Although Hungary was in an alliance with Germany and Italy, we were as Hungarian as our non-Jewish neighbors. Hungary would take good care of us

As told to Toby Orlander Thaler by Mr. Yosef Herczl

Iwas a scrawny, undersized, 12-year-old Hungarian Jew in 1939, when war came to Europe. Father was emphatic that it wasn’t a war against Hungarian Jews — perhaps against Polish, German, Lithuanian, and Czechoslovakian Jews, but not Hungarian Jews. Although Hungary was in an alliance with Germany and Italy, we were as Hungarian as our non-Jewish neighbors. Hungary would take good care of us.

By 1941 Hungary had become home to many Polish refugees. We listened with politeness and fascination to their stories of Nazi atrocities against Polish Jewry stories of ghettos and mass murder yet thought they were spinning gizmos — gross exaggerations. When we heard that the Hungarian government had expelled more than 20 000 of those Polish refugees to Kamenets-Podolski where they were massacred by the Nazi Einsatzgruppen we were sad. But we still thought we Hungarian Jews were safe.

Soon afterwards all men of military age were taken into forced labor battalions (“Munka Tabor”) and sent to the Ukraine. By the end of the war 27,000 of these men had been killed many of them by their Hungarian overseers. Yet even this forced conscription didn’t set off warning bells.

After the liquidation of the Bochnia Ghetto in 1943 handfuls of Polish Jews escaped to Hungary among them the Hochberg brothers. They told of how the Nazis were slaughtering Jews how women and children were being put into the ovens. Ovens? What did that mean? It was totally incomprehensible. Besides Polish Jews were a different “species.” We were Hungarians. The Hungarians would keep us safe.

The SS arrived in Hungary on March 14 1944. With the blessings of the new pro-German Hungarian government Jews were herded into holding pens to be shipped off to “work camps.” The new Hungarian government paid the Nazis per head to get rid of their unwanted Jews just as they paid to ship livestock to slaughter — and the Jews were put in the same filthy cattle cars.

Hungarian Jews were in shock. My neighbors — people who had worked and lived peacefully with us side by side people we had employed and helped — now showed their jealousy and hatred. Father was accused of signaling English airplanes with a flashlight from our rooftop. Pure fabrication but he was incarcerated. He was released however by the mayor who vouched for him on condition that he return to prison after spending Pesach with his family. Friends begged Father to run away but how could he? He had given his word to the mayor and return he must. We heard he was interned in Pest and later taken to Auschwitz fate unknown.

My family was captured in June 1944. I was locked in an overcrowded cattle car with my mother my two sisters and younger brother Hy”d without food or water along with 3 300 other people. Through cracks in the paneling we paid close attention to our route. Someone had said we’d be safe if they were taking us to Germany. I saw desperation in Mother’s eyes when she realized the train was headed to Poland.

Poland meant hell. Death.

On the fourth day our train pulled into Birkenau. We were kept in the hot smelly car for hours. From the makeshift window I was able to see “workers” in striped pajamas. Finally the doors opened. The kapos shouted to leave all our belongings.

A Jewish kapo asked a young boy standing next to me how old he was.

The boy replied “I’m 15.”

“You are 18!”

“No no I’m 15.”

He landed a fist to his head. “You are 18. Remember!”

The same kapo took a baby from its mother’s arms and gave it to an old woman. He whispered in Yiddish for the young mothers to give their children to old people. When I asked questions all I got were curses and comments in Yiddish: “These stupid Hungarians! They were too stupid to flee when they had the chance.”