SHOES RIVER MOMUMENT : INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY IS JANUARY 27th EACH YEAR BUT HUNGARY HAS IT'S OWN DAY : WONDERFUL PLACES IN HUNGARY #28

YAD VASHEM : SHOES ON THE DANUBE PROMINADE BUDAPEST HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

Excerpt: If you look more closely, you see that the shoes are rusted, made or iron and set into the concrete of the embankment.  They are a memorial and a monument to the Hungarian Jews who, in the winter of 1944-1945, were shot on the banks of the Danube River by members of the Arrow Cross Party. Known as "The Shoes on the Danube Promenade:, the memorial was conceptualized by film director Can Togay, and was created by Today, together with the sculptor Gyula Pauer. It was installed on the Pest bank of the Danube River in Budapest in 2005. At three separate places on the memorial, cast iron signs read in Hungarian, English, and Hebrew: "To the memory of victims shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944-1945."

image from Pixabay__ red__koral__ph

Although the Holocaust and Wars are not "wonderful"  this is part of a series about places to go and see in Hungary, many which have historical significance.  To bring up other posts in this series, click on the tag Wonderful-Hungary.

INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY : THREE SURVIVORS - HUNGARIAN - REMEMBER AUSCHWITZ

INVISIBLE BRIDGE by JULIE ORRINGER : MAGYAR AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW

I promised myself  "No more World War II films or books."  There is just so much out there and I feel overexposed. Then I showed up an hour early for an event and near the waiting area was one of those little "libraries" that almost look like bird houses, stocked with free books from the neighborhood.  So I opened the little door and inside I found this book by Julie Orringer, and what was different is that it is a fictionalized account - that is to say an IMAGINED fiction based on her Hungarian Jewish Family's History.  On the covers and inside were such praises by various reviewers.  Could the book, published about 8 years ago, really be that good?
There is so much out there about World War II and the Holocaust, and frankly the Hungarian experience seems to be a rare event - as is, frankly, accounts by Christians in occupied countries such as Poland.  So, not knowing - until the end - that it was based on her Hungarian Jewish Family's History, I sunk into this book as I has not with any book in a long time.
Primarily it is a love story beginning in the late 1930's and her grandfather Andras' story.

Andras gets a rare scholarship to study architecture in Paris in the late 1930's, where he finds a lot of expatriot Hungarians living and falls in love with an older woman who has a devastating secret past. He has a brother who is going to study in Italy to be a doctor.  A brother who is supposed to inherit the family farm but would rather be a window dresser.  Their future experiences will make their early struggles for survival while young students seem easy.

In Paris Andras and other Jewish students stick together, though some come from wealth. The scholarship is good, but he still has to earn a living and so he works and lives in a freezing walk up. Some of the people he trusted in Paris prove to have their own agendas when they find themselves back in Hungary, unable to get the Visas to stay in other countries, their dreams abandoned.

The brothers are called up to support the Hungarian Army in Jewish only troops that are worked like slaves. There are brutal commanders and their are kind ones; does everyone allow their personal beliefs to dictate how they will treat others while in their official capacity?

As I turned the pages and read the story, my anxiety increased, as the characters lived increasingly limited lives.  As with any Holocaust/ World War II story, since most readers probably already know a little or a lot about how bad it was, there is and is not something new.

I value the greater understanding of Hungarian World War II and Holocaust history that I have now from Julie Orringer's story.

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CHRISTMAS EVE PRAYER FOR (IMPOSSIBLE?) PEACE

Recently I was with a group of people and one woman asked us all to pray for the survivors of Pearl Harbor.  She was of the generation - some call it "the Silent generation" and others "the Greatest generation" - in which her peers were involved in World War II.  World War II is not so long ago in history, but what is sure is that it remains a Hollywood film favorite subject, while other wars such as Korean - Viet Nam - and the whole big mess of the Middle East have comparatively few films made about them.  Unpopular wars, underreported wars, and wars that are no longer called wars, are going on all the time.


I spoke up and said, "Let's pray for peace instead."


Don't know that my blurt was appreciated, but to me all that was required was a moment of silence or a mental bookmark.  You see, I don't actually think there ever will be Peace of Earth, but in the West, at Christmas time, the notion of Peace of Earth is popular.  Consider that sometimes in war there are agreements that for that one day of the year, Christmas, there is a "peace fire."


And, I really do think that peace on earth has to begin with each individual, and in Christianity the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi is my favorite.  Yet, for all the empathy called for, in order to understand and forgive others, sometimes I've been considered naïve, a fool, and exploitable for all the give I have.  I've been at times sneered at for my hope, faith, belief, or innocence.  I have not been testy, suspicious.  I haven't asked enough questions.  (These days an exploiter will blame the victim, saying, "you didn't do your due diligence.")


So, while I don't think there will ever be peace of earth, and am making no claim to perfection and a straight ticket to heaven, the notion of heaven is very influential.  Heaven allows us to imagine a place that is peaceful and joyful, and where everyone else is good!


This is my open mind set for the holiday season.


A week ago I told myself I should start decorating.  I managed to get a string of lights up around the door.  I pulled out my small artificial Christmas tree, only to discover that a piece of plastic had broken off while it was in storage.  Three days later I got out my glue gun and tried to fix the leg on without that piece.  It sort of worked.


I went off to Trader Joes, were I planned to buy all the ingredients needed to manifest five different cupcake recipes which I wanted to make to gift.  It's been years since I made or gifted baked goods and I remembered the days when Christmas visiting meant indulging in baked goods from many different ethnic backgrounds.  Family and friends had married into Italians, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Irish, Germans -  we have a Persian - that whole mix that is United States of America - everyone making traditional cookies, cakes, pies, that their ancestors made.


As I made way to the location, I passed by an Armenian banquet hall.  Someone must have had a wedding, ordered in numerous floral ornaments for the tables, and when unboxing found one was broken.  Outside on the sidewalk was a beautiful gold sprayed branch that had blooming rose petals glue gunned to it!  One rose had fallen off and there was a glob of glue.  I took one look at it and grabbed it.  At home I decided not to use the artificial pine tree at all, but hang my small ornament collection off the branches of this bare limbed "tree."  I set it up and it's beautiful.  My dog lay in her swirl of blankets looking at the pretty lights.


Then I made the cupcakes.  Pumpkin oatmeal spice with no icing.  Walnut flax seed with vanilla powdered sugar,  dried cherries in the mix and topped with cherry jam,  and finally Ghirardelli Chocolate (from San Francisco) inside and melted atop plain white cake.  Improvising with cardboard shirt boxes, wrapping paper and tissue, I made up four boxes.  One delivered to a friend who lives in an assisted living.  I assured him, I used no milk, no butter, no corn, corn starch, or corn syrup.  (I used safflower oil, spring water, brown sugar, real sugar, flour, flax seed, oatmeal, real vanilla.)  Then off to the neighbor who a few weeks ago did me a huge favor even though he barely knows me.  (He came to the US as a refugee from Bosnia.)  This morning, I delivered another to a business that I frequently visit, me and the dog.  The people there have fed her endless treats.  And then I went to visit another friend who has leant me films this year, some of which I have to return, and learned he has moved!


Such is the state of art and science at this time in my life.


I wish all my readers, whatever your ethnic origins or religious beliefs, at least one day of complete and total peace, inside yourself and with the world.




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Magyar American Blogspot

BOOK EXCERPT: REZSO KASZTNER : THE DARING RESCUE OF HUNGARIAN JEWS by LADISLAUS LOB

REZSO KASZTNER
The Daring Rescue of Hungarian Jews : A Survivor's Account
by Ladislaus Lob C 2008
Pimlico is the Publisher

pages 269-270

"The charge that Kasztner made up the Bergen-Belsen group entirely of his relatives and his Zionist cronies from Kolozsvar also stands on shaky ground. Given the appalling task of selecting a few hundred from hundreds of thousands, no selection could have been "right."

(My note : his relatives were a count of ten, while other relatives were left behind and exported or murdered in Auschwitz.)

"The dominance of Ziolnists from Kolozsvar is hardly surprising, since Kolozsvar was Hungary's second largest city with the largest and most active Zionist community, and the whole rescue enterprise was founded on Palestine immigration certificates...

"My father and I were only two of many non-Zionists, and the point is strongly made by Peretz Revesz, a former leading member of the youth movement who carried out many dangerous rescue missions of his own in Slovakia and Hungary with Kasztner's help."

page 279

"One of the most impressive witnesses was Israel Szabo. He explained that "the ordinary Hungarian in the street knew about Auschwitz" but "mass flight" was impossible, and believing that the Hungarian Jews could have "organized any resistance" would have been a "fatal error." They had been methodically worn down by the "expropriation of their wealth, the loss of their place of work, ... the closure inside their homes, in the ghetto under inhuman conditions."

This process had left them drained of all confidence and energy.

WORLD WAR II : HOLOCAUST REMEMBERANCE DAYS

This week, linked to this year's Passover, people in the United States, especially those who live near large Jewish communities, are remembering the Holocaust of World War II era, which occurred on European soil, in countries such as Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Russia, Germany, Belarus, Estonia... with various events produced by Jewish organizations for Holocaust remembrance. There are also remembrances staged by various religious and not religious organizations with the focus on peace; the idea is that we as citizens of the world should not forget or put up with Holocausts / ethnic cleansings anywhere in the world.

To me there is a difference between a soldier / an army who fights other soldiers/ armies and what has and is happening to civilians. Don't get me wrong. I'm for a strong defense of the United States and too realistic to think we can go without a military presence. At the same time there are atrocities committed on innocent people every day on this earth and that is wrong. I don't have all the answers or much power to do anything about it, just on a personal level to try and understand people of cultures different than mine, and decide if I like someone or not by my experience with them rather than prejudging them.

Although the United States did not experience the holocaust as personally as did the people of Europe, many survivors fled here, or got here through Israel or through organizations overseeing the resettlement of those who fled Europe after the war was over. To this day the International Red Cross provides services to help locate people who were or are separated by war.

I will soon be telling you all about an organization I learned about my going outside my own culture to attend a presentation by a French Catholic priest as a Jewish temple.

1940 UNITED STATES CENSUS ON LINE TODAY! LINK TO DIGITALIZED IMAGES HERE!

This is so exciting to those of us who are tracing our ancestry with roots in Hungary!

A majority of Hungarian-Americans today can trace to the immigrations of the Industrial Revolution. We find ancestors on US census (and some state census) in 1890, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and now 1940. They have lived through the Great Depression and are will be involved in World War II. These other census are not available as digitalized images at the National Archives site, which is accessible anywhere there is an Internet Computer.

BOOK EXCERPT : REZSO KASZTNER by LADISLAUS LOB

REZSO KASZTNER
The Daring Rescue of Hungarian Jews" A Survivor's Account
by Ladislaus Lob C 2008
Pimlico is the Publisher
page 266

"Nor were the Jews of Hungary as unaware of the danger as Kasztner's enemies assert. Some were misled by soothing lies. Others did not want to know the truth. They believed, or tried to make themselves believe, that such horrors might happen elsewhere, but not in Hungary: the Hungarians would reward the Jews for their loyalty or realize that by harming the Jews they would be harming their own economy and culture. However, by the time of the German occupation the majority of Hungarian Jews had some idea of the massacres in the east, thanks to reports by refugees or Zionists activists.


"Even though as a young child I did not understand what people in Budapest were fretting, speculating, arguing and agonizing about, I could tell that it was a matter of life and death..."

SISTER SARA SALKAHAZI BEATIFICATION FOUR YEARS AGO

This was passed onto me. It's from a March 2010 church bulletin from St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood California.


SISTER SARA SALKAHAZI: A MODEL OF SACRIFICE


"Sara Salkahazi was born in Kosice (at that time a part of Hungary) on May 11, 1899, now her FEAST DAY.  In 1929, she entered the Society of Sisters of Social Service in Budapest.  There she vowed her entire life to the service of God with the motto "Alleluia!  Here I am!  Send me!  Her love of Christ was manifested in diverse areas of social service, in Catholic movements, and by authoring a variety of literary works.  She was a talented teacher, journalist, and community organizer.


"In 1943, she consciously offered her life for the Society, particularly for the weak and ill, in case the Sisters of the Church were persecuted.  On December 27, 1944 the Hungarian Nazis surrounded the Home of Working Women where Sara was in charge.  She was arrested along with a co-worker and a group of Jewish refugees she was hiding.  That same evening, all of them were stripped naked and shot, their bodies falling into the icy River Danube.  Before her execution, Sister Sara knelt down, facing her executioners and made a great sign of the cross.  God accepted the sacrifice of her life.


The Eucharistic Celebration of Sister Sara's Beautification was in Budapest
on September 17, 2006.

I'm also linking to an article/interview about her from Catholic Online, and Cardinal Peter Erdo.

Note Septmeber 2019.  Clicking on the title of this old post should take you to the link.

BOOK EXCERPT : REZSO KASZTNER by LADISLAUS LOB

page 264


His world was "totally shattered..."For years, his activity in Budapest had been a source of pride to him", but now he needed "almost superhuman stores of strength, simply to get up in the morning, go out of the house and walk about the city streets as if nothing had happened."  Deeply hurt by the "badge of shame" that had been attached tio him, he remained "convinced that he was the victim of an unbearable injustice.  (Quoting another writer Weitz)


"Kasztner was not the only one to suffer.  His wife and daughter were also hounded by the rabble.  Their block of flats was daubed with graffiti saying "Kasztner is a murderer" and worse.  Their balcony was bombarded with rubbish.  Neighbours called Bogyo a "Nazi" and shopkeepers refused to serve her.  Szuzsi, form the gage of nine, was harassed, bullied and called a "murderess" at school and in the street.  The witch hunt was to continue for many years, and the lasting  emotional damaged caused to both women is easy to imagine...(The twi women are his wife and daughter.)"


.... "He was hounded by death threats, which the authorities took seriously enough to assign him two bodyguards, though ironically these were withdrawn shortly before he really needed them.  On the other hand, he receive many letters of support, particularly from member of the young pioneer groups who had worked with him in Budapest.  He was offered sanctuary in two kibbutzim, but refused to hide..."

BOOK EXCERPT : REZSO KASZTNER by LADISLAUS LOB

REZSO KASZTNER
The Daring Rescue of Hungarian Jews" A Survivor's Account
by Ladislaus Lob  C 2008
Pimlico  is the Publisher

(The subject of this book Rezso Kasztner is a controversial figure of the Holocaust/ World War II. Some, including the author who provides his own testimony "I am alive today because of Rezso Kasztner", see him as a hero, someone who found a way to get some Hungarian Jews to Switzerland though this was through  financial deals with Nazis.  Others in Israel felt just the opposite, that he could have done more, and he was killed because of it.)

page 196-197

"...a miracle seemed to have happened.  From the Red Cross in Geneva we received some 60 cases containing food, medicines, vitamins, and in particular 1,300 boxes of a product called "Starkosan."  This was a chocolate powder with added vitamins and nutrients.  I have never forgotten the please of stuffing myself with it..."

FROM HIS DIARY:

"For the first time in five months a cultured flavour: chocolate!  Old people and children are truly becoming drunk on it; they are eating it with spoons, dry, on bread, with butter, with water, with jam, mixed with glucose, etc.  There has been a change in people.  Cheerful, calm faces, chattiness, an optimistic mood...."