From Darkness into Light. Robert Ratonyi
that their building was several stories high. It was a large contemporary building by the standards of those days. Once we passed through the main gate, we walked up several steps that led directly to the elevator in the middle of the foyer. However, I was disappointed in never having an opportunity to ride it as my grandparents’ apartment was on the main floor.
I also enjoyed the spaciousness of their apartment. Unlike our tiny two-room apartment, this place had a foyer, a bathroom, a separate toilet, several large rooms, and a very large kitchen. It even had a maid’s room, though I can’t recall ever seeing a maid there. They also had a large icebox in the foyer, a rarity in our neighborhood and where I learned that certain food items like butter and milk were kept in.
5. The Spitzer family. My mother is the youngest girl next to my grandmother. The picture was probably taken around 1930 when my mother was fifteen years old.
My grandmother was a sizable woman, taller than my grandfather. She had a round face and sad brown eyes that betrayed her smile, and she would often take me into her broad lap. Born as Ida Glück in 1888, Mamuka, as all her children called her, was fifty-six years old in 1944. She had ten grown children, five boys and five girls, and was grandmother to twelve.
Born as Vilmos Spitzer in 1881, my grandfather turned sixty-three in 1944. In contrast to his wife, he was short and thin, probably not taller than five feet, two inches. As a child, I was fascinated by his handlebar mustache that was curled upward, ending in a sharp point, giving his face a serious martial look. I still remember playing with his mustache while sitting in his lap.
Now I have to pause in telling my story in order to introduce a “story within the story.” I had already completed the draft of this story in the fall of 2004 when I called my Cousin Miklós Grossman in Sydney, Australia, to say hello and inquire about how he and his family were doing. Miklós and his younger brother Tomi are my first cousins. Their mother, my Aunt Piri, was one of my mother’s older sisters. How my cousins and their mother got to Australia from Hungary is another inspiring tale, but outside the scope of my own.
During my conversation with Miklós, I mentioned that I had written down my experiences of the Holocaust and complained to him that there were many holes in my story. I told Miklós that I could vividly remember many vignettes of my experiences, but I was having difficulty putting all the events together. Here is a brief excerpt of our phone conversation:
Me: I remember many things, but I am missing many details.
Miklós: I remember everything!
Me, after a long pause: What do you mean? Were you there?
Miklós: Of course I was there. So were my brother Tomi and our mother. We were all together with our grandparents.
Me: Why don’t I recall any of this?
Miklós: You were too young and were probably confused.
6. Aunt Piri after she turned ninety in 1999 in Sydney, Australia. My cousins, Miklós on the left and Tomi on the right.
I have to add that Miklós was seven years older and Tomi was about three years older than I. Therefore, in 1944, Miklós was already fourteen years old and was able to retain all that we had gone through together. On the other hand, Tomi can recall even less than I can, which I will return to later.
I was shocked to discover that exactly on the sixtieth anniversary of the events that took place in October 1944, my Aunt Piri and my two cousins were with me during those horrible times. All these years thinking about Julia taking me to my grandparents’ house, I failed to remember them, on which my mind is completely blank to this day.
In my excitement, I started asking random questions, which Miklós dutifully answered with all the necessary details. Finally, we agreed that I would call him back and spend more time on the phone to add many of the missing details. My second phone call to Miklós provided a wealth of information about how our little band of family survived the ensuing months in the belly of the beast.
Unfortunately, Miklós had developed emphysema, the result of a lifelong smoking habit, and his health was declining. That, plus the difficulty of discussing events that took place sixty years ago in English and Hungarian over a satellite connection to Australia, made it difficult for me to accurately capture all the information I wanted to. Therefore, following my second phone call, I decided to travel to Australia in December 2004 to hear Miklós’s recollection of events face-to-face. I captured several hours of conversations with Miklós on tape and have incorporated much of it in this story.
I have no recollection of what happened once I arrived at my grandparents’ house on the day, or possibly the day after, my mother was taken away. I can only speculate that the usual warm welcome was replaced by sadness once my grandparents found out what happened to their youngest daughter. By this time in mid-October 1944, my grandparents must have known that their other children who were not present, as well as their respective families—husbands, wives, sons, and daughters—had been taken away to various forced labor and concentration camps.
Now there were ten of us living in my grandparents’ home. In addition to my grandparents, there was me, Aunt Klári and her paraplegic son Iván, and Aunt Piri and her two sons, Miklós and Tomi. Due to the overcrowding, I shared a bed with one of my aunts. In addition, there was a couple I never met, older than my grandparents, whom I later discovered were my grandfather’s older brother Samuel and his wife. Before going to sleep at night, I missed my mother terribly.
Unfortunately, my sense of safety and security with my grandparents and extended family didn’t last long. Shortly after my arrival, I learned that we had to pack up and move. Of course, I had no idea why or where we were going, but as long as I was with my family, I wasn’t afraid.
The final relocation of the Budapest Jews into designated Yellow Star houses was about to be completed, and the house where my grandparents lived on 106 Király Street was not a Yellow Star house. Therefore, we had to move.
Throughout our dangerous journey from house to house in the ghettos to liberation by the Soviet Army, our fate was in the hands of a man I didn’t even know existed, according to my Cousin Miklós. This man was our guardian angel, my mother’s Cousin Laci Spitzer,11 who single-handedly aided us through the terrifying weeks and months ahead and possibly saved our lives.
László Spitzer, Laci for short, was the oldest of three brothers, the sons of my grandfather’s older brother Samuel and his wife, Eszter. I knew all three brothers, Laci, Pali, and Imre, and their families rather well much later in life in Montréal, Canada. However, back in Budapest in 1944, I was unaware of their existence.
Laci was a large man with blue eyes and not a trace of “Jewishness” in his features. He was also what we would call a tough guy. He somehow managed to get an Arrow Cross12 uniform and false identity papers for himself. His sole purpose in life in 1944 and 1945 was to save himself, his brothers, and his parents from death. Because his parents were quite old, he asked his uncle, my grandfather, to allow his parents to join us and to care for them. In return, he promised to help the rest of the Spitzer family, now all living at my grandparents’ place.
His plan was to secure (probably forged) Swedish Schutz-Passes for his parents, my grandparents, my two aunts, and their three sons, which added up to nine Schutz-Passes. Of course, he didn’t know that I joined the family and now needed ten Schutz-Passes. In the end he was able to produce eight of these documents, leaving us two short. Even though they didn’t have one, my grandparents made sure that I did. As it turned out, just a few weeks later, my grandparents’ not having the Schutz-Passes almost cost them their lives.
The house Laci picked for us was in an area of Budapest that became known as the International Ghetto on the east side of the Danube, across from Margaret Island. The name International Ghetto came from the fact that it was where all the “protected houses” supported by various foreign embassies were located. The Hungarian government reached