7. LOVE OF ADVENTURE

How do you pack everything you own into a knapsack and then leave your home, your city, your country? My parents Martin and Edith faced this dilemma when the defeat of the 1956 revolution against the Russians in Hungary put them again in danger. Martin had been active in organizing the revolutionary committee at his place of work, so when others in the same situation started to get arrested, he decided to escape abroad with wife and child. His brother and sisters in New York had sent telegrams in code encouraging him to come to them: “leave Edith behind, she can join you later”. Of course he wasn’t going to leave her, despite her handicap in walking, nor little Marianna. The window of opportunity to cross the border illegally while the mines had not yet been replaced was short and had to be taken up immediately.

The revolution had not made much of an impact on me. Just after my 10th birthday party, school was closed for a couple of weeks, which was most appreciated, with the hope that “the teacher won’t assign us a report on what happened when we go back”. When the fighting was over, Martin took me on a walk along the once-beautiful boulevards of Pest. I didn’t see the Russian tanks, just the results of their work: the tall beautiful buildings with their facades blown out, so the remains of the apartments inside were now visible to passers-by. Like a series of stage sets, with different colors of wall-paper and tiling on the walls and a couch or a chair hanging in the emptiness. Luckily, nothing had happened in our neighborhood, though we had been ready to pass a few days in the coal cellar, cleaned out for this purpose. And now we were to leave everything to start a new life in America, though I was sworn to secrecy during the preparations.

The woman who helped with the laundry had family near the Austrian border and agreed to set things up in exchange for “inheriting” use of the rented apartment and its contents. We could only take along what could be carried without arousing suspicion, not even a suitcase but just a big knapsack for Martin and a tiny one for me, with as many layers of clothing as possible worn by all three of us. He procured a certificate, justifying the train trip to a town near the Austrian border as an expedition to buy food for his fellow workers, and we were off, with Edith leaning heavily on his arm. Once arrived in the village where our guide was to meet us, we received bad news – the full moon was not conducive to a safe crossing, we would have to put up in a peasant’s hut for the night. I wasn’t used to sleeping on two chairs in a bedroom with a beaten earth floor, or using an outdoor toilet, but saw it all as part of the adventure.

Then the night of the crossing arrived: Dec. 30, 1956 with snow on the ground but a clear sky without a moon. First a silent sleigh ride after dark to near the border line, then a walk across a ploughed field, with invisible ruts to trip one up disguised by the layers of snow. The guide led us at a fast clip, Edith being mainly dragged along as well as she could be. After a few hours, though, the guide wanted to turn back, saying he had to go to work in the morning so as not to arouse suspicion. But as the actual border was not yet in view, a couple of gold rings convinced him to continue for a while, until dawn actually started breaking. The watchtowers were now visible, with sporadic shots of gunfire lighting the way. “I must go now” said our leader, ”just continue straight, down into a ditch and up the other side, where you’ll be in Austria”. We weren’t sure he hadn’t cheated us, as had happened to many others at that time, until we finally climbed out of the ditch and saw a town in the distance. What a relief when we saw the sign in German – we had made it!

Since many Hungarian refugees were taking the same roads in that period, camps had been set up for them on the Austrian side: “Lagers”. But that was the same name that had been used by the Nazis, and as Jews we couldn’t trust enough to be locked up in one. We had the address of a woman in Vienna who might be able to help, so we hid while the van transporting other escapees to the refugee camp took off. Then Martin bought a ticket for the regular bus to the capital, using up most of our money; he had purchased US dollars on the black market at home, but all our savings had been turned into just $5. The well-dressed Austrians stared at the little band of three, with our many layers of clothing mussed up by having walked all night through the snow.

By now it was New Year’s Eve and only revelers could be seen on the streets of Vienna in the freezing cold – where would we find refuge? At the house of our acquaintance, she couldn’t take us in, as the apartment wasn’t hers, though it glowed invitingly with warmth as we spoke quickly in the doorway. She suggested that we go to Salzburg, where an international Jewish organization could probably help us. “No trains until morning, of course” and we were back on the street. Luckily, during our wanderings the police stopped us, taking us to the police station for the rest of the night.

The police dormitories looked warm, too, but with apologies our little family was politely put into a jail cell: “Sorry, we have no food to offer you and must also lock you in”. But after the previous long night, just the chance to stretch out was enough to bring on sleep and the next morning things looked better. It being New Year’s Day, all the stores and restaurants were closed, but we found a typical Viennese café where at least a hot drink could be bought. I was kindly offered a chocolate, wrapped in shiny aluminum foil that I kept for a while, as a souvenir of my “adventure”. By now it was time to go to the train station and with the last of our money buy tickets to Salzburg.

There we finally got the right sort of help: coupons for clothing and a tiny room in a pension for our one-month stay, while we waited for a visa to be arranged by the relatives in New York. We were lucky that someone was willing to vouch for us, otherwise the wait would have been much longer, or maybe we would have ended up in Australia, as happened to Edith’s brother and sister when they also left Hungary a few months later. Martin saw that we were receiving privileged treatment, when he had to go to the local “Lager” for handling the bureaucratic matters involved. The non-Jewish refugees were staying in enormous common halls, on cots divided only by the occasional blanket hung up to provide a minimum of privacy, and lined up in enormous cafeterias for food that didn’t smell or taste very good. For once, being Jewish brought an advantage to Martin and Edith, and they gladly took it.

On the morning that our trip to the US was finally to start, we left our pension before dawn, to join the others waiting at the camp for the bus to the train station. Nobody was supposed to know what a nice stay we had had in Salzburg (just like tourists, even if poor ones), so as not to cause reasons for prejudice. From that moment on we were back in the normal ranks: third class train seats for the long trip to Bremen and a troop transport ship left over from the Second World War for our Atlantic crossing. Packed 400 at a time into gigantic dorms in the hold, sleeping in hammocks hung with chains in three levels one above the other, everyone suffered from sea-sickness except Edith. Her handicap made her impervious to the movement of the ship on the winter seas – that was her normal condition after the stroke, so now she had more balance that anyone else and could even help out. I, like everyone else, couldn’t keep any food down, until a friendly lady offered me a heel of Hungarian salami that she had put aside from home, which then became my favorite food for all of my life.

At least the refugee camp in New Jersey on our arrival wasn’t called a “Lager”, so we felt safer during our two-week stay there, while the formalities were being concluded and Martin’s brother and sisters visited us with their families. Our new life in New York was about to begin, heralded by many “firsts”: television shows in the common room in the camp, black people as nurses during the detailed medical exams we had to go through to be accepted, strange food like pineapples and bananas to be tasted. Martin was already worrying about how to find a job and Edith about what kind of apartment we could afford, but I was still enjoying my “adventure” and looked forward to finally unpacking my knapsack and giving my few things a permanent home.

What had I been holding on to all this time? A couple of lace tablecloths made by my grandmother before the war, given to me to carry as they were light and didn’t take up too much space. Not toys or other things more appropriate to my age, but I was glad to have the responsibility of these “precious” heirlooms, which today still take pride of place in my home in Italy, a reminder of all that was lost and left behind, but still really missed. Like the silver candlesticks from Edith’s first marriage, that had to travel almost around the world to return to their owner. Edith’s sister Magda took them along when she traveled from Hungary to Australia, since her family was not escaping but leaving legally. After their retirement in the 1970’s, Martin and Edith visited these long-lost relatives and after a slight argument managed to take the candlesticks back to the US. I inherited them as well, so now they complete the set of memories I have of my parents, with their initials E SCH of my mother’s maiden name, recovered even though they hadn’t fit in the knapsack when we were packing the bag in 1956.