Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2014 (26. évfolyam, 1-39. szám)

2014-10-10 / 39. szám

AMERICAN

Hungarian Journal

Always in my heart

by Marta Fuchs

The Author, Marta Fuchs, is a Professional Speaker and a Distinguished Psychotherapist who is the author of two books, Fragments of a Family: Remembering Hungary, the Holocaust, and Emigration to a New World, and Legacy of Rescue: A Daughter’s Tribute about her father and the Righteous Gentile who saved him. Marta was bom in Hungary after the war and escaped with her family to the U.S. in the wake of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Her website is www.martafuchs.com

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It’s a fantastic human story, a love story of Marta’s 96 year old Hungarian mother who reunites with her lost long love after 70 years! Marta’s mother is an Auschwitz survivor and she was also the caretaker of Anna Frank.

Part III

Dear Icukám - Since you insist and I could never say no to you, I will tell you what happened. From one day to the next, everything changed. We were working in the forest cutting down trees that were used as bunker coverings for the soldiers at the front. One day we were given orders to dig a gigantic hole. Why we wondered? It didn’t make sense but of course we did it. It took us almost all day and our guards kept shouting at us to do it faster and started beating some of the men. Suddenly, they stopped us and lined us up at the edge. From nowhere came dozens of soldiers who started shooting at our entire group. We were over 200 men. Dozens across from me immediately fell into the hole like dominos. It was horrible to watch. I knew I was finished. I remember saying the Sh’ma.

Darkness. Pitch black darkness. Horrible smell like you cannot believe. Complete silence. Not even nature could utter a sound. I opened my eyes and I thought I was in hell. Corpses everywhere. Next to me was Jóska, my best friend. I closed his eyes, those eyes filled with such fear and agony that I see to this day.

I don’t know how I managed since my left leg was completely numb, but I crawled out from the piles of bodies all around me. I hid in the forest and tried to sleep, I was so tired, but I kept waking up feeling dead bodies all over me. At dawn, I was so numb from pain, from hunger, from not believing what had happened. I started walking. How many kilometers I walked and for how many hours I cannot tell you. Finally, I saw a farmhouse in the distance but I knew I was too weak to make it there. I laid down to rest but was so thirsty and hungry I was afraid it would be the end of me if I didn’t go on. I somehow made it to the barn and saw a well and fell against it, too weak to pump it. I must have passed out because the next thing I know, a woman was softly talking to me and giving me water to drink. I cannot tell you more now. I am so tired. Bandi

Dear Bandikám -1 appreciate very much that you tell me how you survived. I know it is very painful to remember, but who can forget? I still see Mengele’s face and hear his words when he told us at Auschwitz that we will see our parents later, no need to say goodbye. The blue scarf I had given my mother had fallen off her head. She was in the other line with Father. I rushed over to tie it back on. That’s when Mengele yelled out. We never saw them again. You remember my dear Mother and Father? They were wonderful, honest, hardworking people. And we never saw them again. Ica

Dear Icukám - I will tell you more what happened. When I woke up, I see that a young woman with such kind eyes is giving me water and helping me walk into the farmhouse. Her name is Marika. Her husband is a soldier at the front. Her younger brother Péter was living with her since a few weeks ago. He is a priest from a nearby town and came to convalesce from an illness.

Ica, you remember that I wanted to be a doctor? If not for those numerus clausus, the anti-Jewish laws, I could have gone to medical school. So, I helped Marika take care of her brother Péter. Yes, his name was Péter. I know what you are thinking. Well, sadly Péter relapsed and died from complications of the flu. Marika could not get him to a hospital quickly enough. There isn’t one in this little town.

After she buried Péter, Marika told me that she always thought I didn’t look Jewish and from the beginning saw an uncanny resemblance to her brother. For my protection and hers, she suggested that I take on her brother’s identity. You won’t believe it but his clothes fit me perfectly. And from all the davening I have done in my life, it wasn’t hard to learn the Catholic prayers. It came so naturally oddly enough. Well, my dear, we know Jesus was a Jew and we had many friends in Budapest who were Catholic. So that’s what happened. I became Péter the priest, Marika’s younger brother. I was able to go into town to help Marika with shopping, food and supplies for us and the farm animals. About a year later, she got word that her husband had been killed at the front. The war was not yet over and it felt like it would never be over.

Dear Bandikám - I was just thinking that we would have gotten married in 1941. Was it May 21st or June 21s' that we had decided?

I remember our engagement was at Christmas and we went out to the train station and you were just swinging you hat in your hand. And by the time we got back to my house, people had already told Father — there are always such malicious people — that Engel lea is coming with a boy and he is a sájgec, a Christian boy, that not even a hat does he have on his head. I was laughing so hard!

I remember that they called you up in February to labor camp. With an early morning train you came and knocked on the door and Father opened it. When I saw you I wondered what is going on. You said that Érdé lyi Laci, your cousin was called up. So you thought that they will call you up also.

Do you remember that afternoon there was Dr. Engel’s wedding in Szerencs and you were the best man? And my mother was such a clever woman, so smart, really, I don’t know how she did it, but we went with the 1 o’clock train to Szerencs and we even had fánk, those little doughnuts, that she made for lunch.

Bandikám, I’ll never forget that you asked Father if I could wear this ring of yours. If you would have said to me there in Szerencs that we should get married, Mother would not have even said anything, neither would have Father. Many did it, you remember, but you said that for one night you won’t. And it was so beautiful there. After the wedding everyone was singing and you had such a beautiful voice. Then you went by train with the rest of them to labor camp. Well, that was such a sad thing.

I didn’t go to see you when you were there in Hatvan. And on my birthday, March 31st, I got a package from you, a beautiful patent leather bag with daisies on it. You wrote and sent it from Budapest. I thought you had been discharged, no? You wrote everyday from there, but you said that you can’t say goodbye again, that I shouldn’t go see you.

Before we were deported, when I was at the Szabó and Mátefi estate sewing, I got a letter from you. I had sent you a photograph and my hair was up. “I don’t like it like this. I like it better the way you usually wore your hair” you wrote. It was the last letter I ever got from you.

When we were in the ghetto at Sátoraljaújhely when there were weddings, it came into conversation that if you don’t come back then who would I marry? Miksa had a good friend in Tokaj, Löwy Jóska. Jóska always said to people in Tokaj that he will marry Engel lea. And there was another boy there, too, and Wassermann Gyula also. Gyula came home later than Miksa, and by then we had decided.

You know, Bandikám, none of my boyfriends, none of the boys I used to date before you came back. None of them.

Miksa was really a very honorable man. When we came back, he was home already. And he was a handsome man, and a notable man, he was somebody.

Before we were deported, I got a telegram that your mother in Budapest received and then she sent it to me. It said that Goldstein Andor had disappeared in Sztradyoszkol in Russia in a labor camp. You know, if someone died, they don’t write that he died. Apparently they were reporting that your entire squadron disappeared. This was sometime in 1942. But I just didn’t want to give up hope, so I waited. And now, I find you. I don’t believe it. Ica

A few months later, Henry was in Europe on business and arranged to bring Bandi over to the U.S. to see Mom, and just in time for Passover. It was the day after Passover in 1944 that she and her family were deported. How fitting that it would be on Passover that she is reunited with Bandi. The four grandchildren and I flew in for the big reunion and the first Seder the following night.

Bandi is visibly shaking as we help him walk down the hall to Mom’s room. Shaking from old age and the old love he is about to see again after more than 70 years.

To say they fell into each other’s arms would be an understatement. The fluidity of their embrace and reignited passion was palpable and brought us all to tears.

“When I get married,” Sophie whispered, “in my bouquet with the red carnations that Grandpa always gave Grandma, I want to have a daisy. A. daisy representing Bandi and true love.” ( . ____THE END _____.

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Same Sex Marriage Legal in All States Also Through Back Door Legality

The news media did NOT report it but the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) made same sex marriage legal in 11 additional states and, by that action, effectively in all 50 states a week ago today.

The Supreme Court’s refusal to review appellate decisions opposed to same sex marriage killed through “stare decisis” all future state appeals on that subject.The nation’s highest court declined to review petitions from lower courts whose jurisdiction covers nearly a dozen states. The decision upheld lower court decisions striking down bans on same-sex unions in those states.’

The “not sure about all this” folks might ask what is really wrong with this pro-same sex marriage decision?

First, there is the immorality in same sex marriage recognized by perhaps billions of people on this earth but not SCOTUS. This decision counters the Old Testament’s Leviticus dictates honored at least symbolically by hundreds of millions of Christians and Jews and, of course, opposes the Que’ ron provisions among the 1 1/2 billion followers of Islam.

Second, the practical non-moral effect is that less children will be bom in the United States as more homosexuals turn to each other instead of to the opposite sex for their sexual energy outlet. The only provision that counter-weighs this point is that portion of the Declaration of Independence supporting men’s desire to pursue happiness each in his or her own ways.

Third, realize the new entitlement impact this will have on the already burden systems of Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, pensions, and retirement and health care plans as these married homosexuals demand their new fiscal rights. Fortunately for the taxpayer, so few persons percentage-wise choose same sex marriage that this negative societal effect is minimal.

Thusly, SCOTUS, that is the 5-4 majority of whose members were nominated by Republican presidents - and whose Republican Chief Justice was behind creating the original pro-same sex marriage ruling on California turned our normal world upside down.

Let me join the ancient Cicero speaking against immoral corruption and say, ‘O tempóra, o mores!’ or in English, Oh what times! Oh what customs! And all from a Republican Majority court! Sad indeed! Sad!

Let us pray for saner times!

Ernie Könnyű (R-San Jose), Retired Member, U.S. Congress

Október 10, 2014