My Canary Yellow Star (20 page)

“Follow us!” he whispered.

We climbed four flights of slippery steps, then turned into a narrow hallway where we picked our way around dozens of people lying on the floor. Some had blankets, but most were unprotected against the cold cement.

“Careful, don’t step on anyone,” Gabor whispered.

We came to the last door at the end of the hall, stepped over a sleeping child blocking the doorway, and went in.

“What are you –”

“Shh! You’ll wake everybody! There will be time to explain everything later.” Ervin shone his flashlight on the parquet floor. Every inch of space was covered by sleeping bodies. A baby began to stir and moan as the light touched his face. Ervin quickly turned off his flashlight and pulled me after him. Gabor was so close behind that I
could feel his breath fanning my neck. Finally, we went into another room.

As soon as the door clicked closed behind us, Ervin turned on the lights. It was so good to see his face again. When I looked around, I saw we were in the bathroom of the apartment. Ervin engulfed me in a bear hug so tight that I could hardly breathe. I wanted him never to let me go, and I hugged back as hard as I could. Both of us were laughing and crying at the same time. When we finally came up for air, it was my cousin’s turn to embrace me. I was surprised by how tall both boys had become since I last saw them. Ervin even sported the beginnings of a wispy mustache.

“What are you doing here? Have you heard from Mama and Aunt Miriam? Where are they? Are they all right? What happened to you?” The words tumbled out of my mouth.

“What about you? Why are you so thin and pale?” Ervin asked with a worried frown.

“Whoa! Stop it!” Gabor interjected. “One person at a time. First, let me get you some food, Marta. You look like you could use it.”

“I am famished.”

Gabor slipped out of the room and brought back a slice of dark bread and a boiled potato. I sat down on the toilet lid and the boys perched on the edge of the tub. The food tasted better in my mouth than anything I had eaten before.

“There is so much to talk about,” I told them. “But first of all, I want to know if you’ve heard from Mama and Aunt Miriam. We were taken to Gestapo headquarters at the Mirabel. The Arrow Cross separated us. They took them to work in the kitchen. Do you know if they’re still there?”

A worried look passed between the boys.

“What’s wrong?”

“Mama and Aunt Miriam were taken to the Ghetto,” Ervin said.

“The Ghetto? What do you mean?”

“A couple of weeks ago, all Jews were ordered to move into a walled-in ghetto behind the synagogue on Dohany Street,” Gabor explained. “Only those of us who live in Swedish or Swiss safe houses are left outside.”

“The Ghetto is a terrible place, Marta,” Ervin said. “If you saw it for yourself, you wouldn’t believe it. It’s incredibly overcrowded and dirty, with dead bodies piled up everywhere like firewood. There is no food, no running water, no electricity. People are starving to death.”

“How can Mama and Aunt Miriam survive?”

Ervin held my hand tightly while dry sobs shook my body. When I grew calmer, he added, “Peter is with the Resistance. He told us that Resistance fighters are smuggling in a little bit of food and water in Red Cross trucks, but it’s not nearly enough.”

“Peter! Where is he?”

“He’ll be here tomorrow morning,” Ervin said.

“Is he all right? What has happened to him?”

“Peter is fine,” Ervin said. “It’s safer for you not to know everything.”

“Please!”

Ervin cracked his knuckles and wouldn’t answer.

“Come on,” Gabor said. “She’s entitled to know.” He turned to me. “After he came back from Pecs, Peter received his conscription notice. His parents threw him out of the house when he told them he wouldn’t fight for Hungary. His mother didn’t speak up for him, not even when his father called him a traitor and told him he never wanted to see him again.”

“That hurt Peter the most,” Ervin said.

“Poor Peter! He must have been devastated!”

“He hasn’t seen them since,” Gabor said. “He knew of Sam Stein’s involvement with the Resistance. Sam hooked him up with them, and he’s been with them ever since.”

“Your Peter is a brave person,” Ervin said. “He saved our lives. He helped us escape from the Arrow Cross.”

“Tell me everything.”

“So much has happened that I don’t even know where to begin,” Ervin said.

“The beginning.”

“After we were caught, Gabor and I were sent to dig ditches in Yugoslavia. Adam was separated from us. We don’t know what happened to him.”

“Oh God, poor Mrs. Grof!”

“She doesn’t know about Adam,” Gabor said. “She seems to have disappeared. We’ve been asking, but nobody knows where she is.” He stood up and rubbed his back. “This seat is too hard.” He sat down cross-legged on the tile floor. Ervin sat down beside him before he picked up the thread of Gabor’s story.

“In the middle of October, the Arrow Cross brought us back to Budapest. They took us to the synagogue in Dohany Street. It was a madhouse. There were at least a thousand of us crowded together. Arrow Cross soldiers with guns were everywhere, blocking all the exits. They even stood on the staircases leading to the rabbi’s pulpit. I was certain that one of the bastards had his gun pointed straight at my head,” Ervin said ruefully.

“Ervin and I realized very quickly that we had to get out of there,” Gabor said, jumping in. “Just when we thought there was no possible escape, we noticed a tall boy in a Levente uniform. He had a rifle in his hands and a knapsack over his shoulder. He seemed to be explaining something to the Arrow Cross guard and then he waded into the crowd. He pushed his way right to us. We finally got a good look at his face in the dim light. It was Peter! ‘Don’t say a word!’ he whispered in my ear.”

“By then, we had caught on,” Ervin said. “He started screaming at us at the top of his voice. ‘Jewish garbage! You thought you could cheat me? You thought you could get away from me, didn’t you? Well, you were wrong! You
won’t escape me again!’ Then he marched us out of the synagogue at gunpoint, pushing and shoving us the whole time. The prisoners parted in front of us much as the Red Sea must have parted in front of Moses. Nobody questioned us, nobody stopped us. It was so easy.”

He shifted on the floor and continued speaking. “Once we were outside, we stopped behind a large tree in the yard. Peter took two Levente uniforms from his knapsack. He had everything from boots to caps to revolvers. We pulled the uniforms over our clothes.”

“Well, you finally got to wear a Levente uniform,” I said sarcastically.

Ervin ignored me. “Nobody noticed what we were doing. When we left, the armed sentry at the gates even waved goodbye.”

“What did you do next?”

“There isn’t much more to tell,” Gabor said. “We found out that most of the Jewish tenants from our old block had been brought here by Mr. Wallenberg, so we moved here too.”

“Nowhere is safe any more,” Ervin said. “We heard that the Arrow Cross broke into a Swiss house where the Krausz family was staying and shot everybody. It’s not even advisable to keep our Schutz-Passes with us all the time. We’re saving them for a real emergency, when there is no other way out. I’ll show you where we’ve hidden them.”

He crouched down on the floor and reached around the side of the tub. Carefully, he pulled out a small canvas-covered package that was lodged between the tub and the wall. He unwrapped it to reveal the familiar protective passports. “We were told again to send for Mr. Wallenberg if the Arrow Cross soldiers refuse to recognize our Schutz-Passes. Wallenberg takes on the Nazis, and he never loses.” Ervin’s voice was full of admiration. He slipped the protective passports back into their hiding place.

I told them how our Schutz-Passes had been taken away. “What will happen to me if we need to use our passports?” To my shame, my voice shook.

“Don’t worry, Marta. You’ll be fine,” Gabor said. “God will protect you, and my mother and Aunt Nelly too.” His face brightened. “This will be one of the first places they’ll look for us when the war is over.”

“If they live that long,” Ervin said. “Oh, Gabor, when will you open your eyes? How I envy your blindness!”

Gabor did not reply.

It was past midnight when we stopped talking. Ervin and Gabor insisted that I occupy the bathtub while they stretched out on the hard tile floor. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep immediately. At dawn, gunfire woke me.

I
t took us more than an hour to arrive at the Ghetto. The Arrow Cross soldiers who had invaded our hiding place marched us at gunpoint through the December snow. They gave us no time to put on our shoes or coats. We trudged through the cold streets barefoot and freezing. Ahead of me, a gray-haired woman slowed down, unable to keep up with the punishing pace they had set for us. She dropped to the icy road, exhausted. I had barely passed her when the explosion of gunfire behind me spoke of her fate.

I marched beside Ervin and Gabor. My whole being was concentrated on completing the next frozen step and the next after that. Finally, Gabor broke the silence.

“I thought we’d be safe longer,” he said.

I hunched my shoulders in a futile attempt to ward off the cold. All I could do was listen to the boys speak.

“I was so wrong,” Ervin said. “When we heard what happened to the Krauszes, we should have moved right away.”

“Where could we have gone?” Gabor asked. “We had nowhere else to go.”

“I should have fetched our Schutz-Passes,” Ervin muttered.

“And got shot in the process? They were too quick, and they had too many guns.” Gabor turned to me. “How are you holding up, Marta?”

I was too frozen to reply. My steps faltered.

“Let me help you,” Ervin said.

The boys linked their arms through mine and dragged me along. When I thought I couldn’t take another step, whatever the consequences, we came to a guard’s hut in front of the tall wooden fence that surrounded the Ghetto. We were ordered to stop. We sunk to the ground, and Ervin and Gabor warmed my feet with their frozen hands. Life flooded back into my limbs and I slowly became aware of my surroundings. Dozens of Arrow Cross guards with drawn guns patrolled the perimeter of the Ghetto. Three trucks blocked the entrance. A large red cross, the insignia of the International Red Cross, was painted on the side of each of the trucks. Two Arrow Cross in front of the guard hut were arguing with the drivers, telling them to move their trucks.

“Get up, vermin! Get up!” shouted our captors. With the Red Cross now out of the way, they opened the large wooden gates. They herded us into the Ghetto much as a shepherd would drive his recalcitrant sheep in the direction he wanted them to go. But there was a great difference with these shepherds of people: our guards had drawn guns instead of shepherds’ crooks.

As I was about to pass through the gates, the red hair of one of the truck drivers caught my eye. There was something familiar about him. He turned his head just as I walked by. It was Sam Stein! I stopped in my tracks so suddenly that a woman behind me bumped into me full force. The flow of the crowd dragged Ervin and Gabor away from me. Sam rolled down the truck’s window.

“Tell Peter!” I cried before the swell of people surrounding me swept me into the Ghetto.

I saw Ervin turn and wave his arm in the air. I waved back. The boys pushed their way through the crowd, back to my side. We clung to each other, determined not to be separated again. As soon as I looked around, I realized that we had come into a strange and different place. It was a world teeming with cadaverous, shadowy figures decorated with yellow stars; a world of mountainous piles of garbage spewing an overwhelming stench into the air; a world of corpses piled up like logs in what was once the courtyard of the synagogue on Dohany Street, in Klauzal Square.

At Klauzal Square, we waited to cross the street while
a large group of prisoners who had arrived before us flooded forward. Gone were the swings of my childhood and the wide-open grassy space that was so perfect for flying our kites. Gone were the groups of old men playing chess and the nursemaids running after their mischievous charges. Instead, there were armed SS and Arrow Cross guards everywhere.

The other prisoners were so close to us that we could see and hear the armed guards shoving and kicking and yelling at their victims. I saw a dignified middle-aged woman handing a guard her glistening wedding ring while tears rolled down her cheeks. A well-dressed older man humbly held out his homburg hat. A squealing infant clung to his mother’s neck while a brutish guard ripped the diaper off his tender little bottom in search of hidden jewels.

We were lined up in a long column to await our turn to be interviewed by the Arrow Cross.

“What are you hiding, girl?” asked the officer in charge, turning to me.

“Nothing, sir. We weren’t allowed to bring any of our belongings with us.”

“Idiots,” the Arrow Cross murmured under his breath. “Go there.” He pointed to a longer queue. I waited and waited until it was my turn to be searched by another guard. I tried to will away his intrusive hands, to blot them out by thinking of Mama and Papa and our family when all of us were together. Eventually, he ordered me to go to
building 5, across from Klauzal Square. I walked away slowly, praying for Ervin and Gabor to rejoin me.