1920s

 

The truth is, I was a born leader. Right from the beginning, all my brothers and sisters looked up to me. There was never any question they wouldn't do as I said. Of course, I was  the eldest of six of us, but I also had that kind of character. I liked being in charge, taking responsibility, and the others were always happy that way too - even Imi, my oldest brother, who was close at my heels, and barely a year younger than me. They knew I knew best. And later, that helped us all.

 

So I was the first child in the family to sit at the table with the grownups at the Pesach Seder- the feast that begins the passover holiday. And that evening,all over our small, busy market town in south - west Hungary, other families were also celebrating. In December 1923, when I was born, out of Bonyhád's growing population of nearly 7000, about one in eight were Jewish. When my great- great- grandparents were growing up there a century earlier, before all faiths had equal right in Hungary, a third of the town were Jews. Everyone in our long- established community looked forward to every Yom Tov, each religious holiday. We had enjoyed the spiritual guidance of eminent Rabbis and respected Talmudic scholars for generations.

 

The memorable first Seder must have been April 1928. I was four years old and the only child in the household old enough to stay up late. Everything was laid out beautifully- salt water, bitter herbs, roasted eggs, horseradish, wine, matzo and other symbolic foods, and the candles were lit. Hpw proud I was to say the first sentence, the Ma Nishtana, asking my father the question clearly and loudly, just as I'd practished: ' Why is this night different from all other nights? '

I loved nothing better than being with the grownups.

On e Shabbat, when our parents were at Shul  we were playing as usual in our enormous garden. We had apple trees, pliums, cherries....every kind of fruit bush you could imagine. There was always something to do in the summer to be put away for winter, and something in the winter to be saved for summer. Cucumbers to pickle. Fruit to bottle of boil up into jam. But, as I said , it was a Saturday, and we were an Orthodox family, and many of our  neighbors were also Jewish.

The trouble was it was also a beautiful summer's day. We were a little bit bored and hungry, and nobody was around. And the fruit looked just so delicious.

'No picking on Shabbat!' I reminded my siblings. We all knew the rules. There are thirty- nine different kinds of work which are forbidden on Shabbat, and reaping is one of them.

I was a good girl really, perhaps  ten or eleven years old then. I had responsibities, and a reputation to keep up. My next sister, René, laughing and lively, was two and a half years younger. After her came Piri, born in 1929, a neat and fastidious child, and very artistic, but much more shy than René. Although René was very outgoing, I was definitely by far the biggest extrovert of us all. Bela, our other brother, was another three years behind Piri- the first birth I remember in the house- and Berta still a babe- in- arms, I think.

 

Born into a large rabbinical family in 1897, my mother grew up in a summer resort called Szenc, or Senec, near Bratislava, which had been in the old kingdom of Hungary and  then became part of Czechoslovakia, a republic created after  the First World War and its treaties. Twelve years older than his wife, my father was born in Bonyhád, like his father, and grandfather, and great- grandfather, and all his many cousins and nephews and nieces. Just like us, Nina  Breznitz and Ahron Engelman grew up in  a big close- knit, middleclass Jewish family, Hungarian through and through, comfortably off and secure in every way. Why should that change ?

 

Looking back, I remember there was only harmony in our home. I was noisy but peaceful. I had the best parents any child could dream of, they were kind, calm, loving and very leniet. We weren't the wealthiest family, but we had no worries in life at all and simply  imagine what freedom we enjoyed.

 

1930s

 

The one thing my parents really cared about was education. They wanted us to learn, and did everything to make it easy for us to do so. Luckly, we were all pretty good at school, and picked things up quickly. It was more of a struggle at school for Imi at first just because he was left- handed- like Piri- and they forced him to write with his right hand. But he caught up quickly and  was bright and harworking, so in the endhe did all his matriculation exams in one year instead of two,at the age of just fifteen or sixteen. Every day after school he would go to the Beis Misdrash and learn Torah.

 

Beautiful Piri was so much better with her hands than I was. Amazingly artistic, she loved nothing better than to draw or paint.But she was also a perfectionist.She never started anything unless she knew she would be able to finish it in exactly  the way she wanted.

As I was the eldest, and a girl, my mother didn't want me to waste time in the kitchen. She wanted me to study. I wonder whether she knew that I'd never get that chance. Jewish girls like me rarely went to university, so I suppose the usual step after school would be marriage and running my own household and eventually bringing up a family.

 

There was only one big change in my childhood, and that was when the time came for me to go to middle school. My father's family all lived in Bonyhád, but my mother's many siblings were more scattered. On sister, Gisela, lived a hundred miles away in Pápa  an old town on the other side of Lake Balaton with a large Jewish population, which had enjoyed the protection of the famous Esterhazy family for several centries. Gisela was married to David Gunsberg, a man of standing, since he was the principal of the boys school in Pápa. But after ten years of marriage, they were stil childless.

 

Who made the suggestion, I cannot say. And I can only imagine how hard it was for my parents to let me go, especially my mother. But Nina had an full house,and she felt sorry foe her lonely sister, so  the autumn before I  turned thirteen, I was sent away to Pápa, where  I started the next stage of my schoolling, and lived with my aunt and uncle as their daughter, a very spoiled one. Though I love the attention, I missed my parents and siblings very much.I didn't let it show, and there was much to distract me, as I made friends quickly and easily in the new town. Who knows how long I might have  stayed, if Gisela hadn't finally fallen pregnant?

 

Loyaush, my baby cousin, was born in the summer. That meant the party for his bris, the circumcision ceremony which took place when he was eight days old, could be held in the garden, and it was a fine celebration, with lots of delicious food. As a girl, I didn't have to concern myself with the details- all that happend out of the sight of the women. The Grunsberger home filled up with people. A great crowd, all so happy for my aunt and uncle.

 

By the time it was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, I was home again, and ready to rejoin my friends at the new school. So that was September 1936. Réne, Piri, Bela and Berta were pleased to have me back. And so I went back to my old routines, feeling a little more grown- up, and taking on a few more responsibilities. I was always proud to do that.

 

1939 - 1941

 

we never talked polittics at home. I suppose polititcs was for men, young men most of all. I am sure my father must have known all about the new laws controlling Jews in Hungary. But he kept that knowledge from his children, maybe even from his wife.

 

Neither antisemtic violence nor political antisemitism were anything new in Hungary, but both reached new heights after the First World War, and the end of the Austro- Hungarian Empire. The treaty of Trianon had left Hungary less than a third of its former size. Jews became the scapegoats.

 

A few years before I was born, and long  before Hitler's rise, legislation introduced quotas in Hungarian universities, cutting the number of Jewish students from 15-20 percent to only 6 percent.The numerus clauses ( closed number ) law of 1920 officially said no more than 6 percent of any minority could study, but it was clearly aimed at the Jews, who were at that time by far the most numerous and succesful group in Hungary's middle classes. The Jewish students were regulary beaten up. As for Jewish women, they had even less of a chance of an education beyond school. Perhaps the numerus clauses law was why at an early age, Imi decided to become a dentist's apprentice.

 

The kingdom of Hungary moved ever closer to Nazi Germany, partly because of Regent Miklós Horthty's outspoken antisemitism, partly because and alliance would help win back disputed Hungarian- speaking territories in Czechoslovakia and Romania. After Hitler's takeover of Austria in 1938, Hungary's autocratic government passed a series of laws and decrees directly against the Jews and stopped us from being equal citizens in our country.

 

By that time the war broke out in Europe, a few months before I turned  sixteen, and Imi fifteen, hungary shared a border with Germany. To be Jewish became a racial matter, not a religious one. If you had more than one Jewish grandparent, then you were a Jew, even if you did never set a foot in a Shul.

 

Jews were barred from all kind of proffessions, including law and madicine, journalism and engineering. Even acting in films or at the theatre was no longer posdible. They couldn't work in the civil service at all. Most Jews lost their right to vote. The government claimed Hungary  was in the cluthes of Jewish bankers and industrialist and had to be freed. By 1942 further laws would confiscate land and property, and forced Jewish emigration became officially policy. Yet Jews continued to proclaim their unswering loyalty of the fatherland.

 

These were the Hungarian version of the well- known Neurenberg Laws, yet, as a young girl, I knew nothing about them all. The twp Hungarian fascist parties- the National Socialist and the Arrow Cross- had very little support in our part of the country, Tolna county, west of the River Danube. I didn't know that a quarter of a million Jews had lost their income. If the new laws affected my father's buisness or that of his brothers, he certainly would not have wanted us children to know.

 

So, for us, life continued as normal. The darkness seemd so far away, so removed from our lives. Witin a year, we began to notice some unsettling changes. A new girl appeared at our school. I couldn't put my finger on why this made me feel uncomfortable. But I sensed that something secretive and strange about her arrival. She had come without her parents from Czechoslakia, sent to stay with a family in out town to keep her safe.

My fathet began to look very sad and serious when he read the newspaper. Why are you so sad Apu ( dad)? I ask him. ' The war', ' Another world war, and it is not very good for us Jews.

 

Not long after my eighteenth birthday, in February 1942, my father fell ill. It was quite sudden. On evening I went to say goodnight, tiptoeing into my parent's lamplit room. I sat down beside the bed, I realized how serious his illness was. He must have known he would never recover. Lily, he said, ' My eldest child. Perhaps you know what I want to say to you. Perhaps I nodded. PerhapsI wept a little.