By Chance Alone Read online

  I was sad to see her laid out and covered with a sheet in our grandparents’ quarters. This was the first member of my family whose death I had experienced. The ladies’ burial society came to wash her and put her in a shroud. My grandfather, my father, and my uncle made a simple casket of lumber and the body was laid into it. The casket was loaded onto a horse-drawn cart and taken to the cemetery, followed by a procession of family and friends. But for some reason unknown to me, children were not allowed to attend. Bella’s death left a huge hole in our lives, and my brothers and I felt a tremendous loss with her passing. I missed sitting on her lap and hearing the stories she read to us, which she had done for so many years. In retrospect, I’m relieved she was spared the events still to come.

  As we grappled with Aunt Bella’s death, it became obvious that my mother was approximately five months pregnant. At first I had mixed feelings, because there would be such a large gap in age between the baby and me. I was also concerned about how we would take care of another addition to our family without Anna to help. I was never home during the week, and my father had rejoined the labour battalions. We were stretched to our limits, but I had no say in this matter.

  On June 28, 1943, my mother went into labour, and I was told to get the midwife then go to the doctor and inform him that he was going to be needed. I saw my grandmother and Aunt Irene heating water in pots and bringing linen into my mother’s bedroom to prepare for the delivery. The labour and birth were difficult, but some hours later we were told that we could go in and see the new baby. She was a beautiful girl with brown hair and dark eyes, and her name was Judit. Although the family was happy, it was a time of tremendous turmoil for us and our community. It was not a good time for a Jewish mother to give birth or a Jewish child to be born.

  In December 1943, we celebrated Chanukah, the festival of lights. My father managed to come home to celebrate with us in a year when we had lost our dear Bella and welcomed our little sister, Judit. Little did we know that this would be the final Chanukah we would mark together in our home.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Final Seder

  By 1944, we were into the fifth year of the war. We’d faced so many difficulties during the previous years—intolerance, being treated as second-class citizens, the absence of my father and other young Jewish men from the town, our own abortive deportation—but we were still hanging on to the hope that the war would soon come to an end. We had severely rationed food supplies and materials for clothing. We had to gather all scrap metals and deliver them to the authorities to be used for the war effort, and store shelves were empty of staple products such as sugar, salt, and other condiments. In hindsight, we Hungarian Jews still lived in blissful ignorance amid all these inconveniences. We were not aware of the tragedy that had befallen other European Jews—those who were carted off in cattle cars to the six death camps in occupied Poland, or shot in pits and ravines in Ukraine and Belarus by the Einsatzgruppen.

  In March 1944, the fascist Arrow Cross Party came to power in Hungary; its leader, Ferenc Szálasi, was a virulent Jew-hater. The Jewish community now faced critical problems, and the authorities strictly enforced the edict that all Jews had to wear a yellow Star of David on their chests. Bearing the star, I felt both demeaned and excluded. We were now a visible minority group, which added additional punishment to our discomforts. In spite of this, we maintained our concentration on the upcoming holiday of Pesach (Passover). By some miracle, my father and uncle were given a one-week furlough from their labour battalion at this special time.

  The preparations for Passover started about one month prior to the first dinner, known as a Seder. The house was cleaned and scrubbed from top to bottom, all clothing was hung outside to air, and pockets were turned inside out to make sure there were no bread products or crumbs left. For eight days, we ate matzah (a thin cracker) instead of leavened bread to commemorate the flight of the Israelites from Egypt, when the bread dough they were making had no time to rise. We had special dishes used only on Passover, and we brought them down from the attic to be washed and cleaned. Unlike some other families, we had plentiful food available from our farm, including chickens and geese. There was a wonderful aroma of cooking and baking for the first two nights, and we recited the story of the Exodus, when the Israelites went from slavery in Egypt to freedom.

  The ceremonial dinner always starts with the youngest child asking four questions: “On all other nights we eat bread or matzah, while on this night we eat only matzah? On all other nights we eat all kinds of vegetables and herbs, but on this night we have to eat bitter herbs? On all other nights we don’t dip our vegetables in salt water, but on this night we dip them in it twice? On all other nights we eat while sitting upright, but on this night our elders eat while reclining?” After the questions have been recited, the elders answer them. Throughout history, the Jewish people have borne the brunt of persecutions in countries throughout the world, so we take time to remember these events. When telling the story of the exodus from Egypt, we also invite all those who are hungry to come and join us at our table.

  I will always remember our final Seder; it is deeply etched in my memory. I remember my entire family seated around a beautifully set table—my grandfather and grandmother; my father and mother; my uncle Eugene and aunt Irene; my two younger siblings, Eugene and Alfred; and baby Judit in her crib. The candles burned in their candelabra, the beautiful dishes were laid out, and the heads of the family—my grandfather, my father, and my uncle—were leaning on cushions to symbolize relaxation and freedom from slavery in Egypt. After the reading and singing of the story, we had a dinner of several courses that lasted about four hours. For us, this was our last supper together.

  When everything was cleared away, we washed the dishes and made preparations for the second Seder the following night. Around midnight, we went out into our yard to get some air before retiring. It was a balmy night, and the three elders were discussing the progression of the war on the Eastern Front. They hoped that the Soviet army would liberate us in five or six months. We thought the end of the war was very near, and we had no idea that something terrible was looming on the horizon. We retired to bed shortly after twelve with plans to wake up at a leisurely time the next morning, go to synagogue, and have the second Seder dinner after that.

  At 2 a.m., we awoke to the sound of somebody knocking on the gates of the compound. As usual, these gates were locked for the night. Farkas, our guardian, was barking furiously. This was an unusual intrusion, and my father leaned out the window to see who was there. By this time, the entire household had been awakened by the commotion. I heard someone tell my father to come and open the gates so that he could enter with his horses and wagon. He said he needed to speak to my father urgently, so the gates were opened. The visitor turned out to be the forester from the area; we knew him well and trusted him. When my father still owned the pub, this man was a frequent customer, and he also had regular business dealings with my grandfather. By this point, everybody was intrigued by the forester’s urgent need to speak with us, so he was brought to my grandparents’ quarters. There, he told us that he had just come from the pub, where he’d overheard several gendarmes say they were planning to gather all the Jews of the town and its vicinity and remove them from their homes the next day. He insisted that we get into his wagon immediately; he would take us away and find us a secure place to hide in the forest. We were all speechless.

  The elders talked it over, and after a lengthy discussion my grandfather decided that because it was Passover and the Sabbath, we could not travel unless our lives were in imminent danger, and no one could have imagined such a threat. The man begged us, but to no avail. Eventually he drove away, and the gates were locked behind him.

  After this episode, I lay awake in my bed. I felt that we must do something, but Grandfather’s decisions were law and had to be respected. The memories of our near deportation in 1942 were spinning around in my head. This could not be happening again!

/>   At about 6 a.m. the following morning, two gendarmes forced open the gates and entered our living quarters. They yelled that we had five minutes to pack a bundle before being taken away. They said that we should hand over any money or jewellery, because where we were going we would have no need for it. My mother grabbed my little sister in her arms and told us to put on layers of clothing. Father told us to put on our winter boots, and then he went to our grandparents’ quarters to see how they were doing. We packed as much food as we could into backpacks. Mother was busy worrying about what to pack to sustain a family of six for an unknown journey of an unknown length. All the while, the gendarmes were harassing us and rifling through our dressers to see what they could take from us. I had several binders filled with my stamp collection, which I was sad to leave behind. Again, my thoughts went to the last deportation, and I was consumed with fear of what was to come. All this time Farkas was barking nonstop, as if he knew something terrible was happening.

  In these final moments, our neighbour Ily, a Christian lady who was a good friend of ours, came rushing into our home. The gendarmes yelled at her to get out, saying it was not her concern, but she refused to go. She turned to my mother and said, “Ethel, where are you taking the baby? Why don’t you leave her with me?” Mother refused the offer. I wonder to this day what would have become of Judit had my mother accepted. Immediately, the gendarmes forcibly removed our three families from the house. We struggled to carry our bundles, and my grandmother could hardly lift hers. As I left, I said a silent and devastated goodbye to my home, to the orchard, and to Farkas. My gut told me that this deportation would be more serious than the one in 1942, because this time we were all being taken away. Who would take care of our home while we were gone?

  All our neighbours watched as the three Eisen families walked with our bundles, guarded by gendarmes. Some of them yelled and spat at us as we passed. We walked to the public school at the centre of town, approximately a kilometre away. Normally, they would escort criminals to jail in this fashion. I felt ashamed, and yet we hadn’t committed any crimes. When we arrived at the school, other Jewish families greeted us, and by the end of the day, all ninety families were there. We talked anxiously, contemplating what our fates might be. The gendarmes divided us into two rooms, with at least two hundred people crammed together in each. We were only a twenty- or twenty-five-minute walk from our homes and the comfort of our beds, but instead we were sitting on the floor of the school. We began to realize that we were no longer the masters of our own destiny. The gendarmes had sealed us off from the rest of the town as if we were pariahs.

  That night in the school was the first of many disturbing nights to come. With over two hundred people squeezed together on the floor, it was nearly impossible to be polite. Some people tried to sleep, but there were babies crying nonstop. The discomfort of the space and a general sense of nervousness and fear took hold, and many complained. The facilities in the school were very basic—only a communal outhouse and some pails of water for washing. In the morning, people stirred and tried to stand up, but every inch of floor space was occupied and there was no room to move. I thought about the Passover meal, and the special coffee and breakfast I had been waiting for all year. I recalled the aroma that permeated the house when I ground the beans. All year I waited for this genuine coffee (the rest of the year we drank coffee made from ground chicory). If we were at home, I thought, I’d be eating matzah broken into little pieces and covered with hot coffee, milk, and sugar. Instead, I was in the school with an empty stomach and a terrible day ahead of me.

  In the morning, the gendarmes ordered us to assemble with our bundles in the schoolyard. This would be the first step in our journey from relative freedom to slavery and an unknown destiny. From there, almost five hundred Jewish people were marched en masse from the centre of town to the railway station. Rabbi Tannenbaum, the spiritual leader of our community, was ordered to head the group. He was an older gentleman with a long white beard, and his wife, who was an invalid, had to be carried on a chair by her two sons. Mothers carried their babies in their arms because carriages and strollers were not permitted. On both sides of the road, the townspeople jeered and cursed at us as we passed. Many were looking out the windows of the Jewish homes they now occupied. I thought to myself how disgusting it was for our neighbours to behave this way. Many townsfolk who bought goods on credit from Jews like my grandfather were happy they wouldn’t have to pay the money back. Our deportation was an economic windfall for them.

  As we walked by our own property, we could see that someone had occupied our home overnight. Farkas seemed to sense that we were among the group, and he barked through the fence as if wailing to say goodbye. To me, Farkas was more humane than the townspeople, because he was the only one who seemed to care that we were being taken away.

  By the time we arrived at the railway station, some of the elderly people could hardly stand. This station was small and could barely accommodate our group. Eventually, we were told to board the train to Kassa. Everyone was full of questions. When were we going to come back? Were we going to see our homes again? Would we again live a normal life? After about an hour and a half, we arrived in Kassa and walked from the station to a nearby synagogue with a large yard. Members of the Jewish community met us there and placed us with Jewish families in the town. My family went to stay with the parents of Emil Davidovitch, the doctor who took care of Aunt Bella. They lived in a three-bedroom apartment that now had to accommodate ten additional people. We slept on the floor on mattresses that had to be cleared away in the morning. It was difficult to replenish our food supply, but we managed by cutting back on our intake. Although we were no longer guarded by the gendarmes, we weren’t permitted to leave the area we lived in and roam the town. Living in these close quarters was not ideal, and we wondered how long we would have to stay there.

  Rumours began spreading through the community that a place was being built to house the thirty thousand or so Jews from our province, but we didn’t quite know where this place would be. Half this number lived in the city of Kassa itself, and almost the same number in the rest of the province; therefore, they would need a very large area to house all of us. Within a week of our arrival, posted notices began to appear, directing the Jewish inhabitants on several streets to gather their belongings and walk to a brickyard on the outskirts of the city. Those affected needed to be there on the day designated on the order; disobedience would result in harsh punishment.

  This announcement shattered our seemingly secure life once again, and now we knew we would be moving to another unknown place. Each day we checked which streets were to be moved out, and when we didn’t see ours, we always felt a bit of relief. But we knew we had to be ready to move on a day’s notice, and so we had to purchase in advance whatever provisions we could get. Our clothing had to be clean and we had to reassess how much we would be able to carry. We would keep only the most important items because the walk to the brickyard was approximately two kilometres. This period of waiting was very nerve-racking, and we were constantly reconsidering what we should take and what we should leave behind.

  Finally they posted the order for our street. We collected our bundles and said our goodbyes to yet another place that had sheltered us. The streets outside were filled with Jewish people, young and old, struggling with their loads—all headed in the same direction. We were not permitted to hire a taxi or a horse-drawn cart, so it took us several hours to reach the brickyard. We entered through a gate guarded by gendarmes and saw thousands of people milling around. We were taken to a large shed that was used for drying bricks. Red dust covered the rough floor and was constantly raised by people’s movements. There were hundreds of people in our shed and no affordances for privacy, but we staked out an area where we made our home. My father, my uncle, and I went outside to familiarize ourselves with the layout of the brickyard. Before we even saw it, we could smell the terrible fumes from the communal outdoor latrine, where people sat on
a wooden board balanced over a large pit full of excrement. The entire brickyard was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by gendarmes.

  We received a bowl of soup daily. There appeared to be only one available water tap to serve the needs of thousands of people. The food that we had brought with us dwindled quickly, and we, like everyone else, soon faced a pervasive hunger. To try to relieve that, I would regularly join other teenagers at the main gate to volunteer for cleanup duty. Each day, the gendarmes chose about fifty boys to march to the town to clean up former Jewish areas so that the non-Jewish population could move in. For this work, we were given a piece of bread. I cannot remember how my mother took care of the baby, but she was still breastfeeding her when we arrived in Kassa. She could no longer care for the family as she always had, and I wondered how this made her feel.

  We stayed in this horrible brickyard for about three weeks. Every day around noon, an SS officer would arrive and we would gather around to listen to his speech. He told us that we would be resettled in the east, that our families would be together, and that we would be working on farms. Every day for five days, the SS officer repeated the same speech—this, I later learned, was a brainwashing tactic used by the Nazis so they would be able to load us into the cattle cars with ease. We couldn’t wait to leave that horrible place, and anything else sounded better than where we were.

  During the officer’s speeches, I thought often of my mother’s family, who were deported from Slovakia in 1942. The postcard they’d sent us said they were all together and were working on farms, waiting eagerly for our arrival. We all hoped that we would meet up with our beautiful cousins and extended family in Lublin district. In truth, the Nazis, those masters of lies and deception, had tricked us into believing that our relatives were still alive. Their real aim was to convince us to enter the cattle cars willingly and peacefully. For us, living in such horrible conditions in the brickyard, the promise of future work on spacious farms was welcome news.