In August 1944 things at last began to assume the shape I had been waiting for so impatiently. German military failures began to have an effect on the politics of the satellite countries. The Allies launched massively effective bombing raids that destroyed numbers of major military bases in Germany, and their invasion of France pushed forward into territory formerly occupied by the enemy. In the east, the steady advance of the Soviet Union forced Romania into negotiations on a ceasefire.
On August 18, the King of Romania accepted the conditions of an armistice that included an agreement to cede Bessarabia and Bukovina, formerly Romanian territory, to the Soviets. In return, Romania received Transylvania, previously a southeastern province of Hungary. A further condition was that the Romanian army would now have to fight alongside the Russian army. The terms of this armistice were in fact the first step in what was to become Russia’s new colonialism in Eastern Europe.
These developments had a profound effect on Hungary’s national and international position and the government had to institute some pretty drastic changes. First, in early August Prime Minister Döme Sztójay fired three ministers from his administration – Imrédy, Jaross and Kunder – who were more Nazi even than Sztójay himself.
On August 18 the police beat back a demonstration in support of German Nazism. The Germans did their best to put a brake on the ‘historical wheel of progress’ and summoned Admiral Horthy to Germany.
On August 23, Horthy met with the Nazi foreign minister, Ribbentrop, who agreed to reduce German interference in Hungarian internal affairs. But at the same time Horthy had to declare that the Hungarian army would continue to fight alongside the Germans. Then at the end of August Horthy forced Sztójay out of office and replaced him with General Géza Lakatos.
All these events made it clear – even to the politically unsophisticated – that important changes were in the making in Hungary. By September the wildest rumors were flying all over Budapest – particularly the story that Hungary was about to break with the Axis powers. It was said that Admiral Horthy’s wife and son were the chief disseminators of this sensational news, an assumption supported by the story that she was part-Jewish and her son had Jewish friends. Another rumor had it that Hitler had ‘invited’ Horthy to Germany and Horthy had refused to go. In a state of high excitement we listened to one piece of news after another and, amid much discussion, waited for at least one of these stories actually to come true.
But the fate of the Hungarian Jews was already largely sealed. Except for the Jews of Budapest, the others, from the provinces, had already been deported, even those living in the suburbs of the city, like Újpest and Kispest. If things were now to move in a more favorable direction, those left in Budapest – perhaps 100,000 or 120,000 – stood a chance of being saved.
As autumn advanced amid the mild glow of an Indian summer, the sunshine seemed to symbolize our own myriad rays of hope. People gained confidence and learned to smile once more. Little by little my provincial platoon returned home to Budapest. Jutka was the first to return. She could not stand the idyllic tranquillity of life on Lake Balaton when she knew that her father and elder brother were back in the city. Both had managed to escape from labor camps, and I provided them with forged identity papers from my collection, along with clothing and other necessities. Jutka was accompanied by Lame Karcsi, whom Julia asked to escort her, knowing that he was a frequent and experienced traveler. I lodged Jutka in the Avases’ luxury apartment in Buda, where she was welcomed with pleasure by Avas’s young sister-in-law, who had arrived in Budapest just a few days before. The sister-in-law was several months pregnant, so she was glad to have such an agreeable companion.
Karcsi, the messenger, returned to Almádi, but a couple of days later he came back with two further escorts. This time Julia entrusted to him George, who was bored with the uneventful and monotonous life of the village. George moved in with friends whom he had met through Baufluss. These friends, the Hászkas, had told him that he was always welcome to join their family. They had two children: a six-year-old boy named Otto (after the last of the Habsburgs) and a six-month-old little girl. The Hászkas were Catholics and royalists, belonging to the political faction that wished to reinstate the Habsburg rule. They simply adopted George as a third child and lavished on him all the parental love he missed and really still needed. Both Hászka and his wife busied themselves from dawn to dusk taking care of the children and tending the garden. They did not have the time to seek out any of the special foods that are important for babies.
‘The Hászkas are so good to me,’ said my son when I met him a few days later. ‘I’d really like to do something for them. Perhaps we could do the rounds of the drugstores and try to buy some baby-food.’
We marched from one end of town to the other in search of baby-food, visiting every drugstore. Later I made trips outside the city. I discovered that in the suburban drugstores it was much easier to find special baby-foods because the population was poorer and could not afford them. Our campaign was so successful that the Hászka girl was supplied with baby-food at least until her wedding day. The parents were simply overwhelmed. Unfortunately the baby got fed up with the stuff and refused to eat it.
Finally, on October 13, Julia and her new best friend Elza Brandeisz arrived. Elza moved into her empty dancing school, full of hope and with plans to start classes shortly. Julia arrived with a wonderful tan, looking serene, balanced and elegant. She wanted to go straight to the old apartment on Kossuth Lajos Square.
‘Darling, I’m an optimist too, but trust me, it is a little too early for that. Let’s wait a while.’
So she moved in with the two girls, Jutka and Avas’s sister-in-law, on Tardy Street. As we arrived in the front hall of their building, we were greeted with tempting aromas: up on the second floor Mrs Avas was cooking a goose. They had returned to Budapest the previous day laden with treasures from their village: ducks, geese, pork, eggs. Evidently the good news had reached the forest, and they had hurried back to Budapest full of hope. I stayed with them late into the night, and we agreed that Julia would spend the next day with Paul. On Monday they would come back to town, and we would all meet at the Miénk Café.
October 15 arrived.
Early in the morning the news spread that Admiral Horthy’s son had been killed by the Germans. A few hours later the radio announced that Horthy was going to make an important political declaration; it was read several times in the course of the morning. The text of this declaration of armistice was as follows:
Ever since the will of the nation put me at the helm of the country, the most important aim of Hungarian foreign policy has been to repair, at least in part, the injustices of the Treaty of Trianon by bringing about its revision through peaceful means. Hopes for the operations of the League of Nations in this respect have not materialized.
When the recent world crisis began, Hungary was not guided by any desire to expand its borders. We had no aggressive intentions towards the Czechoslovak Republic, nor did we wish to recapture lost territory through aggressive means. Also, we entered Bácska to defend Hungarian residents in the region only after the collapse of the Yugoslav government of the time. And as far as the Eastern territories taken from us by Romania in 1918 were concerned, we accepted the peaceful arbitration of the Axis Powers, as, apparently, did Romania.
Hungary was dragged into war against the Allies through German pressure resulting from our geographical situation. But also in this war we had no aims of conquest: we did not wish to take as much as a square meter of territory away from anyone else.
Today it is obvious to any sober-minded person that the German Reich has lost the war. All governments, responsible for the fate of their fatherlands, must draw the appropriate conclusions from this fact. As the great German leader Bismarck once said, no nation ought to sacrifice itself on the altar of faithfulness to an alliance. Conscious of our historic responsibility, I must take every possible measure to avoid further unnecessary bloodshed. A nation that, in a war already lost and in support of foreign interests, allowed the territory handed down to it by its forefathers to become a battleground for rearguard actions, would lose all respect in world public opinion.
Sadly, I must conclude that the German Reich has long since broken its obligations to us as an ally. Long since – and despite our wishes and desires – it has thrown more and more elements of the Hungarian army into battles beyond our borders.
Then in March this year, the leader of the German Reich summoned me to Klessheim for discussions, precisely because of my insistence on bringing the Hungarian army home, and there he informed me that German troops were about to occupy Hungary. And, despite my protests, he carried out this action while I was detained in Klessheim.
At the same time the German political police also penetrated the country, arresting numerous Hungarian citizens, among them several members of parliament, and even my own government’s minister of internal affairs. The prime minister himself was able to avoid arrest only by seeking refuge in a neutral legation. The leader of the German Reich promised me that he would halt these offenses against, and limitations of, Hungarian sovereignty, if I would appoint a government that enjoyed the Germans’ confidence. This was the reason for my nomination of Mr Sztójay’s government. But the Germans did not fulfill their promise. Under cover of the German occupation, the Gestapo secret police, applying the same methods as they had used elsewhere, took it upon themselves to deal with the Jewish problem in a manner incompatible with the dictates of humanity.
When the war approached our borders and ultimately crossed them, the Germans promised appropriate support, but even that obligation was not fulfilled in the manner or the measure promised. As they retreated, they ravaged and destroyed the nation’s territory.
Finally, their various offenses against the alliance culminated in an act of open provocation. General Szilárd Bakay, head of the Budapest command, responsible for the maintenance of internal order, was ambushed and abducted in the very center of the city by agents of the Gestapo, taking advantage of the poor visibility, as he left his car in front of his home on a recent foggy October morning.
Subsequently, they used their planes to scatter leaflets inciting rebellion against the current government. I have reliable information on what the troops friendly to the Germans wished to achieve by this incitement to violence: the toppling of the Hungarian government that I had established in the meantime, and the seizure of government by their own people. And in the meantime our country’s territory would indeed become a battleground for rearguard actions.
I have decided that I must protect the honor of the Hungarian nation against our former ally, when it, instead of providing appropriate military help, wishes to steal, once and for all, the greatest treasure of the Hungarian nation, its freedom and independence. Accordingly, I have informed the Hungarian representative of the German Reich that I will sign an armistice agreement with our former enemies and that in return for this armistice we plan to halt all hostile action. Trusting in their sense of justice, I wish to secure, in concert with them, the continuity of the future life of our nation and the realization of our peaceful aims.
I have given appropriate instructions to our military commanders. Therefore, our troops, in accordance with their oath, and in line with newly published military orders, are under an obligation to obey the commanders appointed by me.
I call on all honest and right-thinking Hungarians to follow me on the path, beset with sacrifices though it may be, of salvation for the Hungarian people.
Everyone listened to this declaration, but there were many voices of dissent: ‘Too late.’ ‘The horse has long since bolted.’ ‘We’ve lost Transylvania.’
‘Better late than never’ was the majority opinion, however. There was much rejoicing. People poured into the streets. I had not paid much attention to the weather in weeks; the only important thing was that with each day that passed we should come a little closer to liberation. Now I noticed that it was a glorious fall day: the trees competed with one another in their green, yellow and red colors. On that day not only the pretend Gentiles but the Jews as well had the courage to take to the streets, and many tore their yellow stars from their coats.
First I headed for the house on Eskü Square, where, months ago, I had begun my new life. Mrs Balázs was delighted to see me. I went down to the basement and dug out my last reserves from a hole in the wall: banknotes and ten gold coins. I was just in time, because the paper money had almost rotted away from the damp.
Balázs took me up to the stairwell where, as I discovered, they had wounded Horthy’s son. The bloodstains were still visible on three of the steps. Miklós Horthy had been trying to meet Bornemissza, director-general of the Free Port, at the port’s offices in the building. The Germans had learned about the plans for the meeting and on the previous evening ten plainclothes Germans in leather coats had concealed themselves in the building, threatening the building manager, Balázs, that they would shoot him dead if he told anyone. Needless to say, Balázs had no idea what was going on, but he was not pleased. The excitement kept him awake all night. In the morning, Horthy’s son duly appeared, escorted by two bodyguards. Balázs heard the shots from the basement, where they had locked him up. But how badly Horthy’s son was wounded, and where they had taken him, he had no idea.
And so, by a strange twist of fate, blood was shed at the building on Eskü Square in the cause of liberation from German oppression.
From Eskü Square I went to visit my client Schwartz. His big apartment on Wekerle Street was jam-packed with visitors who had gathered in excitement at Horthy’s proclamation. Many members of his family were living there too, since the building was one of those marked with a yellow star. But during the day their sleeping areas were curtained off to hide the overcrowding. The old life went on under the guidance of the patriarch; even the basset hounds received their Gerbeaud bonbons as before.
The two teenage girls, as always, belied their external appearance with their derogatory remarks. The elder girl kept mentioning Paul, about whom she dreamed with all the ardor of her fourteen years, and only reluctantly talked with Jancsi Danyi, Paul’s boxer friend, whom my son had delegated to the family several months earlier in his place, and who was a frequent visitor to the house. Most surprising of all: the cuisine was still first-rate. There were crêpes suzettes in my honor, better than any I have ever eaten elsewhere. The drinks flowed freely. After the meal we talked little about the past, but even less about the future, which seemed rosy in spite of the silence.
The family had four members; Gyuri (George), his wife, and two daughters. George had originally been married to a Christian, from whom he was divorced, and there were two children, a boy and a girl. The girl went with her mother, and the boy with his paternal grandmother. Among the children of the first marriage, the grandmother, and the children of the second marriage, relations were not good. Of course, I warned them not to stay in the building, with its yellow star. But when Mrs Schwartz heard my opinion, that it would be better if they all lived separately in these dangerous times, she interrupted me somewhat indignantly: ‘Well, counselor, that may be your opinion. But not for a moment would I be separated from any member of my family.’
I gave up trying to persuade her.
The Schwartzes had a great deal of jewelry and asked for my advice.
‘Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone about it, especially not the janitor. Dig a hole in the cellar, with your own hands, and put your jewelry in it. Don’t tell anyone – not even me,’ I added, as if to emphasize the extreme importance of secrecy.
We sat down after the meal to play cards. Around five or six in the evening, George, my host, called me out.
‘I just wanted to tell you that they’ve read an announcement from the Arrow-Cross Party on the radio, by Szálasi.’
Even I, a passionate listener to the radio, simply shrugged contemptuously.
‘Don’t worry about it. It’s probably just some secret underground Arrow-Cross station.’
But George came back to the room two or three times with various alarming pieces of news from the radio: ‘Szálasi has taken over . . . The Arrow-Cross Party has formed a government . . . The Germans have announced their support for Szálasi.’
But his insistence had no effect: nothing seemed capable of moving me from my indifference. I simply wanted to eat, drink, play cards. I didn’t even take the trouble to turn on the radio: I was so far gone in my euphoria at Horthy’s declaration. It was perhaps seven o’clock when, after abundant food and an agreeable game of cards, Danyi and I left the house together. Outside, we were greeted by a frightening silence. The street was completely deserted; the only sound was thunder in the distance. When we reached the main thoroughfare, Andrássy Street, the cause of the thunder became clear: German guns and tanks were moving through in a steady stream. My heart turned cold and a chill ran down my spine. We walked down Andrássy Street full of foreboding.
At Oktogon Square there were people. Newspaper sellers shouted, ‘Szálasi’s declaration! The Arrow-Crossers have taken power! Read all about it!’
I bought a copy of what was a single-sheet special edition, and, as though still living in some abnormal state, I addressed another newspaper reader, gesturing at the headline: ‘What do you make of this craziness?’
When he simply looked me over from head to toe, without saying a word, I was terrified: I finally understood that Horthy’s putsch had failed, that Horthy had been arrested, that Szálasi’s German-supporters had seized power, that the question I had just asked was enough to have me shot. At the corner of Oktogon Square and Grand Avenue, where a crowded streetcar was just leaving the square, I could already see how innocent passengers were being treated by thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds dressed in civilian clothes with ammunition holders on their leather belts and with aged rifles that they could barely carry on their shoulders. They were manhandling and striking people as they got off the streetcar, so as to ‘keep order’.
‘Uncle Lexi, I really don’t want to go home,’ said Danyi blankly.
‘Come to my place; you can stay with me.’
Danyi simply gestured and climbed on to a streetcar. Perhaps he had remembered a popular song of the time, which the actress Karádi used to sing:
No use running to liberty:
No way of escaping what must be.
I walked home feeling as though I had been beaten to death. I crept quietly into my room: I had no wish to talk with the other occupants.
I awoke early next morning to the sound of gunfire. I listened tensely, then dressed feverishly and went out to look around. A sharp chill met me when I went out into the street. In Grand Avenue I found many other early risers. I tried to discover what was going on. People just shrugged: they also didn’t know what was happening. Finally someone said, ‘Someone started shooting at a group of Arrow-Crossers in the street from the balcony of a Jewish House, so now they’re trying to smoke them out.’
The gunfire included that of machine-guns and even occasional heavy artillery. I approached Népszínház Street. A crowd in front of the Jewish House. On the asphalt shards of glass and bits of stone. I tried to focus my attention, to engrave on my memory the faces of the Arrow-Crossers as they came out of the building – the way one of them held a club, the fury in the eyes of another. I thought that one day, when these people had to answer for their atrocities – because justice isn’t just something in novels – I would be able to say unequivocally, ‘Yes, he was one of them.’
I had a hard time deciding whether to be scared as a Jew or ashamed as a Gentile for allowing all this to happen.
I directed my steps toward the Café Miénk: the time was approaching for my rendezvous with my wife and son. They arrived. My wife did her best to hide how depressed she was at this sad turn of events, but I recognized her tight, quiet mode of conversation, always a sign of internal turmoil and distress. Elza Brandeisz had also come. Holding a small suitcase in her hand, she explained that she was going back to the country immediately.
She turned to Julia: ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come?’
Julia turned to me questioningly.
From the direction of Népszínház Street a large group of Jews appeared, herded along by Arrow-Crossers. They walked with their hands in the air, like prisoners of war. A young mother clutched her baby in her right hand and held the left above her head.
Tears streamed down Julia’s face.
‘Go with her, dear. Go with Elza. Leave now, while there are still trains.’ I knew that if she stayed, she would only limit my ability to maneuver. And I needed all the strength I could muster if we were all to survive this latest horror.
Paul, too, approved of his mother’s departure for the country. ‘We men can get by easier here. George has a wonderful place with the Hászkas.’
The events of that day shook me up, too, though I hid my concern and tried to seem above it all.
The women left for the station. Julia did not even stop off at Tardy Street for her suitcase. Elza would provide her with clothes if the weather turned cold.