Without an outstretched hand, we have no destiny.
It is the journey through time that makes what is subconscious conscious. I have only been able to read these subconscious things as a result of what I have gone through.
The silent space around my words is waiting for a breath of inspiration.
May what I have gone through call forth the power of life in each one of us. I am trying to pass on through words and in writing what I have experienced in such a way that those who read me may recognize themselves in what is best within them. Is it not our responsibility to try to build, wherever we have become flesh and blood, a future where it will be good to live?
There is a light deep within us. It is made dull when we want to become like other people. Freedom calls us to responsibility.
In order not to absorb the evil and violence of others, I have learned to listen but not hear everything. To lower my eyes so as not to see a face disfigured by violence. To stay silent. When someone is angry they cannot hear or see. Such rage that words cannot express may mask great suffering. Silence allows me to stay centered, to step back and not suffer such an outburst.
We are all scarred by life. We scratch at ourselves, and at others, because life has wounded us.
The sun is often hidden behind dark clouds, but we know it is there, just waiting to rise in our hearts.
THE FACE OF GOD
I got to know the God of Abraham and my Jewish identity when I was fourteen. Because we were Jewish, the Hungarian government barred us from school. That was a tremendous blow which raised many questions for me. I had no time to answer; survival took up all my energy, and I buried my questions in soil that I continue to till.
For their part, the Nazis gave us answers: “Jews are less than nothing.” For twelve months I shared the fate of these “nothings.” I met Jewish believers and Jewish nonbelievers. I heard them talk about God, but it was not very clear to me what difference there was between the God of the Nazis in whose name they were exterminating us, and the God whom the Jews were imploring. While I was being seared by injustice, these Jews were dying as they prayed to a God who seemed deaf.
At that time I did not understand anything, but their fervor and their trust in this God planted a question in me despite myself.
When I was nineteen, a woman’s face raised questions for me. I examined it for a long time before I approached her.
This face was presence, welcome, understanding, and decency. When she was around, the bite marks that I hid beneath a thick shell of silence were less painful.
I was very intrigued by the cross she wore around her neck: it prompted a dialogue which led me to read the Gospel and to discover Jesus. Through the face of this woman, I encountered the face of God calling me by my name.
For a long time I plodded on through highs and lows. I felt uncomfortable in the Church. Prayer in Latin was a serious obstacle for me. Then the liturgy of Holy Friday, which condemned the “treacherous Jews,” hit me hard. I wondered where was the brotherly love proclaimed by the Gospel?
All of that contradicted what I had discovered in the Gospel that I had been given. I had opened it at random and was touched and amazed when I read Matthew 25: “I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me water, naked and you clothed me.” I said to myself, “There’s someone I would like to know.” And He has not left my side since.
Thanks to the honest witnessing of all those with whom I have journeyed, all those who have opened the door to the Bible for me, thanks to the faith and the doubts of the young people I have met, the Jesus of the Gospel never stops asking me questions and bringing me discoveries each day.
My inner heaven changes, always moving toward the Name.
THE SOURCE
Before I had had the time to be an adolescent, I became an adult. Thousands of looks trying to hold on to their lives weighed upon my own. Today I live and I bear witness so that through me their memory can be kept alive.
As I till the soil of my past and my origins, I have realized that awakening to oneself is only possible by forgiving oneself. We are not gentle with ourselves. How often am I surprised at how I mistreat myself and others! How can I welcome myself, or welcome others for who they are, if I do not follow this path?
My identity as a baptized Jew is not an obstacle but a vigorous root from which the sap rises. This path of peacemaking allows me to offload an immense weight and reconnect ever so carefully to my personal story and my identity.
Our dis-ease in the present lies in the past. And when we find the Source, it gives meaning to our lives.
Without words, the sentence has no meaning. Without the Word, my life has no meaning.
Silence cultivates the inner world. These are moments of grace which give birth to beauty. Silence listens to life singing.
THE GRACE OF FRAGILITY
At night I escape from time. In these moments of grace I feel its silent sweetness; it is then that I give shape to words which rise up from the far depths. They become more close, more authentic, more simple.
When I was weak, I wanted to appear strong.
But when I am fragile, I recognize myself.
My life as a deportee seems so far away that, at times, I feel as if it never happened.
When I was lying in a hospital bed, I realized that the suffering, anxiety, fear, and joy that I felt were truly mine, and I agreed humbly to embrace them within myself. That day, for the first time, I experienced compassion toward myself. Meeting this bruised self liberated me from an inner slavery, and the journey toward myself began.
I rise slowly. My steps are more confident because it is toward You that I am going.
When it is You inspiring me, words wait silently to be written in a moment of grace.
JOY
The door to knowledge began to open when I agreed to listen to myself, to hear myself, to let myself be taught by the One who always offers me his hand. Each one of us is unique and incomparable: Why do we never stop comparing what is incomparable? We have many illusions about ourselves: Why do we force ourselves to become those illusions that we can never be?
Awakening to ourselves takes place in the wisdom of time. This core within us—unique, sacred—never stops working on us, in complete freedom. It guides our moral and spiritual growth. It is from this fragile, vulnerable source, blown about by the storms of life, that we must choose to lift ourselves up.
The path toward truth is painful. Truth does not explain or justify itself: it is, or it is not. It is the only path toward ourselves, where You wait for us.
You are there in how I look at people, in my gestures, in every trembling of my being.
Your light shines forth from my suffering. Your joy in me is only joy if it calls out the joy in other people.
YOU
From You comes my beginning. From day to day I am born in You.
My father was Jewish and my mother was Jewish. Life cut the cord and soaked me in a bath of ashes, an ocean of tears, screams, and blood.
No one came to wash me, to lift me up, to hold me in their gaze. No one looked over when I, we were falling into the pit of hell, the inferno set ablaze by Your raging creatures, those black-winged angels.
We were thrown into the ground, into the water, into oblivion, so that no one would remember us.
The earth swallowed us and the water carried us away.
You silently watched Your people being reduced to dust.
My heart closed up like a tombstone.
I turned against You without knowing who You were, in the face of Your blindness, Your deafness, Your perverted creation.
Today I can still hear the whirlwind of groans praising You, imploring You, calling You by Your name, before being consumed by flames.
At eighty-four, You are inviting me to embrace those millions of innocents who now share in Your Glory.
I seek Your face, God of the day and of the night.
I place in front of You these thousands of burnt suns
.
May I offer You these glowing embers now they are at peace.
DEVOTEES OF HOPE
By exterminating the Jews, the Nazis wanted to snuff out the spark of God that was in them and take it for themselves, so that they could take the place of God. To do so they were relying on the unimaginable, on the human capacity to forget, and on the world’s disbelief.
I am sure that You, my God, did not want the Holocaust, and that the suffering of each one of us is Your suffering itself.
I believe that it is the false gods that we create who are responsible for wars, all of which are fratricidal.
I know that each one of us is a witness to his own life, to the Covenant, to Love, and to reconciliation.
We should invent connections and, whatever our religions or our political opinions, together we should become devotees of Hope.
The ramparts we put between us do not protect us. They isolate us.
Love is a free gift, as light as a breath of air. It transfigures daily life into a kingdom where it is good to live.
MY WELL
I dig my well without knowing what I am going to find down there. There are unforeseen obstacles, tangled roots, lost memories, but I continue to dig with trust. Shovelful by shovelful, I release pure, fresh waves, and I fill my lungs.
I thank You for this earth, for the trees, for the little soloists who sing of life against a broad, blue sky.
Thank you for all those people of light whom You have placed on my path to help me be what I am today.
IN TIME
I give time
I count time
I take time
I waste time
I postpone time until tomorrow
I force time
I drown in time
Where am I in this whirlwind passing by?
Is thinking about life the same as living? Will life be the way we thought it would be? I have had many experiences. I have seen life without any pretentions. I have realized that life is not lived in the conditional; it is lived in the present and in the singular. To invent life is to abandon my will concerning my own life. It is letting myself be made by it.
Life has taught me to live each moment as if it were the last.
I let the present moment receive me.
Each presence gives me a unique moment.
Its beauty soothes me. Then I can hear what You do not say.
Joy in living is heaven on earth.
MY FEARS
My unacknowledged, unconscious fears have simply stoked the flames of violence in me. Fear is a dangerous refuge. If I let my fears overwhelm me, I lose my way. But could I ever lose myself, since all paths lead inside where the Breath of Life lives?
Let us not be afraid. Let us dare to show and let us give, in our own way, our beauty to the world.
We aspire to freedom, but fear does not let us rest.
Are we not as scared to live as we are to die? Through fear I do not dare to dare!
When fear possesses me, I become Fear, deprived of all expression and all spontaneity, of my passion for life, of my plans. Surrounded by fear, I no longer exist. It empowers death over me and immobilizes my conscience: I empower all dictators. If I only seek the meaning of life for myself alone, then I am scared.
Our feeling of inability, overwhelmed by exaggerated demands, scares us and paralyzes us. Fear drives us to raise the bar ever higher, and then we find ourselves facing an ideal that we are unable to achieve. The feeling of worthlessness and inferiority drives us to compensate, just like “the frog who would be as big as an ox”—and puffs himself up until he bursts.
If I acknowledge my fear and I manage to identify it, a new strength is unleashed in me which allows me to take a stand against it once more. For a long time I held out, for fear of uncovering the truth. In the camps, accepting death made me feel detached, soothed, at peace, which allowed me to survive in the midst of shadows as if I were immortal, and to live each minute as if it were the last.
I give You thanks for the harvest of all that I have gone through.
You help me to knead my daily bread.
For each crumb, my heart praises You.
MY FAMILY
My family—my husband, our four children, and the ten grandchildren whom we have today—is for me the first circle of society. The family can be a place of welcome, of grounding, of learning about life, a source of endless creation and re-creation.
It is within the universe of the family that a love of life or of violence is passed on. The family is a landmark. It is the beginning of our children’s journey toward responsibility and life. I am convinced that peace in the world depends on harmony in the family.
A midrashic commentary tells why the Almighty never perfected His creation: “It is so that each human being can make it perfect.”
When it is through love, the impossible becomes real.
LOVE
I have no words to speak about love, whether with a small “l” or a big “L.”
I shall remain an ardent apprentice until the end of my days.
Night, day plunged into mourning on the lips of time.
Light, day revealed, dawn of creation.
I am not done exploring the night, emptying its heaviness to lead it to the beginning of the word.
Long road to deliverance.
Passing from death to life.
To die is not to disappear, it is to be born again to oneself.
I would like to die in a state of joy.
Life on earth has tested me. It has also given me much. I have been fed by so much warmth, so many smiles, looks, faces, that I feel sated. I have so many thanks to give that the whole sky could not contain them.
I would like to depart, loving.
HISTORICAL NOTE
Nathalie Caillibot and Régis Cadiet,
teachers of literature and humanities in Rennes
This summary, included in the original text, was the outcome of many hours of discussion with Magda Hollander-Lafon and historical research at the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation at the Holocaust Memorial in Paris. This activity was preceded by an educational project which led to a school trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the company of Magda and by the production of a film co-financed by the City of Rennes.
Magda Hollander-Lafon’s story is set against the backdrop of the Final Solution, a small story of one individual in a much bigger story: that of the Holocaust, and of the Holocaust in Hungary, which, like the story of Hungarian Jews in general, is unique and paradoxical. Indeed, whereas Jews in Nazi Europe were systematically subjected to the program of extermination, in Hungary they were more or less spared until March 1944. That does not deny the existence of a strong feeling of anti-Semitism among the Hungarian population, which was echoed in the taking up of explicitly anti-Jewish political positions. In fact, following the territorial decisions imposed by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, which redrew Hungary’s borders, the Jewish community had ceased to be just one minority among others and had become the visible minority. Hungary’s racial laws were adopted between 1938 and 1941. Modeled on those of Nuremberg, they were stricter still, and in particular extended the status of Jew to 100,000 converts to Christianity, taking the number of people officially belonging to this community to 825,000.
Magda was born on June 15, 1927, in Záhony, a small village on the border between Hungary and Slovakia. Her parents, Adolf Hollander and Esther Klein, were not practicing. They considered themselves assimilated and Hungarian. Her maternal grandparents, however, were more orthodox. Like the majority of Jews in the area, who were merchants, laborers, or artisans, her grandfather Samuel Klein was the manager of a modest shoe factory in Zsurk, less than three miles from Záhony. The Kleins would get together on Saturdays, which is how Magda got to know some Jewish traditions.
Her sister, Irene, was born in 1932. Two years later, the Hollanders moved to Nyíregyháza, to be closer to the town of Debrecen to allow the two girls to study.
> Things changed dramatically when Adolf Hitler invaded Hungary on March 19, 1944. By that point in the war the Nazi army was essentially in a defensive posture, although its leaders still believed in victory. Hitler knew that landings in the west were being prepared, but he thought they could be repelled. His forces were therefore concentrated in the east to counter the Soviet advance. Military occupation of Hungary was motivated not just by the desire to complete the Final Solution; another aim was to keep the country firmly tied to the Axis powers, and to ensure its military support. Moreover, this would allow the country’s industrial and agricultural assets to be commandeered. Finally, the deported Jewish population would provide a major source of labor at a time when the Reich was beginning to face a serious shortage.
On March 22, the prince regent of Hungary, Miklós Horthy, named Döme Sztójay as prime minister in the belief that he could negotiate the fate of the country and of the Jews, since he was not particularly known for anti-Semitism. Horthy explained to the new government that the “Jewish question” was for them alone to decide. Neutral in appearance, Sztójay knew perfectly well what the Nazis wanted to do, and was determined to collaborate. He appointed two confirmed anti-Semites to key posts in the Ministry of Interior and made them responsible for resolving “Jewish matters”: László Endre took on administrative and legislative questions, and László Baky took on the political aspects. They developed the overall plan, working closely with Adolf Eichmann’s team, which contained some of the most confirmed SS officers: Dieter Wisliceny, who had directed the deportation of Slovakian and Greek Jews, and Theodor Dannecker, who had directed the deportation of French, Bulgarian, and Italian Jews. These were true experts, and they planned in minute detail each step in the process: establishing central and local Jewish councils, isolation, expropriation, placing in ghettoes, rounding up, and the departure of convoys toward extermination.
Four Scraps of Bread Page 5
