We grew up by your side
But we could not be blind to the memories
We saw you
But we could not see what you say at night.
The little we could do, was to listen to you
To the cries, to be astonished, to listen to the silence you imposed on yourselves.
In our documentation factory
We recorded parts of your experiences.
And from them we humbled
Lessons, thoughts, details
That will become our posession…
The interviews were arranged by Ganzach Kiddush Hashem in Bnei Brak, coordinated by Tova Joskowitz
And in conjunction with the Bais Yaakov Seminar of Jerusalem, arranged by Yehudit Golan
Dedicated to the Holocaust survivors of Hungary.
* * *
Oberland and Unterland, Marmorosch, and Zakarpatska – every name has a sound and a smell, and many many memories.
Jews of cities and Jews of towns, extreme wealth next to poverty, communities that were Orthodox and those who feared G-d communities, and on the other side Neolog (Reform) Jews and those who were further away…
The hard-working housewives cooked in their kitchens food fit for kings: “Toltat Kapusto”, “Zserbo Cakes”, “Cholomada”, “Polachintes” and “Rokutkrumpli”, invested their souls in the care of the house and maintained close family ties, even when their relatives were far away, because “blood is thicker than water”…
“Until the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled the area,” tells Rabbi Yitzchak Leuchter, a native of the city of Neuhasel (Nove-Zamky). “The Hungarian part, which also included Transylvania, Slovakia, etc., was more religious, and many yeshivas were based there. The Pressburg yeshiva, which was among the main ones, numbered about five hundred young men, but only young men who had already completed learning Shas (all 6 volumes of the Mishna) and Poskim (rabbinic decisors) were admitted to it. Another large yeshiva was in Unsdorf, as well as in Debrecen, followed by yeshivas in Galanta, Kaliv (Nagykallo), Szerdahely, Surany, Nitra, Sopron, and more, and of course in Budapest where there were several yeshivas.”
“Also in the Carpathian region, which was annexed back into Hungary before the war, there were famous yeshivahs such as the yeshivahs in Munkasz, Selesh, Spinka, Satmar, Groswardein (Oradea) and more.”
“The southernmost yeshiva in Hungary was in the city of Zenta; two important communities, Ashkenazi and chassidic, functioned there. Incidentally, the Satmar Rebbe began his reign as rebbe there.”
“He was accepted as the city rabbi, and also function as the head of the rabbinical court and the head of the yeshiva.”
“In the city where I grew up, Nove Zamky, the city’s rabbi, Rabbi Yosef Meir Tigerman, served as head of the yeshiva, and older students who wanted to become rabbis studied there. I wandered 12 kilometers away, to the city of Surany, where Rabbi Yehuda Meir Frei was the rabbi and head of the yeshiva. Rabbi Frei did not need a salary from the community. As the owner of a sugar factory he was wealthy, and thus devoted all his time to the yeshiva, and his eldest son filled his place and answered the questions of the townspeople. In the good times, 300-400 students studied at the yeshiva, and the innovation at the place was that they didn’t eat “teg” like in all other yeshivas, rather, there was a special stew house for the yeshiva students. On the other hand, there was no dormitory, so the boys rented rooms, each according to the means available to him, and we lived in them. I lived with the wonderful Tauber family, and four times a day I walked to the yeshiva that was some distance away…”
(Personal interview on 3 Sivan 5664 [23 May 2004] with Rabbi Yitzchak Leuchter)
“My grandfather came from an entirely different place…” told Moshe Golan from the town of Bonyhad. “He was a young man there named Mordechai Aharon, and since the law in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where he lived, only allowed the eldests in each family to get married, my grandfather left Moravia and moved to Hungary. He settled in Bonyhad (in Oberland), where he married a daughter of the Kritzler family, and changed his surname Aharon to a new, more Hungarian name: Galandauer. He even made sure to write home and inform the family of his new name…”
“In the town there were two Jewish schools, one that was Neolog and the other that was Orthodox. Six classes were held there, with two teachers going between them sometimes teaching one class and sometimes teaching another. The studies took place during both the morning and the afternoon. As a side point, it is necessary to mention the Neolog rabbi did not eat meat that was slaughtered in the Neolog way, rather, he only ate meat slaughtered by the orthodox butcher…”
“At the age of 12, when I completed the six classes of elementary school, I began studying at the yeshiva next to my home. The Head of the yeshiva was Rabbi Frentzoiz, and the studies took place in the home of a grain merchant named Marcus, who allocated a special room in his house for the studies. At five in the morning, we had to report to the yeshiva, otherwise the gate would be closed and we could not enter again. Later, I moved to a yeshiva in the city of Szombathely. The situation at home was difficult, but nevertheless my older brother, who was already working, managed to send me a small amount of money for various expenses.”
‘The yeshiva students ate lunch at different homes every day. The housewives, who had warm Jewish hearts, tried with all their might to provide a rich meal when their guest yeshiva boy would be in their home. On the rest of the days, the students ate much simpler food that was mainly based on beans and potatoes… In many homes bread was not seen at all during the week, due to the high price of flour.”
“We never dreamed of a suit like the ones the yeshiva boys have today; I was very happy when a suit was made for me from one of the suits sent by my elder brother from abroad…”
“My uncle, my father’s brother, Avraham Batchi, also lived in Szombathely. Avraham Batchi was fondly remembered for the sweets he always remembered to bring to the children, after all, without him – we wouldn’t know the taste of chocolate…”
(Personal interview on 2 Iyar 5764 [24 April 2004] with Moshe Golan)
“We didn’t have a Jewish school, so we studied in the Hungarian school,” says Mrs. Chana Goldberger from the town of Nagyecsed. “However, we were proud of our Jewishness. We were surrounded by Hungarian friends and gentile teachers, and no one bullied us at all. Even on Shabbat, we had to go to school. We wore our best shirts and went out with our heads held high to study. The gentile lady, Erji Neini, accompanied us and carried our books, which was forbidden for us. At the end of the school day, the gentile lady would come to take them home. Of course we only listened to the lesson, and then, in the tests – we were always got the best scores…”
“Once a week, Mr. Abram, the Jewish teacher who also taught general studies, taught a bit of Jewish studies, and during summer vacations a teacher from Bais Yaakov came to the town, and she was the one who taught us the language of prayer…”.
(Personal interview on 5 Iyar 5764 [27 April 2004] with Mrs. Chana Goldberg)
In Miskolc, the second largest city in Hungary, the Jews were more established.
“Despite there being an Orthodox community,” told Yomtov Lipa Friedman, “ours, the ‘fearful ones,’ had a separated community that was called ‘Kehilat Yere’im – Sefardim,” and there were prayed the ‘sefard’ version of prayers. Rabbi Reinitz was the first rabbi of the community, followed by Rabbi Chaim Yankel Gottlieb, the author of the responsa ‘Yagen Yaakov.’ Following Rabbi Gottleib, his son was appointed rabbi, and then the story ends…”
“In the community known as the Orthodox community, there were many who broke Shabbat. Many Shabbat eves, my father z”l walked between the shops and asked the owners to close on Shabbat. ‘He who throws Shabbat out of his shop – the shop will throw him out’, he used to quote the saying of Rabbi Reinitz…”.
(Personal interview – Ganzach Kiddush Hashem – with Yomtov Lipa Friedman)
“Hajdúszoboszló is a well-known healing town, in the Hajdu region of Hungary,” tells Mrs. Gita Roz about her childhood town. “In fact, this district is the most Hungarian and where the authentic Hungarians lived. As a spa town with hot springs, Hajdúszoboszló attracted many tourists; These came mainly in the summer months. My parents made a living from a large restaurant, and even rented out about eight rooms to different families. Every summer the restaurant was full, and my mother worked hard to prepare meals for two hundred or more diners, who loved her wonderful dishes.”
“As a little girl I walked around among the guests, examining them and following them with curiosity. One day, when I was about four or five years old, my father used to say, when one of the guests asked my father to give her the bill for the meals she had eaten there, the lady began to count and my father took notes, and then a thought came up. I then turned to her and asked: ‘Ma’am, what about the things you put in your basket?”
“In the summer and during holidays, we would spend time at my Feldman grandparents home in the city of Puspokladany. The flour mill and the tavern owned by grandparents provided ample sustenance, and the wonderful summer days were always accompanied by the tunes of the gypsies, who liked to come to the city because of the many hotels there.”
“All the cousins stayed together, like one big family, playing, chatting and frolicking, while our grandfather studied Torah in the background. Our grandmother also had a job for us: she shared an important mitzvah with us. Every week, on Thursday, there were huge pots steaming in her kitchen. Our grandmother prepared very large quantities of food, and then packed everything in baskets for the city’s poor. We, the children, were sent with the baskets full of goodies to the homes of the poor. And I, who was small and could not carry such a heavy basket for a long distance, was sent to the family across the street.”
“It was hard for me to bear the damp smell of their house, and so that they wouldn’t beg me to come in, I would place the basket on the doorstep, knock hard on the door, and then – I would run like the wind, at full speed home…”
(Personal interview on 8 Iyar 5764 [30 April 2004] with Mrs. Gita Roz)
“My father, Shmuel Nisim Berkowitz, was a chassidic G-d fearing Jew,” tells Matityahu Berkowitz from Hajdunanas. “As a chassidic Jew, he travelled to the Rebbe Yeshaya of Kerestir, a town not far from us, or to the Belzer Rebbe. At the time of the First World War, my father was conscripted to the Hungarian army. He often told about the difficulties in the army, and about the long period he was in Russian captivity. He experienced terrible suffering, and despite everything, my father was careful not to eat non-kosher food. We were a blessed family of nine children, and mother was of course always busy…”
(Personal interview on 12 Iyar 5764 [4 May 2004] with Matityahu Berkowitz)
“Vibrant Jewish life also existed in Budapest, the capital. One of the leaders of the community, Philip Freudiger, was extremely rich and owned many properties. Another Jew, named Goldberg, owned a textile factory. Many other Jews ran successful trading houses or lucrative stores, and on Saturdays and holidays this was especially noticeable, when the doors of many stores were locked, or as they half-jokingly called it then – Yuda (Jewish) Pest.”
“We lived in Budapest,” tells Mrs. Tziporah Fisher née Kalman. “For our family’s sustenance, my father worked in my grandfather’s, his father-in-law’s, store. In the store, they sold porcelain and glassware to wholesalers. The work was difficult because most of the dishes were bought by restaurants, and it was necessary to bring the boxes of goods to them using tricycle carts with a suitable surface. Until late at night we would help my father count the little money that came from the restaurants. Then we wrapped the coins in rolls and my father brought them to the bank.”
“We lived in a large city buildings in which approximately 20 families lived. On every floor, there was an outer hallway, and the entire building surrounded an empty courtyard.”
“When I was a young girl, around four or five years old, I asked once to go inside my gentile neighbours’ home, and for the first time I heard the yell: ‘Jew! Do not enter here!’ It was a kind of foreshadowing of the venom and hatred that would arrive in the years to come…”
“With the help of the blessed sewing machine, mother made sure we were well dressed. I will never forget how once, when we visited one of my aunts, a well-to-do acquaintance who came to visit urged her daughter to play with me, and whispered to her: ‘They must be very rich…’ This was because she saw my nice clothes. My aunt could not resist and told the lady that all of our clothes are made from old clothes, and then she proved it clearly by turning the garments inside out…”
“Although our financial situation was difficult, mother worked hard so that nobody would see it on us – the children!”
“In 1940, my mother passed away, 10 weeks after giving birth to my brother, today Rabbi Yitzchak Kalman, and I was 7 years old.”
(Ganzach Kiddush Hashem, Mrs. Tziporah Fisher)
“I had a happy childhood in Upor,” says Mrs. Chana Galandauer. “It was the beautiful home of my grandfather Shimon and grandmother Tzirel where I grew up, surrounded by love. My mother, who had difficulty recovering from the birth of the twins – me and my brother Yechezkel – handed me over to her parents at the age of two weeks, so that I would receive proper care. In Upor, in the district of Volgysegi Jaras, there were no Jews at all, only Swabians – Germans who settled there and spoke German. My grandmother, who was a true sociable person, ran a department store in the village that provided all household necessities such as aspirin, fabric, kerosene, cigarettes, glasses, and more.”
“My grandfather had the people of the village as guests, and as a child I often listened to the conversations and got the feeling that they always returned to the same topic: World War I…”
“On the side of the store, my grandfather also managed a flourishing farm, which supplied the household with food.”
“I spent hours in the company of my dear porcelain doll that was bought for me and the small furniture that my grandmother made for her, or playing games with the village girls. Sometimes I would go into the store. Then they would put me at the top of the ladder, so that I wouldn’t interfere with business. Of course I didn’t sit there quietly, and sometimes I fell from the top of the ladder into the egg crate…but my grandmother was never really angry with me.”
“In the village I did not feel any discrimination because of my Jewishness. I only knew that when I went to my friends’ houses, I was only allowed to eat fruit fruit. The gentiles were also aware of this, and they never made me do otherwise.”
“There was one and only time a gentile hissed a bad word at me. I was filled with anger, and the spicy paprika that was on the store shelf next to me was quickly and professionally transformed into an effective weapon after I threw it at the young gentile’s eyes. After my anger subsided, I was tormented by pangs of conscience. I was afraid that the boy would go blind. Fortunately for me, he could see well again, and the case was completely forgotten.”
“There was no minyan (prayer quorum) in our gentile village and we did not meet our religious needs there. Thus, the children learned in Bonyhad, next to our village, where we alo went for the High Holidays. Also during the days of Selichot (prayers said during the High Holiday season), my grandfather made sure to pray in the Bonyhad synagogue.”
“At the age of six, I returned to my parents’ home, but my grandmother’s home remained my second home, where I was received with love by my aunts, even after my grandmother passed away.”
“The cleanliness of the home was a serious matter. Every Thursday, I lay on the wooden flow and brushed it well. Every now and then I would apply a yellowish substance to the floor which would keep it smooth and protect it.”
“Another one of the special experiences of those days were the geese. Goose fat was an essential commodity in every home, because it was used as oil for all meat dishes. We would buy a goose and store it in a narrow place, so that it wouldn’t run around and waste energy. Twice a day, the goose was fed corn kernels, and after about four weeks, when it was fat enough, it was sent to slaughter. Then we would pray with all our hearts that it was not discovered to be unkosher! The main factor that would deem these geese unkosher was when a hole was found in the esophagus. If the esophagus was found to be punctured, we had to run and look for a gentile and sell him the goose so that the loss would not be too great.”
The girls who finished elementary school couod continue to high school. But these studies were very expensive and not everyone could afford to attend, and so a small school was opened in the house of my aunt Mrs. Leah Galandauer (née Kugler), born in Austria, who in her youth served as a teacher in Eisenstadt. I was privileged to study with her for free, due to being a relative, and that’s how we learned Hebrew, German and even the ‘Peleh Yoetz’ (a Jewish ethics book). On Saturday before noon, my aunt even taught a lesson on the weekly Torah portion for the girls of the town…”
(Personal interview on 8 Iyar 5764 [29 April 2004] with Mrs. Chana Galandauer)
The dire economic situation forced Moshe Golan from the city of Bonyhad to leave the yeshiva, and at the age of seventeen, he began working in a store selling firewood.
“When I brought the money to my father z”l, he said to me: ‘Moshe, take a bit of the money for yourself and buy what you need…’ but I never took any of the money.”
“More than once we had to distribute the bread moderately and sparingly,” recalled Matityahu Berkowitz of Hajdunanas. “The gentiles also began to harass us. One of my duties at home was to bring drinking water from the artesian well, which was not far from the synagogue. More than once, the gentile boys threw stones at me, and I would return home scared and sad.”
*
With the outbreak of war in Elul 5699 (Sept. 1939), Jewish refugees from Poland arrived in Hungary.
These remained as “immigrants”, until most of them were later deported (to Kamenets Podolsk), and handed over to the Germans.
“We knew that the situation in Poland was not good, but we had no idea of the dimensions of the Holocaust,” recounts Rabbi Yaakov Shlomo Gross of Grosswardein (Oradea), “We held a large fundraiser in the city to send food to the Jews of Poland, although we were doubted that all of the food would reach them and realized that some would be confiscated on the way by the Germans. We lived in a great illusion. We were sure that even if the Germans came to Hungary – we will stay where we are; Hungary will not let us be deported! The Jews were established and patriotic, the country was more or less democratic, but it was only an illusion…”
(Ganzach Kiddush Hashem, Survivor Testimony #49768, Rabbi Yaakov Shlomo Gross)
“Unfortunately we were drunk,” Mendel Einhorn of Mako also testified. “In 1940-1941, two Jewish refugees from Poland arrived in Mako. They snuck into the synagogue in the evening and slept in it, and the next morning they told the people how the Germans were killing the Jews, but no one wanted to believe them. This intoxication took its revenge on us until the end of the war!”
(Ganzach Kiddush Hashem in conjunction with Yad Vashem, Survivor Testimony #2532, Mendel Einhorn)
“In 1940, men from their teenage years to the age of 40 began to be conscripted for slave labour camps, the Munkatabor.”
*
“In 1940, my father was conscripted to the army,” tells Mrs. Chana Galandauer from Bonyhad. “My father was still of the age for conscription, and so he left home, dressed in a uniform. The place where my father was stationed was far from Bonyhad, and since the army did not provide kosher food, we sent him packages from home. My mother packed everything good for him, and despite the difficult situation we stuffed yellow cheese and sardines into the package – precious delicacies. The commander forced my father to share the apple cake, that my mother had specially baked for him, with the entire company…”
“Later, my father was released from the regular military service and transferred to the work companies, the ‘Munkatabor.’ This time the company was nearby. Among the young men who were recruited into these companies was the son of the town’s chief Rabbi Shlomo Yomtov Kraus, who was also the head of the community and was welathy from the brick and building materials factory that he owned. Young Kraus managed to bribe the superiors, and thus came to the city every Shabbat. I remember one Shabbat night, my father came with him. The joy at home was great, but it didn’t last long. After the Shabbat meal, when we were sitting in the yard and chatting pleasantly, loud knocks were heard on the gate. It was Kraus, who informed my father that there was no choice, they had to return to the camp…”
“Of course, when my father was drafted, our economic situation was very bad. We received a little money from the ‘Omja’ organization supported by the Joint. The organization, based in the capital city of Budapest, sent an allowance to families whose head was absent from home. I also went to work, and the sewing lessons I studied for three years proved to be very useful. From time to time, I was given delicate needlework by one of the wealthy families in town. I toiled at the needlework for many hours, and in my heart the hatred for the craft of sewing grew and grew, to the point that today I have completely forgotten how to do it.”
“In those difficult days, my twin brother, who was a student of the Pupa Yeshiva, was also recruited to Munkatabor.”
“In 1940, my father had already conscripted,” Mrs. Tzipora Fisher from Budapest recalls, “the conditions in the labor camp were not easy. I remember that many women knitted gloves for the conscripts to warm their hands, and also prepared highly concentrated jams to give them energy. Mom managed to earn a little money doing sewing work, but everything stopped when Mom gave birth to my brother. In honor of the circumcision, father received permission to come home. My mother was weak and sick, but my father had to return to the labour camp, leaving my mother on her sick bed in the hospital. Mother was thirty-six years old when she died, and then my father was called to come to the funeral…”
“After my mother passed away, my grandfather provided for us, despite his advanced age. We therefore had enough food at home. However, at school we met girls who had a very difficult situation at home. The teacher, seeing the hunger in their eyes, asked to help a little. That’s why every morning we all put our sandwiches to the side, with one place allocated for the dairy sandwiches and the other for the meat sandwiches, the ones that were smeared with schmaltz – goose fat. By ten o’clock the teacher managed to prepare sixty equal servings from the pile of sandwiches, and so everyone ate something…Later the six children were divided among their uncles in Budapest and other cities…”.
“All of my older brothers were drafted into the work companies,” recounts Matityahu Berkowitz of Hajdanunas. “One day, they received a vacation, and so Pinchas and Yossi, Moshe and Shiya returned home and sat with my father, mother, sisters and brothers at the table. I looked at this beautiful family, and suddenly a stream of pain passed through my heart, and a kind of strange feeling gripped me: this is the last time I will see them all together…”
“There were also converts in our work group in Ujszeged,” says Mendel Einhorn of Mako. “They wore a white band on their arm, which distinguished them from us, the Jews, who wore a yellow band. On one of the days, the converts gossiped about us saying that we do not eat the food of the army, due to our adherence to kashrut. We were in big trouble, because they checked and found that they were indeed right. So, I did something. As the commander of the group, whose order everyone had to obey, I turned to a convert named Sapir, a rich man who had connected with the gentile commanders and showered them with his money. I ordered him nothing less and nothing more than to clean the toilets himself. The spoiled rich man was seething and begging me to not make him do this, and he promised to give me anything I asked.”
“I turned to him angrily and asked: ‘Why did you slander us? Why does it bother you that we eat kosher food? If you want to be freed from the hard and unpleasant work, organize a kosher kitchen for us…’ And indeed, with the power of his money and connections, a kosher kitchen was arranged for us under the auspices of the Hungarian army, which operated until February 1944…”
“On the day after Yom Kippur 5704 (1943) we were drafted into the work companies,” recounts Moshe Golan of Bonyhad. “Since it was the beginning of winter, we equipped ourselves with warm clothing. Military clothes were not given to us, except for a beret and a yellow band on our sleeves. We were a group of ten young men from Bonyhad, all of whom kept Shabbat and Kosher. We left the house with the compassionate eyes of our parents accompanying us, sending treats with us… we didn’t forget to take our tefillin either of course.”
“We were taken to a large town called Pecs, where we were housed in a school and our job was to load and unload various things. In the morning, before the work day began, we would put on our tefillin and pray. We cooked our own food, so we that we could avoid eating non-kosher food. Our company commander was a decent man. He treated us humanely and we were even granted a special privilege, which was registered in the law but in most cases was not implemented at all: we were given a sum of money as pocket money, supposedly for buying clothing. In those days we took the matter for granted. However, later we learned that in most of the work companies, the commanders stole the money for themselves, and the people of Munkatabor did not see a single penny of it…”
“In 1943, the situation arose in which young people no longer wanted to get married,” testifies Rabbi Yomtov Lipa Friedman of Miskolc. “My father, who was saddened by the situation, printed leaflets in the printing house he owned with the names of male and female candidates and distributed them throughout Hungary. All of his work was done for the sake of G-d, as ‘what I (G-d) do for free, you should also do for free’ (Talmud). With the help of correspondence created as a result of the leaflets, my father was able to build homes even in these troubled days!…”
In Adar 5704 – March 19th, 1944 – the Germans entered Hungary…
“It was on a Sunday,” recalls Mrs. Chana Galandauer from Bonyhad. “We, as youth, had plans to have fun. The English planes flying somewhere in the sky did not worry us. Their goals were far more important than a town like Bonyhad. And so, I remember how I climbed an apricot tree in the yard to better see the wonderful airplanes, which never dropped a single bomb on us. And Hina, the owner of the house next door, suddenly came out pale as whitewash into the yard. She raised her eyes to the tree and quietly told me what she had just heard on the radio in her house: ‘The Germans have entered…'”
“It was in the month of Adar, right after the Purim holiday,” remembers Mrs. Tziporah Fisher from Budapest. “The Germans entered all of Hungary on March 19th, accompanied by airplanes, really like war. There was no one to fight against them, but nevertheless they came in with the full artillery, and immediately began the decrees…”
“The feeling of astonishment in the city was palpable,” recounts Matityahu Berkowitz of Hajdunanas. “We were afraid to leave the house, and we peeked through the windows to see what a German looked like… whether his appearance was like a person, or whether his face was like an animal’s. In fact, the Germans looked like people, but behaved like wild animals. As an eleven-year-old boy, I felt an inexplicable fear. What a threatening catastrophe hangs over our heads…”
Even then, in Adar 5704 (March 1944), most Hungarian Jews did not imagine the dimensions of the disaster at all. At most, they thought that they would be taken to labour camps, where they would stay until the end of the war.
“We were in a labour camp in Ujszeged,” tells Menachem Einhorn of Mako. “Across from us were warehouses full of weapons that belonged to the Hungarian army. An old and drunk guard guarded these warehouses, and if we had wanted we could have easily taken them over and with the help of this ammunition even blown up the bridges between Hungary and outside. If we had done this, the Germans would not have been able to transport Jews to Auschwitz for at least six months , but we were not aware of their diabolical plans! My mother talked all the time about escaping to Romania, something that was certainly possible, but father did not agree. ‘Whatever happens to all the Jews, will happen to us too,’ he said and we stayed where we were.”
“I also remember one of the farmers, a Righteous Gentile, who lived not far from Ujszeged. The man’s house was at the meeting point of the borders of Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania, and he helped the partisans a lot. With the help of the transmitter in his house he picked up the Russian broadcasts. One day he turned to me in pain and said to me: ‘Mendel, none of those who left came back… believe me!’ And indeed, unfortunately, the vast majority of those who fled survived, compared to those who remained in their place – most of them were destroyed!”
The Germans immediately began issuing decrees, among them the yellow badge and a ban on traveling by train. In Nisan 5704 (April 18th, 1944), the decree announcing the borders of th ghetto was issued. Jews were concentrated in fenced areas or in industrial buildings, mostly brick factories, as they waited to be sent to the ‘workplaces.'”
“Not much time passed from when the Germans entered Hungary and the yellow badge was decreed” says Mrs. Chana Galandauer from Bonyhad. “Every Jew was forced to sew a yellow star on the lapel of his garment. I remember how I hurriedly took off the only yellow fabric we had at home, which covered the mattress, and made yellow badges out of it, which I went out to sell among the Jewish homes to earn a little money…”
“Then it was decided amongst the townspeople that it would be better to send the young people to an even more rural area. Ten young women and ten young men went to work on a remote farm. We lived in two houses, while we, the girls, were supervised by an older single woman.”
“When it was decreed for all the people of the city to move to the ghetto, we were still living on the same remote farm. Only ten days before we were sent to the ghetto, to the family. My gradfather and aunts came from Upor, the gentile village, to our apartment, which was within the boundaries of the ghetto. In our other room, a mother crowded together with her uncle, aunt, and daughter, since their house was not included in the ghetto. My grandmother brought with her from the village two sacks of flour and plenty of goose fat, so that there was no shortage of food…”
“Some time after the Germans came in, we had to live together, all the Jews,” says Mrs. Tziporah Fisher from Budapest. “The Germans determined in which houses the Jews would crowd into, and to mark the houses they hung large yellow Stars of David on the gates – Csillagosha. Our home was not declared a Jewish home, so we had to be displaced. It is important to clarify that all over Hungary the Germans collected the Jews from all the villages and small places where they lived, and put them into ghettos in the big cities. In Budapest, on the other hand, we lived in the marked houses, and countless restrictions were imposed on the Jews. It seems to me that they didn’t even allow meat to be slaughtered…”
“Jews began to cross the border into nearby Romania,” says Rabbi Yaakov Shlomo Gross of Grosswardein. “The director of the hospital in the city, a Jew named Doctor Cooper, hid Jews in the hospital and later helped to smuggle them to Romania, with the help of gentile smugglers. The first stop of the fugitives was the city of Arad in Romania, where the local Jews bribed the authorities to allow the refugees to stay…”
Hungarian Jews did not stay in the ghetto for long. Time was pressing for the Germans, and they immediately began carrying out their plan of extermination. In the months of Sivan and Tammuz 5704 (May-June 1944) the Hungarian Jews were transported in a stream of trains – to the east.
Thousands of Hungarian Jews were led to be murdered, sometimes even without prior selections. Entire families, who had no idea where they were being led – were brutally murdered. The great majority of this wonderful and rooted Jewish community was lost, and in a very short time. Only the few who escaped, who were transferred to work or who received some kind of protection – survived.
“After Passover, we received alarming news from home,” says Moshe Golan of Bonyhad. “The people of the town were gathered in the city of Pecs where we worked, and then, when they loaded everyone onto the trains, the Hungarian commander, who showed extraordinary humanity, gave us permission to approach and say goodbye to our family members.”
“I remember how we got into the cars. We never imagined that this would be the last time we would see our loved ones. We said goodbye to our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters… we thought they were going to work, we even decided that at the end of the difficult period we would return and meet in Bonyhad. But the trains led to completely different places, and we never saw our family members again…”
“We were taken to the ghetto in the city of Mateszalka,” Mrs. Chana Goldberger from Nagyecsed also testifies. “We stayed there from after Passover until Shavuot, about thirty thousand people. When they put us on the trains, on the way to work, so to speak, we discovered inscriptions in Yiddish: ‘Brent menschen’ – ‘burning people,’ but we didn’t believe them…”
“The rabbi of our city, Rabbi Yosef Meir Tigerman z”l, was also respected by the gentiles,” says Rabbi Yitzchak Leuchter. “When the Germans began the deportation, the bishop demanded from the people of Nove Zamky to keep the rabbi in a secure building so that he would not be sent to Auschwitz. ‘If the rabbi leaves the city – it will be destroyed,’ he told them. The rabbi was placed in a building, but managed to escape from it with miraculous agility, even though he was over ninety years old, and at the train station he joined the people of the city on their last journey. During the next year, 20,000 gentile inhabitants of the city were killed, and it was indeed destroyed…”
“We huddled together in one room in the ghetto,” testifies Matityahu Berkowitz of Hajdunanas. “And then, on one of the Shabbats, we were told to take some clothing and food and leave the house. We were gathered in the courtyard of the synagogue, and after a short time they began to lead us to the train station. It was an exile caravan, a sad caravan, marching in oppressive silence. Two thousand people, including old people, children, women, and everyone in complete silence, marching in view of the gentiles for two kilometers. The cattle cars were already waiting there, and the terrible crowding… The next stop was in the large city of Debrecen, where we were led to the roof of a brick factory, and there we stayed for about two weeks. I will not forget how when a young German commander arrived to inspect us, a shout of ‘Achtung!’ (Attention!) was heard, and all of us, without exception, had to stand at attention in honour of the young criminal…”
“In the next step we were again led to the trains. They told us that we were going to work… The train started to travel east, and finally stopped. We arrived in Austria, and were taken to a village called Russeldorf in Holbruek County. It seems that due to a lack of workers, the Germans had to moderate the extermination plans, and so we were sent to help with the harvest work in Austria. Three families lived in one house. My parents and three older sisters went to work in the fields, while me and my younger brother, like the other children, were destined to remain closed inside the house. Every now and then a German guard would come to check if everything was alright, but by ourselves, as children, we frolicked, we played and there was no shortage of food either. Sometimes I would go out to help with the work of harvesting and threshing. It was hard work, in the heat of the sun for many hours a day…”
“The death camps were unimaginable. The Polish Jews in striped looked like the walking dead, and the Hungarian Jews, who until not long ago lived normal lives, had a hard time grasping what world they had entered…”
“Before we got on the train,” testifies Mrs. Malka Kahane from Surduc, “We were told that we would go to work for about a month and then they would send us back home. Now I think, how could we have believed them? But there was nowhere to run. The gentiles didn’t like us… the trip to Auschwitz lasted almost a week, and when the cattle cars were opened, we were greeted by a black colour, without any greenery around: black soil, darkness, and Mengele standing on the side, holding a large stick, making a selection. In the distance we saw a chimney, from which smoke and fire rose to the sky, and sparks… we did not know that the people of Israel were being burned there…”
“And then, when they told us not to take anything, my grandfather wrapped himself in his tallis, put on his tefillin, and said he would not separate from them…and like this he was sent to the left, and marched to the crematorium…”
(Ganzach Kiddush Hashem, Survivor Testimony Database)
“Rabbi Mendel Heimlich was a dayan (judge in a Jewish court) in the community of people who davened the ‘sfard’ style of prayers, tells Yomtov Lipa Friedman from Miskolc. “When he would enter the synagogue and cry from the depths of his soul, ‘Thank you G-d, for it is good…’ the walls would shake. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah 5705 (1944), Rabbi Heimlich arrived in Auschwitz. Since he was to be sent onwards with a group of people, probably to a labour camp, he was ordered, like the rest of the group, to shower and shave. It was after the start of the holiday, and Rabbi Heimlich turned to Rabbi Zilberstein, the dayan of Vac, and asked him if he was allowed to shave on Rosh Hashanah so that he could be sent with those going to work (those not being sent onwrds were sent to the crematorium).”
Rabbi Zilberstein answered him: “What kind of question is this? After all, we are in the situation of Joseph the righteous; he was taken out of the pit and shaved, and all this happened on Rosh Hashanah, hence you are allowed to shave in order to save your life!’…”
“At the end of the harvest season, when they no longer needed us, they took us back to the trains,” says Matityahu Berkowitz of Hajdunanas. “It was in the month of Chesvan 5705 (fall, November 1944, when we were taken to Strasshof – a transit camp in Austria, and from there to Bergen-Belsen. In Bergen-Belsen there were different complexes. We, the Hungarian families, were brought to the barracks and housed together. We had the same food as the other prisoners, except that we were with our parents, and we were not beaten either.”
“I remember being a spoiled child, I couldn’t eat the horrible soup that was distributed in the camp. My mother, may peace be upon her, gave me her bread and she was satiated by my soup…”
“And there, under the watchtowers, the spotlights moving around the field, and the indescribable starvation, stood these wonderful Jews, from Hungary, wearing their tallises and tefillin – and they prayed in a minyan! My father, Shmuel Nissim Berkowitz, also managed to bring the book ‘Law of Israel’ (a Torah study book) from home, and every day he sat me and my brother Mendel, who was seven-years-old, with him to study in Bergen Belsen.”
“And another miracle that I still don’t understand: in Bergen-Belsen, Jews organized themselves and obtained flour and baked matzah for Passover! My father received one matzah, and used it and the soup that was distributed as sustenance – for all the days of Passover. Both he and my mother did not agree to put chametz in their mouths!”
“Jews from Slovakia and Poland, who seemed very strange to us, welcomed us in Auschwitz,” says Mrs. Chana Goldberger from Nagyecsed. “‘Go to the right side,’ they whispered to me quickly, ‘You are young…’ We were a group of about fifty girls who came from the same area, but few survived… We were transferred to a labour camp in Neustadt and in January they started marching us, many kilometers every day. Someone from my hometown, a brave and kind-hearted woman named Frieda Katz, took me and her niece under her wing. When our strength failed, she encouraged us. When we were weakened by hunger that the war brought upon us, and when I lost my shoes in the terrible march, the devoted Frieda made sure to wrap my feet in rags…”
The last days of the war were fateful for many; their lives depended on restraint.
“At the beginning of the month of Iyar 5705 (April 1945) we were taken to the trains again,” continues Matityahu Berkowitz of Hajdunanas. “This time we were sent to Theresienstadt. If I arrived in Bergen-Belsen healthy and fat, now I resembled a walking skeleton, and I could barely walk on my feet. In Theresienstadt, we were housed in large military barracks, and the conditions were much better than in Bergen-Belsen. We were not there for long, because the Russians entered and we were released. It was on a Shabbat, and the camp was filled with joy. But now, suddenly everyone started getting sick one after another, mainly from typhoid. I was the first to be taken out on a stretcher. I was transferred to a hospital, and after I recovered I was able to feed my parents and my brother who got sick after me. My mother became extremely ill, and when we decided to return home to Hungary, my mother remained in the hospital, with my sister Shoshana z”l nursing her with great devotion for about six months!”
The Kalman family received special approval from the Swiss Consul Lutz, which must have cost a lot. The approval was called a “Schutzpass” – protective passport, and thus the family moved to a sheltered home that was actually under the auspices of the Swiss consulate. After too many such approvals were issued, less and less were given out. The grandfather obtained a Swedish “Schutzpass”, issued by Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish consul who saved many, and the family moved to a house marked with a Swedish emblem and flag.
On January 16th, the Russian arrived to the area and the city was liberated.
“After a six-week stay in Auschwitz, we were taken to dig trenches for tanks and soldiers inside Poland,” recalls Mrs. Chana Galandauer from Bonyhad. “But these trenches were of no use because the Russians were approaching and the Germans were retreating. At that time, they started marching us on the snowy roads for many kilometers. One day we arrived, about a thousand women, at a large farm, where the German commander left us to our own devices and disappeared from the place. We revived ourselves with potatoes we found in the fields and cow’s milk, and after two or three days the German Wehrmacht soldiers arrived, who were not as cruel as the SS men, and led us forward, a walk of about thirty kilometers, to a small town. In the prison where we were put, we could finally rest from the terrible journey. We received soup and bread, and the next morning we were supposed to continue the march, but the Russians preceded us and that day, January 25th, 1944, we were freed…”
Many of the survivors tried to start their lives anew in Hungary, but after a while they realized that there was no purpose to living in a place where they were no longer welcome.
“After the liberation, we started our journey home,” recalls Mrs. Chana Galandauer from Bonyhad. “We travelled many kilometres in trains, cars and on foot, until I finally arrived in Budapest straight to the house of my uncle Mishi Batzi-Kugler. In one room lived my uncle, my aunt, and their four children, and I only asked to push and continue on home, but they did not let me leave the place and hosted me warmly. Even then, when all around us there were torn families, fleeing refugees, and terrible rumours – we still did not grasp the size of the devastation. We thought that most of the Jews had indeed been taken to work, and we hoped to return home and meet the family members who had been scattered everywhere, and so we set out, a group of girls, back towards Bonyhad, as we made our way home on the roof of the train…”
“After the war we returned to Nagysced,” recalls Mrs. Chana Goldberger. “My father returned from captivity in Russia and we tried to start rebuilding from the ruins. On Purim I got engaged, and a short time later I married my husband. We already had a shop, and a housekeeper, and I even gave birth to my first son in Hungary, but our eyes were set on Israel… The communist regime prevented immigration, and so we smuggled borders, and through Italy we finally left for Israel. In 5709 (1949) we arrived here, when my aunts, those who immigrated to Israel as early as 1933, accept me as a daughter in every way.”
“In my home in Hajdunanas, my older brothers were already waiting for us,” testifies Matityahu Berkowitz. “Moshe, Shiya, and Pinchas returned from Munkatabor, and only Yossi was missing. He fell on the death march, in front of Pinchas, his elder, and died. Of course the sorrow was great, but on the other hand, it was a wonderful miracle how our parents and eight of the children returned home safely after the terrible storm that passed over Hungarian Jewry.”
“My father and brothers started trading in goose feathers. They bought and sold, earned to support the family. But the basic desire was to get out of communist Hungary. My brother Moshe tried to escape, and was caught. He was arrested for a year and a half, but was not detained in order to deter the others. My sisters and my two brothers managed to cross the borders and immigrate to Israel (after the establishment of the State), and thanks to them, we were also allowed to leave. And we met again in Israel, where each one built his own house, and at our parents’ home on Amos Street, we would gather and talk about those days…”
In Israel, the survivors began to recover. Every citizen of the city had a beloved relative and magnificent Torah institutions that were known in Hungary; Chasidism and customs from theri parents’ homes flourished.
A new generation, greatly carrying the heritage and names, has grown gloriously
Those days remain blurred by smoke,
Lots of tears, similar and almost faded,
But they pop up and peek
From the shreds of memories,
The thoughts, the prayers
And suddenly…
A mother’s smile shines,
Grandmother’s good eyes,
The melody of my father
In their smiles, their eyes, and in the magical melody of learning,
Of the grandchildren,
The next generation.
Timeline
-Until summer 5698 (1938) – The lives of Jews were calm and peaceful
– Kislev 5699 (Nov. 2nd, 1938) – The Munich Agreement between Hitler and Chamberlain, occupying areas of Hungary
– Nisan 5699 (March 15th, 1939) – Hitler annexes the Sudetenland, Czech refugees arrive in Hungary
– Economic deterioration is taking place the entire time
– Elul 5699 (Sept. 1st, 1939) – WWII breaks outs, Jewish refugees from Poland arrive in Hungary
– 5699-5704 (1939-1944) – Rumours about the atrocities in Poland reach Hungary, and are generally accepted as unreliable
– Adar 5704 (March 19th, 1944) – The Germans enter Hungary
– Nisan 5704 (April 18th, 1944) – The Ghetto Borders Ordinance
– Iyar 5704 (Spring 1944) – Jews are concentrated specific areas or in industrial buildings and await their deportation
– Iyar, Sivan, and Tamuz 5704 (May, June, and July 1944) – The Jews of Hungary are deported eastward, most to death camps
– Iyar 2, 5705 (April 15th, 1945) – Liberation of Bergen-Belsen, Hungarians are amongst the survivors
– 5717 (1957) Hungarian Jews is permitted to emigrate to Israel from Hungary
