by Rona Arato
“The people from America have been very generous,” said Oscar.
Boxes of food and clothing from the United States had been arriving every week. Slowly, life was returning to the way it had been before the war. Except for the people who didn’t come back. Oscar remained quiet until they finished eating and Apu said it was time to go to the synagogue.
As they walked up the road toward the synagogue, they met friends and neighbors. Everyone said “Gut Shabbes,” Yiddish words that meant “Good Sabbath.” Children scampered ahead of their parents, calling greetings to each other. Oscar searched the street and saw a girl with red hair up ahead. He recognized her as his friend Sarah from school. He wove through the crowd and caught up with her just as she reached the synagogue steps.
“Sarah!” He grasped her arm.
“Oscar!” Sarah turned and threw her arms around him. “You’re safe.”
“You, too. I was so worried. When you weren’t here I thought…”
“We were in a displaced persons camp in Germany. We just got back.”
“I–I guess we should go inside.” Oscar smiled shyly. He linked his arm through Sarah’s, and they walked into the synagogue.
As they entered, Oscar looked around. The first thing he noticed was the broken windows. Next was the sulfur-colored stain on the front wall where someone had thrown eggs.
“It’s not too bad…considering,” a woman behind him said.
“Considering what?” said her companion.
“Considering that they could have bombed the building, like they did our houses.”
“Eggs they threw. Better they should have eaten them.”
Oscar and Sarah looked at each other. She giggled.
“I have to go up to the women’s gallery.”
“Let’s walk home together after the service.”
She nodded.
Oscar looked around for Paul. He was with a group of children at the front. A man was handing out blue-and-white flags with the Star of David on them. No more yellow stars, he thought. The children waved the flags in the air, shouting and laughing, while several adults tried to calm them down. Finally, the children went to their seats, boys downstairs and girls in the gallery. The rest of the congregation became quiet as Mr. Gross got up to speak.
“Shalom.” His voice cracked. “Tonight, we celebrate the beginning of Hanukkah. It’s appropriate that we should do so tonight because, in a way, we are rededicating our synagogue…thanks to Reverend Papp, who has brought us a very special Hanukkah present.”
He signaled to two men behind him to open the doors of the ark. There, nestled in the wooden cabinet, were three Torah scrolls, each encased in a dark blue velvet cover and embossed with a golden Star of David.
The congregation gasped.
“I thought the Germans destroyed the Torahs,” Oscar said to his father.
“They would have, if they had found them,” Apu replied. “Reverend Papp rescued them and hid them in the bell tower of his church. The Germans would have arrested him if they knew.”
“Why did he do it?” Oscar asked. He remembered how the townspeople had watched in silence as their friends and neighbors were loaded into trucks. He recalled passersby outside the brickyard where Jews were being herded onto railroad cars—going about their daily chores as if nothing was happening.
“Why did the reverend risk his life for us?”
“He’s a good man,” said Apu. “There are still good people, Oscar.” He nodded at the podium where Mr. Gross was welcoming the reverend.
The priest was a tall man, clean-shaven with thinning brown hair and a kindly face. He stood, his hands on the lectern, and looked down at the congregation. His gaze was strong, his smile warm.
“Shalom, my friends,” said Reverend Papp in an emotion-filled voice. “Welcome home.”
Chapter 34
Toronto, Canada
Spring 2009
Paul took a deep breath, blinked hard, and tried to steady his nerves. Despite his initial hesitation, he had finally written to Matt Rozell, the New York state teacher who had posted the pictures of the train—his train—on the internet.
In response, Matt had written this back:
Dear Paul,
Please contact Frank Towers. He has all the information about the liberation and the soldiers who were involved.
Paul, meet your rescuer.
All the best,
Matt Rozell
Now, Matt was organizing a reunion. Paul would meet the soldiers who had liberated him. For almost 65 years he had thought about the train. Had things really happened the way he remembered? He’d been so young. Were there two soldiers on a tank or one in a Jeep, or both?
He remembered that the Americans had given him candy. It was a Tootsie Roll, he recalled. Another soldier let me play with his gun. That totally freaked out Oscar and my mother. He smiled. For so many years, I’ve searched for information about that train.
And now here it is.
Since liberation, Paul’s life had taken many turns. His mother never recovered from her illness and died in 1951, when he was thirteen. Three years later, his father married Olga, a woman from their town. Although the Germans were gone, they continued to suffer under a cruel dictatorship. After the war, Russia occupied Eastern European countries, including Hungary. These countries were said to be “behind the Iron Curtain,” because their citizens could not leave.
The Russians closed Jewish schools in Hungary, so Ignaz Auslander started teaching in a public school. The Russians had many rules—one was that anyone holding a public position, such as a teacher, had to have a Hungarian name. Auslander was German, so in 1952, Ignaz chose the name Arato—it started with an “A,” was short, and was easy to spell.
In 1956, Paul and his brother were living in Budapest when public resentment against the government erupted into a violent revolution. Fed up with tyranny and war, they joined thousands of refugees and fled the country. They escaped at night by crossing fields studded with landmines. Once free, they went to England and then to Canada. Oscar eventually settled in Australia, but Paul remained in Toronto.
Even as he struggled to suppress his wartime memories, Paul suffered their effects. Except for his father and Oscar, his whole family had died. His father stayed behind in Hungary. In Canada, he met other Hungarian refugees, but, at first, no one would talk about their experiences during the war. There was no one with whom to share the deep-seated feelings of anger, sadness, and fear that haunted him.
Then, suddenly, thirty years after liberation, people began talking about what was now being called the Holocaust. There were reminders everywhere—in books, movies, on television, and in the stories survivors were beginning to tell. Still, Paul kept silent. Except about one story: how he was liberated from a train by American soldiers.
Paul wanted to thank the soldiers for what they had done for him and his family, but he knew there was no way to find them. And then, one day, he read an article about Americans liberating a train in Germany. As he looked at the accompanying pictures, he began to shake. I was on that train. I recognize the valley where it’s stopped. His heart pounded.
Do I want to reopen the wounds?
Can I live with the memories that will come back?
The answer, he finally decided, was “Yes.”
Chapter 35
Hudson Falls, New York
September 2009
Matt Rozell stood in the hotel lobby waiting for the first participants to arrive. After six months of planning, the symposium was about to begin. Tonight was the opening reception. He turned to an older gentleman—a veteran—standing beside him.
“We have seven survivors coming. It’s a wonderful response.”
“I never thought I’d see any of these people again,” the vet said.
At that moment, another man w
alked up to Matt. They greeted each other warmly. Then Matt turned to the vet.
“Carrol Walsh, this is Paul Arato. One of the train survivors.”
Paul threw his arms around Carrol. “Give me a hug,” he said in an emotion-filled voice. “You saved my life!”
The sign over the door said: “Americans Came to Liberate, Not Conquer.”
Paul walked into Hudson Falls High School the morning after the reception, more nervous than he could ever remember being. How would he react to the stories of other survivors? Would he be able to tell his own story without breaking down? Had he made a mistake in coming?
The students had turned the hallway into a World War II museum with photos of soldiers, battles, and the pictures that a soldier named George Gross had taken on the day of liberation. Maps were marked with the route that the 9th Army followed on their trek across Europe.
Paul studied the display. “This is amazing.”
He walked up to the registration desk. A student smiled up at him. “You’re a survivor, aren’t you?” She looked at Paul in awe.
“Yes.” He smiled back at her. He thanked her and took his registration materials.
“Don’t forget this.” She handed him a green wristband that read: “Remember the Holocaust—end prejudice and hatred.” Paul looked around and saw that everyone was wearing one. It felt good.
For the next two days, Paul and his wife, Rona, mingled with survivors, students, teachers, and representatives from the National Holocaust Centre in Washington, D.C., and historians from the Bergen Belsen Museum in Germany. They listened to testimonies from soldiers—including Frances Curry, who won a Congressional Medal of Honor for saving the lives of seven soldiers—and from train survivors. He mixed with teachers and students. He talked, laughed, cried, and celebrated life in an atmosphere of joy mixed with sadness.
As speaker after speaker made their presentations, the kids hung on to every word. Soon, it was Frank Towers’s turn to speak—the same Lieutenant Towers Paul had said good-bye to in Hillersleben all those years ago.
As Frank walked onto the stage, the audience fell into respectful silence. At 93, he was still an impressive figure. Standing over six feet tall, his face radiated warmth and sharp intelligence.
“For weeks,” he said, “we had heard stories of German atrocities against Jews and dismissed the stories as propaganda.” He fixed the audience with a knowing gaze. “Then we found the train and we believed.”
Carrol Walsh spoke next. Carrol, who was 88, had a youthful smile and a twinkle in his eyes. But when he started talking, his expression turned serious.
“When George and I first saw the train we couldn’t believe our eyes. And the smell! We opened the boxcar doors and the stink almost knocked us over.” He paused and looked out at his audience. “The survivors have thanked us for rescuing them, but they shouldn’t. They don’t owe us a thing. We owe them. For what we allowed to happen to them.”
Both men received standing ovations from the audience. It was now Paul’s turn to tell his story. His knees shook as he walked from his seat onto the stage. When he reached the podium, he took a deep breath to steady himself. He began:
Hello and my heartfelt greetings to all of you. I feel honored to have been invited to this symposium. As you heard from Mr. Rozell, I am a survivor of the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp and of the death train, which was liberated by Carrol Walsh, George Gross, and Frank Towers’s 30th division of the U.S. 9th Army. I came to this symposium to meet my liberators and to thank them for giving me a second chance at life. I’m going to be brief, but I do want to tell you how I got to Bergen Belsen.
I was born a long, long time ago in a place far, far away—in Karcag, a small town in Hungary, somewhere between Budapest and the Ukrainian border. When I say that I came from a place far, far away, I mean that I hope that the Karcag of 1938 stays far, far away. By God, I hope it remains something that none of you nor my children or grandchildren ever have to know. The Karcag of 1938 was a segregated place, with a Catholic boys’ school and girls’ school; a Protestant boys’ school and girls’ school, and a small Jewish school with two teachers, one of them my father. In the Hungary of 1938 my father was only allowed to teach Jewish children, just as Jewish doctors could only attend to Jewish patients.
As you might know, newly born Jewish boys are circumcised at eight days. My father told me that I was circumcised on the day when, throughout Germany, windows and doors of Jewish homes and businesses were smashed, synagogues were burned, people were beaten and many killed. We remember that day as Kristalnacht. During the next seven years, most of the Jews of Europe were murdered. You have studied what happened during the Holocaust and have heard stories from my fellow survivors about Bergen Belsen. So let me fast forward.
As you are witnessing here, some of us survived those years in spite of it all. Like my fellow survivors, along with my mother and brother, I was liberated by these brave, wonderful, and fantastic soldiers. While I was too young to remember their faces, I never forgot the men. This symposium is a tribute to these brave and wonderful soldiers and to the many others that fought and died in battles. And on a personal note, while the men of the 30th Division were storming the beach at Normandy, Sam Rimler, my future father-in-law, was spotting shellfire on a barge 500 meters from shore.
Matt Rozell told me that there might be as many as 800 students, teachers, and visitors here this week and it might be overwhelming. In spite of his warning, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world right now. I think I am speaking for all my fellow survivors when I say that in one form or another, we relive every day some of those horrors of 65 years ago. How could anybody forget having seen his mother’s suffering? No six-year-old should ever have to witness his beautiful 37-year-old mother—who gave him life, sustained him, and looked after him—suffer in those terrible circumstances, her health deteriorating to the point where she had to be carried off of the boxcar at the time of liberation.
So why would I still want to be here and publicly relive the horrors of the Holocaust? It sounds insane! The answer is: you, my audience. You are the third generation since WWII and you are caring and have the courage to share those horrors with us. And for that, I salute you! And so, we owe you to be here and share it with you.
In closing, I want to salute the America which produced the soldiers of WWII and of all the wars before and since, and which is still producing decent young people today. It reinforces my gratefulness and love for America.
May God Bless America and my thanks to you all.
The audience jumped to its feet. Paul looked out at a sea of young people. They were cheering, clapping, and crying.
I have reached them, he thought. I have touched their hearts and their minds.
He stepped down from the stage and went into the audience to greet his newfound friends.
On Friday night, the survivors, soldiers, teachers, and students who had worked on the program gathered in a restaurant overlooking Lake George for a closing dinner. Matt had learned that afternoon that Diane Sawyer of ABC News was featuring the Symposium for her weekly “Person of the Week” segment. Over a hundred people crowded the restaurant’s lounge, where a large screen television was tuned to ABC. The mood was buoyant as they watched reports of the week’s happenings. Then, as the special segment began, everyone became respectfully quiet.
This story takes place in the closing days of World War II, as American and British forces pushed into Germany from the west and the Soviet Red Army closed in from the east...
When the piece ended, the room erupted in cheers. Everyone rooted like kids at a football game. Paul and Oscar had been two of the children rescued from that train. As the group stood and moved into the dining room, Paul thought of the strange set of coincidences that had brought him here—a teacher’s desire to make history relevant to his students; a newspaper article that his son, Daniel, had
stumbled upon on the internet.
And tonight, the journey that began in heartache and terror 65 years earlier was concluding with peace, hope, and love.
Courtesy of Paul and Rona Arato
The Auslander family at home in Karcag after the war in 1947. From left: Oscar, Lenke, Ignaz, and Paul.
Lenke Auslander died on November 25th, 1951. A year later, due to strong pressure from the Soviet-controlled communist government in Hungary, Ignaz decided to change the family name from the German Auslander to a Hungarian one. They chose Arato.
Courtesy of Paul and Rona Arato
Ignaz and Lenke Auslander as a young married couple.
From the A History of the Karcagi Jews, LAHAV Press, Tel Aviv 1977, courtesy of Avram Hershko
Paul Arato (fourth from the left) at the Zsido Ovoda (Jewish Nursery School) in Karcag in 1942.
Courtesy of Paul and Rona Arato
The Karcagi Synagogue as photographed in 1981. During their time in Karcag, the family went here regularly for services.
Courtesy of Paul and Rona Arato
This is the water spigot in Karcag near the Auslander’s original home.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Charles Rennie
One of the barracks at Bergen Belsen. Paul, Oscar, and Lenke lived in a building like this while at the camp.
Bergen-Belsen Memorial, BO 1145
This personnel sheet listed prisoners that arrived at the Strasshof Concentration Camp on July 12, 1944. You can see Oscar, Paul, and Lenke’s names on it.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Lev Sviridov
