OCCUPATION
It was on the morning of Sunday, March 19th, 1944 that I answered the telephone. The strange man introduced himself as Uncle Gábor and told me to get in touch with my Father immediately, and tell him that what he discussed last week had now happened. Click. The telephone went dead.
I rang Father, who was at the same swimming pool he visited every day for some 30 years and told him the cryptic message from the strange man. He told me that both Mother and I should stay at home until he got back. Within 20 minutes he was back home and told us that the man was General Gábor Gerloczy, the senior ADC to Horthy, and that the message meant that the Germans had either occupied Hungary or were in the course of occupying it now.
So that was that, the Germans have occupied Hungary. What's next?
What really happened was that Horthy was invited to another visit to Hitler. When he arrived at Hitler's HQ in his Admiral's outfit with a small silver dagger on his belt, the first ominous sign was the invitation of the SS Officer that he should take off his belt and leave it in the cloak room. Hitler was at first quite friendly, but eventually he started to shout at Horthy about how Hungary wasn't pulling its weight in the sacred war against the Russians. Finally he advised Horthy that the German army had occupied strategic places in Hungary and the action will continue until the whole of Hungary is secured. Horthy decided to leave and asked for a car to go to his train, but Göring arranged for a make belief air raid, and thus immobilised Horthy's train until such time that they could check how the occupation of Hungary was going.
It went well, and without a bullet being fired, they took over the country. Some days earlier a lot of German students came for their holiday to Hungary, also a lot of German soldiers happened to be travelling through Hungary to Russia and occupied Yugoslavia. There were also a lot of other soldiers seemingly returning to Germany, who were also in transit through Hungary on this March Sunday. All these Germans who were accidentally in Hungary on that day, suddenly acted and occupied predetermined points throughout the country and mainly in Budapest. Simultaneously plane loads of SS arrived at various airports in Hungary, and of course the Hungarians did not fire on their allies.
In the city, German patrols took up their positions. Some occupied the radio station and transmitter, others guarded the railway stations, while the ministries and army offices were all surrounded by SS tanks. By midday the country had been taken over completely. By the time Horthy returned next day, he had nothing else to do except to accept the resignation by phone of Prime Minister Kállay, who has taken up refuge in the Turkish Embassy and appoint a new one, who happened to be the appointee of Hitler.
For us there was nothing to do but to wait and we did not have to wait long.
In less than a week regulations were gazetted in the papers and stuck on the walls of buildings. Jews must not leave their home between the hours of 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., must not travel in cars, must travel in the rear of trams, must not go further than 5 kilometres from their home, must not shop at times other than between 3 - 4 p.m., etc. All cameras and radios owned by Jews had to be delivered to the nearest police station, (where police made a list of all those radios, which were capable of being tuned to the BBC). All jewellery, gold or silver and all pocket and wrist watches owned by Jews had to be delivered to the nearest bank, where receipts were given.
Of course not all regulations were carried out by the Jews. Some had already hidden their valuables, some began handing their valuables to gentile friends, who were to keep them until "it's over". In our case, we already had a very large cache of gold (1002 sovereigns and about 4 kg of gold) buried in the courtyard of my uncle's house, where there should be no danger of bombs or other risks associated with possible fighting, (or so we thought). Various gentile friends, customers, employees, etc were now approached by Father to hold in custody various other valuables. Some (certainly not all) actually returned these to us after the war.
There were many more regulations, but none as insidious than that which ensured that every one knew, who was who, and ordered Jews to wear at all times a 10 cm large yellow star, which must be sewn firmly onto the left side of every jacket, overcoat, pullover, etc. In case there might be any doubt, the population was encouraged to report any people, who while wearing their "mark of shame" did not act in accordance with the regulations.
The newspapers and special magazines began their campaign of anti-semitism by feeding unbelievable rubbish to their readers. Jews were described as monsters who killed gentile children to use their blood in the unleavened bread of their Passover. It was printed in papers that Jews raped blond Aryan girls and murdered them as part of their religious dogma and also because it is their favourite pastime, and because they had exploited the population difficult conditions resulted. The war, the shortages of materials and food was all due to the misdeeds of International Jewry, directed by the Churchill and Roosevelt, both of whom were described as Jewish.
Thousands of prominent Jews disappeared as soon as the Germans take over Hungary; hundreds were tortured by the Gestapo. One of the most notorious places in Budapest, where Adolf Eichmann and other SS organisations operated was the same Sanatorium, where some weeks ago I recuperated. Some of the Jews in German hands disappeared without a trace; some reappeared in internment camps run by the Hungarians, some were made to pay huge sums of money for safe passages, only to find themselves in Bergen Belsen instead of the Switzerland they were promised.
Some prominent Hungarian Jews were sent to Turkey to negotiate with the Allies for the supply of 1000 American trucks in exchange for all the Hungarian Jews, an offer which at 1 truck per 900 Jews was considered too high a price to pay. In any case, who the heck wanted 900,000 Jews? The offer made was rejected by the Allies and the delegates who were sent to Turkey, returned to Hungary, to face Eichmann's fury.
A few days after the initial lot of regulations, more are published: All Jews, who were not permanent residents of Budapest were required to return to their homes, while certain areas in Budapest were declared Ghettoes, where all the Jewish population had to move.
My cousin Eva was faced with having to travel to her village to join her parents. Mother thought she should stay with us, while Father was too frightened to suggest anything other than what the regulations dictated. Mother later accused him of causing Eva's death in Auschwitz.
Almost daily new regulations were announced. The food rations of Jews were reduced. No Jew was allowed his own business. All Jewish-owned businesses had to be managed by an Aryan. No Jew was allowed to work in other than manual jobs, and than only if they did not hold a superior position to a Gentile.
We happened to have lived in an area and in a house where Jews had to congregate. Within a few days we had to take in as many as 15 additional people into a flat which had 3 rooms in all, including the bedroom. By that time Father was in prison, and soon after I was to be mobilised into the army’s labour service.