From Darkness into Light. Robert Ratonyi

      7. Locations of the Big Ghetto and the International Ghetto.

      These affidavits testified that the holders of these documents were approved to immigrate to the issuing neutral country as soon as it was feasible. There were at least fifty of these designated “protected houses” in the International Ghetto. This area also happened to be where many of the well-to-do Jewish families lived, and for that reason, many of them were designated Yellow Star buildings.

      There were important advantages of moving into a protected house as opposed to into the Big Ghetto. First, these houses were not walled-off prisons. There was freedom of movement in and out of the protected houses to buy or barter for food and medicine, visit family, or go to anywhere when the curfew for Jews was lifted. And most importantly, Jews could keep money, jewelry, and all valuables they could carry.

      In order to bring us all together under one roof, Laci arranged to have an apartment available for us in a building where his girlfriend, Erzsi, who later became his wife, lived. The house was on Légrádi Károly Street, known today as Balzac Street, and we all moved into a third-floor apartment. Laci deemed this place safe, and the fact that the building’s superintendent, a woman, was not an anti-Semite was definitely favorable.

      It was quite the frenzy as my grandparents and aunts tried to decide what to pack, what to take, and what to leave behind. Food, sheets, blankets, pillows, clothing, eating utensils, precious family heirlooms, among many other things, had to be sorted out. Arguments ensued as to what was feasible to carry. A wicker basket normally used for shopping at the market was assigned for me to carry. Additionally, a cast iron meat grinder that looked enormous to me was placed in the basket and was topped off with some of my clothing that Julia had brought with us, including my precious pair of white pants.

      To this day I cannot figure out why grandmother insisted on taking the meat grinder. The whole city was starving, and even potatoes and bread, never mind meat, were scarce. But no matter how bitterly I complained about the weight of the meat grinder, Grandmother insisted that I carry it. And that is how our journey to seven different places during the course of the next few months began.

      So, one day, all ten of us, including Laci Spitzer’s parents, packed up with bundles of property; me with the meat grinder and Cousin Iván in his wheelchair with bundles in his lap, began a journey on foot from one place to the next that I shall never forget.

      Our building, 106 Király Street, from where we started, literally bordered the northern perimeter of the Big Ghetto. The distance from there to our new destination was a good mile or mile and a half of walking.

      More than sixty years after these events took place, I still have this bittersweet recollection of a feeling of indignation for having to carry the heavy meat grinder in spite of my protestations. What had my grandparents or aunts been thinking? Did they think that they could set up a functioning kitchen or have access to one in some stranger’s apartment? Did they think that they could actually obtain meat for cooking?

      Looking back, I can only conclude that the grown-ups didn’t have a clue to the conditions we were about to experience once we left my grandparents’ place. Nevertheless, I had to carry my heavy cargo without it ever being in any proximity of meat to grind in the months ahead.

      Life was still dangerous for Jews despite having authentic papers to authorize living in a protected house. Our goal was to stay one step ahead of deportation or being gathered together for summary execution on the banks of the Danube. Our survival depended on obtaining sufficient food to avert starvation, on avoiding any serious illness or the arbitrary roundup of Jews by the Arrow Cross, and on not being bombed by the Allies. It was a race against time as the fighting was already at our doorstep and the Soviet Army was rapidly approaching Budapest from the east.

      It was on Légrádi Károly Street that my grandparents were caught without their papers. The Arrow Cross men periodically visited the protected houses and demanded to see everyone’s papers. We all had to descend to the courtyard and stand in line as the papers were examined. Since my grandparents didn’t have any papers, they were told to take whatever they could carry in one bag, and were taken away to the Budapest brick factory, which was a collection center for future deportees. The sudden departure of my grandparents was disastrous for all of us.

      Miraculously, two days later at daybreak, my grandparents were spotted from our window walking back toward our house, pulling their knapsack behind them in the snow. Somehow my grandfather managed to engineer their escape before dawn and we were together again. Following the near-fatal incident with my grandparents, we moved out of the house where the grown-ups had felt relatively safe for the previous couple of weeks.

      I recall nothing peculiar about our stay at Légrádi Károly Street, our first stop. We still slept in beds, the apartment had windows to keep the cold out, and I didn’t feel hungry. I still missed my mother a lot. I certainly didn’t have any idea that by this time my mother, together with several thousand Jewish women, would be marching on foot toward Austria under the most miserable and inhumane conditions.

I learned much later that after our separation on October 10, 1944, my mother was taken to a brickyard in Óbuda, an old section of Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. This was a collection point for all the Jews who were to march to Austria.13 She never spoke about what happened in her entire life, but others did. Here is an excerpt from a letter written by another Jewish woman, Mrs. Szenes, who was also forced to march:

      As the night fell, it started raining. We continued to march through the mud and the water…and finally we arrived at the brickyard in Óbuda. We were driven to the corridor around the burner, which was so crowded that you could barely stand. The walls of the burner kept us warm so at least the cold did not torture us all night long. It was impossible to sleep, and at dawn, everyone was driven out into the courtyard. We were divided into groups of one hundred, four people in each row. The endless column of human beings started marching towards Austria. Civilian guards were ordered to accompany us, who made no secret out of their unhappiness at having to walk ten or twelve miles a day. They kept an eye on people so that none should escape.

      These marches illustrate one of the most inhumane, and frankly absurd, policies of the German authorities. Presumably, they needed the labor to build defensive lines near the border of Austria. However, they didn’t provide the transportation, food, or shelter to protect those assigned to do the work. Thousands of people died along the road to Austria, and those who survived were all too weak to do any useful work once they arrived at their destination.

      Back in Budapest, I knew nothing about my mother’s perils. The most annoying part of moving again was that I had to once again carry my basket with the meat grinder. Fortunately, our next stop was a Swedish protected house on Pozsonyi Road just a few blocks away.

      It turned out that our new home was also fraught with risks. Arrow Cross men came, and having broken all the understanding established between the neutral countries and the Hungarian government, they herded everybody into the General Ghetto unless they were bribed with money or jewelry. They didn’t care if one had a legitimate or a fake Schutz-Pass—they took everyone. Obviously, we didn’t have enough money, and only a few days after we settled in, we were all marched into the General Ghetto. I was again in charge of carrying the meat grinder back near my grandparents’ house, where we started from a few weeks earlier. This move must have happened in November 1944, before the ghetto was closed on December 10. The borders comprised the core of the old Jewish neighborhoods.

      The following streets formed the borders: Dohány Street, Károly Boulevard, Király Street (where my grandparents lived), and Nagyatádi Szabó Street, now named Kertész Street. One of the most memorable events was our entry into the walled ghetto. Families, mostly consisting of older people and children, were lined up next to the wooden fence, and every able-bodied person was carrying something. For a majority of the time we just stood there and then proceeded to walk a few yards.