5. LOVE OF EXCITEMENT

Martin had promised to marry Edith and he did as soon as it was possible, but other, implicit promises were not so easily fulfilled. After a quick divorce from her first husband Herman who had “reappeared from the dead” in a Nazi labor camp to find Edith living with his (and her) brother-in-law, things were finally looking up. My parents Photo11 were settled down with the fruit of their love, the newborn Marianna (me) in Martin’s little house in Nyiregyhaza, to start life again after the war with optimism.

Since most Jewish businessmen had not returned from the death camps, many stores were available for sale at low prices and Martin picked out a good one for himself: FARAGO’S on the main street, with its complete stock of men’s and women’s clothing. Before this, he had been traveling during the week to the various markets around the countryside with his offerings, but now life would be easier…The store was ready for reopening, except for its fancy signs, incised in glass and very expensive to replace. Always a sharpie, he came to a quick conclusion: “Easier to change my last name, Willinger, with its Jewish connotations that certainly didn’t bring me much luck in the past!” Thus it was done and I at one and a half years of age also underwent the first of my various identity changes. Photo12

Edith biked each day to the store to help Martin with the customers, leaving me in the care of two country-women who came to take care of me and the house. Help was easy to find in those days, but maybe not as qualified as would have been wished. One of the women put a big pot of boiling water on the floor near the stove, to cool down, and I just sat down in it, of course. Then they held me under a running faucet for a half-hour, which probably did not contribute to a quick recovery. What a fuss, all for a small scar that would mark me for years in a hidden place, maybe a sign of my new identity?

It was 1948 and there I am in the photo Photo13, standing in the sun with my newly arrived cousin Vivian from America. It must be quite hot, as we are dressed in pinafores, mine being scanty enough to display too much baby-fat. Though I can't read yet, I'm already wearing glasses, using them to learn about the world around me. In the background, my nurse Ilonka is watching over us, maybe to make sure that I don't fall off the ledge I seem so strangely to be perched on.

In his usual bedtime stories, my father Martin had always told me about his adventures during the war and how we were the only survivors of our entire family. Then these strangers from America showed up and I learn that there are several family members remaining there, those who were smart enough to leave Hungary a long time ago. Some have now come back to visit us to see how we are getting along. Maybe they feel guilty that they did nothing to help all those others to escape in time? Or are they sure that they and the other safe ones had done everything they could to save parents, brothers and sisters?

My father's only remaining brother Dezso, with his wife Lilly and their daughter Vivian, are staying with us for a brief period before returning home, satisfied to see that at least something has survived and life here is beginning again. Lucky Vivian who lived through the war in America, with her dark looks she would never have made it through its horrors - false id papers wouldn't have been accepted during the round-ups for her! Soon we'll say good-bye, not knowing that in less than 10 years we'll meet again in far-away New York, after a second chance to escape is finally taken, on their encouragement. Then we'll stay with them for a while and with their help start all over again in the new world. Family is still family, after all, a most precious commodity.

Since things after the war seemed to be too peaceful, Martin Photo9 became involved in politics. The Russians had freed Hungary from the German Nazis, but in the first couple of years after the war they hadn’t yet taken over completely. New local parties were formed and Martin, who had always been interested in social justice, became active in the Socialists, to help run the town. Organizing things was exciting and he had always been good at it – now this gift was being recognized.

But the excitement was not only for this; he had also met an interesting woman through these activities and gave in to temptation again. Though faithful to his first wife Johan for the fifteen years of their marriage, until she and daughter Vera disappeared in Auschwitz, and after escaping death himself by the skin of his teeth, he could no longer resist whatever life offered. Who knows how Edith found out, but she did and at first put up with the affair. “Maybe he would get over it and come back to me and Marianna?” Photo14

Soon the situation got much worse. Martin’s new lover was discovered to be the wife of an escaped Hungarian Nazi who was hiding abroad. The Party decided to expel her and Martin resigned as well, in her defense. Not only that, but in a fit of temper he gave the ownership of his store and his house to the State, to show that his resignation was not motivated by disagreement with political ideals, but by the unfair treatment of a woman who couldn’t be held responsible for her husband’s actions. Nationalization of privately held property was not yet mandatory, as it would become soon anyway, but he had to go ahead and do it in advance!

Loosing her home and her work, Edith had no choice but to leave Martin, taking me to Budapest to be near her family there. The separation became official and a small apartment was found in the capital for mother and daughter, with an accounting job to pay the rent. Martin visited periodically on the weekends, for walks with me in the surrounding hills, but returned always to Nyiregyhaza, where he had found a place managing a clothing factory.

On one visit, as a three-year old I recited for my parents a poem just learned in kindergarten. In my white blouse, pleated skirt and red beret, I seriously intoned the words while my parents listened, enraptured. “It would be such a shame not to see her grow up with both of us - what if we tried to get back together again, for her sake?” And so they stayed together until their late 80’s, when they were buried in adjoining graves in New York City.