First I had to find the documents I needed. I reviewed my list of Christian friends, my Esperanto acquaintances, and so on, to think of people who might give me suitable documentation. I had one Esperantist friend who was in constant need of money. I called him, since that was easier than making the long trip to his distant home. I was a great believer in cost/benefit principles – getting the best result for the least expenditure of energy.
‘Here’s a chance for some easy money. One of my rich clients is trying to obtain personal identity papers. I immediately thought of you. There’s no risk involved, because you can always tell the police that you lost yours. It’s good for a few thousand pengős. Think about it.’
He said he would think it over, but he didn’t call back. I don’t believe he lacked sympathy towards the plight of the Jews, because he was very much a humanitarian. Perhaps he didn’t care for this manner of making money, or he was a little upset at me because, as editor of the Esperanto literary magazine Literatura Mondo, I sometimes shortened his articles.
I had more luck with a left-wing journalist friend of mine. He hated the Germans and everything they stood for. Without a moment’s hesitation he promised to give me his own and his wife’s identity papers. Early next morning the phone rang.
‘I apologize for calling so early: I have been up all night. I just don’t dare do it. You see, they’re observing my every move. If they find you with my papers, no one will believe that it’s an accident.’
I realized at once that I couldn’t count on him. Even if he gave me his papers now, he might get so worried that he would ask for them back at any time. Courage is an intangible quality that you either have or don’t have. If a coward tries to act like a hero, something is bound to go wrong. So I told him that under the circumstances he should definitely keep his papers, and thanked him for his good intentions. Since I admire people who have the courage to say they lack it, I accepted his decision without complaint. But he kept on apologizing and regretting his inability to help people who needed help until in the end it was I who had to comfort him.
I wrote off my failures and tried some acquaintances who were less close to me. I remembered a smiling chimney-sweep who used to come to my office once a month with the bill for sweeping the chimneys of the houses I administered. He was such a cheerful, ruddy-cheeked fellow that I always liked to chat with him when he came. Once he had vaguely mentioned that he had been in prison for several months for some kind of political activity. Perhaps he had no love for the current government and would be willing to help. I looked for a way of meeting him. After much searching, I found his address and wandered around in the vicinity of his home in the early morning, in the hope of running into him – by chance, as it were. Eventually, one morning I succeeded. We were delighted to see one another.
After we got through the formalities, I asked him, ‘Would you be willing to help me in a Jewish matter?’
‘How can I be helpful?’ he asked, in some surprise.
‘Would you be willing to give me your identity papers?’
I explained again, as I had to my Esperantist friend, that there was no risk involved.
‘Dr Soros, please don’t ask me. I’ve burned my fingers once.’
We parted as friends. He was a decent, good-hearted man, I could see that. But the incident left a bitter taste in my mouth.
The days passed and I made no progress. Each evening, as I reported to my wife on the day’s activities, her expression grew increasingly reproachful. The trouble was that she and the children had too much confidence in me, and believed that it was only my laziness and negligence that got in the way of success. They didn’t say so in so many words, but I could feel it.
The atmosphere in the country was becoming more stifling by the day. Stories of theft, persecution and disappearances multiplied. My hopes that Regent Horthy would try to salvage at least the appearance of Hungarian sovereignty went unrealized. In my opinion, given what was happening in Romania and Finland, the Jewish problem was really a secondary issue, and they would yield if they had to. If Horthy had made it a condition of his continuing in office that Hungarian Jews not be deported from the country, the Germans might have complied in order to secure his continued collaboration. But he made no such demand. National sovereignty was no longer an issue for him. Horthy was one of those punctilious people who do their duty, within certain limits, during the good times and lack the courage to take a stand when things get difficult. Others expressed their disapproval of his leadership rather more concisely.
For Horthy, we Jews had become vogelfrei, free as birds. I had never realized the full significance of this beautiful expression. To be free as a bird is also to be fair game. Anyone can shoot a bird, knock it out of the sky. We had no laws to defend us. I have never heard of birds lodging formal complaints. The same was true of us – only we had no wings.
On April 5, 1944, two weeks after the German ‘arrival’, a regulation was put in place obliging every Jew to wear a yellow star of David on his or her coat. Jews were forbidden to visit public places, such as parks, restaurants, swimming pools. Jews were allowed to employ no Christians, nor could they have servants. They were not even allowed to use a public telephone. Jews who broke the rules would be deported. ‘Deportation’ was a new word to us: no one knew precisely what it meant. But our imagination could conjure up some pretty dark possibilities.
It was risky to go out on the streets without a star. But during the working day it was also dangerous to wear one, because identity papers might be checked at any time and anyone who was unemployed could be deported immediately. If the streets were safe at any time, that time was in the early morning, between six, when factory workers set off to work, and nine, when offices opened. During those hours, people on the street with yellow stars would presumably be on their way to work. As for me, I had already been forced to hand over my attorney’s papers, my seal, and the keys to my office to the Gentile lawyer appointed to handle my practice, so in fact I was unemployed.
On the day when the yellow star decree came into effect, I suggested to my younger son that we do a little field trip on the streetcar to see how people were taking it. He agreed, and so we set out to sample public opinion on this brutal attack on human rights. People seemed a little grimmer than usual, but that may have been because it was so early. They pretended not to notice that some people were wearing yellow stars on their coats. I heard only one offensive remark, when someone whispered, ‘I would never have guessed that that blond piglet-faced kid was Jewish.’
In a way, this remark was good to hear, given my plans for the family.
Later, however, my son accidentally blocked the way of somebody who was trying to get on to the crowded streetcar.
‘Stop hogging all the space, son of a pig,’ the stranger cried.
I hastened to reassure my son: ‘Pay no attention. People who have no manners ought not to offend you.’
But my son insisted that the remark was intended primarily for me, not for him. ‘Who’s the pig I’m supposed to be the son of?’ he asked me.
We had a little discussion, he and I, about whether the remark said more about him as a son or me as his father. We were generally pleased at how people were taking matters and we went home in good humor.
On one of my subsequent early morning walks I met my old friend Sold. In the good old days we used to meet in the cafés at the Ritz or the Hungaria for tea at five o’clock. He used to be a passionate dancer and I a devoted spectator. When I told him about my problems and plans, I saw immediately that I had finally found a true hero.
‘No problem,’ he told me breezily. ‘Child’s play. I have several Christian girl friends among my dancing partners who will do anything for me.’
I jumped at the offer, and immediately asked him for a set consisting of five documents: birth, marriage, parents’ birth and marriage certificates, all for the insignificant sum of 600 pengős, some $20 at the time. We arranged to meet next day at my home. He came as arranged and handed over the documents. In age and every other particular they fitted quite well. The only snag was that the occupation was given as ‘teacher and choirmaster’. I spent my youth in a village so I knew that the combined function of teacher and choirmaster involves not only teaching but also leading the singing in church. This was a bit of a problem: I could not decide whether to learn some hymns or pretend to be a choirmaster who had been struck dumb. Neither idea seemed very attractive.
As our contacts continued, it became clear that my friend Sold might turn out to be a real treasure. He could provide blank but ready-stamped residence forms. The Hungarian system required that all changes of address had to be registered with the police, who then provided a certificate of residence. You could register a new address only if you already had in hand a stamped form indicating that you had left the old one. So the route to a false certificate of residence lay through a forged residence form.
‘Get me a hundred of these.’
‘A hundred is too many. I can’t get you a hundred.’
‘I don’t understand. If your policeman friend can hide the stamp, there’s not much effort involved in stamping a hundred forms.’ I made a stamp with my fist and banged it up and down on the table. ‘I have a lot of friends: I need a lot of forms. So bring me eighty.’
He shook his head.
‘Sixty.’
The same shake of the head.
‘So bring forty – as many as you can.’
In the end he brought me only four. He charged me 5 pengős each, which was as good as giving them away. I begged him to get me more but he refused. Instead he came up with a new proposition. Through a printer friend of his he could get a certificate of membership in the Order of Heroes.
The Order of Heroes was established following the collapse of Béla Kun’s communist regime after World War I. Horthy created it as an anti-communist organization to honor those right-wingers who had helped him into power. With the assistance of right-wing elements in parliament, he set it up as an imitation of a medieval knightly order, the only one in existence at the time. Induction into the order involved an elaborate medieval ceremony and membership carried with it many privileges, including country estates. Naturally no Jew could belong to this privileged caste.
‘The membership certificate is printed on special paper,’ said my friend. ‘It’s a lot of work to get the paper and to set the type. I should point out that for technical reasons I can’t get you an embossed seal such as they have on the originals. In this case it will have to be printed.’
I had never seen a certificate of membership in the Order of Heroes, either with or without an embossed seal, and I had no intention of using such a certificate. I had had a bad experience with such documents.
At the time of the fall of the communist regime in Hungary in 1920 I was living in Irkutsk as an escaped prisoner of war. The city had recently been in the hands of the Whites. Kolchak, their leader, ordered a general mobilization to confront the Red Army, which was advancing on the city. Several members of the Irkutsk Jewish community wanted to do everything they could to avoid serving with the anti-Semitic Whites. They had no wish to become soldiers and, in any case, between the Whites and the Reds, they regarded the Reds as the lesser of the two evils. They paid a lot of money to get their names on to a list that stated that they were members of Kolchak’s counter-espionage operation and were exempt from military service. But what happened? The Red Army defeated the Whites. They got hold of the counter-espionage list. On it were the names of the Jews. Naturally the Bolsheviks regarded double agents as the worst kind of enemies. The unfortunate Jews vainly declared that although their names were on the list they had played no part as spies. No mercy was shown. Every one of them was executed, or, as the Russians put it, ‘liquidated’ (the Bolsheviks were squeamish about the word ‘executed’).
My wife, unencumbered by such memories, recommended that I speak to the Barabás brothers about the certificates. These brothers, relatives of hers, were wealthy manufacturers who had converted to Christianity long since and lived the lives of aristocrats. Such a certificate would surely appeal to them greatly.
She was right. I explained to the younger brother that the certificates were less than perfect, because they would not have the proper seal.
‘That’s a detail. It’s simply important that we have in our hands, or rather our pockets, some kind of weapon.’
He instructed me to obtain certificates for him and his brother and proposed 10,000 pengős. I was amazed. I knew the brothers: they were hardworking, competent people, but very tight with their money, and they thought very hard before they spent anything. Only extreme concern about their future would cause them to offer such a huge sum for a document of such doubtful value, if any. I was even more surprised when Sold declared that he wanted 1,000 pengős for the documents. I ordered them at once and could hardly contain myself until the moment came when I could inform my clients that the documents were ready. Barabás himself came to my apartment to take the documents. Now I was really taken aback. He put on the table two wads of banknotes, 20,000 pengős in all. I was so surprised that I gave one of them back. He explained that he was under the impression that the certificates cost 10,000 pengős each. So I earned 9,000 pengős instead of 19,000, but the money kept me going for a long time. In fact, this unexpected windfall took care of our living expenses for the following months; I had no other income.
Although I was no longer practicing as a lawyer because all Jews had had their licenses suspended, the government forgot to ban Jews from administering real estate. So I continued in that function for a few weeks. One of the houses that I looked after was a six-story building, the top three stories of which were rented by the Csepel Free Port. One day I received a call from the firm’s general counsel, who was not only a lawyer but also a member of parliament.
‘My dear colleague, why aren’t the offices properly heated?’
‘They’re heated according to the regulations. According to the regulations, we’re supposed to provide only moderate heat because of the shortage of fuel. Sixteen degrees Celsius is the maximum allowed.’
‘Please see to it that they are heated better.’
‘I’m not going to break the law for anyone.’
‘You talk as though the Brits had already arrived.’
I had no reason to treat the caller rudely, but I felt a certain suppressed fury against everybody in high positions, feeling that they were all implicated in what was happening to our country. A single promise that I would do what I could to satisfy his wishes would have been enough to end matters. It was almost the end of the heating season, but I refused outright and I didn’t mince words. In fact my sharpness so annoyed Dr Téli that he reported me to the police. In normal times such things were not police matters, but these were hardly normal times.
A few days later my building manager and I received a summons from the police. My wife was extremely upset. She urged me not to go in person but to send a non-Jewish lawyer to represent me. It was widely believed that any Jew who visited the police station was deported. With such beliefs circulating, Jews didn’t go voluntarily to police stations, so there was no way of testing the theory. I tried to calm my wife’s fears by explaining to her that these stories related to police headquarters, while I had been summoned simply to a precinct station, where there was no danger. They wouldn’t have room to keep me there even if they wanted to. In reality I felt a certain obligation to what was left of my self-respect: I would defy the danger and go in person.
The building manager came with me. I was invited in first, while the manager waited in the outer office. In spite of my internal agitation, I did my best to show a calm exterior. Dr Téli was already there. No doubt he and the police captain had discussed in advance how to handle the matter. The captain, senior in both age and rank, opened the conversation, in carefully neutral tones.
‘I am convinced that our lawyer friend is not responsible for the heating. The error clearly lies with the witless building manager, who is not providing heat in the right way at the right time.’
Despite his neutral and conciliatory tone, I felt obliged not to allow the responsibility to get shunted in the wrong direction.
‘I have to tell you that the building manager is perfectly conscientious. The order to economize came from me.’
I explained that there were forty people living in the building, in addition to those working there, and the regulations did not allow enough fuel for adequate heating both during the day and at night.
Now the building manager was called in. The captain’s demeanor changed. He used the tone of voice he had used for years to intimidate people.
‘I warn you: if you don’t do your duty properly I will have you jailed.’
‘But, sir, I do do my job properly. As my boss has certainly explained, we have to provide heat round the clock and there’s not enough coal to do so.’
‘Shut up. I’m not looking for excuses. You have been warned. Now you may go.’
The captain turned to me politely and thanked me for taking the trouble of coming along.
The manager and I left the police station together. I was relieved that I hadn’t been detained. He was upset because he felt that he had been unjustly threatened. We walked in the sunshine along the edge of the Danube.
I was the first to break the silence.
‘You know, it’s amazing. Although I’m a Jew, the police officer and the member of parliament treated me as an equal. But you, a Gentile, get treated badly because you’re “only” a building manager.’
I studied his face to see the effect of my words.
‘It was very kind of you, sir, to defend me.’
‘I am sorry I couldn’t do it more effectively, but I have to be careful, being a Jew.’
‘It’s a shame what they are doing to the Jews. If there’s anything I can do for you, you can always count on me.’
I looked at him and I saw that he really meant it. He had made the offer on the spur of the moment, but it evidently occurred to him that he really could help me. I felt that it was a genuine offer and it was up to me to accept it.
‘If you really want to, you can help me. You can help me quite a lot.’
His face remained impassive, but he replied without a moment’s hesitation, ‘Both my wife and I will do anything you want. You have done enough for us in the past.’
I knew what he was referring to. In Budapest at the time it was common for building administrators to sell caretaking positions in their buildings. I never liked this way of proceeding because it made me too dependent on superintendents who felt I was somehow indebted to them. It seemed like a bribe. So when Balázs applied for the job I took him on because I liked him. When he told me he would have difficulty raising money, I told him I would give him the job anyway.
Balázs was a few years younger than I, but his wife was about the same age as mine and his only son was born on almost the same day as my elder son. In fact, the two of them were friends. I told him about my plan to start living under a false name and asked him whether he would be willing to give me his family’s documents. He took me straight away to his apartment and handed me all the documents he could find. He also gave me details that would allow me to order the missing documents. I ordered two copies of each. I was overjoyed. At last I had what I needed to put my plan into operation. Among other things, I now had a complete set of documents for one of my sons and my wife. To replace the documents I had taken, I ordered copies for Balázs.
On the same day I had another stroke of good fortune. A young man came to my home from Nyíregyháza, sent by my younger brother. He presented me with a folder full of papers. My brother had obtained the documents from an old employee of my father, who was about the same age and build as I. In fact I remembered him well: we had been in the same class at school. The papers were fairly complete. There was even a military discharge among them. My brother wanted me to move to Nyíregyháza with these papers because he felt that I would be less exposed in a provincial town. Little did he know that within a few days the Jews of Nyíregyháza would be herded together in a ghetto, himself included, and shortly afterwards deported to Auschwitz.
As I talked to the young man who brought me the documents, he struck me as very enterprising. He was evidently a commercial traveler, a salesman, who spent most of his time traveling in the provinces. He was willing to try anything that brought him some money. When I mentioned to him that I might be in need of some assistance and hinted at the rich rewards awaiting those who would help me, he appeared more than willing to be of service. He suggested that, as he was away most of the week, his wife would be glad to have my wife stay with her.
He was a complete stranger, but I took his name and address and arranged to contact him one weekend when he was in town.
After he had gone, I inspected the documents and the military papers thoroughly. They were just what I needed. So I became Elek Szabó. I decided to grow a moustache.
Having secured most of our personal documents, we had to consider who should disappear, when and how. In my view it was not a good idea for the family to stay together. It would be better if we each lived separately, independently. If we stayed together, the risk of betrayal or discovery was far higher. We had a better chance of survival if we lived apart.
It was most urgent to take care of my son Paul, who was already approaching his eighteenth birthday. He might be drafted for ‘labor service’ at any time. Jews were not considered good enough to be soldiers, but were put into labor battalions under military command. It was generally believed that the army was the only organization that did not permit the deportation of its members, not even the Jews on labor service.
So we had to decide whether to let our son be drafted or not.
His Christian papers were by now in order. If he did not report for labor service he could continue living as a Christian student. He could spend most of his time in libraries: such activity attracted little attention and in the mornings relatively few people visited libraries.
As for myself, I would have preferred to live in a hotel, with a swimming pool and other facilities, so that I would not have to go out much. I thought about the Lukács Spa or the Hotel Gellért, where they have everything under one roof, including athletic facilities. My wife, who, though I hardly merited it, seemed more concerned about my fate than I was, strongly protested against my plan. Many people meant many eyes, and the risk of recognition and betrayal in such a public place was accordingly much higher. One must disappear from sight.
A new plan began to take shape.
As the administrator of the building on Eskü Square, I knew its layout pretty well. The building manager and his family could be trusted: they had, after all, given me their documents. On the ground floor of the house, in the courtyard next to the entrance to the air-raid shelter, there was a tiny windowless room, generally used to store furniture. If I could adapt this room to my purposes, I could stay there for the short time needed for the Nazis to fall. The building was well located on the bank of the Danube, just a step away from the Rudas Baths, where I could swim in the mornings. So I would get my daily exercise. At night, when it was dark, I could walk along the river.
But it seemed a boring proposition to live alone in such a hole. If I were a bachelor I could have invited a member of the opposite sex to share my solitude, but for a married man with two children this was hardly a possibility.
Finally I decided on Lajos Ozma as a possible partner. He was one of the most successful architects and interior decorators in Budapest. He and his family were friends of ours and I was especially fond of his rather temperamental younger daughter, Zsuzsi. The elder daughter was also very attractive. Lajos was an artist with wide interests and a great deal of knowledge, somewhat older than myself, balding, but with a thick black moustache. He looked more like a Chinese mandarin than a Budapest Jew. Even his skin had a yellowish tinge and his eyes were a little slanted. At least, that’s how I saw him. Maybe in the company of such a man and some good books it wouldn’t be too hard to wait for the collapse of Nazism.
The building manager and his wife could get us our meals from a restaurant. There were three famous restaurants in the vicinity: the old Kriszt Restaurant and the modern restaurants in the Carlton and Bristol hotels. We could have our dinner brought every day from a different restaurant, giving us more variety and causing less suspicion.
I discussed the plan with Lajos and he enthusiastically agreed. So I commissioned him as architect to make our hiding-place as safe and comfortable as possible. He had to take proper care of ventilation, electricity, sink, toilet, and so on, and also make sure that no sign of life could be seen from outside. For added safety a buzzer was installed, with a push-button in the building manager’s office. Signals could be of varying length, depending on the nature of the danger. In an emergency we could run down to the air-raid shelter in a matter of seconds, where by pressing a button we could close a huge iron door behind us or, by crossing the full length of the shelter, walk through another door into a different street. The entrance to the courtyard was locked, which would give us time for these maneuvers. To use military terms, you could say that the arrangements seemed to be both strategically and tactically satisfactory. We had time to consider all eventualities in great detail, and the money involved was not a problem. In fact, the arrangements showed that we had both been avid readers of Jules Verne in our youth.
Only my poor mother-in-law, who lived in the house, could not understand why we were renovating the building in such uncertain times. Meanwhile I tried to make arrangements for her safety, too. I explained the danger that was threatening us. She did not believe me.
‘They can’t go around murdering innocent people,’ she insisted; she was quite stubborn about it.
‘Look, Mama, two beautiful young girls, relatives, who were living with you, simply disappeared, as you well know. We searched high and low and we still haven’t found them. In fact, there’s been no sign of life from them at all.’
‘They’ve been taken away to work; that’s why they don’t write. Your brother Zoltán came back. Murdering innocent people isn’t possible. It says so in the Bible.’
In an odd way she was right: it simply wasn’t possible. Such things were happening around me, and I knew the facts, yet I continued to have this odd sense that somehow it wasn’t true. In fact, the feeling has never left me.
Early in April the first air raid hit the southern part of Budapest. From then on, day and night, British or American planes flew over to bombard industrial targets. Many people attributed the raids to the persecution of the Jews, some suggesting that they confirmed all the stories of an international Jewish conspiracy and some assuming that they would continue until the murders and politicians stopped the torture.
The air raids created a new situation. Normal life disintegrated. The hospitals filled with the wounded, and places had to be found for those made homeless. As a result, there were so many changes of address reported to the police that not much attention was paid to Jews registering under false names. Oddly, I and my fellow-sufferers had little fear of the raids, though the bombing was certainly no picnic. I was visiting someone when the first raid occurred. My host had other guests, and, to avoid drawing attention to the size of the group, I said I would stay in the apartment and not go to the air-raid shelter. It was hardly pleasant to hear the explosions getting closer and closer: with every explosion I was afraid that the building was going to collapse. But, in spite of my fear, I was pleased – as I was whenever a raid took place. Of course, it helped to have a decent air-raid shelter and pleasant company while the raids were going on.
Our lives and those of the almost one million Hungarian Jews depended not on the bombing raids but on the military contest between Russia and Germany. It was a race against time. Would the Russians succeed in driving the Germans from the Carpathian basin before the Germans had time to complete their extermination program? I followed every move of the Russian army on the Eastern Front with rapt attention, listening to the BBC several times a day. Just one breakthrough, and hundreds of thousands of lives might be saved.