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Emery Gregus Occupation and
Liberation 1944-1945
Chapter 10 It was autumn and now and then I would drop by to Buco’s for a visit. I remember one occasion when Rozsi mama neni offered to deliver Nelly some false identity papers which she needed at the time and it was arranged that they would meet at the neighborhood coffee house. Just before Nelly arrived, detectives blocked the all the doors and checked everyone present to ascertain that they are not Jews. When the detective arrived to Rozsi mama’s table, she handed over her identity papers. He looked at them, saluted and returned the papers to her. That night, Rozsi mama’s brother, a police captain in Budapest, called his sister at her home and told her that the detective who had checked her papers was one of his subordinates. The subordinate had recognized Rozsi mama as the sister of his superior, but the papers Rozsi mama had shown the detectives were not hers, but the false ones she had intended to pass over to Nelly. "Next time," her brother warned, "you should make sure that you show your own identity papers!"
It
happened to me twice that I was stopped on the street and checked for
my identification papers. The first time, a detective came from behind,
put his hand on my shoulder and opened his coat to reveal his arrow
cross insignia. Calmly I reached into my pocket and produced the necessary
documents without uttering a word. The detective quickly glanced at
them and let me go. The extreme excitement and anxiety such an incident
can evoke is indescribable, no less than the palpable relief I felt
when he released me. The second incident was a razzia which occurred
later that autumn in the midst of the most dangerous arrow cross times.
I was in the Kalvin Square when the police quickly blocked off the two
ends of the street and checked for identification papers. I presented
my papers to the detective; he gave them a cursory glance and let me
pass. In
the meantime, as well, I maintain my contact with Karcsi’s girlfriend,
Jucika, from Kassa. She had found employment as a governess in Budapest
for the family of a well-to-do furniture manufacturer. Jucika was considered
a half-Jew (her father was Christian, but in these times this fact was
no longer enough to exempt her from the Jewish laws. Initially the law
was that in cases of mixed marriages, the daughter would follow the
religion of the mother; the son followed the religion of the father.
The father of the household where she was employed, realizing her predicament
and that her survival depended on his protection, took her under his
wing. Jucika also had a sister whom she was caring for and Jucika’s
employer rented a small apartment for them both on the Kalvin Square.
Occasionally we would meet at a coffee house in the heart of the city,
but I shall return to these events later. I
fully realize that treacherous times lay ahead and I am doubtful that
with my false papers alone, I will be able to survive the coming dark
days. I am desperately looking for someone, perhaps someone connected
through Jucika’s relationship with the furniture manufacturer,
who would hide me. I am constantly concocting wild plans and hoping
upon hope that some solution will materialize. I
hear from someone that there is a fellow who is willing to create a
hiding place in his closet and for money he is willing to hide Jews
there. The idea would not have been unreasonable except that the safety
of this hiding place was fairly questionable. The person behind this
scheme was a Jewish war veteran who had lost his leg from fighting in
the First World War, and was for the time being, exempt from the Jewish
laws--or so he believed. People such as this, were entitled to the dubious
distinction of being now considered of pure Aryan race--for a while!
Towards
the end of the summer of 1944, the political situation changed. By now
the Hungarian government of Horthy recognized that the Germans were
going to lose the war and the regime attempted to jump ship, offering
the Allies a separate peace pact similar to the one previously negotiated
by the Romanians. The Regent Horthy Miklos dismissed the government
formed after the German occupation in March 1944, and a new, more liberal
group consisting of the old anti-German aristocracy took over power.
Baron Szechenyi becomes the Interior Minister. I can recall that the
Baron’s family had their estate close to Kassa and the mother of
my friend Dezso used to play tennis with the Baron’s wife. Fresh
winds are blowing and the new government halts the emptying of the ghetto
for deportation. The ghetto still exists and Jews are still obliged
to live there, but for the time being, no Jew is taken out of the country
to the concentration camps. I
continued to visit my aunt (my father’s sister) who is living in
Lipotvaros, in a house designated for Jews. She continues to cook and
bake as before and she prepares the shopping list for me. Without the
Star of David I am the only one who is free to move around and collect
the groceries. She is always very hospitable, always pleased to see
me and prepares jam filled crepes, the taste of which I still feel in
my mouth after 55 years. One
day on the streets of Buda, I meet R.Tomi, who tells me that Mari (his
cousin and an old flame from my youth) has successfully escaped to Budapest
from the brick factory in Kassa. Mari, he continues, is now living with
her sister illegally in Budapest. On another occasion I run into an
old schoolmate H. Pali, on the Boulevard, not far from the room I am
renting. This chance encounter has life-saving significance for me later
on. It just so happens, that an acquaintance of Pali, who now calls
himself Vagi, sees the two of us together from a distance. This fellow
Vagi is also renting a room in the same apartment as I am. He is one
of the so-called "refugees" seeking shelter in Budapest from
the bombings in the provinces. He knows Pali from way back, and the
next time they meet, he asks Pali how he knows this man, Csikos Joseph,
with whom he and his wife are living in the same apartment. Unbeknownst
to me, Vagi learns from Pali who, in reality, I am. For the duration
of the Russian siege during the last 6 weeks of the war and while we
are all hiding together in the cellar, he and his wife offer me food
and I am curiously surprised by their compassion and kindness. I was
to learn from his wife, during the very last days of the war, that they
too, were Jewish. It would have been very difficult to survive the last
6 weeks without them, and all this due to the very fortuitous chance
meeting I had had with my friend, Pali, several weeks before. But
let us return to October. By
now I am afraid to sleep in my room and I feel only relatively safe
when there is no official record of my residence. There is always the
danger that someone will discover my identity. Sometimes I stay with
my friend Sanyi where the landlord was unaware that I was there. This
fear became especially acute in the autumn months when the Arrow Cross
assumed power and anyone discovered to be a Jew could be shot, or thrown,
or in some cases both, into the Danube. When panic overtook me and I
was too afraid to sleep in my room, I spend the night in other’s
home if they permitted. I clearly remember one evening when I took the
tram to my old classmate, S. Pali, who lived somewhere on the outskirts
of Budapest for the sake of one night’s sleep. "Lie down here,"
he told me, "and leave in the morning so that no one notices you.
I have to leave at dawn to return to my military unit." One night
gained, was one night gained. It
happened one day in the autumn, when by now the bridges were mined,
my friend M. Kicsi and I were walking along the main street on Buda,
when all of a sudden we heard an enormous blast. We ran towards the
shore of the Danube, and not more than a couple of hundred feet ahead
of us, we witnessed the explosion of the mines under the pillars of
the Margit Bridge. The bridge had collapsed into the Danube and between
the pillars of the bridge, which had caved into a "v" shape;
we could see the burning cars and trams sliding helplessly into the
icy waters. It was a spectacular sight, beyond anything I had ever seen
before or since. We ran as far and as quickly as possible from the shore.
Undoubtedly in times such as this, the risk of checking ID papers was
greatly heightened. For us Jews, the threat or danger of a "razzia"
was what was most at stake. It never became clear whether the explosion
was deliberate or not. Many people died that day, among them Kabos,
the Olympic fencing champion of Hungary, and if my memory serves me
correctly, he was Jewish as well. In another instance, I was on my way to cross the Elizabeth Bridge from Buda to Pest when I noticed the police cordoning off the area. Immediately, I proceeded towards the opposite direction, as I naturally sensed danger ahead. As it turned out later, Horty’s son, Miklos, was captured by the Germans inside one of the houses located along the Elizabeth Square, where he had been tricked into believing that he was coming to meet emissaries from Yugoslavia with whom he might arrange a separate peace treaty. He fell into the German trap and was taken into custody.
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