Escape from munkacs part v | thearticle

BUDAPEST, 30 JUNE, 1944 — AND LONDON 50 YEARS LATER Something so special arrived last Tuesday. The email may well become a family treasure. Moreover, it came on a special birthday of one of

our treasured children. The email will, I hope, help create a silver lining of hope and a measure of redemption, no matter how small, on the eightieth anniversary of two events of 30 June

1944. The first of these is now the subject, marginally late, of Part V of my eightieth anniversary series in _TheArticle_, “Escape from Munkacs”. I found, incidentally, that I had wrongly

typed “Auschwitz” instead of Munkacs in my first draft. In fact “Escape from Auschwitz” more closely expresses both today’s subject and that of Part VI. * MAZEL TOV ON YOUR FORTHCOMING

WEDDING, COUSIN ESTI. IN 1944 YOUR GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER SAVED MY LIFE. It turned out that Shaya Halpern of Manchester knew of and was in the midst of reading “Escape from Munkacs, Part

I”. He is named Shaya in honour of my grandfather, gassed in Auschwitz on 26 May 1944. Attached to Shaya’s email was an invitation to his eldest daughter’s forthcoming marriage. The young

couple had hand delivered the invitation to Esti’s great grandmother, my cousin Sori and niece of my grandfather Shaya. Now living in a retirement home housing elderly members of

Manchester’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, Sori is the only living relative who was then housed illegally with my grandparents, great grandfather, great uncle, my Mother and her younger

sister Ruthie and me during that final Passover before we all were forced into a wretched ghetto. But for Sori’s exceptionally plucky mother, none of us who gathered at that final Seder

Night could have survived and several of us did not. That part of the story has already been told. My rush of emotion at receiving Shaya’s invitation to his daughter’s wedding reflected deep

pleasure that my Cousin Sori’s great granddaughter was about to embark on the next, joyous stage of her life and that Sori’s grandson — one of many — had gone so out of his way to include

my wife Shelley and me. In no way does Etsi’s marriage, that ultimate affirmation of life, act as a compensation, still less as a “triumph” over Holocaust victimhood. That cannot occur. The

young bride should realise that her happiness is ours to share, but for her and her fiancé alone. A dimension that added a surge of gratitude was that Shaya, Sori’s grandson and father of

the Kala, devotes his life to a charitable, difficult and valuable enterprise. Doubtless, a strong background element to my feelings — especially on 30 June — was that the day marked two

grim 80th year anniversaries: the departure of Kasztner’s Train from Budapest and, at around the same time, my own deportation to Budakalasz. This will be the subject of Part VI. *

‘KASZTNER’S TRAIN’ This article is not being written to repeat the endless controversies about Kasztner’s  wartime activities. For those unclear of the details, I’ll give the briefest of

summaries in this section before proceeding to the main point: the belated impact of the Wiener Library conference of 1994 and the unseemly clash there between Holocaust ‘professionals’ and

Hungarian Holocaust survivors. On 30 June 1944, a cattle train left Budapest filled with a greater than originally authorised complement of nearly 1,700 Jews. They were bound, so the story

went, for Palestine. * How could they be sure that would be their destination? * How had they in particular been selected for the Holy Land rather than for the _Vernichtungslager _(death

camp)? * Had the Jewish negotiators with Adolf Eichmann been involved in anything more than a shoddy financial transaction which effectively benefitted and purchased the silence of a group

of Jewish leaders? * Had the main Transylvanian Jewish deal-maker, Dr Kasztner, effectively acted as a Nazi collaborator? In 1957, Kasztner was assassinated in Tel Aviv. One of his closest

associates, my Father’s first cousin Erno Marton, was one of the last to see him alive. This raises a question about the other happening on 30 June 1944: my deportation together with my

paternal grandmother and a small group of relatives from Rakospalota to the entrainment camp for Auschwitz at Budakalasz. What happened at Budakalasz on 8/9 July 1944 will be my final topic

in this series. I owe my life to Kasztner via a secondary, less known bargain which led — at least for my paternal grandmother, aunt, cousins and me — to the miracle of Budakalasz. *

SHOWDOWN AT A MEMORIAL CONFERENCE NEAR GREAT PORTLAND STREET: HOLOCAUST PROFESSIONALS VERSUS JEWISH HUNGARIAN SURVIVORS Much continues to be written about the Jewish-Nazi negotiations held

following the entry of the German army and of Eichmann’s team of extermination experts into Hungary in March 1944. A great amount remains to be done. Particularly disappointing are some of

the over-simplifications and seeming errors in television documentaries. In 1994 the Wiener Library organised a conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the deportations from

Budapest. For me this meeting, which took place near Great Portland Street Underground Station, was a new and shocking experience. It brought together some of the best known scholars

involved in Holocaust history in general and, in a few cases, of the Holocaust in Hungary in particular. The atmosphere was toxic, attitudes in some cases unduly condescending and to my mind

disrespectful of the tragic dimensions of the subject. Why did one of the panellists — whose trip to London presumably had been paid for — see fit to exit for a considerable time to embark

on what appeared from their bundle of shopping bags to have been a chance to tour the nearby West End emporia? Hungarian Holocaust survivors were present in the audience. Some became restive

when the “top table” crowd indicated to them that they didn’t know what they were talking about. They should defer to the experts. I see from a book review I wrote a few years ago that

survivors had been shouted down by the self-appointed grandee historians. Several of them are no longer living and I do not feel it appropriate to cause grief to their families. One of them

later met my daughter at a Holocaust event at a European embassy and told of his surprise that someone like her could have a monster of a father like me. The same historian had been

criticised elsewhere for his condescension to survivors. One particularly provocative insult to a survivor was the claim from the “top table” that the survivor ought to listen to someone who

was an Oxford don. I could stand it no longer. Since historical questions about the dealings between Kasztner and fellow members of the Hungarian Vaada on the one hand, and Eichmann and his

fellow killers on the other, understandably remain controversial and surprisingly under-researched, I do not wish here to enter into the substance of the debates. My concern is simple

compassion for survivors. Too frequently, this is in short supply. At that meeting, something quite basic and permanent happened. I found myself walking from my seat among the survivors up

to the front of the room to where the insults were being hurled. They could attack the survivors because of their academic status, but could not talk down to me in that way because I too

spoke as an Oxford don but took the survivors’ side. I had crossed a Rubicon. In later informal conversation, when I mentioned to a youngish historian to need to listen to survivors, he

replied that it was up to the survivors to raise the money for his fee (not, incidentally, a modest amount). When it came to the lunch break, the grandees withdrew, leaving us survivors to

use slot machines to access soft drinks and the like. It was a huge relief to be in their company. I was to discover that there was considerable division within the UK Jewish survivor

community and discontent with some of its leaders who, some of the rebels felt, were too cosy with the present-day German authorities. In years that followed, I was blessed to be asked by

some exceptional survivors to work with them. Alas, time has meant that most of them have passed away. In some cases, I was out of touch during their final months and days and missed the

chance to attend their funerals and mourn with their children. The architect and artist Roman Halter was helping me in a campaign for which the editor of _TheArticle_, Daniel Johnson, was

providing essential platforms. The issue was Oxford University’s continued associations with an arguably Nazi-tainted body. Roman provided evidence from his father’s death in the Lodz

ghetto. Roman remained afflicted by nightmares. In the morning, he would then express his feelings in a painting. Commenting on the campaign against Oxford’s acceptance of the controversial

benefits from a foundation whose donor company had operated in the Lodz ghetto, he sent a copy of a book of his post-nightmare art. With it was a card. “I love you,” he wrote. The next thing

I found out was that he had died. I have never yet reached out to his close family to tell them that I loved him too. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed

to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times.

So please, make a donation._