some... something in my life that my mother knew and my mother was associated with. If I would have married this other young man there would be no connection to my family, no nothing. And anyways, he was killed. Maybe I would have been killed with him too. Q: Right. A: So, that's what happened. Title: Liberation Q: Now you said you were in the ghetto for a while. You didn't discuss when you were liberated. When were you liberated from there? A: Yes, liberated. Oh, maybe in... [Asking husband] When was the ghetto liberated? In February? Husband: I don't know, I wasn't there. A: I know you weren't there. I don't know, in February or January. No, in February, I think. Q: What year? A: In nineteen forty, forty... [Asking husband] Nineteen forty what? Husband: 1945. A: 1945? Okay, 1945. That was a terrible thing when we came out of the, of the basement. You know, big windows, display windows where you had beautiful dresses. Dead people were standing there like, like these dummies here in the window with the clothes on, frozen. When you went, you had to be careful because frozen bodies were on the street all over, from the bombings and for every... from everything else. And uh, a few, the people were running opening from the ghetto to stores uh, breaking... if there was any window left—there wasn't too much left—running into stores where there food, you know. They almost killed themselves with food because when you don't eat for months and months... Q: That's right. A: you don't eat. You very gradually, you'll kill yourself. Q: Many people died from that. A: That's right. They were bringing big buckets of chocolate. This young man decides to tell you, but he was taking good care of me very carefully. He didn't let me touch nothing. I was standing there drooling. I couldn't touch anything. The girls went on the street breaking... They were, boys were breaking into uh, stores with circles, circles were flying out the window, I never got one. He said, not you, you're not going to go out on the street. I wasn't supposed to go out on the street. He was one of the policemen too. Because as I say, the established police, so he was... He even got this, this ticket watching. So after the war, war, you had to be, although you were liberated, but you had to be very, very carefully. You had to go very, very carefully into normal life because as normal as it was. Q: Yeah. Title: Liberation 2 A: You couldn't eat, you couldn't... There was nothing, as I tell you, as I say that the people were carving the frozen horses, which was very good because they were frozen. Q: Oh. A: But already March came and started thawing a little bit and the stench and the, the terrible thing. I don't know how come that... And, and, and uh, uh, lice. When I got home after ten days of cattle car and I got off a few miles before my hometown in a peasant's house and I washed my face and I washed myself a little bit that when I get into my city I should look like a human being. And I met the first two young men on the main street and I ask if Ernie is home, my husband is home. He said, yes and he's home and he lives in this and this house. And I went into that house and my husband didn't feel good that time. He had, he had on his silk pajamas and a white bed and a house with, with uh, oriental rugs. This, I can't, I can't tell you that shock after coming home from all this and to see a room where there was three walls and windows and white bedding and pajamas and I might... Suit was moving from the lights. So, we took my, my suit right away and we burned it. And a few days later they had a market what they took away from the Jews they had open markets, they were selling it. You know, they didn't want to sell it to the Jews, very few Jews came back, but they were selling. And I went back and I saw a pure silk pleated skirt with a blouse which was mine and I bought it. And I bought it back and I wore it. And, and then I was home for about a week and my husband said that we are, we have to wait for a week until we get married because take out the license. We had to take out the license and I was given food and I had a clean white bed. Nothing ever, no touching, nothing, because my husband said we'll wait for the wedding. And we waited for the wedding, which was just a week. And we uh, I was all set, I went to the beauty shop... I want you to know they deliced me. And I had, his sister had a suit, one of the Gentile friends gave back a suit and I bought the suit and we didn't have a rabbi. He came, a shochet came. Right before the wedding I had a ??? made in the room. And he said, "Were you at the mikva?" I said, "Mikva? No." No wedding. We have to find a religious woman in the city and they are going to... We had a beautiful mikva in Budapest, I want you to know a beautiful swimming pool with steps, white steps going on into the swimming pool and beautiful separate bathrooms all around it, modern, beautiful heated. They heated the whole mikva. They found a lady, the lady is here today. She took me to the mikva, she put my head under the water three times and I came down like a wet chicken and I had to go to the beauty shop again and they made my hair and they made a wedding. And that's how it was. So, I am sure that there were lot and lot of other incidents, which I don't know remember back... Q: Yeah. A: or I, right now I don't remember back. But in, all, all together... Title: After the War Q: What did you and your husband do after the war? A: Oh, after the war. Well, he was...Wait a second. [Asking husband] What did you do after the war at home? Husband: I was ??? and head of the... A: I know. Husband: Jewish Council. A: Yeah, the ??? the head of the Jewish, Jewish Council, I know. They were taking the few Jews who came back, they wanted to make them comfortable, to get them furniture, to get them food, to get them everything. And then there was a girl who used to deliver newspaper to us. Husband: Are you writing a novel? A: She was a gypsy girl, she was a gypsy girl. Q: Mhm. A: Used to deliver newspaper to our house and once we meet in the, on the street and she says, "Olga, you know, if you want to find your parents' furniture it is here and here and here." So, we went to that place. I didn't need the furniture because he had a furnished home already. But it was my... I thought if I could get my mother's bedroom. Whatever bedroom I have I don't care but I'll have that bedroom. I found the bedroom at a Gentile home but they, they, they said it isn't ours. And the committee, there was another Jewish committee, a, a regular committee there. But they didn't, they, they said, you have no rights to that furniture. They didn't want to give back Jewish furniture. Q: Yeah. A: They didn't. So, I told my husband, all right, I just wanted to have it for sentimental reasons. I don't need that furniture. It's not worthwhile to start with them. I don't want to be noticed too much, I'm, noticed too much. I am home, it's enough punishment for them that we are home. And my husband said, you know... Yeah, we went back to Budapest. We went back to Budapest because this lady is, this, this uh, Mrs. Geiger I lived with, she, she, she said that she wants to meet Ernie very much and uh, if there's any possibility I should bring him home and, to, to her home and interview him to her. So, we went back to Budapest. It was quite difficult, but we went. And we stayed in Budapest for awhile and we went to visit this uh, young man of mine who lived there, who was a big shot that time in the government and my husband and I went there. He lived with the Interior, Minister of the Interior. And we went there and he told my husband, "Look, you, I, we can give you such a high position here, you are an attorney, you can have any kind of a high position here, it would be beautiful. And uh, you don't have to worry about your wife because I am honorable and after you married her, she's your wife." But my husband said, "You know, Andy, if... I'd rather be a truck... I want to go to the United States and I'd rather be a truck driver in the United States than the President of orga... any kind," he didn't want to take any kind of a position there. And then we went back home and then we thought that Czechoslovakia is going to be Czechoslovakia again at home. But all of a sudden the Russians came into my little country, which was Hungary before the First World War and it was Czechoslovakia and then became Hungary again when the Germans came. All of a sudden, we became Russians. Q: Hm. Title: Leaving Hungary A: So, he said, "No way we can stay in this country, I don't want to live in Russia and I don't want to live under any Russian government. We are going to go away." He said, I'm going to go out to practice because he, he finished uh, law in, in Prague, he went to Prague University. We are going to go to Czechoslovakia, we are going to be in Prague and then I'm going to apply for a visa in Prague and we are going away then. So, he left me at home because he went off to Prague to, to find an apartment and find something to take me some, there. And then all of a sudden, the whole city said that Ernie Adler left his wife, run away. And I'm sitting out on the patio one day—it was summertime already—and all of a sudden, I look back and I see a huge truck with my carpets and with my furniture and everything in it. And I go there and I say, "What's happening, what happened, why, what are you doing to me?" He said, "Go to the mayor, and it's none of your business." And they took my whole furniture. I was outside sunning myself. I didn't because they came in the front entrance. I didn't know what's going on, I didn't hear nothing. So, I go there and I tell him that Mr. So and So while I was sitting there, they took the furniture away from the house. What, what happened, what is it? Well your husband run away and he left you here, he's not going to come back for you. I said, "What are you talking about? My husband, I said, my husband has a sister in Prague and he went to see if his sister is alive, he's coming back." So, they brought the furniture back. They did bring the furniture back and my husband arrived back, but he met somebody on the station and he said, "Ernie, I think you should go back, some back way because there is something against you and then, and then there is something against you when the Russians came in, then there is something against you" because they took a lot of Jewish boys away after the war already into uh, into Russia, and they are still in Russia today. Q: Yeah. A: So, he didn't, he wanted to avoid that. So, he came back, we were lucky in this, in this way too. He came back and uh, we left one evening with my uncle, came back too, to my hometown, this only uncle that I had. And we said goodbye there to him and we went to Prague, but before we went to Prague they had some discussions on the station, some interrogation or something there. I don't know how or what his department... He knows it better. And we went up to Prague and, and I had a cousin... Such, such interesting things. I had a cousin in Beresak, a young lawyer. And he was a little bit um, you know, his boss was a communist. They had some kind of fancy communist there, some professors from high school and from ??? So, he became a little bit pink and when the Hungarians came in he got scared and he went to London. And he started working in a glass factory in London. And the boss came in and he said, you know, you are not the type of a worker, I think I can take, take you into the office and you'll help me in the office. And in the office he met the daughter of the owner of the factory and married that girl. But that was, I didn't know anything about it, I was just a youngster when he left. And we are standing at the station, the way to go to Prague in the Tartar Mountains and all of a sudden, I see a English soldier jumping out the window and I tell my husband, this looks like my cousin Bela. And I look up and this was my cousin Bela who jumped out of the window there. He was coming from another train. Q: Uh-huh. A: And the two trains stopped. He was going back to my hometown to see if his parents stayed alive or his sister or somebody. He came home and we went to, we went up to Prague. And we met there. As a matter of fact, I just got a letter from him last week. He lives in uh, near London. So, I haven't seen him in ages. I would never think, I just saw, I told my husband I saw an English soldier jumping out of the window, it looked like my cousin. We got off the train and because this train stopped there for about two hours, and we went into a restaurant and it was a most beautiful experience after all this time. We went up to Prague and my husband uh, found, he was a... Oh my God, I lose words, you know, from my mind. Q: Yeah. Title: Leaving Hungary 2 A: A big export-import furrier, the biggest in Czechoslovakia, he was their lawyer, I'd say the legal department. He was doing, he used to go out to shows to, to Paris and to ??? and all those places. And we lived in Prague. I had my little girl in Prague, my daughter, my older daughter. And uh, we waited in Prague, but that wasn't easy either because it constantly came the news that whoever is uh, comes from the part which is Russian part, they are going to send them back. And I'm standing, I remember standing on the balcony on the sixth floor where we lived and I told my husband—I was pregnant with my daughter—I said, if this happens I'm going to jump off this balcony because I'm not going to go through this again. And we got our visa. And we came out in June. In January my husband enrolled in the Detroit College of Law and studied four years, worked daytime at ??? Industries as an unemployment compensation manager and studied at night. And he got his law degree before he was a citizen with a special permit from the Dean of Detroit College of Law and honor roll. Q: Hm. A: And, and then finally he was assistant attorney general four years for the State of Michigan. And now he retired last year and he's doing private, some legal, with juveniles. Q: Sounds like he's a very accomplished man. A: Yeah, and that he is. He spoke beautiful English when we came here. And, uh... Q: He speaks very beautiful English now. A: Yeah. Q: Okay. A: It was a long story. Title: Conclusion Q: Well, it was uh, very rewarding, very interesting and I'm sure many people will benefit from it. Um, how did you spell your name before World War II? A: K-e-s-z-t-e-n-b-a-u-m. Q: And that's your last name? A: That's right. Q: And your first name was always Olga? A: O-l-g-a. Q: Okay um, now, do you know what your citizenship number is by any chance? A: My citizenship, no, but I can look it up because I have it upstairs ??? Q: No, that's okay. That's all right, if you don't happen to know it, that's okay. Now do you uh, also do you happen to know anyone else who might be interested in... A: Having this ??? Q: having the interview, yes. A: I had one friend who was, but she unfortunately just, a terrible thing happened ??? she got a heart attack. Q: I'm sorry to hear that. A: It's terrible, I was there with her. No, I really don't. Q: Okay. If you think of anybody you can give me a call, I'll leave you my phone number, okay. If you think of anybody later. And do you have any documents, papers or memorabilia? Anything that uh, you might have available for uh, the museum and the people would come by later and talk to you about. Maybe they could get a copy or something like that. Do you have anything that you would be able to... A: I have just my pictures. Q: Just your pictures, okay.