Vignettes of My Life
Gabe's mother, Katalin (Kate), recalls her life in her own words, from childhood through the present.
The coming years brought turmoil to Europe. While Hungary was left alone in a relative peace, one country after another was occupied by the Germans. First came Austria, then Czechoslovakia and later Poland. I don't remember the exact dates and timing, the history books can provide those. I know, France came last and also remember Pearl Harbor - will the U.S. get involved? This was the big question in Europe.
Hungary - as usual - joined the wrong side - became an ally of Germany and the Axis countries: Italy, Japan, etc. We lived in fear, what's coming - nobody knew.
I was studying, Andy had to join the army, my father was very weak but alive, the years just went by, sad, uncertain years.
Andy was stationed in Budapest in the biggest army depot in the country. He was away only for 3 months at the beginning of his army years. We wrote each other every single day.
When he settled in Budapest, he was working in the army carpentry shop for the whole duration. He loved to work with wood and became an experienced carpenter over the years. He was practically free to come and go, so we saw each other almost every day.
We became engaged in 1942 on my birthday. My parents bought a condo for me as a wedding present. It was in Buda, a very nice neighborhood and in a well-built elegant house. It was on the first floor, facing the garden.
We looked for furniture and all the household items needed. I had a completely furnished home, ready to move in. I was 21 years old, Andy just past his 24th birthday.
We were married on the 19th of August, 1943. The times were not right for lavish weddings. I was dressed in my homemade wedding gown, created by our trusted seamstress. Andy wore a rented cut-away tuxedo. We had an afternoon dinner in my parent’s house for about 12 people and off we went. The taxicab took us to our new home in Buda - it was the beginning of a new chapter in my life. .
Early in 1944 the German army started to make a move to secure the shaky Russian front.
We heard all sorts of rumors - unbelievable rumors by eye witnesses and escaped Jews - about concentration camps, killing the Jewish population by the thousands (nobody imagined millions), the news from the fronts were also mixed. Everybody listened to the BBC station's Free Europe broadcasts from 11 PM. to Midnight. This news was different than the official news in the radio and newspapers. Who do you believe? What to do? We were helpless, nobody knew what tomorrow would bring.
On a Sunday, early March, 1944 the German army tanks and trucks full of soldiers drove thru Budapest and the countryside: Germany officially occupied Hungary. Budapest became totally silent. You couldn't hear a sound in this busy, lively, big city. Nobody was on the streets, nothing moved, everybody was stunned. It was sort of acceptable to be an ally of Germany, but to be occupied - it was outrageous!...
The Hungarian fascists became the ruling force very quickly in matter of hours. Everything changed and we started to feel the war coming to our doorsteps. The Nyilas (Arrow Cross) Party ordered the Jewish people to wear the yellow star. First they started to pick up Jewish families of Polish descendent. One of my dear friends and her family were among them. They all perished. Shortly a ghetto was built in Budapest in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. The "Arian people" had to move out and settle in the abandoned Jewish homes. The Nazi plan was to empty the ghetto and send everybody to the death-camps. (Since it was the end of the summer, 1944 when all these activities started, the Germans ran out of time to carry out the plan. In spite of terrible circumstances and constant hunger, most Hungarian Jews came out alive from the ghetto, after the Russians opened the gates.)
Meanwhile people started to disappear without a trace. The Hungarian Army was under German command, ordered to the more and more hopeless Russian front. During the "Battle of the Don river-bend" half of the Hungarian Army was killed or became prisoner of war and never came home. The Allied Forces found a new target to bomb in order to destroy the German war-machine: Occupied Hungary and our beautiful Budapest had to learn to live with the constant air-raids and falling bombs..
Everybody felt that we were at the beginning of a big battle, and tomorrow only bring something worst than what we had today. The airplanes kept coming day and night, the air raid sirens sounded always a few minutes after the bombs fell, people running to the designated shelters - unless it was too late to get there - we were helpless and terrified...
I had an experience myself one day. The air raid sirens sounded, I was to go around the corner, a big apartment house was our designated shelter, where the whole basement was reinforced and equipped with bunk beds, food, etc. When I stepped out from our house to the street, I heard the whistling sound of the bombs coming down. I knew I had no time to go to the shelter, so I went down in our own basement. A few minutes later, the whole house started to shake, a major hit nearby made an unbelievable noise, then eerie silence.
The shelter I was supposed to have gone to, got a direct hit. The whole house collapsed and buried close to 300 people in that so-called reinforced shelter. Very few came out alive. I was spared that day... This house - or the ground upon which it once stood - will have a little role in my story later.
During this period, from March to early September, 1944, Andy was in the Army Depot, in the carpentry shop, but also drove a big army truck and came home almost every day. My parents were on the other side of the town, in Pest, in their house, mostly in the makeshift air raid shelter in their basement. Andy's mother and stepfather lived a few blocks away from us in a large apartment house with a fairly good shelter.
Copyright 2008 - Gabe Dalmath Foundation
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