Outcasts

by Susan M. Papp

  When Tibor awoke the next morning, the house was silent. It was Sunday and he came down to find his mother and father sitting silently across from one another, drinking coffee in the dining room. They looked anxious. His mother was still in her dressing gown, a bit of lace from her slip peeked out from the fold of her robe. Domokos was in full uniform. Tibor was afraid to ask what was wrong.

  Before he had a chance to say anything, his mother said, "There's going to be another broadcast from the regent today. I'm sure its just more details of the ceasefire." The look on his father's face made Tibor realize that there would be more to it. Something momentous was happening.

  At the time of the radio broadcast, the entire family congregated in the parlour and sat in rapt silence. The minutes seemed to tick by ever so slowly as they waited for the regent's address to begin. Tibor looked at his father and noticed, for the first time, how white his beard and hair had become these past few months. And he had deep, dark circles under his eyes. Domokos's hand lay quietly on the coffee table next to him as he smoked. When he inhaled, Tibor noticed that his hand shook noticeably.

  Suddenly, the telephone in the parlour rang. Domokos held up his hand as if to let everyone know that he would answer the telephone himself. He got up slowly and walked toward the phone. The family listened, but could only hear him occasionally say, "Yes," and then "I understand." He returned the telephone to the receiver without saying goodbye and returned to his chair. They all looked at him but no one dared to ask any questions.

  The news broadcast began shortly after the telephone call. This time, the regent sounded terribly sombre. Horthy rescinded the announcement of the day before and declared that Ferenc Szalasi, the head of the extremist Arrow Cross Party, was now in charge.

  Karola Aykler covered her face with her hands as she broke down in tears. Her daughter, Picke, sat by her mother's side on the carpet and hugged her knees, silently rocking back and forth. After giving his wife several minutes to express her sorrow, Domokos leaned over and gently stroked her arm.

  It wouldn't be until much later, when all the details were known, that it would be discovered what had actually happened on October 15, 1944. After concluding an armistice with the Allies through a delegation in Moscow, Regent Horthy announced on the radio that Hungary was defecting to the side of the Allies. The Germans knew about the agreement beforehand and, because the announcement had been made without appropriate military and political preparations, they were able to kidnap the regent's son Miklos on the day of the attempted capitulation. In order to achieve his son's release, Horthy was forced to withdraw his proclamation and legalize the government takeover by Szalasi, the leader of the Arrow Cross, who would now organize a Nazi puppet regime.

  "Let's pack up what we can," Domokos said. "We leave tonight for Ungvar." Karola looked at her husband and understood. She knew her family was counting on her. They made their plans and tried to go about the packing and departure hastily and quietly, without alerting all of their neighbours to what was going on. The maid and cook were sent home. Only Anna, their devoted household helper, remained.

  One of the horse-drawn carts normally used for shipping grapes was packed with what little they could fit on it: four crates of clothing, some family albums, tablecloths, and the silver. The valuable Meissen china, their paintings, porcelain, Persian carpets, books, and all the furniture would have to stay.

  Tibor took charge of organizing the food: one sack of flour, one sack of wheat, a tub of lard, freshly baked bread, and the smoked meat of the two pigs that had been killed a few days before. As he watched the cart being loaded, Tibor realized that his mother concentrated on collecting and packing family treasures like the silver, photo albums, and tablecloths. She had hardly packed any practical, useful things they would need for such a journey. At the last minute, he went back into the house and fetched six horsehair mattresses, six comforters, and a pillow for each of them and tossed them into the back of the cart. He also wrapped his most prized possessions - the Siemens radio/record player and a few records - in a blanket and put them onto the cart as well.

  Domokos decided that their chauffeur, Marton Pek, would drive the family in the black Tatra sedan car. Another dependable employee, Endre Szege, drove the horse- drawn cart with all their belongings. Now they were ready to depart.

  "Just one more thing," Picke begged her parents as she jumped off the cart and ran up the stairs of the house to her bedroom. She gently picked up her Chinese doll with the porcelain face, the one her Uncle Laszlo had bought for her so many years ago. She felt silly going back for it, after all she was over sixteen years old, but she wanted to take something, an object that would link her to her happy childhood here. She kissed the doll, wrapped it in a pillowcase, and raced back down the stairs and out the house to the car.

  The family dog, Buksi, kept jumping onto the cart as Picke and Tibor took turns comforting him and whispering that they would be back and that the overseer, Mihaly bacsi, would take care of him.

  Picke gave the dog one last hug and got into the back seat of the car. Mihaly bacsi held Buksi so that he wouldn't run after the vehicles. The dog had a puzzled, hurt look on his face as the black sedan and the cart made their way down the driveway and turned left, disappearing into the dark night.

  The family travelled toward Ungvar, a few hours drive away. Later that night, Tibor returned with the empty black sedan to pick up their close friends Senator Karoly Hokky and his family. Margit Hokky took a long time coming out of the house and, when she did, her eyes and face were red from crying. She was accompanied by her daughter, Kato, whose face was also tear-drenched.

  "Mother doesn't want to come with us," Margit neni said, wanting to somehow explain to Tibor why they had taken so long. "She can't face being a refugee again. I told her it wouldn't be for long, that we would be back, but she doesn't believe me." They travelled all the way to Ungvar in silence.

  Five days later, the Fourth Ukrainian Division of the Soviet army, led by Commander Ivan Petrov, entered Nagyszollos. Not a single shot of resistance was fired; the army was gone. Petrov instructed his deputies to pick the highest point in the region and set up their command post. In very short order, Sergeant Gouzov told his superior officer that they had found the perfect spot with a great view of the surrounding region. As Petrov was driven up to the massive house on the hill, he saw that some of his soldiers were already going through the rooms, pilfering the contents. Two soldiers walked out carrying rolled-up Persian carpets on their shoulders, others were stuffing silver bowls into their knapsacks. Many of them were gleefully showing off bottles of wine. When they saw Commander Petrov arrive in the jeep, the men scattered.

  Sergeant Gouzov met Petrov in the yard and reported that the house was empty of inhabitants. He said that, in the basement, they had found over two hundred bottles of jams and pickled vegetables, crates of dried fruits, and over four hundred litres of bottled wine. There was still meat in the smokehouse. Gouzov also reported that the overseer, Mihaly Hunzelizer, a Rusyn, was living in the basement. Hunzelizer told them that the owners, a high-ranking colonel in the Hungarian army and his family, had left the country and were not coming back.

  As he walked up the front steps, Commander Petrov saw a dog lying motionless on its side with a full bowl of food next to him. "What happened to the dog?" he asked.

  "We don't know for sure, sir," replied his sergeant. "The dog was like that when we got here."

  "You might as well bury him," ordered Petrov.

  Commander Petrov was pleased to have such pleasant surroundings for his command centre. He knew they would be stationed here for a while. As he went inside the house and looked up at the two-storey entranceway, he thought, "Yes, this will do quite nicely."

  Petrov and only a few of his deputy commanding officers knew that this part of Hungary would soon become annexed to the Soviet Union. He had been sent here with specific instructions to quash any resistance to the Russian occupation and make sure the cons
olidation of the region into the Soviet empire went smoothly. One of the first things that had to be done was to change the name of the town to Vinogradiv.

  Within a few days, a group of able-bodied men and women volunteered to help rebuild the destroyed bridge over the Tisza. Petrov wrote in his official report that the population of the region was "docile and compliant, totally exhausted by the war."

  chapter 19 | january 1945

  BY JANUARY 1945, GERMAN military troops were being pushed back by unrelenting pressure from American forces from the west and Russian forces driving them from the east. The pounding of Russian artillery could already be heard from Auschwitz-Birkenau. The SS was ordered to empty the concentration camps and to destroy evidence of the atrocities committed there. The plan was to march prisoners to territories and areas still firmly under German control.

  The SS ordered a mass evacuation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 18, 1945 in the middle of the night. The walls of the last crematorium still standing, crematorium #5, were dynamited. The barracks containing the loot of Commando Kanada were set ablaze, but the mountains of clothing, housewares, and carpets were so heavily packed that it would take weeks for them to completely burn - time the SS didn't have.

  The "death marches," as they came to be known, were haphazard and chaotic. No one knew where they were going or how to organize such a mass evacuation. Those remaining, Suti among them, could sense the panic in the voices and actions of their captors. When they heard they were being ordered to march out, those who could tried to grab what few blankets were left, wrapping them around themselves as flimsy protection against the cold. Others tore strips out of pieces of blankets to bind their hands and feet.

  The first group were marched out in columns of five. Suti was near the head of the five- to six-kilometre-long line of barely clad, emaciated survivors who trudged along in the snow-covered countryside. Most had no protection from the cold, and they were given nothing to eat or drink.

  Rumours swirled around the camp like small brush fires.

  "We are being sent to a place called Gross-Rosen."

  "The camp guards had orders to shoot everyone who couldn't march."

  "The Americans are coming to bomb Auschwitz."

  Hedy, in a desperate panic to find her younger brother, searched for Dzeidjic. She found him with two of his men, their noses buried in a list of typed names. They were counting, verifying, and counter-checking names on a long list.

  As Hedy approached and called Dzeidjic's name, he looked up anxiously, but when he saw it was Hedy, a look of relief crossed his face.

  "I can't talk now," he mumbled, "but I sent the kid ahead earlier with the first group. Bad things are going to happen here. I wanted him to get out of here quickly."

  "What have you heard?" Hedy pleaded.

  Dzeidjic looked uncertain, insecure somehow.

  "Go back to your barracks. I'll come to find you later."

  With that, he abruptly turned and returned to working on the lists.

  Kapos and guards counted then recounted everyone in their barracks. Hedy and Aliz stood in line for what seemed like hours. One of the guards, who they nicknamed "Burly" because of his thickset, stocky build, came toward them, counting the women in each row as he proceeded. Hedy focused on his chunky hands and fat fingers as she started hearing the numbers he called out:

  "Nine hundred ninety. Nine hundred ninety-one. Nine hundred ninety-two."

  Hedy quickly did a head count of the inmates between Burly and themselves.

  "Nine hundred ninety-five."

  They had to stay together, no matter what, Hedy thought.

  Hedy pushed Aliz ahead of her; Burly pointed to Aliz, counted "one thousand," and yelled, "That's another one thousand that can head out."

  Hedy grabbed Burly's arm and pleaded, "Please, sir, that's my sister. Please don't separate us."

  Burly barely looked at her, completely oblivious, yelling to someone up at the front, "Move them out, it's a full group."

  "Please let me go with them - I'm begging you," Hedy pleaded in tears.

  But Burly had already turned and gone to organize the count somewhere else. A guard was placed at the end of the line, preventing Hedy from simply joining Aliz and the departing group.

  Hedy's world collapsed. How was she going to survive now without her sister? How was she to go on?

  She was overcome with sheer and utter desolation.

  AFTER ABOUT FIFTEEN TO twenty kilometres of walking, Suti realized he didn't have the strength to go on. He was starving, and with the temperature ten degrees below zero, the cold was biting at his extremities. Although he, along with the other prisoners, had begun to eat the snow from along the roadside, he was still desperately thirsty. He felt he couldn't take another step.

  Suti collapsed by the side of the road. When he did, he felt his legs become paralyzed; they would never allow him to stand up again. He curled his legs underneath him and lay on his side, gently placing his head on the snow. Closing his eyes, he envisioned his mother's tender face before him. It became eerily silent around him, except for the soft crunching of the snow of those who were still walking past.

  Suddenly he heard boots crunching on the icy snow toward him. Suti opened his eyes.

  A rifle-toting SS guard was stomping in his direction. Although Suti realized he was coming to shoot him, he felt he couldn't and didn't want to move. The SS guard came up to within a few inches of Suti, looked directly down at him, and kicked him.

  "March! You are too young to die!" the guard shouted.

  Suti didn't know where the strength came from or why the SS guard didn't shoot him, but he jumped up and started running.

  HEDY REALIZED SHE HAD to be at the front of the next group of women leaving the camp -the one that was directly after her sister's group. They began their march an hour later in the bitter, January cold.

  Please God, she prayed, let me find Aliz. I can't survive without her. She repeated these few lines of her prayer over and over again until her senses became inured to the cold and the pain.

  After about a dozen kilometres, the winter light diminished and they were ordered into an enormous barn for the night. There, Hedy's heart jumped as she saw some women from the previous group. Aliz must be here, Hedy decided. Determined as ever, she made her way through the groups of women as they lay on top of straw bundles, numb from the day of walking and the freezing cold. On the upper level of the barn, on one of the furthest straw piles, Hedy was overwhelmed to find her sleeping sister. She crawled in next to her, wrapped her arms around her, and cried herself to sleep, grateful to have found her sibling, and feeling like a whole person once again.

  AFTER WHAT SEEMED LIKE an endless two to three days of marching, stopping at barns to rest a few hours, they ended up at a railway station where they were unexpectedly ordered into boxcars. No one knew where they were heading. Occasionally, the doors were opened and they were handed some containers of water or a watered-down version of soup. The train stood for hours without movement. Then it moved for an hour or so, then was halted again. This went on for days. Suti was sure that even the commanders of this death march didn't have any idea where they were going anymore. The fighting was moving closer, and they frequently heard bomber aircraft flying overhead.

  At one point during the journey while the train was standing for hours at a station in the town of Tichau, Russian planes flew overhead and riddled the train with machine-gun fire.

  Crammed in as they were for hours on end, Suti was standing next to and occasionally talking with a Jewish boy named Walter from Prague when the shooting began. His friend fell silent. Suti spoke to him, but he didn't answer. Walter had been hit by a single gunshot to the head. No blood came out from his head - the pumping of his heart stopped immediately. Shortly afterward, the authorities simply opened up the boxcars and the dead bodies were thrown out.

  When the transport arrived to the train station closest to Mauthausen in Austria, they were taken by trucks
up a hill to the concentration camp. The relatively short (three-hundred-kilometre) journey by foot and by train took thirteen days (from the eighteenth to the thirtieth of January).

  Emaciated, with practically nothing to eat during the two-week journey, Suti felt frozen right down to the marrow of his bones. As soon as they arrived, they were sent to the showers. Suti was certain he knew what this meant. The only time groups of prisoners were sent to the showers at Auschwitz-Birkenau was to be gassed. But, by this time, he didn't have the strength to even think about death. Resigned to his fate, he followed along as they were herded into the showers.

  To their disbelief and surprise, though, it wasn't gas that came out of the shower heads, but water. Warm refreshing water! After the nightmare of their journey, the warmth of the water revived their chilled bodies and they started to feel somewhat human again. Awestruck, they could hardly believe this strange and unexpected twist of fate as they received clean, disinfected clothing and were assigned to their barracks.

  In Mauthausen, the blocks were built differently from Auschwitz-Birkenau. Wing A and Wing B were in the same building - the same block but on different ends - the block altester and block schreiber were in the centre of the block.

  The block altester assembled everyone twice daily for zehl appel. On the A side, the block altester wanted a certain round number. If it happened to be two hundred, and there were 195 already assembled, he would yell over to the B side and get the missing number of inmates to come over. The numbers had to be consistent, at least on the A side.

  On this particular day, five men were called over - and ran over from B to A. Among them, Suti, stunned, recognized his father, Vilmos. He was much thinner and seemed much older than the last time he had seen him. Overcome by the emotion of seeing his father again, Suti yelled. Vilmos froze, reaching out his arms, before even seeing where the familiar voice was coming from.