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Agi's Story
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My father worked as a clerk in the Export Department of a large textile
manufacturer called Goldberger. [...]
My
father used to come home for lunch which was the main meal of the day. He
had weekly streetcar passes which had to be date punched by
the conductor at the beginning of the journey. This pass was valid for
just an hour. I remember my father got hold of one of those punchers and
always gave himself plenty of time to come home, enjoy a three course meal, a
cigarette, maybe a short nap and then complete the return journey to his office.
[...] On
Sundays, Miklos often took me on outings. We
went to the zoo, to the King’s Palace, where
the ‘other’ Miklos, Head of the State, Miklos Horthy, waved
to us from the window. [...] Miklos,
my father, loved to tell me fantastic stories.
There was a long tunnel next to a bridge over the Danube.
Miklos told me that they pushed the bridge under the tunnel when it
rained. And I, of course, believed
him. My
father and I often went to the river Danube to feed the fish.
Here the air was fresh and invigorating breeze blew from the river. He
took me to the circus, to the movies and fed me wickedly delicious pastry.
We went weekly to the lending library to exchange his books—he read
mysteries only. We visited the
Amusement Park and the various grassy parks
of the city where we watched the monkeys riding bicycles and performing
to the tune of the hurdy-gurdy.
We sampled the thermal swimming
pools and hiked the nearby mountains. I
was a lucky girl, Miklos liked me
and enjoyed having me around. He
was my father and he loved me.
[...]
Hanukkah is the Jewish holiday when the head of the household is supposed to
light the colorful candles every night for eight days.
My father had a relaxed attitude toward religion and one night I was sent
repeatedly to fetch him so that he will light our candles, but when I found him
he said, “Take my photograph instead of
me.” This kind of levity did not play well with my mother who hailed from a
strict orthodox home.
When
my mother was seventeen years old and an uncommonly pretty girl, she went to
visit her step-mother’s family in Újfehértó and met my handsome father,
Miklos,
whose family also lived there. They
fell in love and a whirlwind courtship ensued complete with gypsy musicians
surrounding my father as he stood under my mother’s window serenading her with
heartbreakingly sentimental music;
“Csak egy
kislany van a vilagon...” (There is one girl only in this world.)
I was always jealous of this.
It
took them five years to get married because my father had to find a job in
Budapest and my mother had an older sister, Sari, and according to custom, the
older sister had to tie the knot first. During
this long courtship, Miklos wrote to his beloved Cecilia every single day,
talking to each other on the telephone whenever possible.
Eventually my father got a job in Budapest at Goldberger’s (with a
little help from my grandfather’s drinking companions) and the young lovers
were able to see each other frequently.
When
I was seven years old, everything changed.
My father lost his job.
The company he worked for was owned by a Jewish family but they
were allowed to employ only a few Jews as part of their workforce.
With the help of a loan, my parents bought a few more sewing machines and
they started a small manufacturing concern at home which turned out luxury
lingerie. My mother was the
designer and ran the production and
my father comprised the sales force selling to small shops.
The enterprise was successful and soon enough, with the employment of more
seamstresses, there was cutting, sewing, embroidering, ironing, packing and
bookkeeping taking place in every inch of our apartment.
My father started to travel, taking their unique and beautiful lingerie
on the road and getting orders from the stores in various cities.
Rare were the Sundays we
spent together. He no longer had
time for me and I missed him.
In
1942, my father was conscripted to serve in a Forced Labor unit.
This was the alternative to the army for Jews.
Jews were not entrusted with a weapon. Miklos was a slight man and he was
equipped to the hilt with doctor’s certificates
testifying to his ill health. He
had a naive faith that he would be found ineligible and sent safely home.
The morning he left my father wore heavy mountain shoes, a padded waterproof
jacket, a yellow armband on the left sleeve and carried a knapsack staggering
under it’s weight. He stepped up to my brother’s crib to say goodbye when my
mother said,
“Don’t wake him.” He obeyed
my mother and this was to be the last time Miklos laid eyes on his son.
He kissed me and he told me to be a good girl,
promising me he would be back by nightfall.
Of course, they found him eligible to serve in the Forced Labor
Service--every Jew was eligible. Even
the ones who had tuberculosis or were crippled were taken, so were those in the
hospitals fresh out of surgery.
My father was shipped by the Hungarians to Russia to dig trenches for the
soldiers. I think I saw him at the
railroad station as his unit crossed Budapest but my memory
is hazy.
1943
was my last visit with my grandparents in Újfehértó.
They had had four sons drafted into service in the Forced Labor units.
My father was writing yellow regulation postcards until 1943.
My mother sent him food packages and once in a while,
soldiers came by and brought us news of him.
He asked for cigarettes, food and warm clothes.
Once his vest was stolen, but what has hurt him even more, all his family
pictures had been in the stolen
vest.
The conditions in the Forced Labor units were abominable.
The work consisted of digging trenches for the forever moving Hungarian
Army. The men were suffering from
the extremes of the Ukrainian weather, suffocating heat in the summer and
freezing snow in the winter. The
food consisted of ersatz coffee, bread, thin soup and little else.
Few of the Jewish men were used to physical work and they were forced to
lift muddy shovels full of heavy
earth and throw the dirt as far from the narrow holes as they could, it was more
than they could manage, they slipped and fell in the wet freezing earth.
The soldiers assigned to urge them on were rude and abusive, seething
with anti-Semitism. Letters from
home arrived few and far between. They
rapidly lost weight and were constantly sick with colds and runny bowels and
infested with lice. We frequently heard heartbreaking news about the Forced
Labor units. The men were forced to
pick up mines with their bare
hands. They were used like horses,
forced to pull lorries and carts. As
a punishment for some minor offense they were doused with water and forced to
climb the trees where they had to cackle like roosters.
To imagine my father under these circumstances broke my heart.
At the end of the War only seven or eight
people per hundred came back from Russia.
In January of 1943, there was a big Russian offensive and the postcards stopped
coming. My father was dead or a
prisoner of war. I missed him
terribly so I wrote him letters and spoke to him in my diary.
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