My Canary Yellow Star (18 page)

The policeman left the room and we settled on the floor, trying to find some comfort by leaning against the walls.

“Charming place,” Mama said.

“Well, at least our problem of finding somewhere to sleep tonight has been solved,” said my aunt.

I nestled against Mama, my head resting on her shoulder. Softly, she hummed a lullaby. I must have dozed off, for the opening of the cell door startled me. The young policeman who had driven us to the Mirabel stood in the doorway, towering over us. He held a rifle in one hand and a package wrapped in a newspaper in the other. We shrank against the wall to get as far away from him as possible. The officer leaned his rifle against the wall and quietly closed the door. Although he was a large and heavy man, he crouched down to face us.

I said the first thing that came into my mind: “Did you come to kill us?”

“Don’t be daft, girl,” said the officer. “I won’t hurt you.”

He opened the package he was carrying and unwrapped three thick slices of dark bread and three red apples, which he handed to us.

“Quiet, now,” he warned us. “I don’t know which of my colleagues sympathize with the Arrow Cross.”

“What are they planning to do with us?” Mama asked between ravenous munches. “Where are they taking us?”

The policeman hesitated before answering. “I’m not sure,” he finally said. “All I know is that every morning, new Jewish prisoners are brought to the hotel. The next morning, they are taken to the trains and then …”

His voice trailed off, but he didn’t have to continue. All of us knew what the trains meant.

Just then, the door of the cell opened and the Arrow Cross who had arrested us came in with a revolver in his hand. The food in my mouth turned to sawdust and I shoved the remaining bread up my sleeve.

“What are you doing here?” the Arrow Cross asked the policeman.

“I thought I heard some noise coming from this cell, so I came to investigate,” the policeman said. “I was wrong. These Jews were sleeping when I got here. What can I do for you, sir?”

The officer dismissed his offer with a wave of his hand. “We need help in the kitchen,” he said. “Are you bitches good cooks?”

“Please, sir, my daughter is an excellent cook, much better than either of us,” Mama said.

“That’s true,” Aunt Miriam added. “She is the best.”

The officer looked me over. “I don’t believe you,” he
said. “The girl is way too young and scrawny. Handcuff the other two!” he ordered the policeman.

Within minutes, Mama and Aunt Miriam were being marched out of our cell at gunpoint. Mama’s voice rang in my ears as the cell door shut behind them. “Give Marta a chance! Please give her a chance! She is a much better cook than I am.”

At dawn, I was loaded into the back of an army truck full of Jewish men and women. We were headed for the trains at the Jozsefvarosi railway station. There was nowhere to sit, but the pressure of the swaying bodies surrounding me kept me upright. The trip took more than an hour because two tires of the truck blew. The young Jewish laborer who was our driver took an unusually long time changing them, despite the Arrow Cross guards’ violent threats.

“The boys from the Resistance must have punctured the tires,” whispered a woman standing next to me.

“With some luck, we might miss the train,” came her companion’s heartfelt reply.

We did. The train was pulling out of the station when we arrived. To the accompaniment of our guards’ foul curses, our truck turned around and headed back to the Mirabel Hotel.

The next morning, we were less fortunate. Our keepers herded us into a truck at an even earlier hour, and this time
the trains were waiting when we got there. The engine was hissing and spewing smoke like a dragon come to life. Hundreds of people with yellow stars were waiting in front of the train. The Arrow Cross handed our group over to armed SS guards who divided us into four groups and lined us up in front of four adjacent boxcars.

“Adolf Eichmann is here,” someone said. The news traveled through the crowd as rapidly as a brush fire devours dried grass. All of us had heard of the notorious head of the Gestapo’s Jewish office in Hungary. It was well known that Eichmann had made the deportation of the Hungarian Jews his own personal project.

The Arrow Cross guards slid open the steel doors of the cattle cars. As the train whistle blew, the engine belched more smoke and a man at the front of our group was ordered to climb into the boxcar.

“Stop! Halt! Stop! Halt!” The speaker spoke Hungarian with an accent. All of us looked in the direction of the voice. A long, low-slung black car was just pulling into the station behind the train. A man whose features were obscured by a black fedora was hanging out the window. The instant the car stopped, he climbed out, closely followed by a companion. Both of them walked rapidly toward us.

“I am Raoul Wallenberg of the Swedish embassy,” he called. “Some of these people are Swedish citizens! You have no authority over them! Release them immediately!”

I could see the indecision come over our guards’ faces. “We’re just following orders,” the leader of the group blustered. “You must speak to Obersturmbannführer Eichmann,” he added defensively, pointing in the direction of the only passenger car on the train.

Wallenberg and his companion marched away. For a moment, thin, ordinary, sharp-nosed Adolf Eichmann was visible as he leaned out of his car. Wallenberg climbed into the train and his companion waited on the platform. Everyone – even our guards – waited in suspense. A few minutes later, the Swede reappeared and jumped to the ground. Eichmann was right behind him, once again poking his head out of the train.

“Laß seine Juden gehen! Alle fünfzig!” he thundered crossly in German. A murmur ran through the crowd. Our guards looked stunned.

“What did he say?” I asked a woman standing next to me.

“He said, ‘Let his Jews go,’” she translated. “All fifty of them,’” she added more soberly. At least four hundred Jewish prisoners were waiting on the platform.

Wallenberg strode down the cement path beside the groups of Jewish prisoners. One of the armed SS officers was hot on his heels, counting the number of prisoners being selected by the Swede. Wallenberg pointed to different people as he passed them. “Release him. Release her. Let the child go. I remember issuing her a Schutz-Pass. They’re mine! Let them go!” he kept repeating. I noticed
that all of the prisoners he chose were either young people or mothers with children.

Finally, Wallenberg stopped in front of our group. When he glanced at me, I saw recognition in his eyes. He pointed his finger at me. “Let her go! She is one of mine. I recognize her face.”

“Fünfzig! That’s fifty prisoners!” said the SS guard. He spoke Hungarian more fluently than the Swede.

Wallenberg nodded his head. His gaze swept over the long column of patiently waiting prisoners who were not chosen. His face was full of sorrow.

The guards grudgingly loaded Wallenberg’s “Swedish subjects” back into the army truck that had brought us. As we left the station, the departing train whistle sounded a forlorn farewell.

The Swede’s car followed our truck to make sure that we would be let go. We were released when we arrived at the Mirabel. The policeman who had been kind to us was standing guard in front of the hotel.

“Could you please take me to my mother and my aunt? They’re working in the kitchen,” I asked him.

“They were taken away. I don’t know where they are,” he said. He looked at me kindly. “You’d better get out of here while you can.”

I broke into a run. I had to reach Judit and her mother. I was certain they would put me up. They might even know where I could find Mama and Aunt Miriam.

T
he caretaker was nowhere in sight when I slunk through the iron gates leading to our yellow-star house. I climbed to the third floor and rang Judit’s doorbell. There was no answer. I went down the hall to our old apartment and knocked on the door. It felt strange trying to gain admittance to Aunt Miriam’s home. No answer there either, so I banged on the door with all my might. It opened suddenly, and the man with the country accent stood in the doorway.

“What do you want?” he asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor.

“I’m looking for our friends the Grofs, from down the hall. Would you happen to know where they are?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. A few days after you left, I was returning from the shops when a man came to see them. I
overheard their conversation – not that I was snooping,” he said defensively.

“Of course not.”

“1 didn’t catch the name of their visitor, but the fellow spoke in Hungarian with a strange accent. He must have been some kind of a foreigner. He was young and slightly built. I heard him tell your friends that he would move them into a house at 2 St. Stephen Park, that they would be safe there.”

“Thank you for the information. You’ve been helpful.”

The man’s expression softened. “You’d better go before my wife gets back.” He blushed deeply. “I’m sorry we took your apartment, but if we hadn’t moved in, somebody else would be here instead of us. The sensible thing was to take it, wasn’t it?” he asked. When I didn’t reply, he closed the door in my face.

It had begun to rain by the time I reached St. Stephen Park. A blue-and-yellow flag fluttered from the roof of an apartment house on the other side of the park. It must be the flag of Sweden, I said to myself. I broke into a quick trot, mindless of the beating, icy rain. I had to circle the park. If I was caught crossing it, I would be deported.

I ran, dodging the ruts and potholes in the bomb scarred road. Suddenly, I stepped into a large hole, tearing my stocking and scraping my knee. Two more houses to go to
safety! I increased my pace. Then, out of nowhere, two Arrow Cross with pointed rifles barred my path. A small black army truck with its motor running held two more Arrow Cross.

“Stop, Jewish filth! Where do you think you’re going in such a hurry?” the older of the two men asked.

“I live in that house, sir,” I said, pointing to the house with the flag. “I was going home.”

“We’ll take you to a better place,” his comrade said.

The two men looked at each other and burst out laughing. They dragged me into the truck, and the colorful flag quickly became a postage stamp against the glowering sky.

We soon arrived at the racetrack. When Ervin and I once came here with Papa, there had been splendid silks and prancing horses and glamorous spectators. Now there were hundreds of young women and girls with six-pointed stars on their clothing. They were milling about on the gigantic field, with guards in Arrow Cross uniforms and SS soldiers with drawn rifles surrounding them. I looked around to see if there was anyone I knew.

“Marta! Marta! Is it you?” A familiar voice. Judit flung her arms around my neck.

“Why are we here? I was told you had moved to St. Stephen Park. To a safe house. I was trying to get to your place when I was arrested,”

“I was in St. Stephen Park,” Judit replied. “And thank God, as far as I know, Mother is still there. Mr. Wallenberg came to our old block right after you were forced to leave. He issued us Schutz-Passes and then he moved us to a Swedish house in St. Stephen Park. He told us there are other Swedish houses in the Jewish district, and Swiss houses too. Both the Swedish and the Swiss embassies have secretly bought up a lot of buildings and declared them to be a part of Sweden or Switzerland. Jewish people in these houses are under their protection. Neither the Hungarians nor the Germans can touch them.”

“Then how come you’re here?”

“Because I’m stupid, that’s why.”

“Seriously. What happened?”

“I’m ashamed to tell you. You won’t believe it, it’s so foolish.”

“Tell me.”

She sighed. “You must have noticed that the road in St. Stephen Park is full of potholes.”

I pointed to my torn stocking. “I noticed too late and now my leg aches.”

“Yesterday morning, the horse of an Arrow Cross officer stepped into a deep hole in the road and broke his leg, right in front of our house,” Judit said. “I saw it happen through my window. The poor horse was neighing and whining. It was in a lot of pain. When the Arrow Cross rider saw how his horse was suffering, he shot it in the
head. As soon as the shot rang out, people rushed to carve some meat off the horse. There was such a crowd that I decided not to waste any time by getting my Schutz-Pass. I was afraid the horse would get stripped of all of its meat before I got to it. I grabbed a bowl and a large knife in the kitchen and ran out to the street,” she explained. “Before I could even get close to the horse, however, its owner demanded to see my papers. He refused to listen to my explanations and flagged down a German truck. The Nazis brought me here.”

“Have you heard why we are here?”

“The rumor is that the Germans are collecting younger Jewish women to dig ditches. The ditches are supposed to stop the Soviet tanks from reaching Budapest.”

“Not if they count on us to dig them. Look at us!”

Judit began to laugh. Both of us were as thin as scarecrows.

“Oh, I hope the Soviets will get here soon!” she said fervently.