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THE STORY OF MY TIMES(My 20th Century)By MIKLOS N. SZILAGYI

Copyright © 2007-2011 Miklos N. Szilagyi

I cannot tell this to anyone; therefore, I will tell it to everyone.- Frigyes Karinthy

Volume Two:In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

8. Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and the Budapest Ghetto (1944)

"I lived on this Earth in an agewhen man fell so low, he killedwillingly, for pleasure, withoutorders."

- Miklós Radnóti

The year 1944 starts with intensified bombardment of Germany. Mustang fighter planesare introduced that can fly deep into Germany to escort the bombers. Precision bombing is nowaccomplished without great losses. The Allies have complete air superiority. Half of all Germanaviation factories are destroyed in February. Major bombing of Hamburg occurs on March 18. Thenew Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter plane is put into service too late.

Hitler reviews the damage

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On the Italian front, attacks at Casino fail. On January 21, Allied troops fight their wayashore on Anzio beach but stop there, letting the Germans organize a strong defense. On February15, the unarmed Monte Cassino Abbey is destroyed by heavy bombardment. The subsequent attackfails. The ruins of the Abbey actually help the Germans to defend the mountain. A stalematedevelops. On March 15, a new attack fails again and the New Zealand brigade loses 4,000 menbecause of a series of blunders by the commanding General Clark.

On January 11, Mussolini’s son-in-law, former Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano andmany others who voted for ousting Mussolini are executed.

In the Pacific, The Burma campaign starts by Roosevelt’s insistence to establish astrategic link between India and China. The Marshall Islands are taken on February 23.

Such was the situation of the war when Hitler summoned Horthy to Klessheim and whilethey talked, 11 German divisions occupied Hungary on March 19. SS General Veesenmayer wasappointed Reich Plenipotentiary in Hungary. He actively helped Eichmann in the deportation of theJews to Auschwitz. For this he spent two years (!!!) in prison after the war. Horthy has to dismissMiklós Kállay and appoints General Döme Sztójay as Prime Minister. The government consists ofextremely right-wing politicians but the Arrow Cross Party is still not invited. Horthy continues as afigurehead Regent but gives Sztójay a free hand in the management of state affairs including thedeportation of Jews. The new Governement’s first—and seemingly most important—task is toeliminate the Jews. Adolf Eichmann is immediately sent to Hungary, and a special secretary isappointed for the “solution of the Jewish problem.”

The last meeting Edmund Veesenmayer

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The minutes of the March 29 cabinet meeting says: “His Highness has granted fullpowers to the government with respect to all anti-Jewish regulations and he wishes to exercise noinfluence in the matter whatsoever.“ There is no doubt that he knew what happened to the deportedJews. He said to László Baky: “I hate the Galician Jews and the Communists. Out with them, out ofthe country!“ (It is interesting to note that Baky attempted an unsuccessful coup against Horthyshortly after this conversation.)

Sztójay Döme The new masters on the Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Endre Fisherman’s Bastion

The Gestapo immediately arrested every Hungarian who could be a problem for theoccupation. Kállay found shelter in the Turkish Embassy but he was eventually captured and sentfirst to the Dachau concentration camp and later to Mauthausen. The heroic Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky greeted the Gestapo henchmen with his handgun. Otherwise, there was no resistance inHungary. On the contrary, the Gestapo received about 35,000 denunciations against Jews andLeftists. In no other country did the Nazis encounter such a large number of denunciations from thelocal population.

300,000 Hungarian soldiers fight alongside the Nazis. The Hungarian industry works forGermany, raw materials are sent to Germany, and Hungary pays the costs of the occupation (200million pengő per month).

The “Anglo-Saxons“1 start bombing Hungary. The first major air strike against Budapesthappens on April 3. 20,000 people die of the bombings during 1944.

1The term used by the Hungarian press for the Allies.

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Air raids against Budapest

More than 60,000 Hungarian Jews had been murdered before the German occupation,including my father and uncle (see previous Chapter). Eichmann arrives to Hungary with a coupleof hundred SS men to organize the deportation of the Jews. Between April 29 and July 9, 437,402Hungarian Jews are sent to Auschwitz including many dozens of my relatives.

It is very painful to remember how eagerly the Hungarian people cooperated with theNazis in rounding up all the Jews who lived outside Budapest, concentrating them first in ghettos,then packing them into boxcars designed to transport cattle (70-100 people crammed into eachboxcar with a bucket of water and an empty bucket for bodily functions), and taking them toAuschwitz.

This is done by the Hungarian gendarmerie with exceptional brutality and theenthusiastic cooperation of the other Hungarian authorities under the leadership of Andor Jaross,László Baky, László Endre, and László Ferenczy. Eichmann is astonished by the eagerness odf theHungarians. Horthy does nothing to stop this mass murder. During the entire history of the country,never have been killed more Hungarian citizens than in Auschwitz.

Collecting the Jews and marching them to the railway station

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Hungarian soldiers order the Jews into boxcars while their neighbors are looting their property

Most of my murdered relatives lived in two villages in southern Hungary: Őcsény andDecs. My grandmother’s brothers were famous for their extraordinary physical strength. They hadbeautiful children and grandchildren. The were all murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Here is a list of some of them (the list is not complete because I do not remembereveryone):

Ábrahám Izidor (Uncle Izsó, my grandfather‘s youngest brother) 1892-1943,Ábrahám György (my uncle) 1920-1942,Balázs Vilmosné Schwartz Rózsa 1899-1944,Beck Jenőné Németh Irén 1901-1944,Beck Zsuzsanna 1938-1944,Brach Béla 1911-1944,Deutsch Ignátzné Frankfurter Fáni (my great grandfather’s wife) 1874-1944,Deutsch Mihály (Uncle Móric, my grandmother’s brother) 1893-1944,Deutsch Mihályné Wigizer Szidónia (Aunt Szidi) 1895-1944,Fiegler Jánosné Flesch Julianna 1893-1944,Filler Dezsőné Őri Ilona 1909-1944,Filler György 1934-1944,Filler Lászlóné -1944,Filler Lászlóné’s son 1941-1944,Flesch István 1908-1944,Flesch Istvánné Weinberger Erzsébet 1919-1944,Flesch Ágnes 1936-1944,Frankfurter Mária 1878-1944,Friedman Erzsébet -1944,Friedman Erzsébet‘s son -1944,Friedmann Samuné Schlesinger Riza 1880-1944,Friedmann Aliz 1905-1944,Glantz Márton 1883-1944,Glantz Mártonné Ábrahám Cecilia (Aunt Cili, my grandfather’s sister) 1886-1944,Glantz Györgyi -1944,Glantz Jenő 1920-1944,Gróf László 1914-1944,Gróf Tibor 1916-1944,Gutfreund Pál 1903-1944,Gutfreund Pálné Gutmann Jolán 1907-1944,Gutfreund Ágota 1934-1944,

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Gutmann Menyhértné Reinstein Karola 1872-1944,Gutmann Adolf 1901-1944,Gutmann György 1934-1944,Gutmann László 1930-1944,Hirsch Mórné Teller Szerén 1912-1944,Kaufmann Béláné Grünfeld Teréz 1899-1944,ifj. Kaufmann Béla 1931-1944,daughter of Kellner Pál and Teréz 1928-1944,Kőházi Ferenc 1917-1944,Lantos Endre 1906-1944,Lichtig Miksa 1896-1944,Lőbl Ignác 1863-1944,Lőbl Kornél 1893-1944,Lőbl Kornélné Farkas Ida 1900-1944,Lőbl Márta 1930-1944,Lőbl Sándor 1934-1944,Lőwinger Adolf 1859-1944,Lőwingerné Weiner Katica (Aunt Katica, my grandmother’s sister) 1887-1944,Lőwinger (her husband) -1944,Lőwinger Edit (their daughter) -1944,Mandel Pál 1910-1944,Pagit Salamon 1900-1944,Pagit Salamonné 1901-1944,Pagit László 1938-1944,Reich Ignác 1895-1944,Reich Ignácné Spitzer Etel 1897-1944,Reich Klára 1932-1944,Reich Sarolta 1933-1944,Schwartz Miksáné Reitzer Judit 1884-1944,Schwartz Bernátné Hermann Izabella 1904-1944,Schwartz István 1935-1944,Schwartz Zsuzsanna 1930-1944,Szilágyi Károly (my father) 1904-1942,Tserkinszky Benzionné Flesch Erzsébet 1895-1944,Vécsei Tiborné Wigizer Mária 1920-1944,Vécsei Aranka 1938-1944,Weisz Pál 1914-1944,Wigizer Bernáth 1893-1944,Wigizer Bernáthné Deutsch Etel (Aunt Etel, my grandmother‘s sister)1899-1944,Wigizer Erzsébet 1928-1944,Wigizer Jenő 1901-1944.Wigizer Jenőné Stein Etel 1901-1944,Wigizer Márta 1938-1944.

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Arriving to Auschwitz Inside the camp

It is accepted now that the entire world shares some responsibility for the Holocaust byremaining silent about it. The deportation of the Hungarian Jews, however, was carried out in suchan atrocious manner that not only the King of Sweden wrote to Horthy but even President Rooseveltbroke his silence: he ordered increased heavy bombardment of Budapest and issued an ultimatum inwhich he threatened harsh measures against Hungary after the war if this horror continued.Roosevelt’s message was reinforced by a heavy air raid on Budapest on July 2. The Pope also askedfor mercy.

“De-Jewing” operations in Hungary Part of the memorial wallwith the names of the victims

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Lakatos Géza Leaflet calling Hungarians Faragho Gábor to continue the fight

Laci comes back from Labor Service on February 17 and tells us about the brutality ofthe Hungarian soldiers, the cowardice of the Italians, and the heroism of the Partisans. He is calledagain on June 3. This time he is assigned to a company under a sadistic officer who was among thevery few hanged after the Liberation for ordering the Labor Servicemen strip naked in negative 40-degree weather, pouring water over them, and forcing them at gun point to climb trees and shout“cock-a-doodle-doo” until they froze to death. Laci was savagely beaten by Arrow Cross bandits inGyőr, than transferred to Mauthausen. Uncle Ödön also ends up in Mauthausen. Béla is still in theUkraine.

From April 5 we must wear yellow stars on our clothes. This starts our total separationfrom the rest of the society. The Hungarians look at us like we are lepers. The government issues astatement in which it explicitly promises to “clean Hungary of the Jews within a short time.” At thispoint we became prey to anyone. We are treated like rats. The word “zsidóbérenc“ (stooge of theJews) becomes commonplace to libel Christians who are not openly anti-Semitic. Books by Jewishauthors are publicly destroyed.

Nobody could have imagined that such a thing could happen in Hungary. We trustedHorthy. True, he came to power in 1919 as a result of a bloody coup, but those were difficult times.True, he bragged that he had been a Fascist well before Hitler and Mussolini, but he had to appeasethe two powerful dictators to preserve Hungarian independence. True, his entire regime was basedon revenge (in school we had to start every day by chanting: “The crippled Hungary is not acountry!”), but cutting Hungarians off from Hungary by the Versailles Treaty was indeed cruel andstupid. True, his government had introduced anti-Jewish Laws, but he despised the openly fascistArrow Cross Party. Jews continued to be Hungarians. Our mother tongue was Hungarian, ourculture was Hungarian, and we didn’t speak a word of Hebrew or Yiddish.

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Kistarcsa Internment Camp Reading a poster about Destroying books of new anti-Jewish orders Jewish authors

Some people tried to avoid the impending catastrophe by abandoning their ancestors’religion. Thousands stood in line in front of Catholic and Protestant churches, waiting to bebaptized. Baptized Labor Servicemen were given white armbands to distinguish them from ordinaryJews marked with yellow armbands. People with yellow armbands were the first victims of sadisticsoldiers who could abuse and murder them at will. As we had never been very religious—weobserved only Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah and Seder—my grandfather asked myopinion about this option. I knew the ancient saying: “Kaftános ősöm, nem szégyellek én!“ (Mycaftan-wearing ancestor, I am not ashamed of you!) Also, when in the school we had to publiclyannounce our religion, all other Jewish children identified themselves as Israelites except me. Istood up and shouted at the top of my voice: “Zsidó!“ (Jew!) No wonder, that I vehemently opposedconversion, so the idea was immediately dropped.

The fathers of most of my classmates were on the Russian front fighting “the Judeo-Bolshevik enemy.” There were several Jewish boys in the class. Of course, we were the scapegoatsfor all of this. We were regularly beaten, spat upon, and verbally abused by our classmates. Theywere otherwise normal kids, but it was so much fun to show the yids their place! We all spent ournights in shelters because the “Anglo-Saxons” relentlessly bombarded Budapest’s residential areasto break the spirits of the civilian population. The carpet bombings certainly succeeded in terrifyingchildren—Christians and Jews alike. The remaining days of school were torture. The kids nowopenly enjoyed themselves at our expense.

I am one of the hunted beasts Entrance to the air-raid shelter

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We have to declare all our property including personal belongings

On June 17, 190,000 Jews were confined to 1981 specially designated houses all overBudapest, the so-called “Yellow-Star buildings” because these houses were marked with hugeyellow stars. Each Jewish family was allowed to use one room. As most of the apartments inBudapest had more than one room, the extra rooms were used to house those families who wereevacuated from their homes. As in our house many tenants were Jewish, it was designated aYellow-Star house.

My grandmother with Manci moved into one of the rooms of our apartment. Anotherroom was occupied by the family of Uncle Ödön (his wife Aunt Sári and their son Gyuri). We usedanother room. The remaining two rooms were given to Uncle Ödön’s neighbors, Mrs. Milhoffer andMrs. Rothbart with her son Jóska. Our food rationing was much lower than that of the rest of thepopulation. About a hundred new regulations restricted our life to the bare necessities. We wereallowed neither to visit anyone nor to have visitors. We were not allowed to enter public parks, andcould use only the back coaches of the streetcars. When the school year started in September, theschool was closed to Jewish children.

Laci has to deposit his valuables A Yellow-Star house

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Assignments of my grandmother and Uncle Ödön to the Yellow-Star House

The forced concentration of old people, women, and children led to a barrage of quarrelsand arguments. Once my grandfather noticed that Aunt Sári stepped onto one of our upholsteredchairs with her shoes on and made a remark about it. Aunt Sári just smiled. “Do you think yourchair still matters?” she replied. The relationship between my mother-side grandfather and father-side grandmother became very strained. My two canary birds, the only consolations in thesecircumstances, died one after the other as if they had foreseen what would follow.

We continued to spend our nights in the underground shelter, scared to death of thecarpet bombings. Once a huge bomb fell right in front of our house.

On one occasion we met one of my grandfather’s friends. He just boarded a streetcarwearing a windbreaker but no yellow star. He whispered to us: “Telah!” (Escape). We have neverseen him again.

At another time grandfather was carrying his old briefcase when we were stopped by aGerman soldier. He ordered us into a doorway and said: “I have been serving my Fatherland forthree years but do not have such a briefcase.” My grandfather replied to him: “I do have it becauseI have served my Fatherland for more than thirty years.” Miraculously, he let us go but he couldhave shot us or simply take the briefcase.

Looking at a newsstand I saw an interesting caricature on the front page of a satiricalnewspaper. It showed Szálasi walking along a road with signs marking years. His head was turnedin the backward direction and the caption said: “Szálasi úgy jön, mintha menne.“ (Szálasi is comingas if he were going.)

The list of inhabitants was posted at the entrance to the house. The caretakers of thesehouses were personally responsible for “their yids.” They went out of their way to comply. Wecould leave the house only for a couple of hours every day and had to report to the caretaker eachtime we left and when we returned. Our caretaker’s son served on the Russian front as anoncommissioned officer, and the proud father took every opportunity to express his dismay thatwhile his son was occupied with the honored task of saving Hungary from the Bolsheviks, he had todeal with “you, lousy, filthy yids.”

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My hair grew too long, and I badly needed a haircut. We knew the nearby barberquite well; he used to cut my hair regularly and to greet my mother with a great smile: “Let me kissyour hand, Madame Szilágyi!” This time he was a different man. When I entered his shop, hestarted to yell: “Filthy little yid, haven’t you learned your Kol Nidre yet? Get out of here before Itear your long ears off!”

On July 9, Raoul Wallenberg arrived to Budapest.Eichmann is already in Budapest to organize our extermination when the Romanian

revolt drastically changes the military situation and we are temporarily spared. Horthy replacesSztójay with General Géza Lakatos as Prime Minister on August 29 and sends a delegation toMoscow where General Gábor Faragho signs a preliminary armistice agreement on October 11.

Under these circumstances, János Sárdy, the sweetheart of Hungarian women, was stillsinging songs like this one:

Elpihent a nagyvilág, elpihent a lomb,Messzi bércen valahol kondul egy kolomp.Egy magányos vadgalamb hív egy gerlicét,Hajladozó rózsafán sírja énekét.Hej! Rózsalevél, felkap a szél,Messzi sodor innét.Rózsalevél, egy sort vigyél,Rózsámnak üzennék.Vidd el szívem vágyát,Hozd vissza az álmát!Rózsalevél, felkap a szél,Talán sosem látlak.

And the war continued.Air offensive starts against transportation lines in France and Belgium in April. Southern

England gradually becomes a vast military camp including 1.5 million American troops. Rommelstrengthens the Atlantic Wall, puts 4 million mines on the beaches, and asks for tanks in Normandybut Hitler refuses. Everything is ready for the landing in France by June 5 but D-Day is postponedby a day because of a storm in the Channel. On June 6th, General Montgomery with AdmiralBertram Ramsay and Generals Omar Bradley and Miles Dempsey lead the Expeditionary Forces:6,483 vessels, 11,000 aircraft, 300 landing ships with plenty of Sherman tanks, and 176,000 men.The Supreme Commander is Dwight Eisenhower but he does not actively participate in the battle.In spite of Rommel‘s Atlantic Wall and 57 German divisions under General Runstedt in France, theinvasion’s timing and location was a surprise because of successful Allied code breaking andvaluable information from the French Resistance Movement.

The attack was preceeded by 15,000 air sorties and three paratrooper divisions (700planes and gliders, 20,000 men) was dropped behind enemy lines. Heavy fire from boats andbombings followed, then the landing itself on five beaches in Normandy: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno,and Sword. The landing troops spend 18 hours on rough seas, everyone is seasick. 12,000 men arelost during the landing. Heavy losses occur at Omaha Beach where many tanks sink also.

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D-Day at Omaha Beach Dwight David Eisenhower

After the invasion, artificial harbors and underwater pipes were constructed to enforcethe beachheads. Two days after D-Day, the American and British forces are united, DeGaullereturns to France. Churchill wanted to watch the landing from a ship but the King asks him not todo so. Nevertheless, he visits the beaches and sees Montgomery in France on June 10.

The Nazis liquidate the town of Oradour-sur-Glane in France on the same day.Between June 19 and 23 an enormous storm sinks 800 boats. Cherbourg is taken on June

26, Caen on July 18 (after it is turned to rubble). Forty-three German divisions are destroyed.Rommel is wounded on July17 and Runstedt is removed from command. Churchill is in Cherbourgon July 20 and in France again on August 7.

The Americans break out on July 25 (Operation Cobra). On August 11, Allied forcescross the River Loire. Four days later, American troops land on the Cote d’Azur. On August 19,General Patton’s Third Army reaches the River Seine. On August 25, the Resistance Movementliberates Paris. Toulon and Marseille are taken on August 28.

There are two million Allied soldiers in France now. They believe in quick victory anddo not want to die. 600,000 German men are lost in France but victory does not come easily orquickly. The West Wall (or Siegfried Line) stands until 1945. A rivalry develops between GeneralsMontgomery, Bradley, and Patton. Montgomery has to apologize to Eisenhower.

On September 4, Lyons, Antwerp, and Brussels are taken but the approach to the Port ofAntwerp is still held by the Germans. The two fronts meet on September 12. On September 17,three British airborne divisions sustain heavy losses in Operation Market Garden at Eindhoven andArnhem.

The 2nd Quebec Conference takes place between September 13 and 16. The Allies agreethat the German industry must be eliminated. The United Nations is formalized between August andOctober.

Eindhoven, Liege, Luxembourg, Boulogne, and Calais are liberated in September butmost of the supplies are still coming through Normandy. Aachen, the first German city, falls onOctober 21. The French Provisional Government is formed under De Gaulle. Churchill visits Paris.

The Allies reach the Rhine on November 19. On November 24, Strasbourg is taken.Antwerp is now used as a port. There are 14,000 planes and 2,000 tanks on the Western Front.

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On December 16, the Battle of the Bulge starts. 28 German divisions attack desperatelywith 600 tanks in the Ardennes and form a 50-mile bulge. The weather is bad, air superiority cannotbe used. Thousands of Americans die, 10,000 of them surrender. The Germans butcher some POWsand Belgian civilians. Grotesquely, Eisenhower keeps only four divisions in the Ardennes but he ispromoted to 5-star General the same day. The battle lasts until the end of January. One Americanand 1,600 German soldiers are executed for desertion. 90,000 Allied and 120,000 German men arelost.

In Italy, General Alexander attacks with 28 divisions on May 11. Montecassino is finallytaken on May 18. Anzio is in Allied hands on May 21, after 123 days of siege. A week later, theGustav line crumbles and the Cassino and Anzio fronts are united. Churchill meets Tito, the Pope,and Togliatti (the leader of the Italian Communist Party), then reviews the Italian front. Rome isdeclared an open city. Instead of going after the retreating Germans as ordered, General Clark takesRome without fight on June 4. Churchill wants to continue fighting in Italy and attack Germanyfrom the South to avoid Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe but Roosevelt overrules him. Churchillis angry: “We have been ill-treated and are furious,” he writes. Eisenhower removes 100,000 troopsfrom Italy. Alexander attacks, takes Rimini, but does not have enough force to continue. TheGermans still have 28 divisions under Kesselring, take the Gothic line, and keep Northern Italy untilthe very end of the war.

On March 26, a Communist-controlled administration is formed in the Greek ResistanceMovement. A mutiny develops even in the Greek Brigade in Egypt. The rift between differentfractions leads to a Civil War in August. After the Germans evacuate Greece in October, thecountry descends into chaos. Churchill goes to Athens at the end of December. ArchbishopDamaskinos is sworn in as Regent.

The “miracle weapon” V1 starts attacking London on June 12. Thousands of rocketsexplode in London, 6,184 people are killed. V1 is defeated by shooting them down and byoccupying the launching sites in September. Then a more formidable rocket, V2 follows. 1,300 ofthem kill thousands of people during the next seven months.

V1, the Paris is liberated American POWs massacred“miracle weapon“ by the Nazis at Malmedy

On March 2nd a guerilla attack starts behind enemy lines in Burma. The heroic GeneralWingate is killed on March 24. The B-29 bombers are ready for action in April. On June 15, 75 ofthem attack Japan. On June 19, The Battle of the Philippine Sea takes place. The Americans lose 27planes, the Japanese 402. Saipan is taken back on July 9, Guam on August 12. The Japanese fight tothe last soldier. Rather than surrender, they commit mass suicides. There was a soldier who

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surrendered only in 1972! On July 18, Hideki Tojo resigns as Prime Minister of Japan. TheEmperor appoints Kuniako Koiso in his place. Japan still has five million troops.

New Guinea is liberated in September. The Philippines are attacked by air on September13. On October 20, General MacArthur returns to the Philippines. Between October 20 and 27 theBattle of Leyte Gulf, the greatest naval battle in history takes place with the participation of 280ships and 200,000 sailors. 27 Japanese ships are sunk and the Japanese Navy is practicallydestroyed. The Japanese start Kamikaze attacks in desperation. Tokyo is heavily bombed onNovember 24. Major US invasion of the Philippines starts on January 9, 1945.

On July 20, an assassination attempt against Hitler fails. The conspirators and their 200sympathizers are brutally executed. Even great generals like Rommel and Beck are forced tocommit suicide.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are created on July 22.Roosevelt is elected to an unprecedented fourth term on November 7.The German battleship Tirpitz is sunk on November 12.Churchill celebrates his 70th birthday on November 30.Glen Miller is killed on December 15.The US War Refugee Board is created on January 22. Roosevelt calls the wholesale

systematic murder of the Jews one of the blackest crimes of all history but the State Departmentagrees to admit only 21,000 Jews to the USA during the entire war. The railway lines leading toAuschwitz were never bombed. One fifth of the American people believed that Jews were a menaceto America.

Churchill said on July 11 about the persecution of Jews: “There is no doubt that this isprobably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world. …all concerned in this crime who may fall into our hands, including the people who only obeyedorders by carrying out the butcheries, should be put to death…. There should be no negotiations ofany kind on this subject. Declarations should be made in public, so that everyone connected with itwill be hunted down and put to death.” And again on July 26: “This martyred race, … suffering asno other race has done.”

On the Eastern Front, the Red Army enters Poland on January 6, Romania on March 26.Odessa is liberated on April 10, Sebastopol on May 9. 400,000 Tartars are forcefully relocated fromthe Crimea.

The 16-month Leningrad blockade is broken on January 19. Two million people haddied in that Hero City. That is more than the total war losses of the United States and Great Britaintogether.

Operation Bagration (1.5 million troops. 5,400 tanks, and 6,000 aircraft) starts on June23 and ends with the liberation of Minsk and half of Poland on July 3. The Red Army then movesahead 750 km in five weeks. 67 German divisions are destroyed.

On July 17, 57,000 German POWs are marched through the streets of Moscow.The Red Army liberates the Nazi extermination camps of Majdanek, Sobibor, and

Treblinka in July but Auschwitz must wait until January 1945.An uprising starts in Warsaw on August 1. The Red Army is nearby but it stops and lets

the Poles bleed. During the next two months, the city is totally destroyed by the Germans, 200,000people die.

On August 23, a revolt starts in Romania. Bucharest is taken on August 30. Romaniajoins the Allies.

On August 25, Finland sues for armistice.

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On August 29, The Slovak National Uprising starts. Although it was suppressed by theGermans, guerilla warfare continued until the liberation in 1945.

Sofia is taken on September 16. Bulgaria declares war on Germany.Soviet troops occupy Estonia on September 26, reach Norway on October 7.Churchill arrives to Moscow on October 9 and spends a week there. “It is the Russian

Army that tore the guts out of the German military machine,” he says. He meets the LublinCommittee, the Polish shadow government. In December, De Gaulle comes to Moscow and signs aFranco-Soviet Pact with Stalin.

Riga is liberated on October 13 but Germany still has 220 divisions. 250,000 newGerman men are now conscripted between the ages of 16 to 60.

On October 20, Belgrade is liberated by the Soviet Army and Tito’s partisans.On September 23, the Red Army enters Hungary, the last satellite of the Nazis. By Mid-

October, half of the country is taken by the Red Army. Still no uprising there! It takes another half ayear to liberate the entire country. Szeged is taken on October 11, Debrecen on October 19.

* * *

One evening, on the 15th of October, the radio suddenly stopped its regularprogramming. “We shall now broadcast the special proclamation of our Regent, His SereneHighness Miklós Horthy of Nagybánya,” said the announcer. We all froze in awe; we knew historywas being made at that moment. In his proclamation Horthy declared that Germany was losing thewar and he had decided to break with Hitler and join the Allies to finish the war as soon as possible.We were sitting in front of the radio, hardly believing what we were hearing. Then suddenly the joyof freedom overwhelmed us, and we started to remove the yellow stars from our clothes. “Wait,”said my grandfather, “it’s not over yet.” Unfortunately, as always, he was right.

A couple of hours later the radio broadcast a new announcement. Horthy was deposed bythe Germans, taken into custody, and the Arrow Cross Party took over the leadership of the country.This was the most terrible thing that could possibly happen to Hungary and especially to us. TheArrow Cross Party was a bunch of failed people. Their leader, Ferenc Szálasi, was a failed armyofficer who later also failed as a journalist. Their second-in-command made his living as a corn-cutter because he failed in everything else. These people called each other “brothers” (Szálasi’sofficial title was “Brother Nation-Leader and Party-Leader”), but they only knew how to do twothings: to hate and murder. They hated everyone who was successful; they hated everyone who hadsomething; they hated everyone who was able to accomplish a goal. Their only goal was to revengetheir own failures. Now their time had come. They established a regime of terror that no humanbeing can possibly imagine. The well-organized terror machine of the Gestapo was a maiden’sdream compared to the Arrow Cross Party’s raging mob.

My teeth chattered in horror. That night I begged my mother: “Please, please, Mommy,tuck me into bed and stay with me. Please, do not go to sleep. I’m so scared!”

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The “brothers” are marching Horthy appoints Szálasi Their armband

Hold out! Brother! We must win this war!

The Arrow Cross Party’s rank and file were mostly twelve to sixteen-year old boys whowere given guns and told to destroy, murder, and torture anyone at will. They started their reign byannouncing that anyone who dared to attempt the slightest disobedience would be hacked to pieces2

on the spot. Of course, they vowed to continue the war as the last vassals of the Nazis, and toexterminate the Jews from the sacred soil of Hungary. The “brothers” wanted to deport as many ofthe remaining Jews from Budapest as they could to the death camps, but they must have realized asthe Red Army was approaching the capital, that they had to find a solution within the city. Theydecided to designate a ghetto in the middle of the city and eliminate the leftover Jewish populationright there.

The Arrow Cross bandits immediately start an anarchic spree of murder and looting.They murder hundreds of Jews during the first night of their power. The Yellow-Star houses aresealed off. The new government issues a statement according to which the Jewish question wouldbe solved “with the ruthlessness the Jews deserve.” Eichmann returns to Budapest on October 17.

2This is the literal translation of the ancient Hungarian word felkoncoltatik.

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This is how they looked The seal of the “Country-Building Office of Hungary’s Nation-Leader”

The “brothers” celebrate their power The new friends

The Arrow Cross Party totally destroys the country. They murder everyone who theydon’t like, help the Nazis to make Hungary a bloody seat of war, and also loot the country: takeeverything they can find to Germany.

The “brothers” greet each other with raising their arms like the Nazis and shouting“Kitartás, éljen Szálasi!“ (Hold out, long live Szálasi!). They sing: “Egy a népünk, egy vezérünk,éljen, éljen Szálasi!“ (We have one folk, one leader, long-long live Szálasi! – The same as Ein Volk,ein Reich, ein Führer!). They have insane ideas about the Hungarian “talajgyökér“ (ground root),replace the national tricolor with their Árpád-striped flag, wear Árpád-striped armbands with arrowcrosses on them, introduce the openly anti-Semitic Hungarist Newsreel (interested readers canwatch these at http://filmhiradok.nava.hu). They talk about miracle weapons like the páncélököl(armor fist), cover the walls with their threatening orders and posters about their incoming victory. Iremember one poster vividly. It showed a Soviet execution chamber with the caption “Do you wantthis?” All Jewish property (that was not yet looted by the Arrow Cross bandits) officially belongs tothe Hungarist State.

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Szálasi in front of the Royal Palace Szálasi is taking the oath as “Nation-Leader”

The Red Army continues its march toward Budapest. Kecskemét is in Soviet hands onNovember 1. Three days later, Szolnok is taken. The great Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti ismurdered the same day. He was a patriot of Hungary who wrote: “Nem tudhatom, hogy másnak etájék mit jelent, nekem szülőhazám itt e lángoktól ölelt kis ország“ (I don’t know what thislandscape might mean to strangers, to me this little country is my birthplace-fatherland ringed nowwith fire).

Radnóti Miklós (1909-1944) “Long live the strong independent democratic Hungary.” Debrecen after the liberation.

On November 23, Hitler declares Budapest a “fortress.”Pécs and Eger are liberated on November 29. Miskolc is taken on December 3.Szálasi escapes from Budapest in December. The Provisional National Assembly meets

in Debrecen on December 21.

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* * *

They came to take my mother on November 8. Just like that: two thugs in green shirtscame with a list of young women, gave them ten minutes to dress, and took them away. She justlooked at me with her beautiful big eyes ... and went away. I couldn’t even cry. I was only eightyears old! My mother was everything to me. She was young, beautiful, feminine, with large browneyes—and she was my mother…

She was taken to the brickyard of Óbuda, then to the horribly barbaric highway of deathby foot toward the Mauthausen concentration camp. They were neither fed nor housed en route.Along their 400-mile trek they were beaten, abused, spat upon, and starved.

My grandfather and I were now alone. My grandfather was a respected man. Mygrandmother died early, and he raised his four children alone. His youngest son was lucky to die atthe age of sixteen in 1939, but his other two sons, and now his daughter, were taken away from himby force. He couldn’t cope with all this. He was a broken man, a mere shadow of his former self.But he still had to take care of me, and this gave him some strength.

The “brothers” came for us on the 27th of November. First they ordered us to collect allour belongings, except glassware and furniture, and throw everything down from the staircase ontothe inner courtyard of the house. There we were, running at gunpoint under the watchful eyes of the“brothers,” taking everything we still had and throwing it down to the ground. Blankets, carpets,skirts, stamp collections, letters, documents, ties, underwear, hats, birdcages, shoes were flyingdown from all floors of the four-story building, making a terrible noise as they hit the ground. Allour belongings were taken away in a big truck, and we never saw them again.

There was a high wall between the inner courtyard of our house and that of the next. Asthe other house was not a Yellow-Star house, its caretaker—not willing to miss the show—peekedatop a long ladder and enjoyed herself watching our misery, making obscene comments from thetop of the wall.

The “brothers” were supposed to decide whom to take to the brickyard and whom to taketo the Ghetto. It seemed obvious to everyone that the ghetto was a better choice: we thought that itwas only a matter of days before the Red Army would enter Budapest and save our lives. Thebrickyard meant a death walk to the gas chamber at a remote concentration camp far from the front.Therefore, when my grandfather and I were both ordered to stand with the group designated for thebrickyard, we knew that our days were numbered. A little discussion among the “brothers,”however, occurred: the brickyard was far away and none of them wanted to go there. After some tenminutes of quarreling, the chief “brother” announced his decision: “We’ll take the whole rabble offilthy yids to the Ghetto.”

We were allowed to take as much with us as we could carry. My grandfather naivelydecided to take old utility bills to show to the authorities that we have lived there for a long time.We were ordered to form a double line and walk toward the inner city. We joined groups of Jewsfrom other yellow-star houses who were also marched in the same direction. Finally, the smallstreams formed a big river of people all marching toward the ghetto. As we marched, the “brothers”yelled at us, kicked us, spat at us, and shot randomly into the crowd. They immensely enjoyed beingthe unquestioned masters of so many innocent people (as it turned out later, approximately 70,000people were taken to the Ghetto that day). The people on the street looked at us, laughed, and maderude comments as, e.g., “Look how upset the stinking yids are,” and “Finally they’ll find the placewhere they belong.” I did not see a single sympathetic or concerned face in the crowd.

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Marching toward the Ghetto Jewish quarter. Entrance is forbidden to Christians.

One old man from our house had terminal cancer, and could not walk any longer. Theyshot him a couple of feet from me, and kicked his body aside. His wife tried to stay with him, butthey forced her back into the marching column. As we approached the inner city, the shootingsbecame increasingly frequent. Finally, we were walking in a thick mess of blood. “What is thisunder our feet?” I asked my grandfather. “Oil,” he answered after some hesitation.

It was late afternoon when we arrived at a big square named Klauzál tér. The square wasfull of Jews. We were surrounded by the Arrow Cross “brothers,” who by now had lost every traceof humanity that they might have left. “Brother, don’t you see how difficult it is for this Jewishwoman to carry her bag?” asked one of them. “Indeed,” replied the other, “I must help her!” Andhe shot the Jewish woman twice in the head. Another came to an old man and said: “Why do youcarry your bag? Don’t you understand that you won’t need anything in a very short time?”

As if to confirm this statement, the loudspeaker announced: “At this time you areordered to drop into the designated containers all money, jewelry, watches, and any other valuableitems you might have. You will be searched afterwards. If any valuables are found on you, you willbe hacked to pieces on the spot.” My grandfather went to one of the containers and dropped all hismoney and valuables into it ... except for one thing. He carried my grandmother’s old golden pocketwatch, his only tangible memory from his deceased wife. The watch was a masterpiece. Mygrandmother had received it from her grandmother as a wedding present in 1909. I saw that mygrandfather “forgot” about the watch and whispered into his ear not to risk his life, but he hadevidently made up his mind.

My blood froze when I saw an Arrow Cross “brother” approaching my grandfather. Hewas about 14 years old, with an automatic weapon in his hand. The lust for blood was evident in hiscolorless eyes. I wanted to ask him, “How many people have you killed today?” but I was too scaredto open my mouth. He searched my grandfather and immediately found the watch. He took himaside to shoot him. I was crying desperately and praying for my grandfather’s life. Then somethingunexpected happened. The young lad evidently recognized that the watch was valuable, andchanged his mind. “You will be hacked to pieces on the spot!” he hissed at my grandfather anddropped the watch into his own pocket as he walked away.

It was already late evening when we arrived at the Ghetto. It was a relatively small areaof the inner city (291 buildings on 0.3 square kilometers surrounded by a tall wooden fence)previously inhabited mostly by Jews. The Arrow Cross Party ordered all non-Jewish tenants out of

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their homes with the promise that after the yids were taken care of, they could return and would berewarded. Several hundred of us were distributed to each building. Inside the house, we weredivided into apartments. The apartment we were ordered into formerly belonged to a religiousJewish family. There was nothing left in it except for furniture, glassware, and some oldphotographs. Twenty-one of us had to sleep in each room. Of course, there were only a couple ofbeds in the room and no sheets. We lay down on the floor, exhausted, depressed, and without hope.Nobody slept that night.

An old woman brought an alarm clock with her. She put it on the table. I was lying onthe floor, close to my grandfather, quietly sobbing, and listening to the indifferent sound of thealarm clock: tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. I was thinking to myself: “The Arrow Cross brought ushere to murder us; that is clear. They took my father, my mother, and now us. They want to kill usall. But they can’t kill me! I’m me, I can’t be killed! After all, they are also human beings. They eatlike me, they pee like me. They can’t kill me!”

I was certainly wrong in assuming that they ate like me. The fact was that there wasnothing for us to eat. They didn’t bring us there to feed. The only source of food was that organizedby the so-called Jewish Council that tried to take care of the internal matters of the Ghetto. Theywere somehow able to smuggle some food in; occasionally, they could give some soup to thechildren. I remember, once policemen came in and demanded food. The caretaker showed them theloaf of bread he had for the entire house: an ounce for each child and nothing for adults. The goodpolicemen turned around in shame and left. (Most of the regular Police were not members of theArrow Cross Party).

There was a curfew in effect, except for two hours a day. Of course, there were noshops—we had no money anyway— or functioning synagogues. We just strolled the streets duringthose two hours, hungry, in despair, without hope, without purpose. The Arrow Cross gangpatrolled the streets with loaded automatic weapons, occasionally firing a few rounds into thecrowd, and enjoying the screams of the dying. At night they selected a house, ambushed it, andkilled everybody. The public bath and the synagogue were soon filled with dead bodies. Mygrandfather was convinced that he would find the bodies of his children there. He went to search forthem every day, and came home in despair.

The shootings were not the only source of death, however. Many people committedsuicide, climbing to higher floors and jumping off. I saw their deformed bodies virtually everymorning on the ground floor. The most frequent cause of death was starvation. After December 10,when the gates of the Ghetto were sealed, there was no more food from outside. Then dying ofhunger became a commonplace event. It started with diarrhea, and mental disorder followed. Intheir final days the victims talked only about food. They died imagining themselves sitting in afashionable café in sunlit pre-war Budapest and eating the best strudels of Central Europe.

Some people managed to survive. How they got their food, I have no idea. The good oldlady, Mrs. Rothbart, found a waxed paper used for holding butter. The paper still had traces ofbutter on it, and she brought it to me: “Lick it, little Miki, it is nutritious,” she said. On one occasion,my aunt Manci made an offer to me: if I brought a pan down to the underground shelter from theroom where we lived, I would get a pancake. I was too hungry to resist and bravely climbed out ofthe shelter. Up I went to the third floor. I found the pan and tried to return but the staircase wasgone: a Russian bomb had taken care of it while I was looking for the pan. I had to climb the ruinsback to the shelter.

The “Anglo-Saxon” bombs were by now replaced with Russian ones. As the front wasapproaching Budapest, the Arrow Cross Party decided to seal the Ghetto off. Before the gates were

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closed, they allowed the non-Jewish former inhabitants to visit for the last time. I then experienceda most unexpected encounter. I had already witnessed people being shot and dying of hunger, butthe following little conversation surpassed everything. It remains vivid to this day. It took placebetween the former janitor of the house and my grandfather. The middle-aged woman suddenlyburst into tears, and became hysterical. My grandfather tried to comfort her, but she was desperate.She said: “They have ruined my life! Don’t you understand, they will blow you up, and I’ll lose allmy furniture!”

Our life was additionally burdened by rumors spreading at the speed of light. Most ofthem were true. For example, we knew about the fate of the “protected” Jews who lived in speciallymarked houses near the Danube. They were rich enough to buy “safe passes” issued by theConsulates of Sweden, Switzerland, and the Vatican. The basic content of these passes was astatement that the person who carried it was under the protection of the issuing government. TheArrow Cross Party considered these people “traitors to the Hungarian fatherland,” and treated themaccordingly. They marched many of them to the bank of the Danube, tied them together in groupsof three, shot the person in the middle, then pushed them into the river. This method was invented“to save bullets for fighting the Bolsheviks.” 17,000 Jews died in Budapest.

Memorial to the “protected” Jews Jews murdered in the Budapest Ghetto

After a rumor was spread that everybody over 60 will be shot, my grandfather got astrange idea. He declared that he would walk out of the Ghetto and visit the Pension Office of theHungarian Railroads to complain that they’d failed to deliver his pension for the past two months. Iremembered the incident of my grandmother’s watch too well; I tried to persuade my grandfatherthat this was equivalent to suicide, but, again, he had already made up his mind. It was a coldmorning; he put on his warm coat and fur hat and walked towards the gate. I followed him crying.“You, lousy old yid, where do you think you are going?” asked the Arrow Cross guard at the gate. “Iam going to get my pension,” said my grandfather. The guard burst into laughter: “Did you hear theold yid, Brothers? He’s gonna get his pension!” With this, he raised his rifle high in the air andcrashed down on my grandfather’s head with the stock of the rifle, using all his strength. The oldman’s body spun around several times before falling down. I tried to drag him back as fast as Icould. I pulled him inside a house. People came to help, and it turned out that God saved him thesecond time: the fur hat took most of the blow, and he escaped with bruises and a temporary loss ofconsciousness.

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Budapest, 1944

On Christmas Eve, the ring was closed around the city. The Second and Third UkrainianFronts under Marshals Malinovskiy and Tolbukhin, respectively, met each other. The siege ofBudapest began. The whistles of bombs and shells became the music of the day: they broughtdestruction and fear, but also the hope that the end of our sufferings was near. Now we permanentlymoved underground. The cellar was overcrowded, there was absolutely nothing to eat, and waterwas scarce. People were dying like flies, and soon everyone was covered with lice. Only the coldwinter saved us from epidemics.

Results of the Arrow Cross “Country-Building”

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But the Ghetto was not blown up. Wallenberg dissuaded the German Generalresponsible for it by threatening him with a tribunal if he followed this horrible order.

It was forbidden to practice our religion “by penalty of dismemberment.” Nevertheless,when the time of Hanukkah came, an old rabbi climbed through the underground cellars from houseto house and delivered the holiday service. We were sitting there, starving, lousy Jews and when hecried out “Yevareheho Adonai eleiho,” the whole shelter became a monolithic sobbing mass ofdoomed people who were finally at peace with themselves and ready to die.

Many of us did die. I will never forget the eyes of the middle-aged lady who died ofhunger one day before the liberation. Then I was already delirious; I had eaten absolutely nothingfor the last nine days.

And the next morning, on the 18th of January, 1945, somebody cried out: “The Russiansare here!” No more Arrow Cross, no more Germans, just tired, dirty, and drunken Russian soldierswho smiled at us and tore the yellow stars off our clothes. The horror was over, WE WERELIBERATED!!!

Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovskiy Fyodor Ivanovich Tolbukhin

Raoul Wallenberg Ábrahám Rezső

THE FOUR MEN WHO SAVED MY LIFE(and I have not forgotten those thousands of Russian soldiers who died in Budapest while bringing me life)