The Beginning.

"Why was man created on the last day?

So that he can be told, when pride takes hold of him:

God created the gnat before thee.  

                                                                                (The Talmud)

The beginning is usually a good point to start... Would you expect me to start there?... should I be that predictable?...

....My name is Peter. Peter means Rock. I do not feel like a rock, but most of my life events beyond my control forced me to act as if I were one. Rocks are solid, inanimate objects. They stand aloof, impervious to human emotions and suffering. They are not supposed to get hurt, or shed tears... or is it perhaps that they are just not allowed to show pain?  I wonder where do rocks go to weep?...  After all: “sunt lacrimea rerum.”[1]…

...It was a late November night, the kind of night when a true animal lover might just have considered allowing his pet dog to piddle on his priceless Chinese hand-woven silk carpet rather than permit him to go out to endure the weather. Not that any self-respecting dog would have even contemplated leaving his cosy, warm place in front of the fire in exchange for facing the elements outside. So if a dog would have had the good sense to refuse to go out, what the hell was I doing out there cold, distressed and miserable? Especially since courage has never been my strong point. As for self-imposed misery... nobody had so far had any reason to accuse me of masochism...

...It was a pitch-dark night with the sky covered by a thick blanket of cloud in an unfamiliar and hostile countryside. A sharp easterly wind drove a mixture of sleet and ice cold rain straight into us and the ploughed, roughly furrowed earth under our feet was churned into unforgiving hard lumps and deep sticky mud. It was around two thirty in the morning. We had been staggering blindly across the dark, lumpy, muddy fields since seven o’clock the previous evening. Flares shot up from two different positions ahead of us and aimed overhead in our general direction had pierced the darkness frequently and aggressively. Before the flares could reach their zenith to transform the welcome cover of the darkness and show us up as potential targets for the patrolling Russian units - who had been shooting at anything that moved - we had to throw ourselves face down into the mud in order to melt into the landscape. Our progress therefore was painstakingly slow, tiring and hazardous. By this time we were exhausted, wet, muddy and on the verge of despair. We were lost. It became depressingly obvious that the man engaged to escort and guide us through to Austria had no idea which direction to lead us.

                - ‘I think we had better wait until sunrise, then I can see and find out where we are’ - he whispered to us.

                - ‘You must be crazy’ - I replied in an angry whisper, not giving a toss about being polite – ‘I have never heard such bloody nonsense in all my life. If we can see where we are, so can the blessed Russians and I am not intending to travel to Siberia’.

                - ‘So what do you suggest wise guy?’ - he sounded irritated – ‘I don’t know where we are, I cant tell which way is West, East, South or North’.

                - ‘That’s painfully obvious’ - I was as irritated as he sounded or possibly even more so and with good reason. He had been engaged - at considerable cost - to lead us safely through the border, not to give stupid excuses.

                - ‘You are bloody useless’ - I added – ‘and if you cannot lead us at least do us the courtesy of keeping your mouth shut. We shall stop here to have some rest, then I shall try to find a way out of here’.

I was fuming. Two days and two nights on the road towards freedom and it now seemed as elusive as ever. I was also very apprehensive on two counts. True enough Erika had proved to be amazing. Eight and a half months into her first pregnancy and in spite of her advanced “bulge” and understandable lack of agility at throwing herself face down and getting up afterwards, there was not a whimper out of her. However that was no guarantee against her going into labour if we were subjected to more of the kind of stress this journey proved to be. Then there was also the baby girl Cini I was jointly carrying with the baby’s father.

I asked Gyuri to stop and lowered the Moses basket to the ground. I knelt down and listened anxiously to the baby’s breathing. It was slow and shallow for a six months old. It was reassuring on the one hand, knowing that she was still alive in a deep sleep and anxiety provoking on the other, not knowing with any certainty if she would wake at all and if so when. Earlier I had taken an awful gamble and guessing her body weight I had administered the maximum permissible dose of barbiturate in her feed to keep her quiet for the last leg of our journey. What if I had misjudged her weight and overdosed her? I would never be forgiven. I could never forgive myself either...  What if she suddenly woke?  The after-effects of barbiturates on a baby were incalculable. She could scream for hours. Either way I would be a dead man... and the others too...

We were only a few metres away from a large straw-stack, so I suggested we should stop there for a rest. We climbed up and made a nest inside to get some form of shelter from the relentless wind and sleet. The straw was soaking wet, but so were we and if we all huddled together we could keep each other warm at least to a limited degree. Panni - the baby’s mother and my one time childhood sweetheart - was crying quietly. She had had enough; all she wanted was some warmth and shelter. She was ready to turn back and go home. She had my sympathy, after all this was no place for a six-month-old baby and therefore the joint effects of anxiety and stress on her must have been tremendous... But let’s face it, this was no place for anyone with any common sense... Gyuri - her husband - was also at the end of his tether. A scientist - a lecturer in electronics at the University of Budapest - he was not well disposed towards hardship and discomfort. He too was ready to throw in the towel.

                - ‘I want to take Cini home.’ - Panni cried quietly.

                - ‘We should turn back and go home. We are obviously lost, we shan’t be able to continue’ - Gyuri muttered – ‘there’s no point going any further.’

- ‘It’s up to you’ - I whispered back with exhausted irritation, whilst huddling up to Erika – ‘you can go if you like, but I am not moving a centimetre backwards unless the Russians take me. As long as I can move, I shall only go forward.’

- ‘But we are lost’ - he sounded dejected – ‘what’s the point of trying when we don’t know which way to go.’

                - ‘Anything is better then just giving up’ - I answered with a determined stubbornness – ‘besides, we are not lost, I shall find the way.’

This was more to reassure Erika and myself rather than the other two. I had no definite idea at that stage where we were in relation to the border, but I had a hunch that we could not be that far away. The Russian positions - two fixed points from where the flares were being launched - were at a guess between five hundred metres and one kilometre ahead of us over to the right. In the light of the flares I spotted a couple of watchtowers in the distance. One to our right and one to the left. From this observation I concluded, that for the last hour or so we must have been walking in a southerly direction, parallel with the border. A sharp turn to the right, another half an hour or so march and we should be in Austria, I figured.

                - ‘I am not going back either Muki’ - Erika whispered in my ear – ‘if we have come so far, there is only one way and that’s forward.’

I gratefully squeezed her hand.

                - ‘I love you’ - I whispered back – ‘you’re a real brave little soldier. We will get through, you’ll see.’

                - ‘We shall turn back after a little rest’ - mumbled our guide quietly – ‘we can try again tomorrow.’

- ‘You can go to hell if you like’ – ‘I hissed back at him, then turning to Panni and

Gyuri I whispered encouragingly

- ‘Look, we can’t be more than one kilometre from the border, I‘ve seen some

watchtowers not too far ahead. We’ll have an hour’s rest, after which Erika and I will go straight on. You are welcome to follow us if you trust me, or you can go back with this man. It’s your choice, but there is no way I am going to go back unless carried.’

They did not reply. I stayed motionless holding Erika whose head was resting on my right shoulder. I let my body relax but refused to close my eyes. This was no time for sleeping. I was concerned that should I fall asleep and not wake up before sunrise; we would miss our last chance to slip through the border. I had no intention of letting my last chance slip by.

I too had had enough. I wanted my first child to be born free from the oppression, fear and discrimination that had marred my own childhood and youth. I would not fail, there was too much at stake...

.... This was the night of the twenty sixth of November 1956, somewhere in Hungary near the border with Austria and Czechoslovakia. A turn in the wrong direction and we could end up in Czechoslovakia and eventually possibly in Siberia, or walk straight into the arms of the Russians... with the same result...

I had neither map with me, nor a compass and even if I had, in the featureless, dark, unfamiliar landscape it would have been virtually impossible to navigate with any accuracy. I had to rely on my sixth sense and trust to luck.

Please God, it had to work!…  I was twenty-two years of age, married to this incredibly brave and determined eight and a half-month pregnant girl next to me, who was carrying our first child. There really was no way back... I wanted a normal life in freedom and security for our child.

Freedom, security, no discrimination, no fear... what did I know about those treasures?... Not a lot. From the age of six years onward I had known little else but oppression and fear.

I had survived the war, the Nazi occupation, the Holocaust... only just and only to be tossed almost straight away into another tyrannical dictatorship, living under another form of terror, discrimination and dread.

Then came the ill-fated October Uprising and another reign of terror was unfolding... Would it ever end?.. I did not intend to wait and find out... enough was enough...

As I lay back in that damp and cold straw cocoon, with Erika fast asleep next to me, I was wondering what the hell I was doing in that God forsaken, hostile landscape. What were the dark forces of fate, the long chain of events that had driven me to this kind of desperate madness and lead us to this situation? I cast my mind back to my troubled past… to the beginning...

.... The beginning is usually a good point to start and if I am to make any sense out of my confused, painful, distraught earlier years I had better get back to the beginning... But where was the beginning?...  Was it at the moment of birth or in the twinkling of my parents’ eyes?...  Or was it even earlier?... Where did it all begin?...

....There I was in the foetal position; dangling by the umbilical cord upside down, suspended in a muscular cave, with the most disgusting gurgling sounds echoing in my ear... Life, assuredly, was not going to be paradise... Then, with a lot of heaving and hoing and with the assistance of a team of white-gowned bystanders all anxious to get me out of there, I was pushed through a hole like yesterday's digested dinner. I arrived naked, filthy, cold, shivering and my nose bunged up. For good measure I brought a dose of jaundice with me and a thick, scaly, peeling skin disorder that made me look like a well-boiled Chinaman. My lower lip was trembling uncontrollably; I looked disgusting. The welcome too was real heart warming. Held by the ankle upside down I was slapped on the buttock, than dumped into cold water and when I started yelling they said:

                - ‘That's a good boy!’... 

When they showed me to my mother she started crying. Some welcome! When shortly after birth I was shown to my aunt Kati she declared that there must be some mistake. Nobody could be that ugly and related to her. Only my father thought that I was wonderful. And he should have known what the meaning of wonderful was. He himself was in a state of some disarray with the left side of his face cleanly shaven whilst the right side was covered with a two day old stubble. He was wearing an odd pair of shoes over an odd pair of socks, and with his miss-buttoned and collar-less shirt hanging out of his trousers he was a sight for sore eyes to behold. Earlier that morning he was sitting in the middle of the kitchen with a large white napkin around his neck, his face covered with shaving foam, whilst his visiting barber was trying to give him a much needed shave. Half the face done my mother gave a yell of pain that made him jump. Thanks to the barber’s skill and alertness he got away with just a minor cut. The white foam on his face turned red.

                - ‘Imre!’ - screamed my mother – ‘I am losing water.’

                - ‘So what!?’ - my father jumped up – ‘I am losing blood.’

He hastily wiped the foam off his face brushed the barber aside and rushed towards the door.

Wrenching it open, he ran out through the quadrangle towards the staff quarters opposite. Three or four steps from our door he suddenly stopped in his tracks and jumped in the air. On landing back on his feet he froze for a second and looked down disbelievingly at his bare feet. A visible shiver ran through his whole body, before he regained his composure. It was 7.30 a.m. on Tuesday the 13th February 1934. The temperature outside was a cool minus twelve degrees centigrade, and the ground temperature must have been a good few degrees colder. He decided there was no time for retreat so he tucked the loose end of the foam covered napkin inside his pyjama trousers, dashed across the courtyard and tore the door open at the opposite side. Holding onto the doorframe with one hand and the door-handle with the other he leaned inside and yelled in.

                - ‘Feri!  Quick get the Studabaker ready, it's happening!’

The echo of his shout could not have died inside the staff quarters before he turned slamming the door shut, and ran back across the courtyard with strides so long it seemed his feet were not even touching the ground.  On arrival inside he shut the door behind him leaned back against it out of breath, looking as if he was ready to give birth himself.

If from the description so far you’ve conjured up in your mind's eye the picture of a stately home with courtyards and quadrangles and staff quarters and a stable of several expensive luxury cars, one for each day of the week you could not be further from the truth.

The place was Ujpest a small industrial suburb north of Budapest in Hungary, and our humble two room plus kitchen/bathroom ground floor flat (with its main entrance through the kitchen) was part of the town's ambulance station. The quadrangle or courtyard was formed on the left side from the main entrance by an L shaped single storey building which on the base of the L shape housed the Consulting Room and a small outpatients operating theatre cum plastering room. On the ascending part were the offices, the medical staff duty quarters and a small boardroom. Adjoining this part of the L shape was our humble abode onto which was appended a long ramshackle wooden construction which housed all kinds of fascinating junk.

On the right side of the quadrangle was the garage where the Studabaker and other ambulance cars were housed, then there was a short stretch of wooden fencing followed by a single storey building. This was the on-duty ambulance staff quarters, comprising a small dormitory, a day room and washroom with a tiny kitchenette. Two metres high rendered and whitewashed brick wall flanked the top of the quadrangle. Our quarters were screened from view from the opposite side by mature, tall and dense lilac bushes. Beyond there was a small raised circular flowerbed in the centre of the quadrangle flanked by four equal sized rectangular lawns. Towards the street, between the two blocks of buildings, there was a tarmac pathway. This was wide enough for a car to be driven through and ended abruptly at a hedge at the edge of the lawn on one end and at a wrought iron gate at the other.

Just slightly to the left of that path and screened from all sides by thick hedges was a small square shaped outbuilding, which served as a washhouse.

                - ‘Imreee!’ -screamed my mother again – ‘I am in pain. Can we go?!’

                - ‘Can we go?’ - repeated my father, as if he was in some kind of a trance. He stared hesitatingly at the barber who was standing in the middle of the kitchen wiping the foam off his pearl-handled razor blade. He looked back at my father slightly non-plussed, shrugged his shoulder and said:

- ‘Yes Sir Doctor; as far as I am concerned certainly you can go, but should you not try to make an attempt to dress first? And by the way’ - he added observing my father fumbling to find a pocket in his pyjama-trousers – ‘don't bother about paying me now. I shall return tomorrow and finish the other side of your face. Good day Sir.’

He nodded his head in a polite greeting as he swept his belongings off the kitchen table into his leather bag and made towards the door. On passing my father he hesitated for a moment, then with a broad theatrical gesture he removed the napkin from around my father's neck, shoved it in the bag and opening the door he stepped outside. As he closed the door behind him he smiled back at my father encouragingly, nodded his head again and said:

                - ‘Please Sir go and dress. Take your wife and have a lovely son. Good Day!’

                - ‘Good Day.’ - replied my father, then shaking his head as if he was just awakening from a deep trance he hastily moved towards the bedroom. Mother was ready. She had a heavy fur-coat over her nightdress and laced up boots on her feet.

- ‘Imre, please dress and for heavens sake lets go’ - she pleaded. 

Father grabbed his trousers from the chair quickly got into them and removed his pyjama-top. He pulled the braces over his bare shoulders and then proceeded to put a shirt on. Tucking the shirt into his trousers was the moment of truth. With the braces under the shirt there was no way of tucking the shirt in properly. He decided it was too late to change strategy so he continued tucking. His general appearance was not greatly enhanced by the fact that the shirt was so hastily buttoned up that he missed the top button. The top buttonhole was matched to the second button down the line. There was of course no way to attach a hard collar to the miss-buttoned shirt so that was left out of the dressing procedure. Socks... In those days elastic sock braces that fitted above the ankles held up the socks. You usually put those on before you got your trousers on. Father already had his trousers on. These he had pulled over his pyjama trousers, therefore he had to dispense with those items too. One brown and one black shoe followed one beige and one blue sock. The brown over the blue sock and the black over the beige. He quickly put his white linen medical coat over the rest of his clothing and the brown gold trimmed uniform ambulance cap completed the attire. At that point my mother who watched his fumbling with total disbelief burst into hysterical laughter, which was almost indistinguishable from loud crying.

                - ‘Klári for God's sake what's the matter? Aren't you feeling well?’ - my father panicked.

                - ‘I certainly feel better than you look’ - chuckled my mother shaking with laughter so much it was a small miracle I was not shaken out there and then.  By this time the ambulance car was revving up out in front and Feri knocked on the door to announce that he was ready to take them to the hospital. Thus the journey commenced, the end of which was the beginning of my sojourn on this earth. The Hospital was on Horthy Miklós út in Ujpest; the ambulance ride took less than five minutes through the almost empty streets of the small town and therefore they arrived before 8 a.m. I was in somewhat less of a hurry however and it was not until 1.30 p.m. when the "It's a boy" announcement was made. By which time my mother was definitely not chuckling with laughter at my father’s appearance though almost everybody else was. He could not care less. As far as he was concerned it was real hard labour and he looked every bit as if he had done the pushing and heaving and suffered the pains. By contrast my mother looked almost untouched by the event. The delivery was not too difficult and the fact that she had given birth just a year earlier to a little baby girl must have contributed to the comparative ease by which she produced me. My sister Éva was born on the 31st of January 1933 at the same hospital and sadly died the following day causing great sorrow and distress to both of my parents.   I also had two half sisters living very close by right from the beginning; both of whom I loved and still love dearly. However they were both almost grown up by the time I was born.

Baba and Csöpi were my Father’s daughters from his first marriage to Margit Ferenczi. Baba -or Erzsébet by her proper name - was born on the 29th July 1920 in Ujpest and Csöpi - or Olga - on the 30th August 1921 also in Ujpest. They were 14 and 13 years old respectively when I arrived, almost ready to leave home. My mother was a mere twelve years their senior. Not that their own mother was that much older than my own.  Margit Ferenczi was born on the 23rd June 1905 in Ujpest and so at the time of my elder sister's birth she was only 15 years of age. This I reckon must have been somewhat on the illegal side. The marriage must have taken place quietly after some greasing of official palms with money by my Grandfather in order to obtain a special permit to prevent a scandal. The age of consent for girls in those days was 18 years for most, though by special dispensation you could stretch it downward to 16 years of age. Fourteen years of age was really stretching it, and the greasing must have been heavy. For all I know this might have contributed to my Grandfather giving up a lucrative general medical practice.

Lying back in a cot sleeping most of the time comes naturally when you are a newborn. So does crying and making a mess. Therefore I acted natural. In the hospital, in the bed next to my mother's, another mum and baby were going through the same routine motions. The baby girl arrived less than 24 hours before me, and so it seemed natural for the two mums, who had known each other for some time, to become best of friends and to introduce the two babies to each other. At the introduction I acted with my characteristic suaveness and charm. I threw up. No reflection at all of course on the respondent young lady's undoubted charm. Panni - for that's what the girl's name was - acted with a little more finesse. She wetted her nappy. I couldn't help having this kind of effect on women even then. The happy mothers decided that this act constituted nothing less then formal betrothal, so by the time my mother and I left hospital, I could have boasted of a conquest to the point of engagement, if only I knew what the hell was going on. Instead I was swaddled almost like an Egyptian mummy and taken home by my proud father, held like some precious ornament, whilst Panni was taken home by her father in the same fashion. No, the engagement was not over yet, only it was decided that we had better grow up a little before they would allow us to consummate the arrangement. However fate held a different card for us up its sleeve.

The two sets of parents had become very close friends.  Panni's father János Hartman - or Uncle Jancsi for me - was a craftsman par excellence in his trade. He was a carpenter. By that time he was well off compared with us, or the majority of my parents' contemporaries. He had a largish corner-shop on the corner of Árpád út and Beniczky utca, where he had his well-equipped workshop at the back. The front of the shop was full of the good quality furniture he produced with the help of his one or two employees. He was a large, portly, jovial man with a rugged, reddish and friendly face adorned by a large wart on the right side of his chin. His voice, which perfectly complemented his physical appearance, was deep and throaty with a twang of hoarseness reminiscent of Louis Armstrong's. Aunt Piri - his wife - was a short, slightly plumpish, pear shaped woman, soft spoken and full of kindness. She had a pleasant, roundish, motherly countenance, a typical Jiddishe Mum. They lived not far from their shop, which was only about ten minutes walk from our home. The two mothers met frequently pushing their prams side by side.  Lady luck had handed me a favourable card right at birth it seemed. With my father's family background and his public standing and the Hartman's financial position it would have seemed the obvious thing to make plans for the merger of the two "Dynasties."  My future seemed secure. Naturally from a family of well to do Jewish burghers one would expect a sizeable dowry. And the lucky girl would have my name and me of course. What better future to look forward to? Things could not have looked more promising. Or could they?

But somehow, somewhere, something had gone slightly wrong...

Brith Millah - the circumcision of a male child - which is performed a week after birth is one of the oldest rites in the Jewish religion. Even before the laws of Moses this rite was performed by the patriarchs, and the tradition is so deeply ingrained, that no postponement would be allowed even for Sabbath or for the Day of Atonement, except on the grounds of ill health of the child.

Pydion Haben - the redemption of the first born - is performed a month after birth if the first child born into a Jewish family is a boy. This ritual is also one of the oldest in the Hebrew tradition. Strictly speaking this could not have applied to me since my birth was preceded by my sadly deceased little sister's, but since she lived for less than twenty four hours it could be argued that her birth was a still-birth and thus I might have qualified as the first born child. This topic came up in conversation, when three weeks after my birth we visited the Hartman family for afternoon tea. Uncle Jancsi was an important pillar of the Synagogue in Ujpest. He took his religion with the same seriousness as he conducted his business affairs. He was a born organiser and it seemed natural to him to try to arrange the traditional welcome of his future son-in-law into the bosom of his congregation.

                - ‘Imre’ - turning to my father whilst offering another walnut cake – ‘next Saturday perhaps?’

                - ‘Mm’ - nodded my father trying to swallow the last bit of the first slice of aunt Piri's delicious cake before accepting the second slice – ‘next Saturday... next Saturday what?’ - he looked a bit puzzled.

                - ‘Pydion Haben of course for Peter.’

                - ‘Pydion what?’

                - ‘Pydion Haben!’

                - ‘No thank you’ - replied my father absent mindedly – ‘his jaundice is clearing nicely, he won't need it.’

                - ‘I am not offering a cough mixture damn it’ - uncle Jancsi thundered back  - ‘I am talking about taking your son to the Synagogue to welcome him into the congregation.’

                - ‘Can't be done.’ - replied my father curtly.

                - ‘What on earth do you mean it can't be done?’

                - ‘It can't be done’ - stressed my father – ‘it would not be proper.’

                - ‘What do you mean it would not be proper?  What could be more proper than Pydion Haben?’

                - ‘Christening’ - said father with a wry smile – ‘on account that he has not been circumcised.’

There! The cat was out of the bag. A bombshell dropped in the Sunday afternoon peace of a traditional Jewish household. The Hartmans faces turned white. My mother was busy trying to melt into the floor.

                - ‘Christening’ - gasped uncle Jancsi – ‘you don't think I shall allow my daughter to marry a goy.’

                - ‘János’ - my father's voice turned deeply serious – ‘when God willing your lovely little Panna grows up and reaches the marrying age she might not have a choice. There may not be any Jewish boys left to marry her. On account of that bloodthirsty little corporal with the Chaplin moustache.’

                - ‘Nonsense, absolute nonsense’ - protested Mr Hartman – ‘that little bastard is a joke.’

                - ‘Some joke’ - my father shook his head – ‘some joke! I suppose the Social Democrats in Vienna are well and truly amused right now.’

                - ‘Their plight has nothing to do with Hitler. This is Austria's internal affair and whilst I feel just as sorry as you are for all those killed, they should have known better than to start an uprising. Nothing good can come out of riots like this.’

                - ‘I suppose’ - retorted father looking visibly angry – ‘one should just sit and wait for the Nazi maniacs to take over the world. Just keep a low profile, keep smiling and the little house painter will fade away. His open hate for the Jews and the air of virulent anti-Semitism in most of Europe, are just a passing little foible and the wind will blow it away. There really is no need for the Jews to flee from Vienna and of course nothing can touch us here; after all we are all chums with Herr Schicklgruber.’

                - ‘If you feel so strongly’ - snapped back János -  ‘why don't you pack your bags and emigrate. Join Klári's family in Paris. Christening your son won't stop Hitler either.’

                - ‘I suppose not. As for emigrating, I just simply cannot afford it. I would if I could, go to the other side of the Atlantic to save my family from the inevitable catastrophe that is going to sweep through Europe and the rest of the world, but beggars can't be choosers, I just cannot afford to go anywhere.’

                - ‘I could help you to get to Palestine. It's not easy but possible and the Synagogue would give you financial support.’

                - ‘Thanks but no thanks’ - replied father with a grimace – ‘getting butchered by fanatic Bedouins is not a great deal more desirable to me than facing the Nazis. Call me a coward if you like.’

                - ‘I certainly will’ - interjected uncle Jancsi – ‘and don't for a minute think that if the worst comes to the worst and your unfounded fears prove to become reality, then being a converted Christian will shield you or your family. Our strength lies in keeping our identity against all odds, like we have done throughout four thousand years of history.’

                - ‘And also in shutting up and forgetting about politics’ - interrupted Aunt Piri – ‘This conversation is getting very depressing. Can't you boys talk about something a bit more pleasant?’

The two men suddenly become very subdued. Uncle Jancsi turned and looked out of the window onto the street. Out there large wet snowflakes were falling softly, intermingled with fast falling giant rain-droplets. The sky looked ominously grey, emphasising the boring dullness of the wet, empty street below. The well-worn iron rails of the suburban tramline were glistening with the dampness as they stretched lazily along the sides of the road. On the overhead electric cables the wet snowflakes and moisture hung like wingless butterflies. It was the first Sunday of March, the kind of late afternoon dullness of the prolonged winter, that spreads the feeling of doom and depression, together with yearning for something kinder, warmer and brighter. A heavy silence descended inside the room, pregnant with foreboding. The gloom of the outside world invaded the privacy of the little 'salon' and lay heavily on the shoulders of all. Except of course mine and my would be bride's, we remained conspicuous by our heavy breathing, sleeping the deep unperturbed dreams of the innocents in our independent cocoons.

Meanwhile only a few miles away in central Budapest in a district then known as Lipótváros - where many well to do Jewish people lived, if not in opulent luxury, then certainly in bourgeois comfort - a young Jewish woman, Mrs Krausz, née Klára Pollák, - with a maiden name incidentally identical to my own mother's - was pacing the floor like a caged lioness, both hands on her bulging tummy in which another baby was cocooned, well protected from the gloom of the outside world.

None of us in Ujpest could have been aware of that yet unborn child, or how its imminent arrival would affect our lives, except perhaps a well trained Oracle, who could have seen beyond the chain of coincidences, detecting the feverish work of the hand of Fate in shaping our future lives.

February nineteen thirty-four was not a very good time to be born, especially if you were born into a Jewish family in Eastern Europe. The sky was not covered just by ordinary clouds, but also by the fast gathering political clouds, that were soon to gain more vicious momentum and plunge the world into a storm, the like of which had never before been witnessed in human history. In most if not all Hungarian Jewish households the events unfolding on the European political scene were watched with mounting apprehension. As always the Jewish community was divided into two groups: the eternally optimistic and the unremitting pessimists. There was hardly any middle ground left, which is not very surprising considering the troubled history of the Jews in Europe. Once again anti Jewish feelings were running high, and what made the situation worse was that this time it was officially fuelled on political, ethnic and economical grounds, rather than on purely religious ones. Jews all over Europe, but especially in Eastern Europe were well used to discrimination and the occasional pogrom, but hitherto all these sentiments were based on either religious differences or on economic grounds. Anti-Semitism rather than anti Jewish feelings were the order of the day now, and this was based on some vague ethnic stereotyping. The sin was no longer that the Jews practised a different religion, but rather that they existed at all. A distinction must be drawn here between anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish feelings. Contrary to popular notion, the term anti-Semitism did not exist before 1879, when it was coined by a German to fit a new historic trend in Christian and Jewish relationships. Anti-Semitism slowly developed from various sociological comments that followed in the wake of Darwin's theories "On the origin of the Species" and "The Descent of Man".  His doctrine on natural selection was enlarged and developed by the French writer Count Gobineau in his "Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races" which was one of the first of the many misguided treatises on racial inequalities that sprang up all over Europe, and gave the ideas developed to the fullest in the book: "The Foundation of the Nineteenth Century" written in German and published in 1899 by  Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the English born admirer and son-in-law of Richard Wagner. This book had a huge success in Germany over a long period of time and so impressed Hitler that he felt obliged to visit the author at his deathbed in 1927. One of the themes of this book was the contrast and conflict between the 'Germanic' race and the Jews, with the message of the necessity to purify and preserve the Germanic blood and values. He expounded the doctrine of the ‘Master Race’ with its own specific mission. Whilst these racial theories were most readily and widely accepted in Germany, they certainly found acceptance elsewhere as well. It is easy to see in retrospect how the association of such racial ideologies with an almost neurotic fear and dislike of an alien people lead eventually to the frightening growth of anti-Semitism all over Europe which between the two Wars was being whipped into a fever pitch.

In Hungary the Jews had enjoyed a long period of fairly liberal treatment up to the 1920's. The pre-war Hungarian oligarchy tried and was fairly successful in integrating and assimilating the Jews into all aspects of Hungarian life. The Jews themselves responded favourably to this Hungarianization programme and prospered. The occasional anti-Jewish violence that manifested, was part and parcel of the Hungarians mistrust and dislike of any and all minority groups, which were numerous in the dual Monarchy. In fact over 50% of Hungary's population were minorities of one sort or another and they suffered more from discriminations than the Jews.

Hungary has a long, troubled, chequered history leading up to the First World War. Wars, oppression, internal and external strife, revolutions and misery dominated it. The First World War for the Hungarians was just another painful episode of such continuous misery. At the end of that war the Prime Minister, Sándor Wekerle, formally dissolved the union between Austria and Hungary and thus the Austro-Hungarian Empire broke up. Count Károlyi formed a free Hungarian Government and declared Hungary a Republic. He began by instituting land reforms and proceeded to divide and hand his large estate over to the landless peasants. This upset the ruling classes. The years and years of mishandling the minorities was now reaching boiling point.  The Romanians, Serbians, Croatians, Slovakians and Bohemians were all pressing for their freedom and dissociation from the previous Empire.  At the same time the economic situation was steadily worsening and soon Károlyi's Government became the victim of a Bolshevik inspired Communist revolt led by Béla Kun - a Jewish journalist and a former prisoner of war in Siberia - in February 1919. The Communists openly opposed the dismembering of the Hungarian State proposed by the Allies at the Paris Peace Conference. They arrested Count Károlyi - who was ready to accede to the Allies demand - and declared a Soviet style Republic. There followed a crash-program of nationalisation from large industrial establishments, to farms and down to the smallest barbershop. The Police Commissar Tibor Számuely instituted a reign of terror. Various insane laws and orders were passed amongst which there was a proposal to the effect that priests and members of religious orders were to be deported. The regime soon became unpopular and came under pressure from various sides both internally and externally and finally in turn they were forced to surrender to the Allied troops in May 1919. In August that year Romanian troops occupied Budapest ending Kun's 133 days of Communist regime. Kun fled the country, first to Vienna then ending up in Moscow where Stalin eventually liquidated him.

The Habsburg Archduke Joseph became the leader of the new Hungarian regime, recognising and accepting the Treaty of Versailles (known as the Treaty of Trianon in Hungary) on the 9th of August 1919 and resigning from power 13 days later.  The ruling classes - humiliated by the revolution - were thirsting for revenge. They were looking for scapegoats to hang. There followed a short period of utter chaos which culminated in the so called 'White Terror" when, as a backlash to the Communists excesses the ruling classes combined forces with right wing elements and went on the rampage rounding up and killing left wing elements and various minorities, including Jews. The first pogroms in Hungary began. Jews became the ready targets for the fury of the oligarchy. Kun and a number of the leading elements in the abortive Communist Regime were Jews. This fact was emphasised, and enlarged upon, and the Jews were dubbed war profiteers and Bolshevik agents. Many were killed, others were deported and their assets were confiscated.

The first free elections under universal suffrage were held in January 1920, but these under the continuing white terror became a mockery, as the communists were proscribed from participation, and other left wing parties like the Social Democrats showed little enthusiasm for participating in the prevailing political climate. So the elections ended with a massive vote in favour of the Monarchists. In the same month just a little further afield in the Ukraine 29,000 Jews were killed in various pogroms. In Berlin anti-Semitic violence broken out and several people were arrested in skirmishes. In February, following the elections a bizarre play was enacted in Budapest. The Monarchy was restored. Without a King. Hungary had no Royal Family; the last of the true Hungarian Monarchs had been buried for more than 500 years, and there was no chance of resuscitating any of them. The Habsburgs - who were waiting and plotting in the wings - were not wanted by all the gentry, who although they wanted a Kingdom, could not agree on whom the King should be.  The Hungarians - always inventive - rose to the occasion with characteristic aplomb. There was an ex admiral who served under the Naval Emblem of the Habsburg Empire and was also an aide-de-camp to the Emperor Franz Joseph.  He became redundant after the end of the War when Hungary no longer possessed any seaport and was devoid of naval power. This superfluous, pedestrian cum equestrian admiral - having just exchanged his flag-ship for a horse - came to the rescue, riding into Hungarian history on a white charger. He gallantly volunteered and was acclaimed as Regent of the newly declared Hungarian Monarchy. Thus Admiral Vitéz[2] Nagybányai Miklós Horthy, an admiral without a Navy, became the Royal figurehead of the Monarchy without a Monarch. Within a month of his inauguration he dissolved parliament and declared himself Dictator.

The "White Terror" continued. In June 1920 the Treaty of Trianon cut Hungary to a quarter of its original size. Territories were given to Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and even to Austria. With it went sixty percent of its former population with over five million ethnic Hungarians, who overnight become dispossessed "reverse minorities".  The Hungarian Government, impotent on the European political stage, decided to take its anger and frustration out on the Jews again. They introduced the first Hungarian anti Jewish laws: Statute XXV/1920; the infamous so-called "Numerus Clausus", which was a law that restricted the number of Jews entering Universities and the professions in Hungary. This was a grossly unfair and unjust law, which from the Hungarian point of view was hastily justified by statistics proving the adverse effects of the Jews on public life. The statistics were not completely false as by the 1920's a predominant part of the Hungarian intelligentsia were of Jewish origin, however as to the adverse effect, these were blatant lies.  As ever when the Jews were given a chance they worked hard and excelled. A very large and substantial part of commerce and industry was also in Jewish hands. The public perception of “Jewish domination” gave rise to some understandable resentment amongst the native population, which had been suffering a much harsher repression by its own masters than had the Jews.

Hungary as part of the dual Monarchy was still very much a feudal state up to the end of the Great War. About 75 percent of its population lived in villages as hard working peasants. Their lives were pitiless and almost without hope under the yoke of the land-owning gentry. There was very little chance for the majority of them to improve their lot. The few who managed to escape from the harsh existence of the villages ended up in the newly developing industrial complexes and joined ranks with the slowly growing industrial proletariat, exchanging one form of bitter existence for another.  A large number managed to join the great European exodus to the “Land of Hope” across the Atlantic.

The Hungarian middle classes had their roots in the impoverished lesser nobility, the disenfranchised offspring of the aristocracy, who inherited nothing but the name and meaningless titles. Like the peasants, they had no hope of owning land and therefore they either joined the army, the civil service or the diplomatic corps, or had to make their way into society through the professions, crafts or commerce. Here they found a very tough competition from the upcoming Jews, who as a result of their cultural upbringing, were willing to work harder to attain their goals than their counterparts, the soft, spoiled noblemen, who were content to make their way by virtue of their family name and title and were more interested in wine, women, song and gambling rather than in working. This stratum of society was to become the hotbed on which Hungarian anti-Semitism nurtured.

The peasants had very little contact with Jews.  In Hungary unlike Poland and Russia the Jews - most of whom had fled from pogroms in those two countries or were descendants of those who had - tended to settle in the towns, where they engaged in trade and commerce. The few who settled in villages, by and large did not work on the farms, but were rather the local shopkeepers, butchers, millers, pharmacists, doctors, lawyers. Generally they were well respected and even liked by the locals, who had little cause to feel jealous of or threatened by them.  Not so in the towns however. The merry-making lesser nobility who patronised the casinos, bars, orpheums and other institutions of dubious fame, frequently ended up at the doors of the pawnbrokers and moneylenders, who were mainly Jews.

The flames of anti-Semitism were generated and fuelled, by those who found it hard or impossible to compete fairly. Undoubtedly some Jews lent a helping hand to those hating them, by their own stupidity or arrogance. Jews after all are not all saints and are not entirely exempt from some of the unpleasant traits that are picked out by their critics and held against them.

In April and October 1921 two attempts were made by Karl Habsburg and supporters to regain the throne of Hungary.  In April Karl flew to Hungary to claim the throne. When Horthy and the Prime Minister Count Pál Teleky persuaded him, he left without the Crown.  In October however he returned with an army of about 12000 men and marched on the Capital. In a bloody battle just outside Budapest the Habsburg Monarchists were defeated by Hungarian troops loyal to Horthy. Karl himself was arrested and held on a British battleship on the Danube. Horthy, now feeling secure as Regent, could ease the pressure of his dictatorship a little and recalled parliament. István Bethlen became Prime Minister and Hungary started to settle down into a form of constitutional Monarchy. Under his premiership the effects of the Numerus Clausus were greatly reduced and the Jews were once again given a fresh chance to integrate back into the mainstream of Hungarian life.