THE SPRING OF 1945 was particularly cold and rainy in Europe. It was as if nature were trying to cleanse itself of the immense amount of blood, death, and hatred that had spilled onto the continent during the war.
Tibor and Bela learned of the end of the war in Europe while sleeping in a barn, near Altenfelden in Austria, along with thousands of former combatants, Hungarians and Germans, under the watchful eye of American soldiers. The German soldiers threw their caps in the air, yelled, and became hysterical with joy. The war was over — nothing mattered anymore. They had had enough. They were going home. Some cried from happiness.
The reaction of the Hungarians was more muted. No one knew what the future held. Bela had a feeling of more hardship ahead. Tibor’s only thought was to find Hedy.
The previous day they had been registered and ordered to head out on a march.
Not having any idea where they were going, they were allowed to bring their belongings — anything they could carry in their backpacks.
They marched in platoon formation, and stayed mainly on country roads. The march led through the Austrian countryside, traversing hills and valleys, through oddly quiet villages. Intermittently, along the roadside, in ditches and ravines the bodies of dead soldiers remained from recent local skirmishes. By mid-morning, as the rays of the sun grew hotter and hotter, the marching men began throwing away heavy gear, raincoats, extra jackets, and boots.
As they marched, Bela tried to retrace how they had ended up here and all that had happened to him in the last half year. The military school Bela attended was transferred to Sopron, the westernmost city in Hungary, then disbanded completely. As one of the school’s oldest cadets, Bela was ordered to gather up the youngest class, fifteen eleven-year-olds, and spirit them out of harm’s way to Austria. The group of frightened cadets joined the hundreds of thousands of fleeing civilian refugees. They were desperately trying to maintain a distance from German and Russian lines, but roads were bombed and became impassable; they came under frequent fire. Despite it all, walking most of the way under deplorable conditions, Bela, incredibly, delivered the young boys to safety.
Once in Austria, Bela found his older brother, Tibor, whose unit had been pushed westward and disbanded near a small town called Altenfelden. The men were assigned to live with farm communities, along with other military personnel and their families. The brothers pitched in with the chores at a dairy farm — they milked cows and delivered the milk to the surrounding farms.
As they approached, the American forces destroyed much of the old town of Altenfelden with tank bombardments. Two American soldiers arrived at the farm where the brothers lived and demanded that all exmilitary report for inspection in the yard. The American soldiers were inebriated and repeatedly shot rounds of ammunition into the air — one narrowly missed Bela’s ear. They shouted questions that no one understood and seemed to become increasingly incensed that no one was able to provide answers. The Hungarian solders and some non-commissioned officers were frozen with fear. The intimidation continued for hours. Eventually the Americans grew tired of this and left.
Within two days, more American soldiers in jeeps arrived. Tibor and Bela watched from an upstairs window of the farmhouse as the vehicles screeched to a halt below. Tibor looked at his brother and whispered, “I bet they didn’t count us the first time.”
“They were too drunk,” Bela added.
Without saying another word to each other, the brothers slipped quietly behind a wardrobe upstairs, listening to what was going on outside from their hideout.
The yelling continued as before, and once again gunshots were fired. This time, however, the Americans not only lined up the men, but to their families’ great consternation, marched them away. Everyone assumed they were being taken to some kind of registration and holding facility.
When Tibor and Bela came out of hiding, they saw that only the women and children were left. Some of the women were happy to see that there were still two able-bodied men remaining to perform the daily back-breaking labour that needed to be completed around the farm. But one woman, Ilona Nagy, the wife of a sergeant major, accosted them when she found out they had stayed behind.
Jabbing her finger at Tibor’s face, she yelled in a shrill voice, “Don’t think for a moment you’ll get out of this. If you don’t go after the rest and report to the Americans, I’ll report you myself!”
Tibor could see that Ilona Nagy had once been a stunning woman. She still had a voluptuous figure, even after nine children, but her long brown hair was unkempt, with streaks of grey running through it. She tied it up in a bun, loosely, but some strands fell out into her eyes and face. It was obvious the years, the children, and the war had taken their toll on her, she had become slovenly about her appearance.
When Tibor and Bela didn’t react, her angry tirades continued and became more frenzied. Bitterness and exhaustion became evident in her eyes and face. Her lips were moving and words were pouring out, but the real meaning behind her rant soon became evident.
“Why should my husband suffer in some holding facility run by the Americans while you two, who have enjoyed a privileged upbringing as the sons of a colonel, enjoy freedom?”
Tibor and Bela realized there was no way this woman would stop her tirade against them until they left. Bela couldn’t understand any of it: if they left, there would be no one left to do the heavy tasks. Ilona Nagy relied on the two brothers for practically every task, from bringing in water from the well early in the morning to milking the cows and transporting the milk for sale to the neighbouring communities. They were of invaluable help to her in looking after her children and making sure they were provided for.
Resigned to their fate, Tibor and Bela packed a few things in preparation: dried smoked meat, canned sardines, extra socks, underwear, a shaving kit, and as much clothing they could take for what they suspected would probably be difficult times ahead. Tibor hammered together a little cart using the wheels of a discarded baby carriage so they could pull their few worldly possessions behind them in a wooden crate.
Currency was worthless by the end of the war in Europe. Jewellery and gold were the only items that were worth anything, as they were always good for barter and trade. The brothers acquired a range of watches. They placed the cheapest ones closest to their wrists, the more expensive ones were placed higher up, closer to the elbow. Under long sleeves, all the watches were hidden, but if they were stopped by robbers on the road, the brothers always had an inexpensive watch to reluctantly hand over.
They knew they had to find an imaginative hiding place for the few pieces of gold jewellery and U.S. dollars they had between the two of them. It had to be in a place no one would even think to look. Tibor spliced the end of a tube of toothpaste open, extricated some of the toothpaste, then gingerly pushed the jewellery and cash into the flat end and rolled it up.
As they walked along the country roads, Bela felt full of foreboding, but reassured himself that all this had to be over soon and they would be going home.
When they arrived at a rocky hillside with small springs running down from it, they were allowed to pause for a cool drink of water. Bela removed his shoes and socks and washed his aching feet. It was a method he had learned in military school — a way to increase circulation and renew your strength while hiking. Soon the entire platoon was following his example. As a result, their group picked up the pace.
Not having any idea of where they were going, they sang as they marched. Some of the American soldiers guarding them were impressed — their enthusiasm was rewarded with the occasional cigarette, chocolate bar, and stick of chewing gum. By comparison, the other platoons were dragging their feet.
It was late in the afternoon on the second day when they arrived at a farmer’s freshly ploughed potato field just beyond the village of Tittling in Austria. Tibor stopped, taken aback by the sight before them: as far as they could see thousands of men were crowded onto the muddy field. Many were dressed in military khakis, some were in civilian clothing.
The entire area sloped down to the bottom of the hill, where a small creek flowed, with just a trickle of water running through it. On the other side of the creek stood thousands of German soldiers, jammed in, encircled on all sides with barbed-wire fences.
The platoon Tibor and Bela were part of was directed to the bottom of the hill, to the first row, directly adjacent to the small creek.
Once they were assigned their spot, Tibor looked around more carefully, squinting his eyes to see that there were many young boys and teenagers in the crowd as well. Not quite believing what he was witnessing, he made sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, but upon closer examination became convinced that there were twelve-, thirteen-, and fourteen-year-olds here with them, swept up in the net of postwar sortings.
As Tibor looked around, he guessed that, similar to his younger brother, every tenth person was simply too young to have taken part in any combat. He surmised they were probably members of a compulsory youth military league, the Leventes. Or, he wondered, could there have been that many cadets still remaining at military schools?
Tibor noticed Bela staring at him. Not meeting his brother’s eyes, staring directly in front of him, Tibor whispered to his brother in disbelief, “This has to be temporary, just a holding area. These are the Americans, after all.”
During the next few hours, hundreds more new arrivals descended onto the sloping field, taking their places in rows of military precision.
They didn’t have to wait long before the order came to lie down, on their backs, shoulder-to-shoulder, feet to head on the ground. Tibor looked up at the late afternoon sky, tinged blue puffs of clouds forming here and there. He felt like calling out to God loudly, publicly, but instead decided to say a prayer in the silence of his heart: “Dear Lord, let the suffering of this war end. Enough already, God!” He closed his eyes, comforted in the knowledge that his brother was with him.
His prayers were interrupted by the rumbling of jeep motors. Tibor couldn’t tell if it was one jeep or more, but could hear that one of the engines was screeching on and off from exertion. It was then that Tibor turned his head to see three jeeps very near to them. A drill had been attached to the back of the first jeep. With it, the driver was digging a deep hole in the ground every five metres or so. The second jeep, following closely behind, placed a heavy duty thick wooden pole into the freshly dug hole and secured it.
The men on the third jeep were unwinding a barbed-wire mesh fence and nailing it to the inside of the posts. Tibor closed his eyes once again as he lay on the ground, too terrified to accept what was going on around them.
By the time they finished, and the men were allowed to stand up, they saw that the Americans had encircled the men on each side of the hillside, and the fence separated them from the creek running on the bottom and up the other side. Darkness had descended on the hillside by the time the fence was finished and a steady cold drizzle of rain had begun pelting down on them.
A few men were given shovels and ordered to dig a latrine at the bottom of the hill, inside the fence, parallel to the creek. The ditch was ordered to be narrow but deep, just enough to straddle your feet on two sides and defecate or urinate. There was no cover to the ditch, nothing to hold onto and nothing to wipe yourself off with when you were done.
The brothers settled in the small space they had on the ground, covering themselves with the sweaters and the raincoats they brought with them. They and the thousands of other prisoners slept under the open sky.
During the night, they heard the terrifying screams of a man being beaten and tortured. The screams pierced the night and seemed to go on for hours. The dreadful sounds came from the other side, where the German prisoners were held. Tibor shut his eyes as he tried to sleep, covered his ears with his palms.
At dawn, they were woken and ordered to stand in line for food. Each section was instructed to receive their food at a specific time of day. Tibor and Bela’s platoon was assigned four in the morning and four in the afternoon.
Food consisted of a bowlful of pinkish water the Americans referred to as “tomato soup.” It looked as if a few cans of tomato soup had been tossed into hundreds of litres of water. The soup had a stench of gasoline — the water to make the soup was transported to the camp in tanks that formerly held gasoline.
The available drinking water was also permeated with the same stench of gasoline. Tibor and Bela consumed some of the soup, but avoided drinking the water for as long as they could. They still had some food (smoked meat), and ate small amounts of it in the dark, making sure no one else saw or heard them. But, after the first few days of their incarceration, the food they brought with them was gone and they were famished like everyone else.
After one week, as they stood in line for the soup, Tibor was elated to see that the men in front of them in the line were being handed entire loaves of bread.
“See?” Tibor said to Bela. “I told you the Americans would start feeding us. They simply weren’t prepared for all these people. Now they’re getting organized.”
Three American soldiers were in charge of the distribution. One soldier translated and kept repeating, “Every thirty-eighth gets one.”
It was when Tibor reached the front of the line that he saw that they meant every thirty-eighth man was handed one loaf of bread.
Bela was the thirty-eighth in their group. The private who was counting and distributing looked at Bela smugly and handed him the loaf of bread.
Great, Bela thought, as the famished men gathered around him. Now the rest are going to slit my throat for a piece of bread.
He realized he had to find a way to make sure the loaf was equally distributed. He spread out his raincoat and began by breaking the bread into chunks, then further working the bread into smaller and smaller piles of crumbs with his hands. He could feel the eyes of the thirty-seven men on his hands, watching his every move, making sure each pile was equal, while practically salivating like dogs.
It took at least twenty minutes to prepare the anthill-like piles of bread crumbs, and only seconds for each man to swallow his tiny ration — about a teaspoonful each. Bela was surprised there wasn’t an outcry, but everyone could see that not a crumb was wasted or distributed unevenly.
The next time they divided the bread in this way, it was mutually agreed to let a different prisoner have first choice each time — this way the person dividing up the loaf could not be accused of favouritism. Bela was chosen to be the one to divvy the loaf up each time.
The brothers spent their entire waking day and night trying to make their day-to-day lives more bearable. Then, as if the heavens were mocking their cruel fate, cold dark clouds brought spring rains, saturating the ground beneath them. Tibor and Bela were grateful to have a couple of raincoats to crawl under.
But it rained for days on end and they realized they had to find a centre pole for their makeshift tent, as the raincoats had to be propped up away from them. By the third day, they were soaked by the seemingly unending downpour, despite their raincoats.
The only possibility of escape might have been underneath the barbed-wire fence on either side of the creek, where the ground was soft because of the latrines and groundwater. Their captors, however, had a strategy to thwart any plan of escape. Each night, American soldiers drove two new Volkswagen cars to either end of the creek, parked each parallel to the water on opposite sides, then turned the motor off with the lights burning. It was like an amazingly well-lit soccer field during the night. By the time the batteries on the cars went dead, daylight broke.
The vehicles with the burned-out batteries were left there night after night. A few prisoners were allowed out the next day to take apart the useable parts for shelter. They ripped out the seats and upholstery with their bare hands.
After a week, the ground near the creek was covered with automobile carcasses, picked clean of any useable parts.
Those who weren’t fortunate enough to find a bit of material for shelter or fend for themselves died of exposure. They lived and slept under the open sky. Unprotected from the driving unrelenting cold rains and blistering winds of early May, many caught colds that turned into pneumonia. Those who survived until the warmer weather arrived at the end of May sometimes collapsed from dehydration.
The gasoline-tainted pinkish soup and drinking water made many sick with dysentery. The first sign was body-wrenching diarrhea, eventually leading to dehydration and ultimately death. The brothers were camped on the first row, on the bottom of the hill, closest to the latrine. As the days turned into two weeks, the stench of human feces and vomit became unbearable, yet there was nowhere to move to — the rows higher up were covered with prisoners. Worst still was seeing the lineup of the sickest and weakest, distinguished by the yellowish sallow skin, and the hollowness of the eyes. Those most affected by dysentery barely had the strength to move away from the area of the ditch-latrine. Weakened from disease and hunger, often they would simply fall into the latrine and die where they fell.
The young boys were the first to go. Tibor couldn’t imagine how these young kids ever ended up here. Their mothers were probably still waiting for their safe return home. Every once a while, Bela reminded his brother of his earlier comments that the Americans were just getting organized, that they weren’t counting on this many people, that they wouldn’t allow so many people to starve. Tibor was fascinated by the United States and its history — to him the country represented higher ideals. He remained adamant, stating he still couldn’t believe that this was being done purposefully.
While in military school, however, Bela had studied the international treaties governing the treatment of prisoners of war. Countries, including the United States, had to abide by these international rules. After two weeks of living out under the open sky and being given starvation rations and tainted water, Bela suspected something more sinister.
A local Catholic priest was allowed into the prisoner-of-war camp to say daily mass for the prisoners. He brought with him the wafers of unleavened bread used as hosts. The brothers went to mass every day. Bela stood in line to receive communion three or four times during the mass. Tibor admonished his brother and told him what he was doing was sacrilegious, but Bela replied he didn’t care. He didn’t have the energy to pray anymore — he just wanted to have the feeling of something in his stomach.
After two weeks, Tibor was already starting to show the first signs of dysentery — he had developed a severe case of diarrhea. He didn’t want to alarm his younger brother. Tibor felt the energy drain from his body, and when he stood up to drag himself to the latrine, he felt dizzy. He simply wanted to lie down and be left alone. Bela noticed with dread Tibor’s increasingly gaunt face and the dark circles under his older brother’s eyes.
Each night the screams of men being tortured and beaten on the other side went on unabated.