Strength of Spirit
By J. M. Reidinger aka Zsuzsana Summer
Like many little girls, I was fascinated in childhood by romantic visions of princesses and castles. It always makes me smile to think of how, through the turmoil of a darkly dangerous escape from a battle-torn country, life took such bizarre twists and turns that despite our family’s humble circumstances, I at least got to be born in a castle.
My mom, Judith, was born in Hungary, in 1937. Her fondest memories of childhood are of her maternal grandmother, my great-grandmother Etelka (Eta for short), who had a large part in raising Mom, her older brother and younger sister during the upheavals of the Second World War. Judith was only ten years old when she lost her beloved grandmother Eta, but even at that young age she had lived in awe of her idol, adoring and completely respecting her for her indomitable spirit and love.
Eta had been born in 1894, and at age 19 she married a career army man, who later became a gentleman farmer and lovingly tended his land and small vineyard until the day he died. They had only one child, Judith’s mother, also named Etelka. The younger Etelka was born by cesarean section and because of the associated dangers of C-sections in those days, there were no further children and she grew up as a somewhat spoiled and headstrong only child.
The family lived in the central part of Hungary, south of the capital city of Budapest. They had a young man working for them as an electrician and skilled handyman. To my great-grandparents’ deep distress, the young Etelka fell in love with him, married him and they departed to make a new life for themselves in Budapest.
My great-grandmother Eta only forgave her daughter for her elopement when the first grandchild, Judith’s brother, was born. Mom says she doesn’t know how long her grandfather's disappointment lasted, but she knows his love for his only daughter remained intact in spite of her waywardness. Mom has a prized treasure in her possession to this day, a handwritten letter to her grandpa from her mother, telling him about her and her soon to be born sister. The children came in a quick succession, with only 14 months between the first-born brother and Judith, and 16 months between her and her little sister.
Judith’s father's parents lived in the northeastern part of Hungary, close to the Ukrainian border. Her father had a small family with only a brother and a sister, and the brother also had three children so all six cousins were very close in age. It was a good thing, because all six youngsters were able to spend the terrible war years at their grandparents’ home, which was a much safer place than the capital city, Budapest.
Ujvari Laszlone (nee Lorincz Etelka) and Ujvari Laszlo
As it turned out, the parents were wise to send the children to their grandparents. Judith, her brother and her sister wouldn't have survived the war had they stayed in the bomb shelter of the apartment building were they lived. A bomb that hit the eight to ten story building went right through into the shelter. Judith was able to find her favourite story book after the war ended, but all the page numbers were missing; a piece of shrapnel had carved them all out as if the very thick story book was made of butter.
Hungary was stripped of everything imaginable by the armies that marched through, beginning with the Germans on their way to Russia. Beaten by the Russians, the Germans retreated along the same path, followed by the invading Russians who subsequently occupied Hungary, not withdrawing until 1989.
Hard years followed the war for everyone. The beautiful city of Budapest lay in ruins, as did much of Europe. Families were decimated, as was ours. My grandfather was in the army, while Eta and Etelka struggled along in Budapest. Sadly, my grandparents’ marriage did not survive the long years of suffering and separation. To make things worse, Etelka contracted tuberculosis. In those days, there was no penicillin to help her and after two long years of illness, she succumbed to the disease. Judith’s beloved grandmother Eta took care of all the children, who had by then come back to Budapest from the paternal grandparents.
Mom says that to this day she doesn’t know where her grandmother got the strength to keep them all alive throughout her mother’s illness. Eta opened a small deli, which she tended all by herself. She would get up at dawn to make fresh bread and then take it to the baker for baking. Often the children helped out and carted the loaves back to the store for the customers. Eta often hid some bread for the children, so that they too would have something substantial to eat. They were so under-nourished that at age ten, Judith did not look older than a six year old, and that turned out to be an advantage. Her grandmother was able to arrange, through the Red Cross, a three-month rehabilitative trip for her to Switzerland. Such trips were really organized for much younger children than she was. It was terribly hard for Judith to leave her family, not knowing if she would ever see her mother alive again. Nevertheless, she put on a brave face, learned some German from her grandma, and off she went to see the world again, only this time, frighteningly alone.
The little girl was stationed with a very well off Swiss farming family, but it was no holiday for her. She had to go to the fields with them to work alongside her hosts. Against her wishes, she had to attend school too, and although she tried once to run away, she was caught and taken back with a laugh or two. Judith was taught how to knit and iron, and amid many useful skills, she also quickly learned to speak German. She was fattened up by the bountiful good food, fresh air, and peaceful life in Switzerland. The family was very kind to her, and after the three months were up, they sent her home with bulging bags of delicious Swiss chocolates for her family and hugs and tears on both sides.
Upon Judith's return to Hungary, her mom was still alive but barely, and sadly, five months later she died. In another tragic stroke, her grandmother discovered that she had contracted the dreaded tuberculosis while nursing her daughter. Eta had no choice but to be hospitalized, and she couldn't even attend the burial of her only child. Before she admitted herself to the hospital to face death, though, Eta dealt with the grim task of finding homes for the three grandchildren among relatives in order to keep them out of the orphanage.
Judith at age 18 (ID photo)
The three siblings were sent to live with various great-aunts (the grandmother's sisters) for the next several years. Judith had a very hard lot as the family who took her in, blood relatives or not, chose her with an eye to her abilities to help keep house for her great-aunt and the family. There were a string of lazy boys in the household, older than Judith, and between helping with all their needs and doing daily yard and housework from before dawn to late night, with school in between, these were extremely difficult years. Eventually, reaching young adulthood, Judith was able to return to her father’s home in Budapest. By this time, he had remarried and had two more children. The new wife, sadly, was the epitome of the classic wicked stepmother, and life at home was almost unbearable.
Not long afterwards, Judith met my dad at a Christmas dance. She was working as an apprentice draftsperson and my dad had just come out of an Elite Parachute Division of the army. He was dashing, charming and kind, and eagerly looking for a nice girl to marry. They were engaged by Easter and married in May. They were poor but hopeful for the future and their life together.
Only a year and a half later, the young couple was living in a small, shabby basement apartment in Budapest, when the Revolution of 1956 against the Russian occupation broke out in Hungary. Life once again turned into a dark and scary fight for survival, especially because by then my mom was six months pregnant with me. My parents continued to work and to live their lives as best as they could in the midst of the upheaval. They struggled to get to work each day, often walking miles, as there was no public transit. There was no heat at the factories either, and food became increasingly short in supply. Eventually, there was no fuel of any kind to be had, nor was there any food available in the capital. A couple of times my dad's brother was able to visit, each time bringing some food from the country, from my dad's parents. It was November by then and winter was setting in.
One evening as the couple was leaving work, they realized that a new round of the constant door-to-door searches by the Secret Police was in progress right in their neighbourhood. The police, alongside the Russians, were hunting down Hungarian Freedom Fighters and searching for the revolutionaries and their weapons – anything they could find. My dad began to rush my mom to hurry and when they arrived in their little apartment, Judith found that my dad had earlier stowed a grenade in their unused wood-burning stove and now he was frantic to dispose of it. They stashed the grenade in a paper bag and left the apartment with my mom carrying the parcel to appear less suspicious and were eventually able to pass it off to some members of a resistance group they encountered. It was a harrowing experience.
Not long after this, my mom and dad made their way to my dad’s parents' home in the small town of Dombovar for a few days’ visit. They managed, with great difficulty, to find a train to transport them but this trip also was fraught with great danger. By this time, hordes of people were escaping Hungary due to the revolution and the trains were constantly being checked for escapees, resistance members and ‘suspects’ of any kind. Having thankfully arrived safely in Dombovar, my parents quickly found that there was no escaping the dangers and searches here either. Just at bedtime, at the moment the lights were turned out, the household heard shooting outside and a short time later, a loud knocking on the door. It was a search by the dreaded Secret Police. The terrified family members rose from their beds and faced the police, trying to explain that there was nothing going on, just a family visit. After a quick check of each room, and upon seeing my very pregnant mom trembling in the cold through the interrogation, the police decided there was nothing to be found there and left. When the coast was clear, my dad produced yet another surprise – a handgun he had been hiding – which was immediately taken to the outhouse at that point and consigned to its depths. The return trip on the train was a nightmare, with my parents not knowing if anyone was watching them.
Judith and Laszlo in Dombovar
Back in Budapest, a few days later, my mom and dad found that matters had gone from bad to worse. Many of their friends and co-workers had already left the country. It was late December and my mom was now eight months pregnant. They feared for their future but mostly for mine. There was still no heat and little hope for improvement in the battle-ravaged country. The day came when my parents packed a bag and left their apartment, their city, their families and their country forever, without saying a final goodbye to anyone. Only my mom's sister knew of their plans.
To find an odd train going anywhere was a stroke of luck. There was only one train leaving at the time of their departure and it was heading toward Yugoslavia. My parents got on the over-crowded train and my mom struggled to stand amid the rough jostling crowds. While they were waiting for the train to pull out of the station, my dad spotted a friend on the platform and got off to speak with him, asking my mom to follow him a few minutes later. This friend mentioned that another train would be leaving later, traveling west towards Austria and it was decided that this would be a better option. And it certainly was. At least on this train there was a seat for my mom. It was only later that my parents found out that the trip to Yugoslavia would have resulted in certain capture and imprisonment as that country was turning refugees in to the Hungarian Secret Police.
And so, in the week of Christmas, my parents traveled towards Austria, the west, and freedom. The train stopped about ten kilometers from the border, which was as far as it could go. Only people with proof of residence in that ten-kilometer perimeter area were allowed to be there. The couple went from hand to hand, from one home to another, being helped by good, nameless people risking their own safety and facing certain jail time or worse if they were to be caught doing this. Then began the most harrowing part of my parents’ journey – getting to the border and across it to safety. Eventually, they were smuggled to a ‘safe’ home for the last night on the back of a transport truck, covered with only a tarpaulin of canvas.
As they stood and huddled together, not knowing what would happen next, the truck came to a halt. There were voices and the next minute the canvas flap was lifted and a couple of Russian soldiers looked right at my parents, then lowered the canvas back down and the truck went on. Obviously, they were aware of what my parents were up to, but having been paid off by the guides with bottles of vodka and being rather friendly after being stationed in Hungary for years, they let the truck and my parents proceed. They arrived at the safe house with their guide and were preparing to cross the border at midnight. In the dark of the cold night though, there was a door-to-door search of the village homes as someone had reported the presence of escapees. By some miracle, the police only knocked on their hosts' window to ask which was so-and-so's house, but did not go in. There would have been no place for my parents to hide in the one-roomed house.
The situation was dire, as even the border guards and police in the area, along with the Russians who had over the years learned the Hungarian language, were all of a sudden replaced by rough, strange new faces that had neither compassion nor any fondness for the people. My parents gave the last of their pennies to their hosts to bribe the soldiers and with this, they bought another few hours of relative safety. The next night, at the midnight changing of the guards, with the searchlights criss-crossing overhead, the couple set out to find Austria. They scurried, crouching to stay below the snow banks, trying to keep the snow from crunching in the stillness of the night. They carried absolutely nothing with them and wore only street clothing. They had no boots or warm clothes, and my mom’s legs were freezing in her nylon stockings as the pair began the trek across the ice fields in the dark border area.
The trek was a nightmare. They’d been told to watch for little flags that had been planted as markers for the border, but there were none to be seen. Although these flags had served their purpose well weeks earlier when the borders were still open, now, with the borders closed and the last waves of escapees already gone, these had long since been covered up by snow, even if any were still standing. My parents had been cautioned that they would have to cross a bridge, which meant that they were in Austria, but as they followed the small meandering river, under no circumstances should they cross the next bridge, as that would bring them back into Hungary. Eventually they crossed a bridge and they kept on walking in snow-covered woods, not knowing where they were going or if they were even going in the right direction.
After what it seemed like hours, they came upon another small foot bridge, about 15 feet long, and to their horror, they were confronted with the looming figure of a uniformed man with a gun and a large German Shepherd at his side. The two figures just stood silently on the other side, striking terror into my parents’ hearts. They stopped, confused and scared, knowing full well that it would be futile to try and run. Both sides were just standing there staring at each other. Suddenly, expecting to hear Russian or Hungarian words telling them they’d been caught, they couldn’t believe their ears when the terrifying figure spoke to them in German, telling them ‘Kommen Sie’ and beckoning them to follow. Still not knowing if it was a trap, my parents followed nevertheless – there was no other choice. Fortunately, this border patrol was there to help the refugees who happened to cross the border at that location and he led them the rest of the way to safety and to a warm shelter.
My parents ended up in the city of Graz where they joined a refugee camp set up by the Red Cross in Schloss Vasoldsberg – which I consider my castle. The castle had been converted some time earlier into a corporate resort for the workers of a large local company, and these accommodations had been given over to Hungarian refugees for a while. It was here that I was born, at the end of January 1957. Maybe a week later, the refugees had to evacuate the castle, and for the next six months we were shuffled from camp to camp. Most international immigration quotas for refugees had been filled by the time we'd left Hungary and in spite of having official invitation letters from relatives of my dad’s in the U.S. and Germany, and even one from Switzerland where Mom had stayed as a child, all doors seemed closed.
It wasn’t until July that my parents got the news they had been waiting for – that they would finally be shipped out. Two countries (Canada and Australia) were still willing to accept a few people, and so the three of us ended up crossing the ocean on an Italian tourist boat to Canada.
With a $5 gift from the Red Cross for each of us as we left the boat, our new lives began. The early years were incredibly difficult for my parents, but they worked as hard as they possibly could, wherever they could, to make a new life for us. We moved constantly as I was growing up, following work opportunities wherever they were to be found. Mom still talks about some of those early years when we lived in tiny unheated rented rooms where even the water froze in the bathtub, and where I slept in various dresser drawers until I was a toddler. Thankfully, life improved as my parents settled in to their new country and eventually got on their feet. For many years, they continued to live in fear of being tracked down even here for having escaped from the Communists, until it finally became clear that they were safe in this new country of theirs. They proved to be an asset to this great country and their occupations were sought after, so both my parents were fortunate to have steady and gainful employment until they retired. Mom took in other children to earn a little money while my sister and I were very young, but when we started school, she was able to find a good job as a draughtsperson, which eventually led her to a long career with the City of Windsor.
With the passing years, we all proudly obtained our Canadian citizenships, and the journey of life has taken us all in many different directions since then. But none of us forget our roots and our histories and I give thanks for the many strong spirits who paved the way for me to live my life in safety and peace.
