Holocaust Remembrance Program, Part One
Apr. 22nd, 2023 02:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenOn Tuesday, I viewed and heard the Federal Inter-Agency Holocaust Remembrance Program. We heard a few words from such worthies as Attorney General Merrill Garland, and, later in the presentation, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, but I was primarily interested in hearing the stories of two survivors, both Hungarian Jews, Manny Mandel and Peter Gorog.
Manny Mandel was seven years old in 1944, when Hungary was occupied by Nazi Germany; before that, Hungary was a German ally. In earlier times, there had been a good life for the Hungarian Jewish community, despite some discrimination against them, such as a quota for university admissions, the numerus clausus. He remembered, though, that his parents had taken him to visit relatives in Novi Sad, which was outside Hungary, and German-occupied. Two policemen showed up, conducting a census; there could be frequent censuses to keep close track of everyone. Manny, then five and a half years old, walked and was carried for two or three hours, along with his parents.
The town didn’t have an ocean beach, but made do with a beach resort on the Danube. People were being admitted through gates in a wall to go there. Some official told Manny’s parents, “The requirements of the census have been met,” and they could go back to the house where they were staying. This was fortunate, because the census was in fact a pogrom; holes had been chopped in the ice on the Danube, and people were being shot and dumped in the river. After that close call, the Mandels hastened back to Hungary, back to Budapest.
On March 17, 1944, Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary, to slaughter Hungary’s Jews. Representatives of an International Rescue Committee showed up, managed to see Eichmann, and offered him ten thousand trucks in exchange for one million Jews. They didn’t have the trucks, but a smaller deal was reached: in exchange for gold and silver, 1700 Jews would be allowed to take a train to a neutral port. Everyone high up in Germany, excepting Hitler himself, knew that the war was lost, and Nazi bigshots were looking for valuables for themselves, to use for bribes, paying for new IDs, passage to Argentina, or whatever.
Manny’s family was among the 1700. They were on a train nine days, while there air raids, and then they ended in Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany. They were there for some weeks, and then 350 of them were sent to Switzerland, which is where Manny was on May 8, 1945, when the war in Europe ended.
To be continued.
Manny Mandel was seven years old in 1944, when Hungary was occupied by Nazi Germany; before that, Hungary was a German ally. In earlier times, there had been a good life for the Hungarian Jewish community, despite some discrimination against them, such as a quota for university admissions, the numerus clausus. He remembered, though, that his parents had taken him to visit relatives in Novi Sad, which was outside Hungary, and German-occupied. Two policemen showed up, conducting a census; there could be frequent censuses to keep close track of everyone. Manny, then five and a half years old, walked and was carried for two or three hours, along with his parents.
The town didn’t have an ocean beach, but made do with a beach resort on the Danube. People were being admitted through gates in a wall to go there. Some official told Manny’s parents, “The requirements of the census have been met,” and they could go back to the house where they were staying. This was fortunate, because the census was in fact a pogrom; holes had been chopped in the ice on the Danube, and people were being shot and dumped in the river. After that close call, the Mandels hastened back to Hungary, back to Budapest.
On March 17, 1944, Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary, to slaughter Hungary’s Jews. Representatives of an International Rescue Committee showed up, managed to see Eichmann, and offered him ten thousand trucks in exchange for one million Jews. They didn’t have the trucks, but a smaller deal was reached: in exchange for gold and silver, 1700 Jews would be allowed to take a train to a neutral port. Everyone high up in Germany, excepting Hitler himself, knew that the war was lost, and Nazi bigshots were looking for valuables for themselves, to use for bribes, paying for new IDs, passage to Argentina, or whatever.
Manny’s family was among the 1700. They were on a train nine days, while there air raids, and then they ended in Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in Germany. They were there for some weeks, and then 350 of them were sent to Switzerland, which is where Manny was on May 8, 1945, when the war in Europe ended.
To be continued.
