MERRY CHRISTMAS
AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR
Frau Eidam had another lodger, who claimed to be a Romanian. He spoke perfect Hungarian, which was not suspicious as a lot of Hungarians lived under Romanian rule. However it was interesting to us that a member of the Romanian Legation should live in a brothel. That was surprising even at that time at that place. If that was not enough for us to have our suspicions, he was said to be engaged to a member of the Hungarian Gentry, a young lady who lodged in the Hotel Bristol, one of the best hotels in Budapest, yet he accepted with gusto the invitation Frau Eidam gave him and us to attend dinner on Christmas Eve. Not that we discussed our suspicions with anybody.
Father and I certainly did not have any other engagements for Holy Night and we sat down in Frau Eidam's bedroom for dinner. No sooner did we start when the fireworks started also. It appeared as if suddenly hundreds of guns commenced the bombardment of Budapest, which was an understatement. There were over 1000 cannons and Stalin Organs lined up and additionally over 5000 mortars to pound Budapest into submission.
We did not know what a Stalin Organ was, but got to know and respect them: they were a series of truck mounted rockets, each truck letting off 16 or so of these rockets in a matter of a few seconds, after which they were re-loaded and fired again. When hundreds of these rockets were flying above us and landing, you had no doubt that the Russians meant business.
Father and I hardly dared to look at each other in case we burst out laughing or otherwise showing our pleasure in hearing that the fight for Budapest finally commenced. There was never any doubt as to its outcome and we never allowed ourselves the luxury of having any doubt as to whether we shall be around to see victory. In spite of seeing the starving, the murdered, the executed, - all that was happening to people who had bad luck, not us. We were feeling absolutely invincible and I can say that I never had any doubts that I will not perish. However, I was always hopeful that if I do have to go I will have a chance to take one or more of our enemies along with me.
Thus the tremendous amount of cannon, rocket and mortar fire which was to be heard was going to hurt only the Germans and the Arrow Cross, never Father, Mother or me. It made us not frightened, but happy to hear it and to know that deliverance cannot be far away.
Halfway through dinner we had a visitor. It was one of Frau Eidam's girls. Around 18 years old, she was about my age and she brought a couple of bottles of wine for Mrs. Eidam and sat with us while we finished dinner. Afterwards the Romanian and us decided to take down one set of the double glazed windows, so that if a bomb hits us, only one set of the glass should be broken. When we tried to put on the light again, we realised that the electricity supply failed.
We sat there in romantic candle light and with every sip of my wine, I was getting more and more convinced that Father's frequent advice that I should have nothing to do with prostitutes was all wrong. When our visitor decided to go home again she said good bye and asked me to step out into the corridor with her. I wondered and maybe even hoped, that she will now solicit her services. She did nothing of the sort, just said:
"If anything happens and you need a safe place, you and your father can come to me" and gave me her address on a piece of paper. She left before I could even deny that we needed a safe place. I wish I could say that I met her after the war, but I didn't.
We went to our beds or in my case: mattress, quite happy, knowing that it cannot last long now. In actual fact it lasted another 3 weeks, not a long time as such, but an eternity, when you are being shot at and hunted from every direction.
It has taken a few days before we realised, that on Christmas Eve, the Russians completely encircled Budapest and having done so, bypassed it and mounted an offensive towards Vienna. Within Budapest there were still strong German troops, who in accordance with the stupid no-retreat order of Hitler, were left behind and who had no hope other than to become POW's if not killed in the siege. Later there was an attempt by the Germans to break out, but it was repulsed by the Russians and the Germans lost tens of thousands of soldiers for no result.
I stayed with Father for a few days after Christmas and it was extremely cold. There was nothing to heat with and I used to go down to the street to scavenge some timber to burn in our tiny stove in the maid's room. Whenever we lit the fire, Frau Eidam came in to amuse us with her stories of the dirty old men of Vienna and her magnificence in giving them what they paid her for.
Frau Eidam did not know that I used to pinch the insides of her German penny dreadfuls, of which she had hundreds in various book cases and burn them, leaving the covers of the books propped up with matchsticks. It was a nasty trick, but it kept us all, including her, much warmer than anything else I could lay my hands on.
Our Romanian friend stayed in his room some nights, but was visiting his fiancé in the Hotel Bristol some other nights. Luckily for us, he was at home when we had some visitors the day before New Year's Eve.
We were already in bed when the door bell went. It was late night and there was a lull in the cannon fire. We were anxiously listening who the visitor might be. We soon heard the voices of the three Arrow Cross troopers as they announced in the entrance hall of the flat that they came to check the inhabitants of the flat.
One of them said:
"We are searching for Jews and deserters. Give them up or you'll be shot too."
Our Romanian friend came out of his room and we heard them interrogating him, but he satisfied them. They came in to the kitchen. We heard the clutter of their machine pistols knocking against the kitchen furniture. If they turn left they are in the bathroom, if they turn right, they come into the room where Father is in bed and I occupy a mattress on the floor.
By that time I was on my feet, grabbed my trousers and put them on. Within seconds even my tight boots slide on without any effort. I was in bed wearing my shirt and pullover, so all I need is my pistol. I take it out of its holster, check the safety lever, cock it and stand behind the door, firm in my resolve to let them have it as soon as the door opens.
Father is much too shocked to be able to get out of bed. He whispers that I should jump out through the window, then he suggests that we should give ourselves up. I try to shut him up and I succeed temporarily.
I hear the Arrow Cross men talking just outside the door, there is only a thin veneer between them and me. The Romanian is telling them jokes and they laugh, he invites them to have a drink in his room and they accept. There is quietness again, except Father starts to ask me and himself what will happen to Mother, using the exact same words he will use 36 years later on his deathbed. I open the window lock in case we really have to jump for it and put on my jacket and leather coat. I cannot get Father to move, he is lying in bed, stroking his head, probably praying, paralysed from fear.
Suddenly we hear rifle fire outside on the street. The Arrow Cross trio in the Romanian's room hears it too and they rush out. We hear them on the street, where they find that the shooting was in connection with some Jews who were trying to escape. The Jews were shot at and surrendered. Next day we hear that they were marched down to the Danube and shot into the water.
Here but for an unnamed Romanian and an Austrian brothel keeper would have gone I.
As things quieten down, Frau Eidam comes in to tell us that the Arrow Cross left. We cannot let on that they saved our lives, after all we Kálmáns are perfectly legitimate. But I think that they knew. What they did not know was, that they have done anything extraordinary. I believe that they thought it just as natural for them not to bring the Arrow Cross into our room as it was natural for us that the Arrow Cross wanted to find us so that they can kill us. It appears to me that you can get used to everything, even to being killed.
On the morning of the 31st December I leave Father to go to Mother for a few days. On my way I sneak into the International Ghetto and the house where my Grandmother is, with her daughter, Irma, son-in-law Paul who is Father's erstwhile partner, grand-daughter Bözsi and great-granddaughter Zsuzsi. I bear gifts: a quarter bottle of brandy, some biscuits and half a loaf of bread and more importantly the news that we are still around and that it cannot last too much longer. I wish them a happy New Year for 1945. I had little risk - it could hardly be an unhappier year than 1944 was.
I will see my relations again in 16 days time.
The Russians were pulverising Budapest. The cannons go non stop all day, except they stop at exactly 11 a.m. and at 3 p.m. the times when their planes take over and instead of being shot at we are bombed. Mother, together with the rest of the legitimate population of Budapest lives in the air raid shelter. Father goes to the shelter once only for a few minutes, but decides to join me and never goes to the cellar ever again. I never once go into an air raid shelter throughout the siege of Budapest or before or after, except once to let Mother know I am going somewhere.
Having seen how the other half lives, I don't have a yearning to sit in the cellar and although one feels rather exposed on the third or even on the first floor of a building when the bombs and rockets start flying, I realise that there is very little difference in being hit in a cellar or on the roof. Consequently I never feel unsafe even when I believe that I am the sole target of all those tonnes of bombs that are being thrown at us.
I arrive to the Reszeli flat and Mother is very happy to hear of Father and the László family. She wants me to come down to the cellar, as also does Csöpi and her Mother. I will not go and I move in to their third floor flat. To quieten their fears I make my bed under their heavy kitchen table which I move under an archway between kitchen and hall.
In the late afternoon the aerial bombing stops and we are in for possibly the most concentrated bombardment of WWII. One corner of the flat gets a direct hit and the wisdom of my sleeping under the table is shown, when another direct hit causes the kitchen cupboard to tipple over and onto the area where I would have had the bed.
After the first direct hit on the flat, Csöpi arrives to inspect the damage and insists on staying. She gets the cards out and we play pontoon until midnight, when our mothers arrive from the cellar and we celebrate the arrival of a new and hopefully, happier year, after which I get them to take Csöpi back to the shelter and I finally get into bed. It is then that the flat is hit again, but once again I am completely uninjured, although slightly deaf for a while.
Next morning German troops arrive and set up camp in the court yard of the house. They have a field kitchen there and from then onwards, Csöpi either gets or steals food from the Germans. They are friendly, frightened and far from home. One cannot but feel sorry for them. Not much, just a little bit, - after all we regard every German soldier, rightly or wrongly, as a supporter of Hitler, a gangster and an enemy.
Csöpi spends a lot of time with me. We compose poems, write a diary and make up New Year's cards to give Father, Mother, her Mother etc. There is a man in her Mother's life, but it isn't Csöpi's father, she happens to be illegitimate, as if being a midget wouldn't be enough of a handicap.
There is no doubt that Csöpi has a crush on me. It is not surprising. I would have been the first boy of her age, who bothered to talk with her, I would have been the only one she could steal for, cook for and help. Is it any wonder that she regards me as a friend and probably imagines that I would be more than that if she would not be size of a three year old child.
(I am eternally grateful to her and her Mum and my Mother supported them until she herself died in England with me taking over assisting her until she also died in 2012. However through me she was decorated and celebrated by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation in 2007 and finally in 2010 she and her late Mother were declared Righteous of Nations by Yad Vashem and given the Order of Bravery by the Hungarian Government at a glittering reception with Ministers and Diplomats taking part when 17 Righteous were being celebrated. I spoke on behalf of the Rescued and some friends and relations and my wife present.)
After spending a few dangerous days with Mother, or more accurately, near Mother I return to Father and Frau Eidam. Nothing changed there either. From now on, I spend 3 or 4 days at one place and a similar period at the other place.
Father always wanted me to become a "Weltreisender" i.e. somebody who travels around the World, - now at least I travel from one safe house to another in a Budapest which is falling apart.