June 1944

When the yellow-star building assignments were finalized, we found out that the neighboring building, Kossuth Lajos Street 15, was to be a yellow-star building. Dr. Sándor Bolgár’s [1] best friend lived there with his wife in a 3-room apartment on the top floor. Cousin  Lily was to move in there with her mother. We also moved there: my mother Margit, my father Tibor, my mother’s sister Aunt Lily, my grandmother Regina, and I shared a room.

Eventually, the Germans wanted to use Kossuth Lajos Street 15. This building belonged to a bank, but the building manager arranged for the original Jewish tenants to use the cellar and be provided for. After the Germans moved into the building, German soldiers guarded the gate. Cousin Lily told me that all the Jews who moved into the cellar survived.

In the meanwhile, the “new” Jewish residents allocated to this address had to find housing.

One of my memories seems to fit this situation:

This must have been an unusual situation, because generally it was the Jewish Council that allocated housing. In this case we were on our own with no place to go and we had to be off the street by curfew.

My mother Margit was ready to go up to the German headquarters on Gellért Hill to ask for a placement. Aunt Lily intervened:

“No, you have the child, I will go.”

And she left. None of us knew if she would ever come back.

She returned with an assigned place for us.

Our next stop was Szervita tér 5, also a yellow-star building. Cousin Lily explained that in this building, the military had organized about ten to fifteen women into a residential sewing operation [ hadiüzem ] in a four-room apartment on the 5th floor. They were provided with sewing machines, received the material all cut out, and they sewed soldiers’ uniforms. My mother and the two Lilys got involved in the sewing operation. They thought that this would protect them, but it didn’t.

4 November 1944

Aunt Lily and four or five other women were taking finished clothes across Margit Bridge. They arrived at the bridgehead just a few minutes after the bridge was blown up [1]. The women came back with clothes that were never delivered.

November 1944 — — The Arrow Cross period started.

In an Arrow Cross raid at Szervita tér 5, some of the women, including the two Lilys, were taken and marched to the Obuda brick factory.

I have a memory of this event and it was confirmed by cousin Lily.

Seven or eight women and I were standing in a semi-circle in the living room, facing a German officer. He selected the women: my aunt Lily and my cousin Lily were included.“Schnell, schnell,” [ Hurry, hurry ] he bellowed at them.

They rushed to put on their coats and boots and pick up their knapsack packed for such an eventuality. I noticed that my aunt picked up my knapsack in her rush, but I was too afraid to say anything. They left.

One of the women from the residential sewing operation accompanied my mother to try and get the two Lilys released. They were not successful.

A few days after being taken, both my aunt and my cousin returned. They were able to sneak into the building and into the apartment. My aunt Lily told us about how a soldier helped them escape, how they managed to find transportation back to Budapest without being stopped or shot. Then they went to see my father’s sister (Idka Balázs Dückstein), where my father was hiding. They couldn’t stay long because Idka was afraid.

After both Lilys were taken to the Obuda brick factory, my mother felt unsafe but didn’t know where we should go. My father, Tibor (who was already in hiding), came to get us and spent the night. There was another raid: my mother and I were at risk. My father snuck out of the building and returned a few minutes later with a Swiss pass. [3]

From Szervita tér 5, my mother and I went to a Swiss-protected building probably on Tátra Street. The two Lilys joined us at this address. My mother could see people in front of no 6 Tátra Street, across the street, where safe passes could be received from the Swedish legation. [Based on a partial list of the “protected houses,” [4] the Swiss-protected building on Tátra Street might have been either number 4 or 5/A if, as she remembered, my mother could actually see the line-up of people in front of number 6 Tátra Street.] My mother went there and didn’t leave until she got papers to a Swedish-protected building in Katona Jozsef Street.

The two older women (my grandmother Regina and her sister Irén) were still at  Szervita tér 5, which was not a protected building. The two Lilys went to visit their mothers without a star, but they knew that at some point, they would have to join us on Tátra Street or Katona József Street. The only alternative was to be taken to the large Budapest ghetto.

Cousin Lily did not indicate that any one of us was in the large ghetto.

In January, after the Soviet “liberation,” we all moved back to Kossuth Lajos Street 17 into our old apartment. Jews were given one room in their own apartment. We got 2 rooms back, but people (who lived there) didn’t like the arrangement and moved out.

Cousin Lily remained with us because her mother was shot during the battle between Russian, German and Hungarian troops located in Pest and Buda. She stayed with us until March.

Aunt Lily became the building organizer for the work groups needed to clean the rubble from a Pest in ruins.

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[1] After the defeat near Moscow (December 1941), Hitler demanded an entire Hungarian army be placed on the Eastern front. The Hungarian Second Army arrive in today’s East Ukraine in the summer of 1942. They engaged in fierce fighting near the River Don, during which they suffered considerable losses of more than 30 thousand soldiers out of the 190 thousand. Then came the winter and the minus 30-40 degrees. Source:  https://dailynewshungary.com/why-did-hungarian-soldiers-fight-and-die-against-the-soviets-east-from-ukraine-in-the-don-bend/ 31 October, 2024

[2] The Margit Bridge is the second-oldest public bridge in Budapest, built between 1872 and 1876.

At approximately 2 pm on 4 November 1944 a spark from a passing tram prematurely ignited the fuse of the explosives while they were being primed. The resulting explosion destroyed the eastern span of the bridge. Estimates of the number of victims range from 100 to 600. Among them were innocent civilians, about 40 German soldiers, passengers in a tram that overturned and plunged into the river, and Jewish forced laborers.

The Wehrmacht blew up all of the remaining bridges of Budapest in January 1945 during their retreat to the Buda side of the surrounded capital.

[3] In another writing, I will explore my father’s ability to obtain a Swiss pass [Schutzpass] so rapidly.

[4]Jewish Budapest, pp 402-403 (See References)