Newyorki Figyelő, 1997 (22. évfolyam, 1-8. szám)
1997-01-30 / 1. szám
4 NEWYORKI FIGYELŐ 1997. január 30. Paul Samuel Budapest, a formerly beautiful and elegant city, was horrifying. The Russian light-bombers, the Ratas, were constantly present over the city's skies leaving much of the city in ruins. The food and combustible suply was diminishing and the weather was getting colder. For us the streets were dangerous: perhaps someone will recognize us. The nyilas (Arrow Cross) units frequently stopped people on the streets asking for identification, looking for Jews. Males who had Christian papers but looked suspicious had to expose themselves to prove that they were not circumcised. Those caught were herded to the banks of the Danube and shot into the river. Every step was dangerous. Yet, we had to eat and occasionally wanted to see our family. So we ventured out on the streets whenever the sirens signaling the Russian planes were silent. As we reached the Grand Boulevard, we passed in front of the Royal Hotel, which served as the headquarters of the remaining German regular armies. We observed a number of young Hungarian boys going in and out of the hotel. Strange, we thought, and asked one of them, how come the Germans let them in and what were they doing in there. Every morning a couple of dozen teenage boys (not Jewish of course) entered the hotel to do the daily chores for the Germans, we heard. They peeled potatoes, cleaned the soldiers' and officers' quarters and shoveled coal in the boiler room. Every evening they went home. Thi Germans had plenty of food, and these kids ate, ate a lot, and perhaps brought some food home with them. Interesting, I said to Bandi. At the begining of December the first snow fell. The half ruined buildings of the city became powdered with white. The Russians were so close that their artillery began to hit the city. Then came the order; Bandi and I did not want to believe it. Our age group, we were both 17 and had Christian papers showing that, was ordered to be drafted into the Hungarian army. There will be soldiers and nyilas units on almost every corner. If you are caught as a draft-dodger you will be summarily shot on the spot. What should we do? Going into the army was unthinkable madness: we would be recognized by our contemporaries in no time. And if not: we are both circumcised. The Hungarian boys are not. They would spot you and finish you. I don't know which one of us had the idea. The next morning we carefully went out to the streets, walked to the Boulevard avoiding the armed groups on many street-comers, and reached the Royal Hotel. Just in time; the group of Hungarian youngsters was going in through the front gates. We joined them. We walked into the headquarters of the German army in Budapest. Believe it or not. Two KADDISH FOR GRANZNER (Continuation) Jewish kids. And nobody stopped us, nobody asked any questions. They were preoccupied... It was taken for granted that we belonged to the small group of Hungarian kids who came everyday, back and forth. We were cleaning, pealing potatoes, shoveling coals like the others, all day. At meal-times we lined up with the German soldiers and got food. And we ate a lot. Good nourishing German army food. We were famished and we had not seen food like this in months. In the afternoon we wrote Christmas cards to the soldiers at the front. "Fröhliche Weihnachten!" Merry Christmas, German soldier! By then the Russians were only a few miles away from the city and everybody moved down to the basements, which were fortified to be a shelter. The Royal, being army headquarters, had heat and electricity in its basement. To us this was luxury. Some luxury... Exhausted, desparate looking soldiers came back from the front for a rest or sleep. They knew the end was near. To us this was heartwarming. It gave us the courage to go on in an almost unbelievably desparate situation: two Jewish boys in the basement of German army headquarters. If we had explosive, and knew how to use them, we could have blown up the whole building! As the night approached, the Hungarian boys were escorted out. We already had our plan: we picked up two mattresses and military blankets while cleaning the soldiers dormitory, took it to the boiler room behind the furnace, turned off the light and went to sleep. The next morning, as the kids arrived, we lined up with them for breakfast. On the day of Christmas 1944 the Russian army encircled Budapest. The Russians radioed to the Germans with an offer to declare Budapest an "opencity" as was done in Rome by the Americans. This would have ment the avoidance of massacre, of more horrors, of house to house fighting; the Russians would come in and let the Germans leave. The civilian population, buildings, monuments, museums wouldn't be destroyed. As the Russian parlamenters emerged from their lines under a white flag, the Germans machine gunned them without warning. On Hitler's orders. The blood of the young Russian captain and of his men was splattered all over the virgin snow. And as Budapest was taken, street by street, block by block, there were no German prisoners. They were all killed, even those who surrendered or were captured. I had not seen a single German soldier alive in Budapest after what has happened. * * • But life in the basement of the Royal Hotel went on. The building above us started to look like a ruined skeleton, but the basement-shelter held. Rushing officers with long faces, exhausted, dirty soldiers back from the front just a mile or two away. We must have been there for about two weeks. Every night when the Hungarian kids left, we bedded down in the boiler room, turned the light off and went to sleep. One night the lights suddenly went on. Somebody was nudging my shoulder with large boots. I woke up, looked at him: big, blond German wearing all kinds of insignia, perhaps Military Police. He had a harsh voice: "Was machen Sie hier?" What are you doing here? The blood rushed out of us, but we had our story prepared: We are Hungarian kids working here, our escort left, and we can't go in the streets anymore without escort at night. There is a curfew. We stayed here and bedded down. He listened attentively. What could have gone through his mind. Who was he? What is he going to do? Shoot us, turn us over to the nyilas? We were frightened to death. He listened looking at me with piercing blue eyes. Did he believe us? Could he possibly eVen suspect anything? Two Jewish kids sleeping in the basement of the German headquarters, it's so wild, he probably couldn't even think of that. He slowly turned around and walked to the door. Every step of his boots was like thunder to us. We were lying on the floor on our mattresses under military blankets, our heads raised, looking at him. He reached the door. "Schlafen Sie!" Sleep! - he said and turned off the light. Turned off the light!! We didn't want to believe it. We slumped back on our mattresses, breathing heavy, our hearts pumping. We were mortified. But death was permanently present in those days. You could get hit by a bomb, or just shot by gun fire, or you were caught and killed by the nyilas. You turned at the wrong comer in the street or they came to your building and took you. In a way, we became used to it. We became escape artists. The big, blond German was just another variety. I don't know how we did it, as a grown man I couldn't take it anymore. Who could? The next day we had to leave. This couldn't happen twice. But where to go? We had very little choice. We decided that there is only one possibility left: going back to the former SS-building on the Grand Boulevard and see what's left of it. We could not believe it. Granzer stayed behind. He was in the building, protecting his Jews. He didn't show himself much, except when he had to take care of the marauding nyilas brigands. But he was still wearing his SS uniform, perhaps the only one in Budapest. The appartments were empty, everybody moved down to the basement against the Russian bombs and artillery. Cramped on each other, dirty, hungry, miserable, horrified, threatened by death every minute. There was no food left but a few bags of dry beans. We had none. The Russians got closer street by street. Their planes flying low, clearing the field by their bombs for the advancing army. On the top of the next building there was a battery of German anti-aircraft guns. The Ratas wanted to get it. The bombs were falling. Two days after we got back, one of their bombs fell obliquely through an opening in the wall and blew up in our shelter, just at the wall between two buildings. Fifty people died. I have seen detached arms, legs, heads of friends and acquaintances rolling in the ruble. We tried to do our best to take care of the wounded. Granzner also helped. (To be continued in the next issue) The Hungarian Club of Bnai Zion Cordially invites you and your friends to a- ' Musical and Nostalgic Afternoon of Entertainment Presenting: “When I Left Home . . .” by the couple John & Agnes Fürst accompanied by Dr. Peter Hámori, pianist Sunday, February 2, 1997, 3p.m. Bnai Zion House 136 East 39th Street, NYC Program, Music, Dance & Buffet Separate Card Room following the program Contribution: $10 per person fnr the he,refit, nf Rnai Zion Home for Retarded in Israel
