By Chance Alone (16 page)

After my bath, I was ready to collapse. Ily made up a bed with lots of pillows so that I could sleep in a sitting position, and she told me that she would take me to the doctor in the morning. I had a restless night with horrible dreams, and I couldn't figure out where I was when I awoke. I could hear birds in the bushes outside and smell the aroma of coffee being brewed. Surrounded by all these comforts, I was consumed by disbelief. I had breakfast with Ily and her son, Nori, on the porch, where I was able to observe their beautiful gardens. When she asked how I felt, I
told her that I was still having very bad chest pain. She said she would take me to the doctor in a few hours; in the meantime, I went to find the Lichtman brothers.

I had last seen Gaby and Bandy in Ebensee, but they had been in much better physical condition than I was and able to head home right after liberation. I was happy to see them again, but still felt envious that they had each other and I was by myself. They were now in relatively good health, and we immediately began discussing how we could start up our lives again. It was clear that there was no future for us in this town. I asked them to go with me to my house because I wanted to find out about my dogs, especially Farkas. They agreed to accompany me, and with their support, I again faced the woman who now lived in my home. I asked her if she knew what happened to our three dogs, but she told me she knew nothing.

The three of us took a walk into the orchard, which was in total disarray. The trees had not been pruned, and many of them had been damaged by large vehicles that were apparently sheltered beneath them. The whole orchard appeared to have been destroyed by retreating Nazi armoured units, and we had to be careful not to step on the bullets and mortar shells scattered across the fields. It was devastating to think of how much care my grandfather and I had once taken to nurture bountiful fruit from the trees.

Suddenly, I noticed some movement in an area of thick lilac bushes, and I walked over to see what was there. It was our fox terrier, Ali, hiding in the bushes. All his fur was gone and he was full of scabs, and when I called his name, he would not come. I couldn't bear to leave him suffering in this terrible condition, and I discussed with the Lichtmans what to do. Bandy told me
he knew a hunter in town, and we went to him and asked if he could end Ali's suffering with his gun. He agreed. I returned with him to the spot where Ali was hiding, and with a single shot, the hunter put him out of his misery. As I looked at Ali's lifeless body, I knew he was the final remnant of a place that was no longer mine. I had nothing else to do here, no tangible ties to this place—only memories. I had no money to pay the hunter for his services, but I asked him nonetheless if he would help me dig a grave. He understood my situation and agreed. Together, we buried Ali as a final tribute to my past life.

I
ly took me to the doctor's office to attend to my chest pain and my swollen body, both of which were making me increasingly uncomfortable. The doctor gave me a thorough examination and concluded that I had a serious case of wet pleurisy. He said it was life-threatening and had to be treated immediately. I had to get myself to the hospital in Košice, approximately fifty kilometres away. Ily went to a farmer she knew well and asked him to take me to the hospital. He agreed, but his horses had just finished a full day's work, and they needed food and rest. He said that I would have to wait until
11
p.m., at which time he would come and pick me up at Ily's home. Ily asked him to have lots of straw in the wagon so that I would be more comfortable.

While we were waiting together for the farmer's arrival, Ily asked me what had happened to my family. She had heard of terrible things. I was not prepared to speak about past events, so I told her only that everyone in the family was dead. At that time, I could not yet fully comprehend the magnitude of the destruction
of Jewish culture and people in continental Europe, nor could I articulate the depth of my trauma or put my losses into words.

She described how people had fought over our possessions once we were gone. The livestock were captured and removed, but she didn't know what had happened to my dogs. She also told me that the synagogue was desecrated and the Torah scrolls were taken out of the arc and cut into pieces, or worse. The prayer books and Talmudic books were burned. Ily and I tried to reminisce about the good times. I told her how I remembered her playing the piano during summer evenings when the windows were open, and how much the music had meant to me. She spontaneously offered to play her favourite Chopin piece, Nocturne in E-flat major. I felt the music in every fibre of my body. I closed my eyes and felt as if I were floating. I was at peace, and I will forever remember Ily's kindness to me in that crucial moment. Then she brought out an envelope with two pictures that she had been able to save after our home was ransacked. I felt that I had been given the biggest treasure, but unfortunately I had nowhere to keep them. We decided that for safekeeping, she would either keep the pictures until I came out of the hospital or would take them to her mother in Košice.

At
11
p.m., the farmer arrived with his wagon and helped me get onto a thick layer of straw, facing forward, with a lot of straw behind my back. I thanked Ily profusely for all she had done, and she promised to come and visit me in the hospital. She was the only bright light I had encountered upon my return. Her kindness and caring were genuine, and I knew it was how my mother would have reacted in the same situation.

The town was very quiet, with only a few streetlights lit along the main street. The buggy had a carbide lamp rigged on each
side to provide light and to signal to others that we were there. It was a beautiful, starry night and I was ready to be attended to. I knew that my body needed help. The driver and I did not converse. He may have nodded off, but the horses kept trotting at a steady pace. The sound of their hoofs seemed like a fairy tale. The journey took six or seven hours.

The sun came up from the east, and it was a beautiful morning. About an hour later, we arrived at the St. Elizabeth Hospital in Košice. The driver got down from the wagon and helped me get off. I thanked him for his time and walked into the reception area of the hospital for processing. A nun took me to a public ward, where I was assigned to a bed; she gave me a gown and took away my clothes and shoes. I got into a bed with clean sheets and a raised back that allowed me to sit up. Being in such clean surroundings felt like a luxury, and my thoughts returned to barrack
21
in Auschwitz, where there were no comforts and the outlook for recovery was so bleak.

A short time later, two doctors came into the ward to make their rounds. They examined me and confirmed that I had wet pleurisy. Then they advised me that a nurse would soon arrive to perform the procedure to remove the water. I was ready to receive whatever treatment was needed. A very kind nurse came in with a bucket and a big syringe with a large needle attached. I had never seen a syringe and needle that large in the Auschwitz operating room. She told me that the procedure would be painful, but it was the only way to gradually remove the water from my lungs and my chest cavity. She told me to raise my arms over my head, and then she positioned herself behind me, inserted the needle between my ribs, and began siphoning the water into the bucket. It was very painful,
particularly when I took a breath, and the needle felt as if it were piercing my lungs.

This procedure took some time, and when she was done, the nurse marked the water level with iodine on my chest. She repeated the procedure daily for about a week, until the water was completely removed from my lungs. The doctors put me on a liquid and salt-free diet, and by the end of the second week, I looked almost skeletal. I was weak and had no muscle strength at all. I felt that my body had to be rebuilt from scratch to function normally. After the second week, I was allowed to eat solid foods and I began walking outside in the park in the warm summer air. Gradually, my body strengthened, and I felt more alive and healthier than I had in a very long time.

During my recovery, some volunteers from the local Jewish community came to visit. They took my particulars, kept me company, brought me fruit, and asked me if I had any relatives. I explained that I had seen the name of my cousin Chaim Lazarovits on a list on my way back from Ebensee, but that I didn't know his whereabouts. They said they would post my name in the small synagogue in town, and a few days later, I received a visit from a Mr. Joseph Gottlieb. He told me that his late wife's mother and my grandfather were brother and sister. He said that when I was released from the hospital, he wanted me to come and stay with them. I was relieved to know that I would have a roof over my head.

Joseph's son, Itzhak, soon came to visit me as well. Itzhak was my age, and we developed a good rapport and became fast friends. He was apprenticing to become a tool-and-die maker, and he was occupied with learning his trade. He also belonged to a survivors' group of Jewish teenagers run by the Mizrachi
Organization. With Itzhak's encouragement, I also joined this group, and to my great surprise found that my cousin Chaim was already a member. Here I got to know other teenagers as well and participated in their activities. The leaders of the group channelled our behaviour in a professional manner, understanding that we all needed help to adjust to life postwar. I struggled, in particular, with learning to trust again, and engaging and cooperating with others.

The Gottlieb family consisted of Joseph and his second wife, Malvinka; their three daughters, Ilonka, Clari, and Shari; and their son, Itzhak. There was also a cousin named Ruty and a friend named Magda residing in the home. It was a very lively and busy household. Malvinka was a wonderful cook with a heart of gold, and I managed to put on weight during the months I lived there. Feeling accepted as part of a family contributed greatly to my recovery from the pleurisy, and I began to feel like a normal teenager for the first time in more than a year.

D
uring my time with the Mizrachi Organization, I befriended a boy named Mike, who told me about a school for orphans that was soon to open in the city of Marienbad, not far from Prague. I decided on the spot that I would join him there, and I became excited about the opportunity to resume my education. We arrived in Marienbad by train in the spring of
1946
and made our way to a
pensione
called Rienzi, a multi-storey building with approximately thirty double-occupancy rooms, each with a tub, a toilet, and a bidet. When I first saw the bidet, I was encouraged by some of the other students to bend over and have a closer look, and I was subsequently met with a stream of water in the face. Apparently this was a prank played on all new arrivals, a playful initiation that all the new students endured.

Together, we were thirty or so bright boys, mainly from Slovakia, but also from Hungary and Romania. We all came from different backgrounds, and there were some initial conflicts and misunderstandings that were taken out on the furniture,
which suffered a lot of damage the first year. Getting rid of pent-up anger was a necessary part of our decompression process. Rabbi Stern, an easygoing man, had come from Budapest to oversee the school. He kept us focused on our lessons mornings and afternoons, but he also gave us the space to go through this rough stage and learn to resolve our problems on our own. Eventually we all settled down, developed mutual respect, and became like a family. We knew we had a good environment to live in and didn't want to mess it up, so we became responsible and civilized.

We lived in Rienzi for three years courtesy of the town and our benefactors, and we were grateful to have a safe and secure environment. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) provided all our food, and a husband-and-wife couple did the cooking and stayed with us the entire time I was there. I remember that large cans of peaches and white tuna fish in oil were especially well received because we craved protein and sweet treats. The JDC occasionally supplied large bales of used clothing from America, and I selected for myself a couple of pairs of pants with a zippered fly (a novelty for me—I was accustomed to a buttoned fly), shirts with dome fasteners, and a beautiful navy-blue fedora hat made by Borsalino that I cherished.

I was eager to advance myself and I wanted to learn a trade and be trained for a future vocation. Since I had the experience of working in an operating room—sterilizing instruments and preparing patients for surgery—I thought I would like to become a dental technician. Dentists in Europe had their own labs and employed a master technician to make the dentures, crowns, inlays, and so on. I was hired by a local dentist to be
an apprentice, earning a minimal sum of money but grateful for the learning opportunity. My teacher was Herr Tutz, a master dental technician. He took me under his wing and taught me the fine details of the trade. We were together every day for almost three years. We became good friends, and he took a strong interest in me. He realized I had good hands and an aptitude for dentistry work. My future in this field looked promising.

With the stability of my apprenticeship, I was able to look upon Marienbad as a place of healing. The town was located in an idyllic mountain setting, and it had many therapeutic springs. It was named after the Austro-Hungarian empress Maria Theresa, and it was, and still is, a world-famous spa town. Wealthy people and royals from King George V to the maharajas of India all visited the spa to take the baths and drink the waters. They stayed in beautiful, elegant hotels and strolled the large baroque promenade in the middle of the town. Magnificent chestnut trees encircled the town, and each day at noon and again in the evening a full orchestra played classical music for two hours at a time. People strolled the promenade for hours, listening to the music while sipping their mineral water from cups with built-in porcelain siphons. The season there began in June and went until mid-September. Each year, I eagerly awaited the new season so I could meet new people and listen to the beautiful music. After the season ended, all the hotels closed and the staff and tourists disappeared, and I was sad to see the summer pass.

My daily routine was comfortingly predictable. I worked until noon at the dental office, had a fast lunch at Rienzi, and then rushed to the promenade for an hour and a half to listen to
the orchestra play Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven, all the classics. It was a spectacle to watch people from around the world in their fine attire, and in my three years in Marienbad, I rarely missed a day of music during the open season. After lunch, I went back to work for the afternoon. I became a voracious reader and learned much about the world that I had missed out on. I read the classics and improved my vocabulary and knowledge. On some days, I went hiking in the mountains with a group of friends. We liked to challenge ourselves with daring leaps down steep paths as we descended. There was a lake where we could swim and fields where we played soccer.

In the winter there was a lot of snow and no vehicle traffic on the roads. In the first year, we discovered a huge bobsled in the shed of our residence. Wheels spun inside our heads, and we imagined how exciting it would be to take a run down the road on this beast. Obviously we could not do it in daytime; we didn't know who owned the bobsled, and we certainly couldn't get permission to use it anyway. Six of us worked out a plan to hire a local truck driver to take the sled up a serpentine road to the top of a hill. We snuck out of our rooms when all was quiet and went out to the shed, where we loaded the sled onto the truck. The driver took us up to the top of the road, where we unloaded the sled and prepared to take our first run. We asked him to follow us so we could go back up again. The heavy sled held six, and it had a steering wheel, steel runners, and brakes. With some trepidation, we all jumped on and were away! It was dark that night and the sled kept picking up speed. Our brakeman aggressively applied the brakes at every turn to slow us down. We finished the first run and completed two more, increasing the speed each time as our confidence grew. This was a huge excitement for us,
but we didn't want to press our luck. We called it a night after the third run and returned to our residence before our absence was noted. We repeated this many times during the winter of
1946
–
47
, and by the time spring came, we were accomplished bobsledders.

The following year, we renewed our bobsledding adventures. One night toward the end of winter, we went out when the roads were not as covered with snow. On the way to the top of the mountain, we noticed ice on the road—that meant the speed going downhill would be much faster. Against our better judgment, we decided to go for it. On the way down, we picked up a lot of momentum, and we weren't able to slow ourselves adequately. When we reached a sharp turn in the road, we lost control. The sled hit a retaining wall and the impact was jarring. Bodies flew all over the roadside. I felt for my limbs and quickly realized that I was not injured. Fortunately no one else was either, but the sled was completely destroyed. We pulled the broken sled down the road and stowed it in the shed, covering it with a pile of old furniture and hoping there wouldn't be any consequences.

Around this time, Rabbi Stern and some of the other students began to consider their future plans. The rabbi told us that he had a visa to go the United States and was planning to leave the coming summer. Other students had relatives overseas and were also getting ready to leave, so we knew the school would be closed by the fall of
1948
. For an orphan like me, it was a very unsettling time because it felt as if everyone else was leaving and I didn't know where I would end up. Even my friend Mike had a visa and planned to join his family in Australia. I didn't want to be left behind.

Rabbi Stern contacted Rabbi Abraham Price in Toronto, Canada. He had helped many survivors immigrate to Canada, and now he managed to obtain Canadian permits for all of us needing passports and somewhere to go. His plan would have been successful if not for a coup in February
1948
, during which the Communist Party took control of Czechoslovakia. President Edvard Beneš was arrested and jailed, along with his chiefs of staff, and Radio Prague was taken over. When we turned on the radio the next morning, we found out we were now in a Communist country. We were in complete shock, and we knew this would make it impossible for Czech citizens to leave. My only chance to leave would be as a foreigner. Thus, I knew I would need a new strategy. But what?

I needed false papers indicating I was not Czech, and since I spoke Hungarian, it was preferable to obtain Hungarian papers. Two months later, Rabbi Stern left for America and many students found other ways out. There were only a few of us left, and food supplies were dwindling. We became desperate and finally hatched a plan to get out. In late September
1948
, we travelled to Prague and found a man who was known to prepare false documents, but unfortunately, there were hundreds of others ahead of us in the queue. The forger told us to leave our pictures and come back one month later. In the meantime, Rabbi Price sent visas to the Canadian embassy in Prague. As soon as we could get our new documentation, we'd be able to get out.

At end of September, the municipal authorities told us to vacate the Rienzi
pensione
immediately, and we found ourselves homeless again. I had lived in Marienbad for three years in a stable environment, and the beauty and atmosphere healed my soul. I said goodbye to Herr Tutz, who had taught me so many
skills as a dental technician. I was confident that no matter where fate took me, I would put those skills to good use. Eight of us headed to the train station, and on the way I took one last look at the beautiful hotels and the promenade. I hoped that one day, I would be back in this magical place.