Budapest - The Darker Side

The Jews of Budapest and Hungary were persecuted throughout and murdered en mass at the end of WWII. The main headlines are as follows, remembered as best I can from my reading on the subject when I lived here.

The execution of the final solution in Hungary was only made possible by the extensive collaboration of Hungarian officials at every step of the process.

The Budapest Jewish Ghetto did not exist at the level of the quarter or barrio but at the level of the apartment, although there was and is a recognised Jewish area. This meant there was no single defined geographical area where the Jews were concentrated, like in Warsaw. Rather, apartments in many buildings in several areas of the city were designated for Jews to live in. Often an entire building was set aside but there were also mixed-use blocks.

There was major debate and many reclamations in the finalisation of the apartment/building lists among the gentile population seeking to protect their interests and avoid their own apartment or block being included. On the other hand, Jews were often forced from better homes into lesser homes and gentiles 'upgraded'. Many pressed for such a change.

There were at least two key dates when the migration between apartments took place with carts moving possessions en masse along the streets, in open view.

Rules were enforced against the ghetto apartments, most notably, curfew hours with inhabitants only being able to leave for a very few hours at the end of a day wearing the yellow star. Most controversially, the Jews were not able to go to the food markets before the rest of the population had bought all the food on offer. Hunger and starvation were common place.

Many Jews were murdered though these actions or in more direct shootings in the city. In addition, over four hundred thousand Jews were deported from the countryside in the last few months of the war, the vast majority being murdered in Auschwitz. The often-seen film footage of Jews arriving at the camp's ramp feature Hungarian Jews, largely.

The facts about the Budapest Ghetto and the Hungarian collaboration are not widely known nor acknowledged. Today's political climate dominated by the right-wing does not encourage such a conversation, let alone memorials. When I lived here, I made a point of walking past a number of the apartment buildings in every day streets and there was nothing to indicate the part they played in the execution of the final solution.

The very last thing I did before leaving Budapest was to create a yellow star, write the essential facts of the ghetto on it and stick it on the front door of one of the affected buildings, late at night. Oeilduchat witnessed my action though an exchange of text messages that same night. I regretted my inability to raise public awareness and the general lack of acknowledgement of the actions and sufferings of those days. 'At least one person has acknowledged it . . . you', he wrote back. He gave me a sense of fulfilling purpose.

I did a free writing exercise at that time which started with the the theme of the deportations and ended with a reference to my father. This led to the writing of the short story Bless'Em All (see link) about my dad's time guarding the Exodus in Palestine.

Dad died forty-one years ago today so there is some synchronicity at play in me being here today and I felt the need to share more about the experience of the Jews here during the war, as a private memorial.

I loved my dad dearly and am forever grateful for his presence in my early life.

Here is the free writing for those interested....a technique to develop ideas by writing at breakneck speed, following every association that comes up spontaneously.

Letting Go

The murderous thunder of the tram lines, railway lines beside the Danube,
queues, goodbyes, the Jews leave Budapest, the stoicism of the “non-revoir”,
diminishing lights, diminishing lives
the hard beside the soft
the solid beside the fluid
the point of perspective
the point of convergence
the point of disappearance
scientific, mechanical
God-given, human-made
the fight to co-exist
the battle to understand
the enmity of foes
the love of friends
the tears of woe mingling in soft, damp tissue,
the fall of a hyacinth onto the patio, the stain, bruised beauty,
the attraction to ants, the ripeness of decay,
the poignancy of the fall.
Adam, Eve, liberation?
Freedom reigns! Let freedom reign! Men in black skins, brothers all,
‘and man to man, the world o’er, shall brothers be for a’ that,’. Martin Luther King and Robert Burns and William Wilberforce – men of integrity, men of simple, unshaking and incisive belief in the unassailable value of each and every human life. God bless America! The Deer Hunter, De Niro crouches in uniform with searing headache, lost brothers, breaking news, we run to the TV screen, rumours of a power cut in the Tube, someone says ‘Bomb!’, our office loudspeaker speaks to us ‘Do not leave the building’, ‘London’s Burning’, the plague is on us, panic, fear, isolation, look after yourself, ‘I’m all right, Jack’, ‘Standing on a corner with a ukelele in my hand watching all the girls go by – oh me, oh my!’. My father so loved George Formby he even looked like him. Big ears, ‘Eary’, the beach in Haifa, Dad in khaki, smiling. Guarding that ship, the Exodus; the deported, the dear departed.


Link to story Bless 'Em All


https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/1913638