Outcasts

by Susan M. Papp

  They walked the rest of the way in silence until they arrived at the restaurant where Tibor worked. His job was to salvage what was salvageable - mainly glass from the rubble. Window glass was of great value in the city, so much of it had been smashed during the bombardments. Suti offered to help. Tibor demonstrated how to gingerly place the glass in rows. They worked silently side by side, both immersed in their own thoughts, in all that had been said.

  The sun crept higher and higher in the sky. It wasn't even 10:00 a.m., yet the day was already turning into a scorcher. Both worked without gloves - gingerly lifting and carrying the useable pieces of glass. But Suti's hands were sweating from the heat and one of the large pieces of glass slipped out of his hands and came crashing down onto the concrete sidewalk, breaking into what seemed like a hundred pieces. Tibor was aghast and although he didn't say anything, he realized within a few seconds that the look on his face was one of "how will I explain this to my employer?" Tibor could see that Suti felt terrible about the accident and despite Tibor's assurances that it wouldn't be a problem for him, Suti quickly said goodbye to Tibor and left. Tibor continued working in the scorching sun, hoping no one would notice the tears streaming down his face as sweat poured off his brow.

  THE CLANDESTINE GROUP WORKED in a dimly lit office in an old apartment block on Nagymezo ut in the heart of Budapest. Ten people sat around a massive table, all of them focussed on some aspect of creating official-looking false documents. The windows were covered with thick, dark paper to block prying eyes from seeing what was going on inside. Between the slats of the hastily pasted black paper, streams of hot August sunlight fell on the working group. Everyone had their specific role in the operation. Two young men concentrated on folding the document, making sure that the paper was the right weight and size. They worked with a Gestetner stencil machine. Each copy was made slowly, carefully, with the turn of a crank. Each name was written in by hand. Others were typing the created identities: place and date of birth, false addresses, made-up occupations. New identities for individuals who had lost or destroyed their identity papers during the war. These Jews had made it through the war. Some, through luck or chance, survived the concentration camps, others stayed alive by hiding in the basements and attics of Budapest, or in rural areas. The forged papers re-established their identities, allowing them to ultimately leave Hungary and travel to Palestine.

  In the centre of this working group sat a thin, almost emaciated young teenager, looking much older than his fifteen years. Suti felt he had regained a semblance of his identity within this group of left-wing Zionists. The people he worked with never saw him smile. He deadened himself to the pain of the past year.

  He believed in nothing. His religion, his home, his childhood memories were all extinguished within him. He considered himself no longer Hungarian. After all, the Hungarians had betrayed his community and family in the cruelest way: by loading them all onto cattle cars and sending them and hundreds of thousands of others from Karpatalja to Nazi concentration camps. It didn't matter that they were brutalized by the Nazis in those camps; Suti held the Hungarians responsible for the act of being evicted from their homes, loaded onto cattle cars and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

  The past year had awakened the Jew in him. While being persecuted as a Jew, he ultimately found his Jewishness. For the first time in his life, he wore a Star of David on a simple chain around his neck. And he started calling himself "Itzik," a derogatory name used by some Hungarians for Jews. It was comparable to calling a black person "nigger."

  Suti had a very important role in the group. He knew the Cyrillic alphabet - the seemingly incomprehensible language of the Russians, who presently occupied Budapest. The creation of identity documents was one of the most critical and most lucrative services one could provide in 1945.

  Suti created the Russian signatures and the stamps, which were so crucial for the veracity of the documents. Without the prominent red stamps, nothing was official as far as the Russians were concerned. Some of the Russian soldiers who were stopping citizens were illiterate, but when they saw a large red stamp with Cyrillic lettering, they felt reassured that everything was in order.

  Zsigmond Perenyi, the son of the baron, discovered through Tibor that Suti was living in Budapest and sent a message that he should come for a visit. Suti had always admired the baron's son. He was a curiosity: Oxford educated with a skinny American wife. Eleanor Perenyi didn't speak a word of Hungarian - nor did she try to learn. She kept herself aloof from most of the residents. She became pregnant during the war and went back to the United States to give birth to their child.

  Zsiga wasn't alone in the apartment when Suti arrived. Terez Alexander was there as well. Terez came to Nagyszollos during the war and lived with the Ilkovics family - she was one of the refugees from Slovakia fleeing persecution. Terez sat silently as they spoke, occasionally wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. At one point, she stood up and said she was going to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. It was then that Zsiga quietly confided to Suti that they had fallen in love with each other. He was determined to marry Terez once his divorce from Eleanor came through. Nothing else mattered, he said.

  Young Zsiga looked contented as he spoke of their love. Suti was moved that Zsiga would confide in him about their love affair. They sat quietly. By this time Terez had returned with a pot of tea. Terez was so thin she looked breakable. Suti suspected she had lived through the camps as well.

  Suti told them about his intention to go to Palestine. When he stood up to leave Zsiga guided Suti down a long hallway to the door, stopped, and quietly slipped him some money. "You will need it for your trip," he said in a half-whisper. Zsiga apologized that he couldn't give him more.

  Suti was surprised, stunned, and moved by his gesture. Suti reflected on their humble circumstances - it looked as if the two of them had just enough to eat, but nothing more.

  SUTI WAS WORKING AMONG the forgers when a stranger came to see him. The man introduced himself as Gyula Berger, and claimed he was a cousin from his mother's side of the family. Gyula had a strange-looking round hat on his head - part of a military uniform Suti had never seen before. Suti had never met this relative and was skeptical about whether he was indeed a cousin. At this point in his life, contacts and family members were critical for Suti. Gyula explained he had already made aliyah to Palestine in the 1930s. Suti queried him about dozens of family members - they went through the entire family tree before Suti's skepticism became allayed. He found out his cousin was an officer in the British army contingent in Palestine.

  Gyula informed Suti that his brother, Bandi, was alive and already living in Palestine. Gyula claimed to have his brother's address - not with him, but in Milano where he was stationed. After a long night of talking, Gyula convinced Suti that he should go to Milano in Italy, where his unit would take him to a place where he would be well-looked-after. Suti was still a bit wary of this man in the strange uniform when they parted, but realized, during their conversation about Bandi, that his desire to go to Palestine and find his family was overwhelming. Ostracized by his homeland, he needed a place in this world where he felt at home. He believed in Zionism and wanted to build the new Jewish homeland. He heard all about the kibbutz system and wanted to live in and help build such a place.

  Suti realized his cousin's offer would take him closer to his dream of making aliyah to Palestine, the place his mother often talked about. He needed to get to the sea, where ships could be boarded that would transport him to the land of his dreams. The Zionist organization Bricha established a network to help Holocaust survivors flee from Europe and arrive in Palestine, which was at the time under British mandate.

  In the fall of 1945 Suti and a group of seventy young people were sent off on their journey by foot toward Szentgotthard in western Hungary. Their first obstacle was to get from the Russian zone to the British zone. With the assistance of a guide, they made it to Graz, where they were caught and taken to a camp for displac
ed persons in a small town named Judenberg near Stiermark. They spent two months in this place, receiving medical help and three meals a day. A doctor determined that Sandor Weisz was to receive double portions because he was so thin. Suti enjoyed this, and spent the time slowly gaining weight, but by November, he and twelve others decided it was time to move on.

  Again with the help of the Zionist network, they hired a truck to take them to the Austrian-Italian border, over the Alps. The truck broke down and the driver, who had already taken their money, disappeared, leaving them stranded. Austrian border guards caught the group and took them to a small local prison. It was November 6 and very cold. They were hungry and ill-prepared for the plunging temperatures. Without blankets or mattresses, they slept fitfully on the stone prison floor.

  Before dawn, Suti awoke to the most incredible sound of high-pitched yelling. Never in his life had he heard anything like this sound. It sounded like human barking. The Austrians unlocked the cell and abruptly ordered them out. When they were led outside, they saw that a British officer was yelling his head off. The officer looked and sounded very intimidating: he pointed to a truck and ordered them to climb into the back, all the while yelling at the Austrians. Suti and his friends didn't know where they were going or why the Austrians were handing them over to this British officer as they didn't understand a single word of English, but they had little choice - they had to go. When the truck drove away from the police station there were two officers in the front seat: the driver at the wheel, and the sergeant major who had until then been barking. Just two kilometres down the road the sergeant major pulled back the curtain separating the front cabin from the back, smiled, and quietly said: "Shalom." The until-then fear-inspiring officer introduced himself as Sergeant Major Leon Ostreicher, head of the transportation unit of the Palestinian contingent of the British army. Ostreicher took the twelve youngsters to his company near Klagenfurt. When they arrived, he ushered the group to the front of the line of soldiers waiting for breakfast, cut into the line, and told the youngsters to eat as much as they wanted. In the next few days, Ostreicher arranged papers for the twelve - papers that would grant them safe passage into Italy. The British army unit transported them with trucks as far as Mestre (near Venice) where they boarded the train to Milano.

  As the train rambled through the mountainous region of northern Italy - the Dolomites - Suti felt as if all the cruelty and hatred he had experienced in the past year was melting away, drifting further and further from his mind as the distance increased and kilometres clicked past. For the first time in his short life he sat and marvelled at the breathtaking scenery unfolding around him.

  The train stopped frequently between Mestre and Milan. There was nothing to eat along the way and Suti was starting to feel quite famished. At one station, the train stopped for a longer layover. Suti heard one of the food vendors yelling: "olivero, olivero!" A vendor was selling what looked like black, bite-sized round objects soaking in an oily tub. It must have been the curious look on Suti's face as he stared at the giant containers of produce that compelled the vendor to ask him if he would like a taste.

  Suti didn't know what to say, as he didn't understand Italian. Whereupon the vendor took a bit of newspaper, wrapped it into a cone shape, and plopped about a half kilo of black oily beads into the cone. While handing it to Suti, he announced his produce with pride: "olivero!" Suti pulled out his pants pockets to show the vendor he had no money to give him, but the vendor insisted he take the olives gratis.

  Suti never tasted anything so wonderful.

  In Milan the group went to the headquarters of the Zionists at Via Unione 5. Here Suti was separated from the rest and sent to Selvino, where an organization had established a boarding school for orphans of the Holocaust. The rest of his group were determined to be too old and were sent on to Rome.

  The military truck made its way slowly up the winding, snake-like narrow road, through the dense forest, to an altitude of more than nine hundred metres above sea level. There the road let to a small village of Selvino, north of the Milan-Venice highway. A few hundred metres beyond the village, on the mountain's slope, stood an elegant, four-storey villa.

  The truck stopped in front of the villa and Suti stared at the magnificent garden extending down the slope with pine, cedar, and cypress trees and showy pink and yellow flowering shrubs. The Italian Alps peaked out from behind the trees.

  As they started to disembark from the truck, someone started yelling from one of the upstairs windows: "Suti, Suti!" Suti turned and saw his old friend Vili Teszler came bounding out of the house toward him. Suti couldn't believe it - the last time they saw each other was in Mauthausen. Suti was elated: here he was alone again in a strange place, a bit lost in this world. Meeting Vili was like being reunited with a family member.

  Selvino was created to prepare orphaned children of the Holocaust for the transition to life in Palestine. The school was established by Raffaele Cantoni, an Italian Jew and ardent Zionist, Mathilde Cassin, his partner who travelled from convent to convent looking for Jewish children, and Moshe Ze'iri, a member of an agricultural collective in Palestine. There was an incredible mix of children: those who had been with the partisans during the war, children who had been hidden in convents and forests, and children who had survived the concentration camps. All were orphans. Most had not attended school during the war, so there was a tremendous gap in their education.

  The students slept thirty to a room - dormitory style. After lights-out, Suti occasionally saw a girl crawling out of her bed, kneeling down, making the sign of the cross to pray. It was obvious she had spent the war hiding with a Christian family or in a convent. Suti was shocked to find some boys and girls who weren't able to read or write - it turned out they had been hiding in the forests in Ukraine for four or five years. Other children had nightmares and cried out in terror night after night while dreaming.

  Food was scarce. Everything was rationed out in small portions. No support was being sent from Palestine. The food came from UN rations for refugees and from the Jewish Brigades, who sent flour, sugar, rice, and dried beans.

  The children had one roll at each meal. There was little variety: jam, margarine, soup, gruel, small portions of army bully beef, and small amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables from the nearby villages.

  It was cold in the house. By the time Suti arrived in late November, heavy rains were falling and winds were raging through the mountains. There weren't enough warm clothes or adequate blankets for every child.

  Moshe Ze'iri, who was in charge of the home, directed it according to his own principles as a kibbutz member who had been educated in a movement based on "self-fulfillment through co-operation." The school was run on the principles of self-sufficiency, shared responsibility, and shared property. Every activity around the school, whether scholarly or leisurely, was infused with the principles of life of the kibbutz system. The daily chores were divided between the children themselves: cleaning, kitchen duty, serving food, keeping the house heated, doing the laundry, sewing, caring for the garden and plants, and guard duty at night. The older children were entrusted with the care of the younger ones.

  All classes were taught in Hebrew and even when they were not in class, the children were expected to speak among themselves only in Hebrew. The day began with morning roll call and raising the blue and white flag of the Jewish people, while everyone sang "Hatikvah."

  After a full day of classes and chores around the house, the late afternoon was left free for games in the courtyard, in the garden, on the football field, at the ping-pong table, at the chess board. After supper, everyone would gather for singing, dancing, storytelling, and parties. The chorus, conducted by Moshe Ze'iri, became the focal point of the cultural activities of the house. The motto of the choir became "We sing not of blood and battles; we sing of life and creation." Other teenagers started their own school newspaper, called Nivenu.

  There was no talking about the past, about the concentratio
n camps, about the horrible things so many of them had experienced. The future was what counted, and preparing for the future in Palestine was the focus of all their work in Selvino. The personalities, character, and entire being of these children had been permanently affected by the traumatic events of the past five years, yet they couldn't talk about this trauma. Occasionally, a few children went crazy. One boy tried to hang himself in a nearby forest. Another couldn't sleep and convinced himself he was going insane. He was sent off to a sanatorium in Milan. When he came back with his head shaved, he never spoke again of his past.

  Suti spent his days learning Hebrew and learning as much as he could about his new homeland, Palestine. At night, he also had nightmares, but mainly, he dreamt of life back in their home with his mother and father and sisters and brother. He missed them all tremendously - there was an ache in his heart that he could never quell. In Jewish tradition, the one-year anniversary of the death of a parent was marked in a special way. It was called Jahrzeit in Yiddish. Suti couldn't mark the one year anniversary - he was in Auschwitz on his way to Mauthausen in January 1945. But the second anniversary of the death of Terez Weisz was fast approaching. Suti quietly, clandestinely wrote a poem to commemorate the anniversary of her death.

  chapter 26 | fall 1945

  HEDY LAY ON A straw-filled mattress - awake, but keeping her eyes shut tight. She pulled the blanket closer, trying to remain in her semiconscious dream state, immersed in memories of Tibor. Images of sitting behind him on his motorcycle - her arms wrapped around his waist, her face buried in his back to shield it from the wind. As he was driving, Tibor grabbed one of her hands every once in a while and kissed it. At least in her daydream, she was going somewhere ... anywhere.