By Chance Alone (5 page)

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.

D
uring 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.

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.

B
y
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.