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RG-50.549.05.0008

I will remember it. No. The interesting thing is it was, what we learned, like praying, prayer, it was from my mother. My mother, she was forcing us, like every Friday night we had to pray and always even if we were crying that it’s too much, too much. It was hard. Every week, one more page. And actually we learned to pray from my mother, not in school. We learned about religion from that rabbi. We didn’t learn... we learned how to write, but that wasn’t Hebrew, that was like Yiddish. But the alphabet was the same and it was a time that they had there a paper, newspaper, a Jewish paper. And I could read it without punctuation. I have no idea about nothing, that’s why I never could go up to the Torah and read the Torah, because I have no idea. I have to learn, if I would want to read something, I would break my neck to learn it. You know? Because that’s without punctuation, the Torah. But otherwise I read fluently, but I don’t know what I’m reading.

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What language did you speak at home?

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We spoke, first of all when they met, it was... my mother didn’t speak Russian, he didn’t speak Hungarian. Both of them spoke German, so it was German. The starting was German, until my father learned Hungarian. And it was German for a long, long time, because we had two hours of gymnasium, every day two hours German. And the Czechs hated the Hungarians. My mother never learned Czech. She just spoke German and Hungarian, because my grandmother spoke German. When she was a little girl, she came from Slovakia where the part, where German lived and she spoke German. Not the Jewish, German. And when we went on the street and we were walking and we saw a professor coming from the school, because those are professors in gymnasium. It was like, what should I tell you? It was eight gymnasium, so it’s equal like four years college. Because after eight, elementary school and then it was a... plipravka (ph), between gymnasium and a year where we were preparing to go to gymnasium. It was a year. So, and we saw some professor coming, so we right away started to pull my mother’s skirt. German, speaking German, that they shouldn’t know that we speak Hungarian. Because they... we spoke so well Czech, that they didn’t believe that we are not Czechs. But then when they found out that we are not Czechs, but they didn’t know that we speak Hungarian. [Laughing. ] So, we had to speak German on the streets.

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This must have gotten very confusing, just trying to...

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No, it wasn’t, when you are a child... and then when we were preparing to come to America. We were preparing after we heard what’s happening. My parents are telling us that we are in trouble. And my uncle managed to come to America, so we started to learn English, private.

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When was this? What year?

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It was in 1940. We were preparing. And it was a teacher, who learned in England. He studied in England. He wasn’t a young man. And he was so proud of us, me and my sister, that we are so good, that when we went... small town, bigger than here, but it was still... 1t was the capital of Carpathan. It was a promenade. They builded it up beautifully, the Czechs, that time, near the water. We had a bridge dividing the city, so it was a very nice city. And it was a promenade, banks, sitting people, and he started to speak loud to us, English, that was, you know, his commercial. We had had English, Anna Karenina and everything already. We were very good. So Czech school. Czech I spoke perfect, German I spoke that time perfect, Hungarian and English.

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Were you citizens of any...?

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Czech.

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You became Czech citizens.

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We were Czech citizens. After five years we were, or even earlier, we were Czech citizens. But when the Hungarians came in, we were no citizens, because the Czechs run away. They went to Czechoslovakia. But we couldn’t go because we weren’t born there. And naturalized citizens couldn’t go with them and we were stuck there. And that’s how my parents were killed. The very first, because of that. But the other Russians, probably whoever ts alive, oh, they are not alive anymore, because they were like my father’s age. But they were 46 years old when they killed them. They was the same age, my father and my mother. And my sister was 19. And my sister could escape, but he says, “No way, I go where my mother goes.” And I had that guilt feeling that I wanted to commit suicide because of that, too. Because we were so close. And he said, “I go where my mother.” And we had no idea, where she went or what happened or where she going. It was terrible, terrible. And that aunt, my mother’s youngest sister, who was very well-to-do when she got married, she was... they were very wealthy people. And she had one son. And he’s on the picture that I think. His name was George. My George is named after him, because then he became the child of the family who... the two brothers, my uncle, my mother’s sister’s husband, he was alive and his brother was alive. Because they were in a labor camp in Hungary. And when George was born, then George got his name then, he had a little boy... End of Tape 1, Side B Tape 2, Side A

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This is tape number two, side A of an interview with Emilie Szekely. I don’t think I actually asked for your mother’s full name?

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Maiden name?

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Uh huh.

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Marvina Eichler.

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How do you spell her last name?

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EICHLER, that was her name, maiden name.

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And her family was from the Budapest area? Or what was their history?

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The whole family, my grandmother’s children, they were born all there, but my grandmother was actually from a place, Zam Plain (ph), it’s called, from Slovakia. I told you that there were Germans there. My Grandmother, but all the childrens were born there. And all my grandmother’s sisters, who were living there too when she was a child, all their children were all born in Budapest. Everybody was, you know, the cousins and everybody was born in Budapest. And there were plenty of them. All of them, the least, had three children, my grandmother’s sisters, and more. And she had, herself, she had five sisters and a brother, but they were all born in Hungary, in Budapest, as far as I know, in Budapest. I don’t know no one who was born outside of Budapest. Except for my husband. He was... they were farmers, big farmers, in... I can’t even describe you where is it, outside, not in Budapest, of course. It was close to Eger, Eger is a big city. But they lived on a farm when he was a young boy and they were very wealthy people. And the first, I don’t know what year was it, when the Romanians came in and they took away the farm. Second time the Russians took away the farm and the Germans, they took away. Three times, everything was taken away and then their lives were taken away from them, too.

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When you... when your mother, after your mother and father got married and you were living in Uzhorod (ph).

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Uzhorod (ph).

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Uzhorod. Uzhgorod is another name for it, right?

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Uzhgorod is Ungbar in Hungarian and the Czech. And that was Uzhorod. U Z and then accent over the Z and then horod. Uzhorod 1s, it was in the Carpathian Mountains. It was in a very nice place and a very beautiful city. And to me, every city what is divided with a river, the city itself, it’s a beautiful city. [Phone rings.] And that was divided.

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Did your mother work, continue to work after she got married?

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No, she never worked. She was just a hausfrau, house mother, but we were struggling. My father was... they were struggling until they... something happened with them. My mother, I remember she made our clothes, everything, she sewed alone by hand. We didn’t have even a machine, a sewing machine. But she tried the best and she tried to brought us up that we were really, everybody who spoke about us... and there are only two people in Brooklyn, who knew my parents from my childhood, only two people, two friends I have, who knew them and how they are talking about them. It’s terrible. One lived in Prague, she got married and then they came to America and her husband was a dermatologist and then he got Alzheimer’s disease. Anyway. So, she, we became, we are still friends, but now telephone friends. We are talking. And she has two very successful children, unbelievable. He’s a dentist. Middle of New York, he has an office. But they came after the Czech revolution that was in the sixties. They came with everything, with furniture, with Steinway piano. They brought everything with them. Oriental carpets. Not as we came, because they didn’t let us take nothing with us when we came. But only two people. And it’s so sad that only two people knew my parents. You know? It’s unbelievable. Of course... no, my cousin, he doesn’t... in Canada, he doesn’t remember. My cousin in Budapest, she remembers my parents. She was younger than my sister. She’s younger than my sister was, but she is remembering my parents. But otherwise, no one remembers my parents. It’s very sad. And I don’t know about my grandchildren. I wrote down everything. They have it on tape and still they are very mixed up when I speak about an aunt, you see, we have somebody by the name of Ilou (ph), what was a sister-in-law of my aunt, but they have the same name. Because that was a second marriage to my uncle’s brother. And the name was the same Ilou and Ilia (ph). But the other one, the older one, she is not mixing it up. She knows the difference, who was Ilika (ph) to us and who is Ilou, she knows. Ilou she knows, she was here too. She’s alive. That was my uncle’s sister-in-law by second marriage, because the first wife died with the four year old little boy. And he always wanted children, so he married a younger woman than him and she couldn’t have never children. But she has a big family in Israel. She has a brother and she has a sister-in-law in Montreal, because her brother died when they came to Canada. When we came here, they went to Canada. And he was a paper (ph) engineer. He wasn’t used to Canadian winter, slippery. And he made a car accident and he got a stroke from it. And he didn’t die, but he got a second stroke and he died. And he was a young man. He was 42, something like that and he left his wife and his young eight years old son in Canada. And the wife had a German nana. She was a real German, wonderful, wonderful person, from her childhood. Because she had very, very wealthy parents, and she had a sister, she died, too. And her parents died, but that woman, she stayed with her all through her life. And she was bringing up her son, too. And then she died in Canada. She never went back. She was from Vienna. Very nice person. I remember her so well. I met her many times when we went to Canada. First they lived in Montreal and they moved to Toronto when the French started that you had to speak French. He’s an engineer, too, my cousin.

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Can you say something more... let’s talk more about your childhood. Did you have any non- Jewish friends who you played with?

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I had Czech friends, non-Jewish Czech friends, yes. They were very good friends. They had, they were entirely different... their thinking was different from ours. First of all they were very loose, the Czech girls, it was unbelievable. There were many, many, even in my class, there were three twins. Can you imagine? There were many twins, girls. And, but they were good friends. And then we had Hungarian friends, Jewish girls friends. We had. We had quite a lot. And we got together, before I went out with the boy. We got together always, every week at somebody’s house. During the week it was strictly studying. And we went to movies and as I said... then we belonged to a Jewish organization, Kadima (ph), that’s actually, they have it in Israel now, too, Kadima.

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Is that a Zionist organization?

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It is a Zionist organization, yes, and it was a youth organization. And in the summer we made excursions, but only for one day, in the mountains together. It was a very nice life in Czechoslovakia. The Czech people are wonderful people and that was the real democracy. What I lived under, Masaryk and Benes (ph), that was a real democracy. And I am laughing when I am talking here about democracy. I says, “Do those people know what’s democracy?” You know, there are castes here and everywhere. And even in the hospital... I worked 27 years in Brooklyn Jewish Hospital. And there were very few people who were really, as you say, mensch people. Like it was a old doctor, he was the head of the Pediatrics. He was the only one who went there in the morning and he shook hands with the elevator guy and something like that. You know? It was... it was entirely different. They speak here about democracy, but they don’t know what it is. I remember that once before, my husband... my father had many jobs before they had, they bought a... I don’t know what year was it. They bought together a drugstore. But drugstore, it means, because they didn’t have their diploma or certificate. And I have my own diploma, Russian diploma. So when he came to America, he worked in New York in a pharmacy, in a German pharmacy, and he was the head of the Herbs department. They sell many, many. But he couldn’t do a prescription. And that was the situation with my father, too, when they went to Czechoslovakia. So they bought a drugstore, but they had everything but prescription drugs. But they didn’t have luncheonettes like here. It was no such a thing. But the trouble was, then they separated and a pharmacist died. And it was a beautiful new pharmacy. And his wife wanted my father to work for her. Okay. He took over and he was substituting outside. He knew pharmacists and when they were for vacation, he was substituting in the pharmacy. He knows, he did everything. And then when he took over that pharmacy and my uncle had the drugstore. And it was a big place and a small place, because everybody knew everybody. So if somebody went to my uncle, they were... they felt bad that they don’t go to my father. That kind of a situation, you know? It was very bad. So on the end, he had to leave that pharmacy and he went back with my uncle, together, because, you know, there were lot of Russian people. They were non-Jews, lots. And they knew all each other. And one, oh, especially one, who let me go to the office. He had a very big position and he let me go to the office and learn the Russian typewriter. That’s how I knew how to type Russian. But it came very, very good after the war, when I worked for the dictionaries. I was the only one who typed Russian in Hungary. So they were all friends, non-Jews and Jews, the Russians. Of course, they were all educated people. I’m not saying that the others were because probably they were anti- Semitic, like, you know. Like it always was anti-Semitism in Russia. But they were very good friends. I never forget it, that one Christmas night, she said, ““You must come to our church.” It’s very interesting, the Russian Orthodox church.” There, it was interesting. No, I don’t want to hear about it, what happened with her. And it’s different, I see it on the television. That it is entirely different in Moscow what it was there. It was a church where you didn’t have seats, you know? You were all standing and he was like the leader there or whatever. And everybody who came in got three kisses, you know. Three times you kiss. Very friendly, very, very friendly. They were very, very nice people. And then I remember it was a photographer, Kantor (ph) was his name. And I don’t know how he survived, because he was Jewish. And he survived, I don’t know how. They sent him back with the non-Jews. And then my friends from Brooklyn, who knew them too, and they were in California and they met him. He was alive for a long time and he met their sons. So that kind of, you know, friends we had there, in Uzhorod.

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How did that, how did that begin to change after the Hungarian takeover of Uzhorod in 1938?

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It was terrible. 1938. It was terrible because... I don’t know whether I say somewhere that my cousin came and wanted to adopt us? Okay. My cousin, who was in Siberia for many years. He lived in Budapest, and one day he came to Uzhorod and he knew about the situation, that they were worried what is going to happen, because they were thrown out from Hungary. He came and he said, “I am going to adopt the children.”” Under eighteen he could have done it. “And just the name will change. They can’t stay with you. Just God forbid something happens that the children should be safe.”” And I remember the day that they called us and they called us in the bedroom, my father and my mother and him. And they explained it to us and we started to cry. We thought that we are going to be taken away from them. And we couldn’t understand it. Why? Why? Why? Though I was 18 years old in 1938. But I just, we just... to take another name, and... they didn’t explain it to us, that what can happen. You know? Though we knew the story. We knew the story, but we didn’t think about it, that my father was never led back to Hungary. Only my mother and us, every summer. He never was let back to Hungary to go back. And suddenly he’s traveling to Hungary, because Hungary is, we are Hungary. And so after big, big discussions, we decided that we won’t do it. We children didn’t want to do it. And that costed my sister’s life. But my sister could be saved, and he didn’t want because... originally when they went to that cousin, she wanted to take my sister away, right away when she saw what’s going to happen, what’s happening. I didn’t know. I wasn’t there in ‘41. And my sister didn’t want to go. She could have been saved. And then she came, and she came... it was actually my grandmother’s side. Somebody I don’t know how they were cousins. I don’t know. Up to today I don’t know. But she wanted, she told me that she wanted to take her, but she is dead, too. She went to the camps, too. So probably my sister, if she would take my sister, she wouldn’t be alive anyway. But she says “No. Whatever is going to happen, it’s going to happen.” But nobody knew, nobody believed it that some thing is going to happen. So, that’s it.

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You were in Uzhorod in 1938 and then it became...

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In 1941...

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Did you stay there until 1941?

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My parents, yeah, I went in 1941, the first time, alone, in May to... no. In 1940, Christmastime, I went with my sister, alone, Christmas vacation to my grandmother. And one day, the boy with whom I went out and his friend, they came by car in Hungarian uniforms to see us. And I just, I couldn’t believe it. It was very far away. And he was begging me that I should go home. He felt something. I didn’t. I didn’t know nothing that time, because I didn’t know my husband. But he says, ““Come home and come home, and go home.” I says, “Okay, we are going to go home.” But we had a good time. They took us, I don’t know where we went. Don’t remember. They stayed there two days they had to go back because they were in the army. And we went back...

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To Uzhorod?

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In 1940 to Uzhorod. We went back home. And in 1941, in 1941, yes, in January, about in January, I had trouble with my rheumatic fever, because I had rheumatic fever when I was young, very bad. I almost died from it. Six months I was in bed, high fever. That’s why I have heart trouble. And I went back and my mother said that “Your sister is still in school. Go alone. You are now 21 years old, 1941. You can travel alone,” because it was about a day by train from Uzhgorod to Budapest. “And take the cure.” I had a doctor there, who every year prescribed me a cure, what I had to take in a bath. And he said that was a precaution. It shouldn’t be trouble. ‘And take your cure.” Three weeks it took. “And by the time you finished, we come after you. Your sister will be finished.” And that was in May and I went. And I went, and I met my husband, who we met Christmas together when we were with my sister. We went. We saw him once. He was introduced to us once. His aunt and my aunt were very good friends. But he didn’t live in Budapest. He didn’t live in Budapest.

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Where did he live?

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My husband? Outside in Eger. It’s a smaller town. His sister lived there. And he came to his aunt. And I went there with my aunt. They played cards together. And suddenly somebody’s opened the gates, I never... and it was him. He had a cousin, who was older than him. And I was expecting that he is going to open the door, but my husband, he opened the door. And I just looked at him. Who is he? I never heard from him. And they introduced us to him, so my sister knew him, only my sister. And he was talking to me. And he was a very good looking guy. And he was seven years older than I was. And he, the next few days we supposed to go back home to Budapest, to Uzhorod. And his aunt, in the morning comes to my grandma’s house, I was in bed still. And he says, “Emilie,” my nickname was Millie. The whole family knows me, Millie. My name is Emilie, officially. And I didn’t know that Millie is in America a name and I just continue being Emilie like in school, when I went to school. But my friends and my family, everybody called me Millie. He says, “Millie.” She had a big voice, she says, “Frank fell in love with you and he wants to marry you.” I say, “Oh please, don’t say me this nonsense, somebody sees somebody and right away they want to marry?” I was not a bad looking girl, that’s true, I must tell you. [Laughing.] But still it was very funny to me. And he said, “I know that you are going, you are going out with somebody, but how is it? Is it serious?” I says, “I don’t know. We never spoke about marriage.” We spoke about marriage, but he always told me that he cannot get married until he is not on his own. He is in his father’s business and until then, he cannot get married. He spoke a few languages. He spoke already then very well English. We never spoke about marriage, never. I says, “We never spoke about marriage. I don’t know how I stand and whatever. We are friends, we are very good friends.” So he says, “No, he’s serious.” I says, “Okay.” Next day we went back to Uzhorod. And I didn’t hear from him. Only my aunt, that was my middle sister of my mother and she was a widow at that time.

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What was her name?

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Serena. And she said, “I met Frank” —Ferenz (ph), actually, Feri— “I met him and he’s constantly asking me when are you coming back, when are you coming back?” So, one day I wrote to her, to my aunt, that I’m coming back to the bath. Next day he was there, because that time he already lived in Budapest. He had a business in Budapest.

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What did he do?

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He was actually, he will finish business college. He had a business, here they don’t have those businesses, because that time was everything, the transportation with horse and carriage. And he was in business, I am always saying we are eating his horse food, because, oat, oat. That’s in Hungary horse food. So, he had a business with oat. But through the... it was a big business because he was connected to... I’m sorry, to... Wall Street, what is it? Wall Street business.

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Wall Street?

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It wasn’t Wall Street there, but every business, big businesses were... so it was a big business, and he made a lot of money. And he lived there. But I knew about him. They told me, he did tell me that time, that he just left his girlfriend, whom he went out for four years, because... his mother was against it because the girlfriend wasn’t Jewish. And his sister already was married to a Catholic. So she said, “It’s enough, one person.” She was converted, she was married in a Christian church with popes, papers that she can get married. Her daughter was born already as Christian. And he loved his parents and he loved his mother and after four years he left the girl. The girl wanted to commit suicide. It was a country girl. They had a restaurant there. Because when he was living there with the same business in smaller... it was small town and he had his little farm alone and horse and everything. And he lived alone there. And then he wanted to get rid of her because of his mother and he came to Budapest. And once he came, she came after him, but I never met her. But he was telling me that she came after him because she was so in love with him. So anyway, so that was the story that he fell in love with me. You know? She left... so, then I found out the story I says, “Oh, how do I trust him, if that’s the story?” Because he left one, then he wants to marry me. Well, anyway. So we went out and it was already, I finished my cure and it was already war. My uncle was already in America with the last ship and in ‘41 it was already bad. And we went out for a dinner and he brought his friend with him, who was in the same business. And we went to a restaurant and people are looking in the papers for the news. It was no television, radios were, but no televisions. And he took a paper and he’s looking in a paper and I am asking him something and he didn’t hear me. And this way I did with my hand and I turned to his friend. That he saw, that I waved and he took me home that night and I didn’t see him for three weeks. He thought that I did it, that I don’t care about him. He was so sensitive, but I didn’t know that. For three weeks I didn’t see him. The third week, I said, “I’m going home.” I said to his aunt, because we were very close, even we lived very close. And I said it to his cousin that I’m going home. And he says, “Why, what happened?” I says, “I don’t know what happened. I didn’t hear from him and that’s it.” He went home to his mother, then his mother was telling me... I met his mother, very nice lady, she was very nice. I met his parents. I went to Eger. He took me once. And she was telling me that he came home next morning and he was crying. He was seven years older than me, that she finally found somebody whom he loves, and she doesn’t want me. He was... you know, it was a misunderstanding, the whole thing, but I didn’t know that he is such a sensitive guy, that he thinks... so it was a misunderstanding. But he find out that Iam going home. Next day, it came a big rose, you know, flowers, and “Please don’t go.” End of Tape 2, Side A Tape 2, Side B

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...the marriage certificate and then I don’t know. I can’t remember what happened. Probably... I don’t know. Because I remember what my father wrote, that he’s giving his crown of his life to him and he should take care of her, that kind of a style, you know. And we agreed that my engagement will be third of July in my grandmother’s house. Because we don’t have my uncle anymore there and that those relatives were not so close relatives that we should make an engagement. Our family was always, my family, my mother’s family was always the family. It was arranged everything, it was a Sunday and the whole family was together, the sisters and everything. I remember a beautiful table was made and my parents, my sister should come up to the engagement and they never came. That story you know. That they were called to the police and I got a telegram from our friends that they called them to the police and they never let them out and “You disappear. Go in hiding.”

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Who told you to go in hiding?

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My friends who lived near us in Uzhorod, they were our friends and they lived near us. And they saw when they, they knew that they went to the police and they never came out. And they said, “Probably they are looking for you,” because they knew everything, everything who was not a citizen. Because we weren’t Hungarian citizens. The papers were at the police. That was the police. And they knew that you were four people and they got only three people, so you better go to hiding. So, I couldn’t get married, because he was already in labor camp, too, from 1941 on. But that time he was home still. With the... he was in the Hungarian uniform, he was so gorgeous. He was an officer. And he... we couldn’t get married, because in Hungary we couldn’t get married. Only when we were 24 years old without the father’s consent, at that time. Can you imagine? Today you can get married if you are ten years old, I think. So, he went, short, right after, they stripped him of his uniform and he went to labor camp. And I stayed there with my grandmother and every night, I slept somewhere else. Some other relatives and by his friends, because everything happened during the night, that they were looking for people.

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Before we go on, you said something in the other tape I wanted to see if you could tell us more detail about, which was that your father came, was released from jail to come and see you. Can you describe that?

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Yes, yes. So, we didn’t know what happened to them or where they are. And my, the youngest sister of my mother, IIllie, ona, they found out that they brought up a lot of, a transport from Uzhorod to Budapest and they put them like in a jail. But they were there for two weeks, and they went to visit them. They talked to them and they went to visit them. And my mother told them that I shouldn’t come there, because I look like her and it has no sense that I should be there, because they are going to get out from there. And one day they let out my father with a policeman for money to my cousin’s house, who was in Siberia. He lived very close to that place and he wasn’t home already, just his wife. And nobody was in the apartment and the police brought my father there and he left, the police. And he says, “I come back...” this and that time. I don’t know, it was an hour and a half. And I met my father. And first we just couldn’t talk, we were just crying and crying and we didn’t know what to say to each other. And he was just constantly questioning me. “Are you sure that that’s whom you want to marry?” Because he knew about that I went out with that boy for four years. And he said, “Are you sure, are you sure?” And worried about me. I says, “I am not sure of nothing, but I hope it will be all right.” And he said, I said, “Look, my aunt knows his aunt and they know the family, so I hope it will be all right.” And he called up from Uzhorod, he called Uzhorod and he called up the senators. They were all Russians. There were many Russians, they were non-Jews in Uzhorod. And he knew everybody. And they told him, “Don’t worry, tomorrow you’ll be out.” And we parted and he says, “I hope we see each other tomorrow.” And tomorrow came and my aunt and even my husband, he wasn’t my husband at that time, my aunt and her husband, they all went to the train station, because they said the people are going to go home by train to Uzhorod. Everybody went back, who was non-Jew. The Jews went in separate cars to Kamana Spodovski (ph), where they killed them. And my husband, he had a very, very soft heart, like him. And he couldn’t even, he couldn’t see the scene. Though they went with regular cars, not like with cattle cars, but with police and whatever, soldiers, Hungarian soldiers. He run away. He couldn’t see it. He just saw them from a distance. And I think my sister recognized him. I don’t know. That was that. And then a few weeks, about two weeks later, I got a card from my sister, in my sister’s handwriting, that ““We are in Kamana Spodovski (ph). We don’t know what are we going to do here. We don’t know if we are going to have where to stay, but we are here.” And it was a Hungarian stamp on it, so it means that a Hungarian soldier brought it back. And what I know from the museum, that’s why I went this Spring to the museum, I told you that. To find out the truth. Because she went first, my daughter-in-law, and asked about it, and met there somebody in the library, who was very nice. And she, he showed her the book and he took out a few pages from the book and he made copies for me. And he sent it to me. He even spoke to me over the phone when my sister, when my daughter-in-law was there. And he said, it wasn’t that time that they killed them. I always thought that they killed them when they left in July. When I was there, I looked at the book, but I couldn’t buy it. It’s such a big book. It was not only about them, because, he said, they said, and it’s here and it’s terrible, that 38 thousand people were killed in one day, because they didn’t know what to do with them. Because they took them to Poland and the Polish people were already in ghettos that time. So they couldn’t help them. Nobody could help them. And the Germans didn’t know what to do with them, so they let them made their own grave, naked, like us in Auschwitz. They took the clothes away, they put them on one line and on the orders. They made a big, big grave and they had to make the grave. And from the other side, the German soldiers were shooting them in the graves and right away, the tanks were running over them. So I wanted that book, but it was no sense, because it was from... I have the pages what I needed. And I see the pictures how they sit there on the end of the, the forest. And the people... and I saw the... I told you about that 12 series what was on television, The Winds of War? You never heard about The Winds of War? Mitchum played in it. It started only four series. It was a beautiful movie. It was a French-Jewish writer, who was in France and his niece was with him. You don’t know that story? It’s Winds of War, is the name. It’s in the public library. After that they made a 12 series, 12 two hours, 12 times, the whole summer and I saw all of it. It was a Hungarian, originally he was Hungarian, an actor. And his father was amongst those people who were taken and that was his idea to make that movie. You see original pictures what the Germans took. Because it starts out like a colored movie and suddenly it’s black and white pictures. And you see the trains what we went in and I couldn’t look. I said, “I see myself somewhere there.” But when I saw, I saw the whole thing, how they killed them. And then I really couldn’t look, because I said, “My God, I am going to recognize either my sister or somebody I’m going recognize.” I couldn’t look at it. Everything is in it, from the beginning to the end, with Auschwitz, everything. Twelve series and it is in the public library, everybody can borrow it.

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Going back to that time, to 1941. What did you, did you have any idea of what they were doing?

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Absolutely no idea. No idea what they were doing, what is going to happen. We heard from Slovakia, what was near us, Slovakia, they are taking young girls somewhere, only young girls. And where they are taking them and what they are doing with them, we didn’t know. And they were taking them to Auschwitz, because I recognized one of them. Four years later, I recognized one of them. They were taking them there. They were building Auschwitz actually. And many of them they made their lovers, the Germans, because they were all pretty girls they took. And then I knew, that they took them to Auschwitz. And when it was starting to happen, already it started near the, where Elie Wiesel is from... near Romania it started. They started to take people. And they were always saying “It cannot happen in Budapest, it cannot happen.” And when I said that it can happen, they always said “You are a pessimist.” It cannot happen in Budapest, that was the story.

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So at the time, you are a young girl, you’re 21 years old. Did you have any sense of the danger?

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I wanted to commit suicide, I wanted to commit suicide, first of all, because I didn’t know whether he will stay with me, my fiancé. He was away. I didn’t know what I am waiting for. I knew my parents are somewhere. I don’t know where. It cannot be... I even went, it’s unbelievable, I even went to a fortune teller. And I let him, show my palm and tell me about my parents. And they said that “They are very far away, don’t wait for them.” That’s what she was telling me. “They are in big danger.” I just couldn’t understand it. But I had a feeling, that it’s something terrible happening, but I never had any idea. No, never. And when we were going to Auschwitz, I didn’t know where we are going, but I said, “Ah, maybe we go somewhere, where I can see or meet my parents.” IfI don’t, I didn’t know where we are going. Nobody knew where we are going. It was just unbelievable. So when I wanted to commit suicide, my aunt saved me, my mother’s younger sister, Illie, Iona. And she had a 13-year-old boy. And three years, I was, it was terrible. Every night I slept somewhere else. And the third year, that before the Nazis came, she says, “You are not going nowhere. Up to now they did look for you, you are our child, and you stay with us.” And I stayed with them. I was like their child, they said. They had a doctor who was, you know, house doctor, and he treated me like they child, and I was with them.

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So, you went into hiding in 1941. Who was helping you?

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Until 1944. Nobody was helping you, that was all family. I went to my grandmothers, sisters, daughters, cousins. And my husband had friends, they knew about it. And I slept every night somewhere else. During the day I stayed with my grandmother. And when I stayed with my grandmother, and I stayed there overnight, we were always in the basement, because they were bombing us. Terrible bombing, the Americans. They were going after the Germans, so they were bombing us. In the morning we got up and we didn’t see nothing. It’s very interesting that in that neighborhood it was nothing bombed, but my grandmother’s sister’s house. Only one house was completely bombed and that’s... and everybody is gone from that family. Only there is the girl, who is in Hungary. That was that grandmother, that was that... her grandmother. Only that house was bombed, to the ground, nothing else. And she was the only one survivor from the whole family. And she was holding onto me, me, me, me. She wasn’t married. And she survived, because her parents, when they saw what’s happening, they put her in a factory, like GE. They made electric, but they worked for the army, and people who worked for the army, they didn’t take them to the camps. They kept them in the factory until they finished the work. In six months they were finished, then they throw them out to the streets. So then she standing there, nobody, no parents and nobody, so what is she going to do? So she met her aunt’s maid. She was a very nice person and she knew somebody, a lady, whose husband was in... she was not Jewish and her husband was Jewish and he was in labor camp. He died, he never came back. And that lady lived in a separate home. She had a house and she took in a few Jewish people who didn’t have where to go, who came out from the factory. And it was a doctor amongst them. And my niece, my cousin was amongst them, whom she took in. And she was hiding them. And then the neighbors went and told on her, that she is buying too much food and she’s alone, that it’s something going on there. And that was found, that she pulled away the beds and all of them who were there, about eight people, they made a big, big hole in the ground and they slept every night, under the bed, in the ground. And that’s how they were saved.

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Do you remember her name?

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No, I never knew her. I never even knew her, no.

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What was your, what was your daily life like, during that time? Those years that you were in hiding.

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Hiding? It was terrible, because I was... where we were hiding... no, the Germans weren’t in there, only in 1944... it was terrible. It was frightening, because I never knew that somebody can grab me. And I was afraid to go during the day through the streets, and it was a terrible life, terrible. And I was very, very depressed. And they worked on me very hard, really, that I shouldn’t commit suicide, because it was terrible. Then he didn’t write to me, I don’t know for how long. My fiancé. So I didn’t know what was going to happen. His parents were alive still and they lived in Eger, because they took away already the farm. So they lived with the daughter. She had a very big house. A part of the house belonged to my husband, because that was an inherited house. She inherited it. She went, can you imagine that she went to a convent to school, because that was the best school there. And she was the only Jewish girl. At that time she was Jewish. And when she was 18 years old and she came out, she met that guy. She had a lot of Jewish doctors, who wanted to marry her. She met that guy, who was a gorgeous guy and he had three kinds of doctorate, and he had a big, big job with the states. And he fell in love with her. And they were the biggest anti-Semites. His father... I told you that? His father left a will, though his granddaughter was born already Christian, that his granddaughter cannot come to his funeral. That kind of a man she married. And she was going to the Catholic Church and everything. And they lived together there. The parents had a separate part of the house and they lived together. But when everything was happening, he didn’t save the parents. He saved his wife and the daughter, but he didn’t save the parents, because he, himself, was an anti-Semite. I know. I know, because he made once a remark, that I couldn’t believe it. They had my stuff, because I left it by Christian friends. A lot of personal things. And when my husband was transferred to Budapest, I told him where the stuff is and he took it away and sent it to the sister. So whatever is saved, first they saved it, our friends, but then my sister-in-law saved it. So she had everything what was my dowry, my jewelry and everything. So, he didn’t want it, you know, it was his. He didn’t want to give it back to me. And they said they don’t have it. And one day they weren’t home and I go to the closet and I pulled out everything what was mine. That was the story. So it was terrible, terrible, really terrible. And I know that he made anti- Semitic remarks in front of me. And I know that he was an anti-Semite.

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What did he say?

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No, he made remarks about my aunt, who was the loveliest, the best, best person in the world, my aunt. And he said, “That Jewish woman,” this way, about my aunt. I don’t know what he said. Said this and that. This way to me, he is saying it about my aunt. And I always had a feeling, because he was mad that my husband married me and not a Christian. He was, you know? Until he met me, it took him I don’t know how long, when I was once there for a week...he took me a week. He took a chance, because he met my train and at that time already they were looking for, not passports, but identifications. And he took a chance and he took me to meet his parents. And him I met, I don’t know. He lived in the same house. And it was a Sunday when we went there and they came home from church, both of them. And he just, he came to the window I remember. And he says, “Hello,” through the window, you know? I know that he was mad that he wants to marry me.

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When you were in hiding, what did... how did you occupy your time? Did you read books? What did you do?

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I don’t remember. I went to my aunt many times, who had the 13-year-old boy, during the day. Because they lived in an other borough. New Pest, and it was Rakospolota (ph), that was an other borough, they were, you know? And I walked. I remember I walked. I was afraid to go by the street cars that they ask for identification or something. And I walked. I walked a lot. And I walked to her house and I tried to spend with my cousin... he was a lovely, lovely boy. And I really don’t know what I did the whole day. I know when I was away my grandmother was very, very upset because she loved me and they were bombing during the day. And once I wasn’t there during the bombing and I had to run to a pharmacy to... that was our friends. The woman was my friend and the husband was a gynecologist. And I ran to the pharmacy and I got to their basement. When it was over I went home and my grandmother was out of her mind. She was so upset. She wanted always hold my hands, always. And she almost died in my hands, because she lost her mind in the wagon, that’s for sure. Because to say something like that, that “Would you please comb my hair?” She didn’t know what’s happening. And I didn’t know what’s happening, but I was very glad that she doesn’t know what’s happening. Such a smart woman what she was. She didn’t even wear glasses and was reading the paper every day. She knew about everything was going on in the world.

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Were you following what was going on with the war at that time?

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Whatever they printed in Hungarian papers, but nothing else. And we knew. We didn’t have correspondence with America. It stopped, so I couldn’t even write to my uncle. Nothing. I didn’t know nothing about him. How is he doing? What is he...” We knew in the beginning. We got a few letters from America. And he said, “I’m trying to get your affidavit, that you should be able to come.” And I even have those letters. And we knew that he find a job in that pharmacy, the German pharmacy. And they lived in the Bronx. I know that. And his address was always in my head, that I know, too. All the time. I wrote it in the dirt in Auschwitz, his address, that I shouldn’t forget it. In case, sometimes I can write to him. Because it was, it was an unbelievable thing in Auschwitz, that you knew that you cannot get out from here, never. And still something was dictating to you, don’t forget that address. It was such a mixture, you know? You knew that you are in a prison. That you cannot get out from here. And never, we never see the end, never saw the end of it, that we can get out from there. And that woman, that Romanian woman, maybe she was a Gypsy, I don’t know. She was dark complexion, who was reading there, too. They were reading palms. And I says, “Okay, read my palms.” One, it was before that, it was a private person when I went to. But that one, I went and says, “Do it.” And she said, “You are going to get out from here, and when you are going to get out from here, you will go for a very long trip overseas. Your husband is alive, but he is in a hospital now. He’s sick.” And it was everything true what she was telling me. And she said, it was just unbelievable. And she said, “You will have three children.” And it was everything true. And you shouldn’t believe those things. And it was everything true, because I asked him, “Were you in the hospital?” And he says, “Yes, with terrible tonsillitis.” In, near... no, it was already Hungary at that time, 1n Romania, it was Hungary and there he was near Bucharest. They took it over, too. And he was in the hospital from the labor camp, because he had very high fever and they put him in the hospital. So it was true.

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You described earlier on how you had been dating this other young man and then you just met your husband and that it was very quick. And that you realized you were in love with the other young man. Did you at some point realize that you were in love with this man that you were engaged to? And when did that happen?

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No. I didn’t... I, well I saw him, I liked him, because he was very good looking and very lovable. But I was... until he threw it out, I was keeping the other guy’s picture always in my pocketbook. That was an interesting thing. Then when I found out that he is gone, then... but still I had it. And once he found it and he was very jealous. And I says, “Don’t be jealous, he’s not alive anymore.” But I don’t know. You see, when I came back and I met him, and I knew that he knew that I am alive. Because they knew I am alive. I told them, that they send to everywhere names from Bergen-Belsen. Eisenhower, the United States. So, he knew that I am alive. I didn’t know he was alive. And it was a very, to me it was like a very strange thing, that I have a husband, you know? I have to now get to know him. I was two weeks with him. He got two weeks furlough and he had to go back when we got married in 1944. February, when I was 24 years old. We got married and after two weeks... everybody said to him, “You are absolutely out of your mind to get married in those times.” But he didn’t want to tell the whole story, that I need another name. So he came from Romania and we got married, but the day when I was 24 years old, and... End of Tape 2, Side B Tape 3, Side A

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This is tape number three, side A of an interview with Emilie Szekely. So, let’s backtrack a little bit, you, you needed to get, you wanted to get... was your main motivation to get married because you needed another name?

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....a different name.

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So it wasn’t necessarily that you were in love with your husband at that point?

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I didn’t know him. He was in labor camp and I was with my grandmother. I absolutely didn’t know him. I went with him about three weeks, when we got engaged and then they took him away. And he was madly in love with me. And I then I said, God, who knows whether he will stay with me? He will go through that. I don’t know what’s going to happen with me. He had his parents still then. For three more years he had his parents, because they were killed in 1944. I says what are his parents going to say to it and that kind of a business, you know? I didn’t know.

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Did you have any kind of false papers at all before you got married?

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False papers? No. I got the papers late. I have it here, Christian birth certificate. Because when he came to the ghetto, I think somewhere it’s there that a day before, when we were in the ghetto, and one day he comes to the ghetto and I almost fainted. I says, “What are you doing here?” He said, “We were just transferred to Budapest. The company was transferred to Budapest and I am not with them because I am driving a horse and carriage. I am in a private house with the horse and you come right away with me and my sister is going to send you a Christian birth certificate and until then you are going to stay with me there. You stay where I stay with the horse. And during the day, I don’t know.” And I said, “Where is it?” He says, “Not far away from here,” he said. I said, “Well if it’s not far away from here, why can’t you come tomorrow, that I should put something together, some clothes?” And he just didn’t want to leave, and he says, “Okay,” he said, “but I must tell you something. If somebody wants to get... put you in a train, don’t let you do it.” They saw it, when they came already, what’s happening in the country. I didn’t know what he meant. When I learned what he meant, we were pushed by the Nazis with the machine guns, so how can you not let yourself, you know? So he didn’t know either how is it, how they do it. But he said, “Don’t,” anyway. So he left.

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Well, let’s get to that story a little later, and go chronologically and stay back at the time and tell me about the time, how it happened that you and Ferenz got married.

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When we got married?

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Uh huh.

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He came home for two weeks...

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You were telling it off the tape, but tell 1t on the tape.

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Oh, oh, oh. So he came home, he got two weeks furlough and everybody was telling him that he was crazy to get married in those times. But he didn’t want to tell the whole story to everybody, that I need another name to survive. We thought that I need another name to survive. And we found a Justice of Peace, who, when I was 24 years old, that day, we got married, because before then I couldn’t get married. Only when you are 24 years old without father’s consent. And they changed my father’s birth certificate to Romania, instead of Russia. And so he was covered. And he married us. And my aunt, we had two witnesses, one was a distant relative and I don’t even know who was the other witness. I have to read it from the certificate. I don’t know. And we got married. And my aunt made a big dinner for the family. And they send us to the city, to a very nice hotel. And we went to the hotel and I was just very, very afraid because they constantly were checking on people and asking for their identifications. And especially at night when we went down to eat. And I says, “I cannot swallow, I can’t. I’m so afraid here,” so, but we stayed there overnight. And next day we left and it wasn’t too far away from my cousin where I met my father. That hotel wasn’t too far away. And I remember that we went to that cousin, to his wife. He didn’t know my husband. And they didn’t come even to the wedding because it was in Budapest, that was in outskirts and they were already very bad times, so it was no traveling. So I introduced him. I spend there about, we spent a day there. And then we went back to my grandmother’s house and we stayed there for two weeks, until he stayed there. And then he left. And I stayed with my grandmother, later, not with my grandmother, but with my aunt, because she had the much bigger house. So, we stayed with my aunt, not with my grandmother when we stayed. It was with my aunt. And I stayed with my aunt, too.

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With your aunt Ilona?

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Ilona, with her. The other one, the other aunt, she was a widow and I don’t know. We didn’t even go on one train with her. Somehow she went with his aunt, with my husband’s aunt, together on a train. She wasn’t with us. Only Ilona, my grandmother, my uncle’s sister, my uncle’s sister’s husband, they 13-year-old, two 13-year-old boys, then the four years old boy and my uncle’s brother’s wife with the four-years-old boy. We were together in one train. That part of the family, but the rest of the family, they were in another wagon, not in that, you know? My grandmother’s sisters, because they were all there, but not in the same wagon. We were 80 people in one. So.

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But before that you started living, you described how you were moving from house to house and then you started living with your aunt full time?

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With my aunt.

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Can you say something about that?

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Full time, the third year, my aunt said, “It’s enough. It seems they are not looking for you. It was enough, you are our child. You will stay with us.” And I stayed with them. Once I was very, very sick, my pulse went up to 160. And they called their doctor. And the treatment was so different that time. I remember that I was in bed and they rented from a medical supply store a big, big bottle what was full with ice-cold water and it had tubes in it. And that tube was put on my chest, on my heart and the water was circulating in it. That was the treatment. And that was... I thought it was a heart attack, because it didn’t want to go out. For three weeks it didn’t go down, the pulse. And then I had another thing in 1942, that was terrible too. I had the appendix taken out and I couldn’t have it done under my name. I didn’t go to the hospital. And I went with my mother’s, with my mother’s oldest sister, whose son was in Siberia. And I went under her name to the hospital. It was a private hospital. And the doctor was a private doctor, who, he was a gynecologist. Because I was constantly complaining about pain and pain and pain and pain and he just couldn’t find out what is it. And one day my husband was there visiting. It wasn’t my husband at that time. And I just was like in two, I had such a pain. And his office was in my, my grandmother, where my grandmother lived, in that house was his office. And I went to him and I said, “I tell you the diagnosis. I tell you what I have.” He says, “What, what are you talking about?” I said, “That must be appendix.” And he says, “God, you are right.” And he took me to a private hospital to Budapest and they started to operate on me. And it was under my aunt’s name. I was Halas (ph). That’s his grandson is Halas, who is in Canada. And I went under that name. And the operation was so long, they didn’t know what happened there, that the doctors are running for more anesthesia. And my aunt is standing there and didn’t know what happened. My appendix was completely, completely curled up with my colons and it was a very, very long operation. And my heart, it was weak. They took me home by ambulance after. But next morning, six o’clock in the morning, the doctor is there. And he lived, that was in Budapest, in the city, the hospital. And we lived in New Pest, so it was a big distant. I says, “I am so sick that you are here?” He says, “No, no, don’t worry. I just wanted to know how you feel.” Then I found out what was happening and they had to take me home by ambulance. And it was in ‘42. And in ‘44 I have an unusual big cut and that’s how I went to Mengele. So I thought that that will matter when he sees that. But you know what was interesting? That I had a friend, she was a woman, who had a mastectomy and she survived. And Mengele saw it and she survived. So they were very odd things. And she came to Canada and she died in Canada. It was a terrible thing. Her son is an engineer. He and my cousin, in Hungary, they went together to the... they started the engineering college together. Her son and my cousin, who is in Canada, that lady’s son. And they lived in Montreal. And my cousin lived in Montreal at the beginning. He went to McGill (ph) to finish his degree. And we went to visit her, the lady, and she was alive for a few years. And once her son had to go to Paris, to France for business. I don’t know what kind of engineer is he, because mine is a chemical engineer. I don’t know what kind of engineer he... and while he was away, she got the pneumonia and she died. They had to call him home. She lived together with the son and with daughter-in-law. She married a Hungarian girl. He wasn’t Jewish. She was Jewish, the woman. Her husband wasn’t Jewish, so the son wasn’t Jewish. So she married a Hungarian, non-Jewish girl, who was already in Canada at that ttme. And she spoke perfect French and she worked for the telephone company. Very nice person. We went there three times to visit her. And for longest time, they couldn’t... he retired. They couldn’t sell their house. And two years ago they wrote me a letter, “Finally we sold the house and we moved to Kingston.” It’s Canada, but it’s very close to the border. And it’s a beautiful place. And they live there. They have two children. And he said, “My son married a French woman with a daughter.” The son. A French woman, who has a daughter. And the girl, she was a, they wanted a child very badly and finally she became pregnant and she was a premature baby. And she was very small, so they didn’t know that she survive. She survived and she went to college and then she became the hostess on the Canadian Cruise Line, for... I don’t know how long she did it. They were always... every Christmas they write me and I write them. That’s how I know about them. But when they lived in Montreal, they went, many times, my cousin and they were friends. But since that time, I know only from Christmas cards what is happening to them. And what’s interesting, my cousin’s son went to McGill, too. And they live in Toronto. But they stayed there and he went to McGill. And he finished psychiatry. And he wants to... I don’t know how they are doing it, it’s not a bad idea... be a lawyer and a psych, psychologist, psychologist and a lawyer. So, he’s going to law school in Kingston, where they live now. You know. The father’s friends. He’s going to Kingston, to law school. It’s interesting. I don’t know whether they see each other. I don’t know what he was writing me about it. I have to call them Sunday, I don’t know. I call Sundays only because it is cheaper.

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Tell me, going back to wartime, where were you on the day, or do you remember the day that the Germans invaded Budapest in March of 1944?

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Yes, of course, of course.

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Can you describe that day?

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Oh, that was horrible. I was in my grandmother’s house and we... we didn’t have televisions that time. We just had radios. We didn’t have televisions. We just heard it on the radio, and how do we see it? Because we saw them marching in. And I don’t remember how did we see it, because we didn’t have televisions. But I know and I see with my eyes how they marched into Budapest and where they stopped in the middle where it is divided, the Danube divides the city, you know? Into two parts. And they stop there, and right a way the Hungarian Army, right away, they went to greet them, and cater them, and did whatever they want even more. Because they would never find out nothing if those countries wouldn’t help them, what they occupied. Because they, who, which German knew for instance, that my sister-in-law was married, that she was once Jewish? Who knew it? Only the Hungarians who live there and they went and told on them. That here is a couple who was married, converted and who was married to... and then they came, the Germans and the Hungarians together to look for her. They did it themselves, the Hungarians, and they did it, I’m sure, in every country. Otherwise how would the Germans know whom to take, who was the rich man, whom to call to the department, to their offices, whatever, and torture them? How would they know? Because they help them. Because they were anti-Semites. We didn’t know.

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Let me ask you something kind of funny, question. How did you feel about being Jewish?

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Klingel (ph).

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Oh, the last name?

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You know, I’m constantly thinking about it, since I’m talking to you. You know the boy’s name.

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What was it again?

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Klingel.

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And his first name was Nicholas.

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And he had a nickname, Mitza (ph). Was very, very good looking. I think he was the best- looking Jewish boy in the city. Very nice boy. Very nice, respectful, very, very nice. And the parents, that’s interesting, too. That they moved then, after the war they moved to Prague, the parents and the sister. And my friend, who is now in Brooklyn, whose husband was a dermatologist, her children went, she gave them lessons, piano lessons. His sister gave them piano lessons. And they were saying it, I should have known that he would marry me. Can you imagine? That’s what they were saying, the parents. And he was telling me, that he cannot talk about marriage, because he is working for his father. He is not on his own. And then they blame me, that I should have known. We never spoke about marriage, only that one time he said that “T’m not talking about marriage, because, until I am not on my own.” You know? Probably they were against me. I wasn’t a wealthy girl. And she went with a... she left a girl for me, who was a bank director’s daughter, very wealthy daughter, very wealthy girl. And he went with her and she left her because of me. And then the parents were saying, my friend was telling me, that they were... the sister was telling it, that I should have known. What did they know what went on? I was introduced to his sister once. I didn’t want it. I was, I didn’t want... I don’t know. And once he went to swim in the summer and there is his sister. And he did it by purpose, that she should know me, the sister. And one day then, before he went away to, I don’t know where, the army. And he left a book with me and I didn’t finish it. And he said, “You bring it back to my mother.” I was shaking, you know? I was never in their house and I was shaking. And I was so clumsy that I went upstairs, and she was very nice to me. And in the hallway and I gave her the book. And she was very nice and I was so nervous that I... she had some kind of a flower pot and I pushed it with my hand. [Laughing.] It broke. It was terrible. It was very uncomfortable to meet them, because I had always a feeling that they are against me. You know? He would never, never say to me that, but I had a feeling that the parents were against me, because I wasn’t in their category. And she left that girl, who was wealthy, because of me and that was my feeling about them.

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Did you think about him a lot? Afterwards when you were in hiding, for example?

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When I was hiding? About him? I already knew that he’s dead.

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