My Canary Yellow Star (19 page)

“They’ve got to!” I replied.

The gray autumn rain fell as we trudged along the old Danube road leading to Vienna. We were two waves in a sea of Jewish women belonging to the sisterhood of the yellow star. Although a curtain of rain dulled the beauty of the angry river snaking alongside the road, it could not
blunt my fear. I was soaked through to the skin but barely felt it. All I could think about were my mother and my aunt. Where were they? What was happening to them? I knew that Judit’s anxiety must have matched mine because she kept casting frantic glances in my direction. We were completely silent, afraid even to whisper to each other. Numbed, we trudged along. Stopping for even a moment to catch our breath would have meant permanent rest among the dead at the side of the road.

I lost track of time. Only a few weeks had passed since Judit and I met at the racetrack, but it seemed as if we had been digging ditches forever, first on the outskirts of Budapest, now on the road leading to the town of Hegyeshalom, on the Austrian border. It was back-breaking work. Our clothing was in tatters and our skin had become gray from ingrained dirt. Every day we worked in the trenches for ten hours before being herded into a large column to march, exhausted, for six more long hours toward the border, where the German authorities were waiting for us. Our ultimate destination was a work camp in Germany.

We were dirty, tired, and rarely looked up, for we were focused on the groaning of our bellies and the sheer physical effort needed to keep moving. At night we stopped in outdoor arenas or in schoolyards, where we slept like animals on wet straw strewn on the ground. Sometimes there wasn’t even any straw, and we would lie on damp earth or cold stone.

The days and nights had become formless. By the time we saw the church spires of Komarom outlined in the distance, we were so exhausted that we didn’t even have the strength to offer words of consolation to each other. All I longed for was a pile of hay where I could rest my head and our daily serving of watery soup to calm my belly. All my fight was gone. I was ready to give up, whatever the consequences, when suddenly, miraculously, the movie of my imagination switched on. I was transported back to my old home, to my familiar room with its lacy curtains catching the moonbeams. I was still a little girl with my hair in plaits, lying in my bed, waiting for Mama and Papa to come into my room to bless me as they did every Shabbos eve.

Then came the nightmare. I remembered Mama being taken away, Ervin and Gabor being marched out of our building’s courtyard at gunpoint, Grandmama lying on the floor with the trickle of blood running down the side of her face. And Papa, so far away, building roads somewhere in Yugoslavia. I thought of Papa and the way he used to be before the war – so good, so clever, so kind. He was always so gentle with me, so careful even when he was removing a sliver from my finger.

“My darling Papa,” I called into the beating, icy rain.

A sudden noise caused me to turn. I was just in time to see the woman who had been walking behind me throw herself into the deep ditch running along the roadside. She
was swallowed up by the scrubby vegetation. The guards did not notice.

“I’m going to jump into the ditch! Come with me!” I whispered to Judit.

She shook her head vehemently. “No, don’t be crazy! It’s too risky. They’ll kill you!”

“It’s our only chance!”

“You’re making a terrible mistake,” Judit said.

With a last glance in her direction, I gathered up my remaining strength and threw myself into the ditch. As I rolled down the steep bank, a thorny branch scraped my face. I pushed it back, careful not to disturb the protective canopy of bushes. Then I lay motionless in the ditch for what seemed an eternity. At first, I heard the heavy thumping of the feet of the passing prisoners on the road above me. Then came a silence that was broken only by the whistling of the wind.

I had no idea how much time had passed when a loud rustling noise to my left caused my heart to race. Could the sounds have come from a wolf roaming the countryside? I sat up. A sheepdog was staring right at me. He was so close that I could see the doleful expression in his eyes even in the dusk. When I stretched out a cautious hand to scratch him behind a floppy ear, he gave me a soggy lick on my nose. Suddenly, the world seemed a less harsh place.

“Oh, you beauty! Did you come to keep me company?”

I was answered with an energetic wagging of his tail.

When I stood up, it took several moments for the pins and needles in my hands and feet to disappear. I climbed the banks of the ditch to the narrow road stretching beside it. The countryside was eerily empty, except for a large crow hopping about in the dirt a few feet away. There was no sign of the woman who had thrown herself into the ditch before me.

I began to breathe a little easier. What to do next? Which way should I go? The decision was taken out of my hands when an army truck appeared around a bend in the road. The mournful tones of the German song “Lili Marlene” wafted out into the chilly autumn air. The sheepdog gave a frightened yelp and scurried away. The truck was coming closer. It was too late for me to dive back into the ditch. I had to get rid of the yellow star on my jacket. There was no time to tear it off as I had done before, however, so I ripped off my coat instead and threw it into the ditch. I was grateful for the dusk and quite certain that neither the driver nor his passengers had been able to see what I was doing. I brushed off the twigs still clinging to my skirt, smoothed down my hair as best I could, then stood hugging myself to ward off the chilly air, waiting for the truck to reach me. When it was only a few feet away, I started waving my arms and jumping up and down. The truck came to a screeching halt. There was a large swastika decorating the wagon’s tarpaulin. A uniformed German soldier was at the wheel.

I forced a smile to my face. “Heil Hitler! Long live Szalasi!” I babbled over my outstretched arm. “Thank God you’re here!”

The driver’s arm shot out in response. “Heil Hitler!” he barked, then began shouting at me in German.

“No Deutsch! I don’t speak German.”

I must have been more convincing than I realized, for the soldier merely gave an irritated shrug and repeated, in halting Hungarian: “Who are you, girl? Where are you going?”

“My name is Anna Nagy. I am from Komarom.” It wasn’t hard to force myself to cry. “I was bombed out of my house. It burned to the ground. My whole family was killed.” I forced a louder sob. “I was almost killed by a falling beam myself. I was hoping to hitch a ride to Budapest, where my auntie lives. Please help me!”

The driver seemed satisfied by my torn clothing, dirty face, disheveled hair. A second soldier, who couldn’t have been more than two or three years older than I was, was leaning out of the back of the truck, listening to what we were saying.

“Show me your papers, girl,” the driver growled.

I began to cry even harder. “My papers were burned with everything else. I don’t even have a coat.” I wiped away my tears with knuckles that were gray from digging ditches.

The driver scratched his head.

“Oh, come on, Hans,” said the second soldier to the driver in a good-natured voice. “The poor girl has gone
through enough already. She can get her documents replaced in Budapest.” He spoke Hungarian more fluently than the driver.

I held my breath. Finally, the driver nodded.

“Hop in, Anna,” the second soldier said. He held out his hand and hoisted me into the back of the truck. I knocked against him as the driver revved up the motor and continued on his route.

As my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I looked around the interior. I could just make out the outline of a bulky figure huddled in the corner of the truck, using a knapsack for a seat. The person’s features were obscured.

“Anna, let me introduce you to my comrade,” the soldier said jauntily.

The figure edged closer until I found myself looking into the dead eyes of the SS guard who had made sure that Wallenberg took no more than fifty prisoners off the train at the Jozsefvarosi railway station. I screwed my eyes shut and shook my head. I told myself that such coincidences did not happen, that all of this had to be a nightmare. When I opened my eyes again, the SS man from the transport was still beside me. I prayed he wouldn’t recognize me.

“I know I’ve seen you before, but where?” he muttered in a puzzled manner. Finally, his face contorted into a foxy grin. “I remember where I’ve seen you, Jewish slut. No
Jew-loving Swede will save your skin this time!” Then he spat right in my face.

“What’s the matter with you, Hermann?” the young German soldier asked. “Have you gone crazy?”

“Do you know who this is?” The SS soldier interrupted him. “She isn’t anybody called Anna. She isn’t from Komarom. She is a cursed Jew! A couple of weeks ago, she was taken off my transport by that Jew-loving Wallenberg.”

By now, the first soldier’s revolver was pointed at my head, although I thought I could detect a glimmer of pity in his eyes. I gathered together the remnants of my courage.

“Please, please don’t betray me!” I begged. “Please help me! I’ll make it worth your while.”

A cunning expression came over the SS guard’s cruel face. “What will you give us if we let you go?” he asked. “All of you Jews are filthy rich.”

“Something you can sell. Something that’s worth several months’ salary.”

“Stop lying, bitch!” he snarled. “It won’t help you.”

The younger soldier also seemed unconvinced, but he lowered his gun nevertheless. “What have you got, girl?” he asked.

I crouched down, pulled off my left shoe, took out the insole, and pulled out Grandmama’s necklace. The gold star glimmered in the semi-darkness. “A necklace. It’s real gold. It’ll fetch a lot of money if you sell it.” I held it out. He grabbed it out of my hand and greedily examined it.

“Look at that! She was telling the truth,” the younger soldier said.

“Its Jew garbage!”

“Don’t be stupid, Hermann. It’s gold. It must be valuable,” said his comrade.

“I assure you it is. Now it’s yours. Please let me go!”

“Are you crazy?” the SS guard snapped. “Why, we wouldn’t let you go even if –”

“Hermann, you’re wrong!” the young soldier said. “We can’t shoot her. Hans would want to know why, and we don’t want anyone to know we took her gold. She can’t be trusted to keep quiet, so we have to let her go. Let me see her necklace.”

The SS guard gave it to him reluctantly. The soldier tore off the Star of David pendant and put the gold chain into his pocket. Then he leaned out of the back of the truck and threw the medallion into the darkening fields on the side of the road.

“Nobody will find that Jew star out there,” he said before knocking on the small window in the partition that separated the driver from us.

The driver looked back and the soldier motioned to him to pull up at the side of the road. After he had stopped, the driver slid aside the pane of glass.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“The girl is getting carsick. She wants to walk,” the soldier said.

I felt a deep sense of satisfaction when I saw the SS guard’s fuming face as I jumped out of the truck.

I traveled only at night, without a coat, in the freezing autumn weather. In the daytime, I hid in haystacks or ditches. On the fourth day of my journey, an occasional snowflake whitened my hair, and I realized that December was around the corner. Twice I was lucky enough to come across some wild berries still growing on a few bushes so late in the season. The rest of the time I went hungry. It took me five days to reach the outskirts of Budapest. I decided to return to 2 St. Stephen Park. Perhaps Mrs. Grof would have news of Mama and Aunt Miriam.

I
was so filthy and wretched that I was barely recognizable by the time I arrived at the wrought-iron gates of 2 St. Stephen Park. My hair was a matted bush covering my face. My skirt was in tatters and my gray stockings were filthy and bloody from the scratches on my legs. Fortunately, the lowering clouds not only obscured the moon, but also hid me from hostile eyes. Through the darkness I could still see the outline of the Swedish flag on the roof.

I rang the doorbell. Its piercing tone cut the blackness and I was sure I had woken up all the inhabitants of the building. I cowered against the rough stucco wall, expecting the barrel of a gun in the small of my back. Instead, the gates creaked open and two young men stepped out. I could see the outlines of the revolvers they held in their hands.

“Halt! Who is there?” the first man asked.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the second said.

My heart almost stopped from joy. Was I hallucinating? No! I knew what I had just heard.

“Who is there?” the first man repeated.

“Ervin! Gabor! Thank God it’s you! It’s me, Marta! Don’t you recognize me?”

A quick intake of breath. “Shh, be quiet! The darkness has ears!” Ervin whispered.

Gabor grasped my arm and pushed me through the gates, clicking the doors closed behind us. Ervin pulled me close for a quick embrace. His cheek felt moist against my face.