Stories of Survival
Deaf Jewish panelists from
Budapest talk about the
Nazi occupation of Hungary
by Lynne McConnell
Peter Farago had been walking for
eight, maybe 10 days. Aching with
hunger, cold, and exhaustion, the
10-year-old had followed the other
survivors returning home from
Germany after the blinding light of
the Allies' bombs stopped and the
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
was liberated. His mother had been
sent to a different part of
Bergen-Belsen, and he did not
know where she was or if she was
alive. "I had no idea where to go,"
he said. "I felt so very alone."
Periodically, another group of
survivors joined his group, all
trying to get home to Hungarian
territory after spending months in
forced labor brigades and
concentration camps. Suddenly,
said Farago, "I noticed my mother's
back, and I said, 'Mom, Mother!'
She turned, and my mother just
fainted on the spot."
When Farago told this story as part
of the panel, "The Deaf Jewish
Community of Budapest," Dr. John
Schuchman asked the group to
"take a moment." The interpreter,
also a survivor, was crying quietly.
A few minutes later, the panelists
continued
telling their stories.
The panel
featured four deaf Jewish survivors who
had attended
the school for deaf Jewish children in
Budapest,
Hungary, on Mexico Street. Three were
graduates
and around age 21 when the Nazis moved
in; one,
Farago, was a boy. The presentation,
translated
through six signed and spoken languages,
was by
far the most emotional of the June 21-24
conference
"Deaf People in Hitler's Europe."
Dr. John S.
Schuchman,
conference
co-chair,
moderates
as panelist
Miklos Klein
(second
from left)
shares his
story. Klein
is also
pictured as a
child at the
Mexico
Street
School.
Some deaf
people in Hungary, such as panelist Miklos
Klein,
initially worked in labor brigades to provide
slave
labor for the Germans. Eventually, the
Germans
transported Klein, along with other deaf
brigade
laborers, to Bergen-Belsen, where most died.
Of his
group of 12 deaf men, eight survived. Others,
like panelist
Klara Erdosi, were not allowed to work in
factories
with relatives because they were deaf.
Erdosi
survived as a grave digger. All the survivors
were marched
long distances with little or no food in
horrible
cold, whipped repeatedly as they marched,
and packed
80 to 100 onto train cars without food,
water,
or sanitation for trips that took days, even
weeks.
Most of the panelists escaped from several
labor
brigades and marches to camps before they
were taken
to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and other
concentration
camps.
The panel
was moderated by Drs. John Schuchman
and Donna
Ryan, both professors of history at
Gallaudet
and cochairs of the conference. Schuchman
and Ryan
have conducted interviews with many
Hungarian
deaf Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and
are writing
a book about the deaf Jewish community
in Budapest
before, during, and after World War II.
Giving
the welcome at the panel was Israel Sela,
director
of the American Joint Distribution Committee
(AJD)
in Hungary. An Israeli who now works in
Budapest,
Sela is also an adult child of deaf adults
and received
his Ph.D. from Gallaudet in 1986.
Panel members from Budapest describe
their experiences in 1944-45 while
photos from those years are projected
on a screen behind them. Here, Miklos
Klein (second from left in panel and in
photo) talks about being arrested and
sent to prison camps. From left are
Peter Farago, Klein, Judit Konig,
interpreter Betty Colonomos, and Klara
Erdosi.
The Nazi
occupation of Hungary began in March 1944
and ended
in spring 1945. It was a relatively short
time,
but one that irreparably changed the lives of all
who lived
in Hungary at the time. Until then,
Hungary,
an ally of Germany, was considered to be
comparatively
safe for Jews. Throughout most of the
war, Jews
from Slovakia and Germany actually fled to
Budapest
for safety, said Ryan.
In her
introduction to the panel, Ryan stated that
440,000
Jews were forcibly removed from Hungary
between
March 1944 and May 1945.
"Several
diplomats tried to save the Jews by getting
them special
documents, " she noted. "The strategy
was to
save people until the end of the war, which
they thought
was imminent." People who had these
documents
formed the `international ghetto' in
Budapest,
but the German army and the Arrow Cross,
the Hungarian
fascist organization that supported
Hitler's
regime, did not always respect those
documents,
she explained. "Probably the reason
these
people are here today is because Hitler came
comparatively
late to Hungary and Budapest."
For deaf
Jews in Hungary, the deaf Jewish school on
Mexico
Street was more than a place to learnSit was
their
community, and it became a safe haven from
the chaos
and cruelty of war. The school's director
acquired
papers for many deaf students so they could
stay at
the school, where they were safe from
deportation
to concentration camps. Unfortunately,
the papers
were not always honored. During one
particular
raid, for example, 14 deaf students were
taken
from the Mexico Street school, and today the
school
bears a plaque honoring students who were
killed
during the war.
Farago's
mother had taken him out of the Mexico
Street
school thinking he would be safer with her.
But the
Nazis raided their village, putting Farago and
his mother
first into slave labor brigades and later
into concentration
camps.
Panelist
Judit Konig was
taken
from her home near
the synagogue
and from
neighborhood
streets on
several
occasions and
forced
to work in labor
brigades.
On one particular
raid,
she recalled, "We had
to walk
with our arms
raised
over our head all the
way. Everything
we had on
us was
stolen. We spent 14
days in
semi-prisoner
status."
She and friends
escaped
with a woman who
had an
infant, and faced a
long,
dangerous trek back
to the
relative safety of
Budapest.
AI have to admit
we were
stealing. Any
house
we could get in, we'd take what we couldSfood,
anything
we could use for diapers. Now that infant is
54 years
old."
But Konig's
luck ran out. Marched to the Danube
River
for execution, Konig said, "I was shot three
times,
three different places on my body." Of the
thousand
people shot, Konig was one of only three or
four to
survive. By the end of the war, however,
Konig
had lost her grandfather, father, brother,
fiancé,
and countless friends.
Farago
also shared several incidents that occurred
during
the war, times he felt an angel watched over
him. One
was when the Allies bombed the train
tracks
so Farago's train was diverted to Austria, and
eventually
to Bergen-Belsen, where there was little
food but
death was not as imminent as in its original
destination—wAuschwitz.
After he was separated
from his
mother, Farago's angel came in the form of
Pavel,
a blond, hearing boy from Poland who had deaf
parents.
Pavel, who was about 14 years old, saw the
crying,
terrified 10-year-old Farago signing and
urgently
told him, "Don't sign." Pavel stuck by Farago
as they
worked as slave laborers until the Allies
liberated
the camp, communicating vital information
to him
without revealing his deafness to the guards.
Klara Erdosi
told of being taken off the street with
her hearing
sister to a plaza completely filled with
Jews.
They let her sister go but took Erdosi and
others
to an island on the Danube River, where they
dug ditches.
"My friend got a certificate that she was
hard of
hearing, and they let her go home," she said.
Two months
later, a friend got Erdosi Swedish
protective
documents, and she was allowed to go
home.
Sometime
later German soldiers came to her home,
separated
Erdosi and her sister from their parents,
and marched
them off with other people, including
other
graduates of the Mexico Street school. This
time,
Erdosi said she arrived at a "death camp" where
the prisoners
were forced to sweep outside in January
with little
clothing. "My sister warned me not to limp
because
one leg had been frozen." Anyone who
limped
was shot, she said. The food was sparse and
often
inedible. Erdosi chose to remain with her sister,
who convinced
the guards that they both could work.
"I said
goodbye to my deaf friends. Only after the war
did I
find out that all of my deaf friends had died."
Both on
the long march out of Hungary and in a labor
camp near
Leipzig, Germany, those who could not
control
their bowel movements or who collapsed were
shot instantly
or thrown out in the cold to freeze to
death.
In the camp, Erdosi was made to dig graves
and labeled
a "crier." She recalled, "At first there
were three
of us, then just me. I cried the most, and
I was
so very cold."
As the
Russian army approached, Erdosi and her
sister
escaped from camp, walking, hiding, and
begging
food for days as they tried to get back to
Budapest.
Along the road she saw a man pouring
beer.
"I showed him that I would like one, and I
drank
a full glass." But when farmers and
townspeople
brought food to the starving refugees,
they ate
ravenously and became so ill that the
villagers
brought doctors who gave them shots to
help them
recover.
Interpreter
and lifelong friend of the panelists Vilma
Dostal
was not up to telling her story, so with her
permission,
Ryan told it. Dostal's family was
Christian,
and she was its only hearing member. Her
family
hid a Jewish deaf man's wife and three
daughters
outside the city until the Russians
liberated
Budapest. Ryan explained that she had
asked
Dostal why her family hid these people when
the risk
to their own survival was so great. Dostal's
reply
was, "It was natural to help them. Other
neighbors
wouldn't know they were Jewish. We were
all part
of the same community. We had to help
them."
Near the
end of the program, Konig held up the
yellow
felt star all Jews were forced to wear during
the Nazi
occupation of Hungary. She also held up
pictures
of her father, other family members, and of
her fiancé—all
of whom were marched away never to
returnSand
of her 23-year-old brother, killed just one
hour before
Auschwitz was liberated.
When tears
overcame Konig, Schuchman brought the
session
to a close, walking over to put a comforting
arm around
her shoulders. All present stood in
silence
as the names of classmates and family
members
who died during the war scrolled down a
projection
screen that moments earlier had shown
photos
of the panelists as children at Budapest's
Mexico
Street school.
Related
Stories:
Deaf People
in Hitler's Europe
One Participant's
Response
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