Some Early Childhood Memories from World War Two and its Aftermath

TOM KANDO 

While I remember many of the experiences described in this series of articles, I also rely on things which my mother and my grandmother told me. 

I was born in Hungary at the beginning of World War Two. I remember the bombing raids on Budapest. My extended family owned and lived in a large house on the beautiful slope of the Rószadomb - the Hill of Roses. It had been built by my great-grandfather at the turn of the twentieth century. He was a math professor at the University of Budapest. After the war, when the Communists took over Hungary, the government confiscated our family estate and populated it with half a dozen families in need. One of the rooms was allocated to my grandparents, who were permitted to continue to live there and share the communal kitchen with the new inhabitants. During the war, the house was still ours, and that is where my entire extended family lived. 
Sometimes, the allied bombing raids were a nightly occurrence. The planes came from the West to drop their bombs on Budapest's industrial sectors located in Obuda, on the eastern outskirts of the city. Ours was a three-story house with balconies and a basement. When the bombing started and we had to run for shelter, everyone would quickly exit the family room on the second floor by way of the veranda and run down the outside stairway. 

One night, the sirens started blaring again. As usual, my mother and my grandparents grabbed the kids and began to hurry out of the family room. Grandfather Imre was carrying me. As everyone was running down the balcony towards the stairs, the sky was lit up by spectacular explosions. The air defense batteries were doing their best to shoot the planes out of the sky. I was mesmerized and, pointing at the explosions, I said to Imre “Look grandpa! Beautiful fireworks!” Imre confirmed that the light show was indeed a firework, which made me feel even better. Everyone hurried down into the stinking damp basement and spent the rest of the night there by candle light, my twin baby sisters Madeleine and Juliette, my parents Ata and Jules, my grandparents Margit and Imre, my great-grandparents Mano and Julika, uncle Bela and aunts Ferike and Ica, cousin Evi and others, all huddled together and keeping each other warm under piles of old blankets and empty sacks of hemp, while the explosions were reverberating in the distance.

And here is another memory that has remained vivid in my mind: One day in late 1945 - the war had just ended, people were now rummaging in the rubble for food and whatever else might help them survive another day - my grandmother Margit was taking me somewhere across town. We walked down from the Hill of Roses to the Margit Square. This is a major hub located on the West bank of the Danube, and it is surrounded by large six and seven-story apartment buildings. Now, about half of these massive buildings had been pulverized, and many of those still standing were cut in half, like the architect's model bisection of a building. You could see inside the people's living rooms and bathrooms. As we were walking by this odd and frightening sight, I pointed out to my grandmother some rooms way up on one of the upper stories. Inside them, there were people, trying to go about their shattered lives. I asked, “grandma, what if those people fall down from their room?” She assured me that they were all very careful not to let that happen. Still, I wondered, “Why do these stupid people stay there? Why don’t they move to a nicer house?” 

The nightmare of World War Two was at its worst during the winter. Sometimes I thought that winter was the normal and natural condition. I was used to seeing the Danube frozen, slowly carrying huge chunks of ice downstream, occasionally dragging the bodies of German or Russian soldiers along. To me, all of this had become part of the familiar landscape. Being cold, always and everywhere, not just outside but also inside our unheated house, despite the double glass windows, this too I thought was the normal state of things. 

However, spring and summer did arrive eventually. During the first two years following the war, I could finally begin to play outside, and oh what fun did I have! Just outside of our backyard, on Bimbo street, a huge German tank had ground to a halt, all shot up, disabled. The Russians had shot it out of action and its crew had either been killed or had escaped. I climbed up on it. There were no horrifying human remains. For a brief moment, the German tank became my jungle gym, something quite enjoyable for a five-year old. 

In contrast to this amusing memory is the terrible experience which befell my grandparents and great-grandparents: My family was originally Jewish on my mother’s side, but they converted to Christianity three generations ago. Furthermore, my mother married a gentile. 

At the outset of the war in 1941, there were 819,000 Jews in Hungary. Nearly 70% (564,000) were exterminated during the Holocaust, most of them at Auschwitz. ( The Holocaust in Hungary )

In the eyes of the German Nazis and their fascist Hungarian acolytes, the Jewish population included most of my family, even though we were Christians. However, thanks to my gentile father, my sisters and I were at a somewhat lower risk. 

As to my grandparents and my great-grandparents, that was another matter: In June 1944, Adolf Eichmann’s men came for them. On June 24, my grandmother Margit, my grandfather Imre and my great-grandparents who were 82 and 80 years old were dragged out of our house, forced to wear the yellow star on their lapels, and move to one of Budapest’s “yellow star houses,” each carrying one small suitcase with a few essential belongings. They were warehoused along with thousands of other Hungarian Jews, awaiting imminent shipment by boxcar to Auschwitz. By July 6 or 9, 436,000 Hungarian Jews had been deported in 147 trains (the mass transports had begun in April). 80% of the deportees were gassed on arrival. 

Miraculously, the deportations stopped just before my grandparents and great- grandparents’ turn to board the death train: On July 6, Hungarian head-of-state Miklos Horthy stopped the deportations, in an effort to cozy up to the allies, realizing that Germany and Hungary had pretty much lost the war. For this, incidentally, he was subsequently deposed and locked up by Hitler. At some point during the next few weeks, my grandparents and great-grandparents managed to escape. They acquired false identity papers showing them to be Christians. I’m not sure how they managed this, but it is possible that the papers were forged by my father, who was heavily involved in the resistance ( I will document my parents’ heroic resistance work in my next article). This entire episode is described beautifully by my grandmother in her article “ The House of the Yellow Star,” and in her book Our Story is History, 

She mentions that she, my grandfather and my great-grandparents thus did not have need to take the poison which they were carrying with them. They returned home and were among the 30% of Hungarian Jews who survived the Holocaust.     leave comment here

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