AN AFTERTHOUGHT.
I started writing my "book" in July 1983 and finished in October. I hurried, because I wanted to be ready for Christmas with a bound copy for my wife, Joy, two more for my two children and their spouses and one each copy to be sent to my Mother and brother in England. I also had to write it in secret, because I wanted it to be a surprise to them all. In this I succeeded, it spite of the fact that almost all of it was written on my word processor at home, ostensibly watching TV with Joy in the family room.
Not knowing what was going on, Joy expressed her surprise at the amount of work I had to bring home from my business and the hours I kept. I usually hammered away on the keyboard until midnight and after 4 hours of sleep got up to do some more. She decided that I must be getting on with considerably less sleep than I used to, - a sign of my getting on in years.
I found it quite easy to write the story. It caused me no anxiety to relive those days in the forties and it was only when I finally read the whole of my own story from beginning to end, that I became quite nervous and almost disbelieving that I was reading about myself. It was as if I consciously shut out of my mind the period of my life which I did not enjoy and not until I was confronted by my own story did I once again start to react. In fact for the first time ever I started to have nightmares and woke up to wonder what it must feel like to be shot.
We in Budapest were extremely fortunate, because our turn to be destroyed came so late in the war, - our enemies run out of time to kill us all. For this reason I never considered my whole story of interest, and some episodes were of interest only to my closest friends and my family. Not until I read my story did I realise that my experiences and my survival were not ordinary, yet I still believe it to be just average.
Yet, reading certain parts of my own story made me emotional and I had tears in my eyes reading what I wrote without any feelings and with a detachment, which I could hardly believe afterwards.
Only when I read my story and seeing my life as a "whole" and not as isolated incidents, did I realise how many were the coincidences and close shaves. This worried me because I feared, that people will not believe what I have described. But since then I read some other books from better writers and one: "By my own Authority" which has an even more unbelievable story than mine.
There are no stories of those times which I do not believe. Some of the stories cannot have been invented by amateurs who decided to write their story. I also believe that the best stories will never be told, because the people who could have written them are not alive. The miracles which kept the survivors alive, happened not just to us, but also to those who perished. We all had miracle after miracle, every day alive was one. However, it seems that all the miracles worked for me all the time, - the losers had just one miracle too few. One failed miracle was all you required for death to catch up with you.
When on Christmas Day in 1983 the presents were handed out by my grand-daughter and my children and wife realised that my parcel to them was a book I wrote for them, their reaction was very enthusiastic. When my son retired for a rest after the gigantic Christmas lunch we consumed and emerged three hours later, during which he read the book, his tearful eyes made my efforts of surviving and writing about it worthwhile.
It is interesting that ever since I wrote my story I became interested in what went on during the Holocaust in places distant from Hungary as well as within the country. In May 1985 I attended a three day gathering in memory of the 40th anniversary of the Holocaust and accompanied by my daughter attended a memorial service and the dedication of a park and statue for Raoul Wallenberg. I also volunteered to speak about the Holocaust to members of my Rotary Club.
During the past 40 years or so it was attempted to belittle what has happened. Barely have the bodies in the camps been covered by soil, efforts began to cover up what went on. I was never mistreated during the war, I was not more hungry than the rest of the population, yet I saw what has happened and it is my duty to talk on behalf of those who cannot.
I spoke to my Rotary Club on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Holocaust, not on my personal experiences, but on the enormity of the Holocaust itself. In my speech I said:
"While I do not consider that my story is one of particular horror or sadness, two years ago I felt duty bound to write it and present my story to my children and grandchildren, so that they and their descendants may know what happened to one of their forebears who was lucky or resourceful enough to have survived."
"It is of interest to note that it took me 39 years before I could write this book. Straight after the war, when everything was fresh in our minds we simply wanted to forget the horrors, which we could not then (or even now) comprehend. Then came a period of time when we wanted to tell our adventures to other survivors."
"But after a while there came a time when, we the survivors, felt our duty to tell about the Holocaust to others, so that all should know what happened and benefit from it. There is this overwhelming compulsion to tell, to tell, to tell, - before it is too late, because few were the survivors and day by day, like the original Anzacs, the witnesses are dwindling."
During 1984 quite a few people read my book and I had a number of comments. Most of the people who were not participants in the Holocaust were impressed, not so much with the literary effort, but due to the fact that they knew me and it must have been quite a surprise to them that their relation by marriage or the suburban friend they knew had a past so unlike their own. Some of them were very kind and suggested that it should be published. Some were even kinder and offered to help me rewrite it. If I agree with them it is only because I still feel it my duty to make available my story to those who come after us and who can benefit by reading it.
Some of the readers thought that I should have given more details of what happened to me after the war. In the original version I closed my story with the statement that I married a New Zealand girl in 1952 and lived happily ever after. This closed a chapter of my life on a happy note and I could have left it at that. Indeed with marriage to Joy and with the arrival of our children I became content and happy to a degree which I could not have described properly in writing and certainly could not have foretold during the horrors, just 8 years before I was married.
But I can understand those who said that the story is not complete if the rest is not told. After all, my experiences in Budapest and how they influenced (or did not) my subsequent life could be of interest, especially to those, who are not survivors of the Holocaust and who have difficulty in understanding how former inhabitants of concentration camps or people who lived at a constant risk of being murdered, can live a normal life after their experiences. I like to assure people who ask that question, that I found that quite easy. Yet I understand the problems of those who were survivors of the murderous Burma railways or who were fighting in Vietnam.
I often heard it said that the greatest revenge the Jews inflicted on Hitler is the success of Israel. This is true, but in my view, the success of the Jews in surviving the Holocaust and yet staying normal; assimilating to become part of the nations where they re-settled, (be it Israel, Australia or Scotland) is not only a slap in the face of the nazis, but also a sign of their vitality. Maybe, there is such a thing as atavism, maybe being persecuted for centuries teaches people how to become good survivors.
I have now decided to rewrite my "book" to describe my "normal" life and I hope that this will be appreciated by those tolerant few who reached thus far in my story.
January 17th, 1986.