Saturday, 24 June 1944

We were lucky: we only had to move to the adjacent building at Kossuth Lajos Street 15, where a friend of our cousin Alex Bolgár lived with his wife in a 3-room apartment on the top floor. Cousin  Lily was to move into one of the rooms with her mother. We moved into another one of the rooms: my mother Margit, my father Tibor, Aunt Lily, my grandmother Regina, and I shared the room. Our move was relatively easy, not considering the constant German presence at this end of Kossuth Lajos Street.

Sunday, 25 June, 1944

Yesterday, we moved next door to 15 Kossuth Lajos Street. Around midnight, the 25th air raid siren sounded. This time, the planes and bombs targeted Budapest. We found our way to this new cellar and stayed until about 1:00 a.m. when we trudged back up to the third floor.

Another regulation came out today that Jews can be on the street only between 2 - 5 pm. Also, Jewish doctors can only treat Jewish patients.

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.

Meanwhile, the “new” Jewish residents allocated to this address had to find new housing. This was 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.

I have been told that my mother, Margit, was ready to go up to the SS headquarters on Gellért Hill to ask for a placement, but 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, and that’s how we were assigned to Szervita tér 5 [Szervita Square].

One of my memories seems to fit here:

There was a short, narrow passage between two rooms. On each side of this passage was an alcove, possibly for built-in wardrobes or china cabinets that were no longer there. The alcoves were barely wide enough for a narrow mattress on the floor. These alcoves were our designated space in the apartment. On one side, aunt Lily and grandmother Regina shared a mattress, while on the other side, my mother and I shared ours.

In this cramped apartment, we didn’t notice when an SS officer entered, followed by another man in civilian clothes. His translator? The officer stepped into our passage, paused, and looked at my mother and me.

He asked in German, “Whose is this child?”

My mother replied in perfect German, “Mine.”

He thought for a moment and then said, “Then you can stay.”

He didn’t even glance at aunt Lily or my grandmother before moving on. The man followed him. They soon re-emerged, trailed by accompanied by two women.

When? Where? Nazi officers could enter a building or an apartment at will, selecting and taking people away. We were likely in a “Yellow-Star” building, before the Arrow-Cross [Nyilas] took over and before or at the very beginning of the “Safe houses” of the International Ghetto.