How I Survived the Holocaust

I was born in Budapest Hungary in June of 1933. We were of Jewish fate, but not practicing Jews, except for high Holydays. My father was a barber and a beautician, my mother was a house wife. Then there was my brother George who was born in March 1939.

When Hitler came to power and started the systematic extermination of the European Jewry, my parents tried to buy passage out of Hungary, but by this time, the fall of 1942, it was too late. My father was at first drafted into the Hungarian Army, but by the middle of 1943, he was used as a slave laborer on the Russian front, but eventually wound up in the Mathausen concentration camp, in Germany. My mother still in Budapest, knew that our turn will come soon, arranged for my brother and I to be admitted into a big apartment building, that was under the protection ot the Swiss government, that was like being in an embassy that gave us immunity from the Germans. In a small 20x20 room there were about 50 children. We were packed in, but we were safe, so we thought.

There was an organization made up of Hungarian thugs and anti-semites, who were called "ARROW-CROSS". They were more vicious then the Germans. One night they showed up and beat us down into the courtyard, and marched us into the newly established Ghetto, that took up several blocks in the mostly Jewish section of the city. Once in the ghetto we were on our own, and since my brother was only 3 years of age I had to find someplace for us to sleep and eat. As a 9 year old I had the responsibility to take care of my brother, and as I found out later our mother by this time was taken away from Budapest, and she also wound up in a concentration camp called Gundstkirchen in Germany.

In the ghetto, things were rough, food was hard to find, we had to go to a soup kitchen and since everybody was in the same situation the portions were small. Lodgings were mainly in basements or air raid shelters, since American and British bombers were frequent visitors to Hungary. It was not unusual for us to get out unto the street in the morning and see bodies lying around from the previous nights air raid.

At this time the walls that were being built around the ghetto, were not yet completed, and the only way in and out was guarded by the ARROW-CROSS guards. There were some non-Jews who lived previously in the area that was now the ghetto, and they were given homes outside of the ghetto that were confiscated from the Jews. I noticed that large families were not checked very closely as far as the children. One day when quite a few large families were checking thru the gate, I removed the yellow star from my chest that we had to wear, also from my brothers coat, and we walked out with this family that had several children. It was a terrible chance, but what did I know as a 10 year old. Once outside I went to an aunt who was a Gentile, and she farmed us out to some of her family who lived on the outskirts of the city. My brother went to one family, and I went to another. After a few months the families were getting concerned that they were going to be found out, so we had to go back to the city, where we found another Swiss protected house, but eventualy the same thing happened, we wound up back in the ghetto. By this time the Russians were very close to the city, and within a month Budapest was liberated by the Russians.

Then the miracle of miracles happened. Both of our parents survived the concentration camps, and after 2 moths they returned to Budapest, and looked for us, and found us in the apartment where we used to live before they were taken away. My mother's sister also survived the war and as we found out later, she was in the Budapest ghetto the same time we were there. She also went back to the same apartment where she thought we all would show up if we survived.

About six months after we all got reunited, my father decided he still wanted to leave Hungary, and since we were behind the Iron Curtain, we had to sneak out of Hungary during the night into Austria, and from there to a Displaced Persons Camp, in Munich Germany, where we spent 3 years. In November 1948 we immigrated to the United States.