By Chance Alone Read online

  ***

  In August 1942, a few of my friends came to our orchard to pick fruit for their families. As we played and stuffed ourselves with fruit, we challenged each other to see who could climb the highest in a very tall walnut tree. This was a risky activity because you could easily miss a foothold or handhold on a branch and be severely injured.

  Suddenly, I heard my dog Farkas barking ferociously. I could tell that some strangers had entered our yard and he was warning us of the intrusion. Then I heard my mother call for me to come back to the house. When I arrived, I saw two gendarmes reading from a document to my grandparents, my mother, and my aunt. I could not imagine the contents of the document, but from the looks on their faces, I understood it was a serious situation. It was an order that my mother, my aunt Irene, my two brothers, and I each pack a bundle and prepare to be removed from our home. My grandfather and grandmother were excluded from this directive, as was Aunt Bella. My grandfather pleaded with the gendarmes, saying that my mother and aunt were Hungarian citizens, and that our family had lived in the region for many generations. The gendarmes said that they were simply following orders. My grandmother helped to pack food while my mother gathered other necessities for our departure. When the gendarmes were distracted, my grandfather slipped my mother and Aunt Irene a handful of money. The gendarmes then walked us out of our yard; my dog Farkas had to be restrained by my grandfather.

  I was thirteen years old, Eugene was ten, and Alfred was six. We were now a group of five travelling into the unknown, and we felt frightened and powerless. My father and Uncle Eugene were still at the labour battalion in southern Hungary, hundreds of kilometres away, and they didn’t have any idea that this was happening. The gendarmes took us to the railway station, where some fifteen other families were being held with their bundles; there were approximately eighty people in total. We were eventually loaded into an open cattle car with two gendarmes who sat with their feet dangling over the edge. We were jostled about in the car and tried to make ourselves somewhat comfortable. We had no idea where we were going or how long the journey would take.

  The first stop was the city of Kassa, about sixty kilometres away. There, our cattle car was attached to another transport that already had several cars loaded with people. We travelled on, eventually arriving at a station called Szatmár-Némety in Transylvania. Some minutes after our arrival, several local Jewish men and women appeared to distribute fruit, bread, and water to us. This was a wonderful gesture on their part as we were in great need of food, and I wondered how they had learned of our plight. We remained in the car at this station all night. We had only two buckets to use as toilets, and when they were full, someone got off the train and emptied them. Being in close quarters with so many others was beginning to wear us down, and the sleep deprivation and other irritations began to show.

  The next day we travelled in a northeastern direction along the Tisza River, toward the Karpathian Mountains. At this point, after three days in the open car, the nights were feeling quite chilly. The older people were full of groans and aches and pains, and we all missed our home comforts and freedom of movement. We reached the next stop, a place called Máramaros-Sziget, in the middle of the night. Our transport was shunted to a siding, where we stood the whole of the next day without movement. I began to wonder anxiously if it would be better to get where we were going or stay where we were.

  That evening the train started up again, and we realized it was going back in the opposite direction. Eventually, we arrived again at Szatmár-Némety, and miraculously the Jewish citizens supplied us, again, with food and water. It was hard for us to understand the manoeuvring of our captors. We hoped that we might be returning home, and we were very disappointed when the train moved once more to Máramaros-Sziget. This time, the track beside us had a military hospital train loaded with injured Hungarian soldiers coming from the Russian front. I recall one heavily bandaged officer who hatefully yelled out to us in Hungarian, “You stinking Jews, you will be swimming in the Dniester River like fallen leaves.” His outburst was frightening and strange to me.

  The train continued its journey along the Tisza River beside the Karpathian Mountains and eventually arrived at a town called Raho. By now, we had been travelling for nearly six days, and we were eager to get out of the boxcar. The train continued on to a small station called Kőrösmező. This was the end of the line for us, and we were finally able to gather our bundles and leave the boxcar.

  There were eight hundred to a thousand of us milling about, and Hungarian military police officers soon took charge. They ordered us to start climbing a steep, rocky road. With great difficulty, we arrived at a mountain plateau that had several large sheds and a sawmill where lumber was being processed. This place was called Havasalya, and it was located near the Tatar Pass, which led to Ukraine. The police moved us to an area of long tables, and we were processed and asked for identification. Our bundles were checked for hidden valuables and currency. They checked all our belongings thoroughly, even looking at the shoulder pads in our jackets and inside loaves of bread. One family was beaten for hiding a gold watch on a chain and several rings; these items were discovered when a policeman dipped his bayonet into a jar of jam and pulled out the hidden valuables.

  My mother had charged me with hiding our currency during the journey, and I had placed it inside the lining of my boots. When I saw the police so thoroughly checking every person, I told my mother that I was afraid I would be caught. She told me to act normally, but she looked worried. When it was our turn to be inspected, the officer requested our documents and then asked us where our men were. My mother and aunt told the officer that they were in the labour battalions, and he simply said, “Move on.” I breathed a big sigh of relief.

  Once the entire group was processed, we were directed to three sheds, where we bedded down with approximately three hundred people per shed. The sawdust on the floor cushioned us somewhat as we slept, so it was more comfortable than the cattle car. But the shed was very hot during the day, and its gappy lumber walls made it cold and drafty at night. We staked out a spot for our family, and this became our home for the next two weeks. There was no water available at the site and we had to fetch it in pails from quite a distance away, guarded all the while by gendarmes. The Tisza River came from the mountains, and it was clear and ice cold. We used this water for drinking only—there was never enough left to bathe in or wash our clothes. Our food rations consisted of a bowl of soup a day; those who had money could buy a loaf of round black rye, the size of a kaiser bun, from the local Ruthenians who came to the area where we filled our pails. Now the money that I had hidden was a blessing, and it was able to sustain us and others who were needy in the weeks that we were there. We paid dearly for this bread and the exchange had to take place clandestinely, when the guards were out of sight.

  Families who went before us had written their names on the wooden planks that formed the wall of the shed. Each person’s family name was written down, along with the day of their departure and the name of their destination—Kamenets-Podolsky. Thousands of names from previous transports were scribbled on the walls. Each one was like a life marker, a statement to remind the world that these people had lived.*

  At the end of the second week, we were all assembled and the captain in charge, a moustached Hungarian officer riding on a big horse, told us that the next day we would be taken in trucks to our workplace at Kamenets-Podolsky, and that we should be in front of our shed with our bundles early the next morning. We wrote our names on the walls, just as the others before us had, and my mother lightened the load by removing from our belongings anything that was not useful.

  The next morning, we were loaded onto a convoy of trucks under the supervision of the Kommandant. He wished us a good journey and gave the order for the trucks to move out. It was a Saturday morning, and the trucks laboured to climb to a higher elevation until we reached the Tatar Pass. From there, the road gradually descended. We were now in German
-occupied Ukraine.

  All at once, someone in my truck yelled that the Kommandant was approaching from behind at full gallop. When he reached us, he ordered our driver to stop, then repeated the process until he caught up with the lead truck. He then announced that we were not going to Kamenets-Podolsky after all and instead were going home. I wasn’t sure that I’d heard him right and it took a while for this reality to sink in. There was a big cheer from all of us and I began to think happily about my home, my grandparents, my dogs, and getting back to a normal life.

  The Kommandant told us to get off the trucks with our bundles, walk back to the sawmill, and then continue down the mountain to the railway station at Kőrösmező, where a train was waiting for us. He told us that we would have to buy our own tickets for the journey, and that those who had money would have to pay for those who did not. After we had bought tickets for others, my family was left with very little money. But we were a happy bunch, and the way forward was a fast downhill run to the train.

  Our group of about eight hundred people occupied the entire train. This time, we were not in a boxcar and sat in seats like normal people. We were a dirty, smelly bunch and there wasn’t a clean garment among us, but we were happy. At the first stop, we had time to wash our hands and faces with some soap that my mother had managed to buy. Halfway through our three-day journey home, she decided that we would get off in a town called Csap, where we had relatives. My mother did not want us to arrive home looking and smelling as we did. We said goodbye to our friends on the train and walked to our relatives’ home. They were shocked to see our condition and hear the story of our horrific journey. They gave us fresh, clean clothes and a good meal, and it felt wonderful to sleep on a clean straw mattress on the floor.

  My mother sent a telegram to my grandfather saying that we were on our way back home and telling him our approximate arrival time. The next day, we said our thanks and goodbyes to our relatives and walked to the station to get on the train. The ride home seemed to take forever, and the hours felt like days. I passed the time thinking about the stories I would tell my friends about our adventures over the past three weeks. I also thought about the importance of family and home, and I vowed not to complain again about trivial things.

  When the train stopped in our town, we gathered our belongings, got off, and started to walk toward our home. As we came around a bend in the road I could see our house, the most beautiful sight. As we got closer, Farkas came flying through the gate at full speed. When he reached us, he stopped abruptly, stood on his hind legs, and licked me all over my face. He greeted each of us in turn and truly had an amazing heart.

  My grandfather and grandmother were waiting for us in the yard, and we were so happy to see them again. They had tears in their eyes and they hugged us all. I ran to say hello to Aunt Bella in her quarters, and it was a very emotional reunion for everyone. There was a wonderful aroma of chicken paprikash cooking on the stove, and my grandmother had filled the table with salads prepared specially for our return. We relished this food so much that I could hardly fill my belly. After lunch, I went outside to check out the yard where all the chickens, ducks, and geese were scratching for food. The orchard was bursting with ripening fruits and I hugged every single tree. This was one of the happiest moments of my life.

  Many of my friends who had not been deported came over and we went swimming in the Bodvou River. I was very excited to see them, and they were eager to hear the stories of our journey. Several days later, my father and uncle arrived home, and the family was whole again. The day we were deported, my grandfather had sent my father and uncle a telegram explaining our situation. They asked for leave from the labour battalion to come back and try to find us, but their request was denied. Two weeks later, their unit was moved to a new location and they had an opportunity to get away. They came home and discussed with Grandfather where we might have been taken. They went from station to station asking if anyone had seen a transport of Jewish people in cattle cars, and collecting valuable clues as to the direction we might have gone. They arrived in Kőrösmező two days after we’d left for home. Eventually they caught up to the train, only to find out that we’d got off the previous day at Csap. When they backtracked to Csap, we had already left for home. When they finally reached us, we were happily reunited.

  Many years later, I learned from a book about the 1942 Hungarian deportations that the government, which had previously ordered the deportation of some forty thousand Jewish people, had debated whether to allow the last group—our transport—to go to its final fate. We were shunted back and forth as the politicians deliberated. They ultimately decided not to proceed with our deportation, and so we were miraculously saved from the jaws of death. I learned later that all forty thousand previous deportees were taken to Kamenets-Podolsky by the Hungarian military police and murdered by the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazis’ mobile killing units, on the shores of the Dniester River.

  ***

  I had missed the first two weeks of classes and had increasing difficulties adjusting to school discipline. By that point, all Jewish students had to sit in the back of the classroom. We were singled out by both the students and the teachers. My friends and I felt humiliated and ostracized from the rest of our classmates, to whom we had previously been equals. I could not concentrate, and I was still sorting out the events of the previous month in my mind. Eventually, the school advised my mother that I would be removed because of my lack of discipline. I felt ashamed, but I was also happy. This new arrangement gave me time to help her with her various chores around the house, help my grandfather in the lumberyard, and do a lot of reading.

  A few weeks into this routine, my mother realized that I was not learning anything productive for my future. She decided to take me by train to Kassa, where her cousins operated a small kosher restaurant. There were quite a few tradespeople who were steady customers at this restaurant. One man had a fur shop, and they asked him if he would take me on as an apprentice. My mother and I went to meet the owner, and I was hired. I was to work unpaid for the first two years of training, and I would receive a small salary after that. Mother made arrangements for me to sleep at my cousins’ home and eat my meals at the restaurant. It was agreed that I would start the following Sunday morning, and we went home so my mother could pack my clothes.

  That Sunday morning, I took the train to Kassa, a beautiful city with a population of over a hundred thousand people and a vibrant community of sixteen thousand Jews. There were two large and many smaller synagogues, as well as several Hebrew schools, to serve the needs of the Jewish community. There was a large cathedral, an opera house, and a tram line. The main street had beautiful shops and apartment buildings and hotels with coffee-houses. It was very exciting for me to be a part of city life, but at the same time, I felt some apprehension. I was only thirteen and a half years old, facing a new adventure on my own.

  That first day, I left my suitcase at the restaurant and walked to the fur shop, which was close by. The owner placed me under the guidance of a young man who was eighteen or nineteen years old and in his fourth year of apprenticeship. This man became my teacher, and I, as a new apprentice, had to follow his orders. The fur shop was quite large, with a storefront and a workshop behind it. There were ten or so workers engaged in different tasks; some cut pelts such as Persian lamb or mink or fox, while others sewed these pieces together. There were three fireplaces to keep the workshop warm in the winter. In the mornings, my job was to remove the ashes and the cinders and start a new fire. Throughout the day, I had to keep adding charcoal to keep the flames going. In the evenings, I swept the floor, dusted, and covered the sewing machines, and did any other cleaning that was needed. The hardest job I had was to clean fur coats that were brought in for repairs. The cleaning process required me to mix sawdust with benzene in a bucket. To be cleaned, the fur coats were laid out on a table, and I had to take handfuls of this mixture and spread it on the fur, rubbing it into every inch until the coats shined.
The benzene dried my skin and made my hands crack and bleed. It was very painful, and when my mother saw how damaged my hands had become, she bought me cotton gloves to wear for protection.

  Once I got to know the city better, I was trusted to deliver the furs to different clients. Each coat had a label attached with the client’s name, address, and apartment number. With two armfuls of fur coats, I would get on the streetcar and get off at various stops, ringing the bell for the different apartments. Once I had delivered the coats, I received a tip for my services, which gave me some spending money and a feeling of independence. Some six months after I started working, my boss (the older apprentice) began to show me how to sew pieces of fur together. He also showed me how to recognize and match the different patterns and colours so that the finished coat would look like one uniform piece rather than a patchwork.

  Every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m., I was permitted to go home for the Sabbath. I grabbed my suitcase with my dirty clothes, went to the railway station, and took the train for home. On Friday evenings I met my friends at synagogue and told them about my adventures in the big city, and how much money I had made in tips that week. My apprenticeship lasted for approximately two years, until March 1944.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Year of Death and Birth

  During the winter months of 1943, Aunt Bella became ill. She was no longer able to sit in her chair because of an infection on her thighs caused by remaining seated for approximately forty years. She was bedridden and the infection soon spread, which caused her other severe problems. My father’s first cousin Dr. Emil Davidovits, a well-known doctor in Kassa, drove down twice a week to attend to her, but he was very clear that she would not be cured. In May she fell into a coma, dying one week later at home.