Traitors' Gate (10 page)

In due course he dressed, drank a
baratsch
at the pool bar, then had himself driven to the Corso. Sitting down at one of the tables in front of the Café Mignon, he ordered himself a stein of dark lager, and soon afterwards saw Levianski coming towards him.

With a wave of his hand and a smile he called out as if to an old acquaintance, ‘
Wie geht es Ihnen? Was wollen Sie trinken
?’

The broad-shouldered little Jew returned his greeting, said that he too would like a dark lager, then, sitting down, added in a lower voice, ‘So you do speak German?’

Gregory answered in an equally low tone, ‘My pretending not to was only a ruse aimed at getting your assistant to fetch someone who spoke French or English. I hoped it might be you; and I was lucky. But we will speak German together from now on, so as not to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.’

Nodding agreement, Levianski said, ‘Now tell me, please, how you came to see my letters, and what you want with me.’

That he could not be expected to talk freely, unless he was trusted to some extent, was obvious. But Gregory did not mean to reveal his true identity. With disarming candour he replied:

‘My name is Etienne Tavenier, and I am a retired Major of the French Army. For some time I have been living in Switzerland. I am not a de Gaullist but my sympathies are with the Allies. Naturally they have an information centre there. I have an English friend who works in it, and he asked me if I would make this visit to Budapest. I agreed, but I do not come as a spy, to pry into military matters. I assure you of that. Although I have been a soldier I am at heart a man of peace; and my one wish is to help in any way I can to stop this terrible war before it destroys all Europe.’

Having paused to light a cigarette, he went on, ‘Evidently the letters you wrote to your cousin were passed on by him, as I feel sure you must have intended them to be. Anyhow, copies of them were sent to the Middle Europe Section of the Allies’ information centre in Switzerland. That is how your name came to be given to me as a man I could trust, and one who might be able to help me with the answers to certain questions that I have come here to investigate.’

Levianski’s dark eyes were quite expressionless as he asked, ‘What are those questions?’

‘They can really all be embodied in one. What is the attitude of the Hungarian people towards the war?’

‘That is not simple to answer. The fact that I am a Jew does not make me any the less a Hungarian; but my attitude is very
different from that of the average Catholic priest, big landowner or peasant.’

‘Naturally. But what I mean is, do you believe that the bulk of the people are convinced of the rightness of the cause for which they are fighting?’

‘I can only repeat that the views of the main elements which make up our population vary greatly. You see, Hungary is quite different from most other nations. Her classes are not integrated in the same way. By that I do not mean that we are torn by class warfare. In fact, in peace time, we suffer very little from labour troubles, and in all classes there is a high degree of patriotism. But, where international relations are concerned, there is no unity of opinion to bind us together; as, for example, the mutual hatred of the French and the Germans which is common to all classes in both countries.’

‘Please go on, and tell me about these conflicting interests.’

‘Well, to start with, Hungary has not yet really emerged from feudalism. The greater part of the land is still divided into vast estates which are owned by a hundred or so families. They lost them after the First World War, but the Bolshevik revolution led here by Bela Khun lasted only six months. That was not long enough to destroy the attitude of mind of the peasants, which had been engrained into them through many centuries. When the magnates returned from temporary exile, their peasants received them joyfully, restored their lands and went back to work for them.

‘By the Treaty of Trianon the size of Hungary was reduced by half. In that way many of these great magnates lost some of their estates; but most of them retained enough land and wealth for their way of life to remain almost unaltered. In their great country houses they keep staffs of up to fifty servants, and as many more outside to run their stables and their shooting parties. Up there, opposite to us, on the hill of Buda the great stone buildings that you can see are their town palaces. All of them hold priceless art treasures and fine libraries, for the Hungarian aristocracy is a highly cultured one; but it has the faults as well as the virtues of all feudal aristocracies.

‘The Magyar nobility is brave, open handed and casually kind to those who are dependent upon it, but it is also proud, cynical and immoral. They despised the Austrian aristocracy
because in most cases Austrian family trees do not go back, by several hundred years, as far as theirs. They regard Hitler and his Nazi
Gauleiters
as the scum of the gutters. Yet, for their own ends, they received the Austrians as equals and treat these jumped-up Germans with most considerate politeness. As for their morals, those of cats are better. The tittle-tattle of their servants on that aspect of their lives is so consistent that it cannot be doubted. Within their own small circle husbands, wives and even unmarried girls take and exchange paramours with a freedom which would be considered utterly shameful did they occupy a less exalted station.

‘You will appreciate, therefore, that they are concerned only to maintain their privileged position. But naturally they also have a heavy bias towards any policy which, while protecting their present sources of wealth, might lead to their getting back the estates which they lost in 1920 by the creation of Poland, Czechoslovakia and a greatly enlarged Rumania.’

Levianski took a long pull at his lager, then went on. ‘You will now expect me to speak of the middle-classes. Well, there are none. At least not as there are in other countries. The noble Magyars would not soil their hands with commerce, or allow even their remotest relatives to do so. That is, until 1920. After the revolution some of the younger ones who had become impoverished through it became motor-salesmen, travel agents and so on; also the general spread of education qualified a few thousand of the younger peasants to move into the towns and replace the Austrians who had previously acted as our petty officials, but neither group is sufficiently numerous to form a class. It was the void between lord and peasant which attracted my people to Hungary. That was many centuries ago, of course, but the Jews gradually established themselves here and by their industry made themselves indispensable.

‘Today in Pest there are three hundred thousand of us—nearly a third of the population of the capital. Many of our families have grown rich on the proceeds of doing the things that the aristocracy was too proud or too lazy to do; but we have served Hungary well. We are the doctors, the lawyers, the industrialists, the importers of the things that Hungary must have and the exporters of the things she has to sell. Without us the country would fall into a state of chaos overnight. The Magyar lords have always recognised that; therefore they have not only given us their protection through the centuries, but
treated us generously. Whether they would be strong enough to continue to do so with Europe at peace and Hitler its overlord is a very different question.

‘We watch with awful fear what is happening in the lands where Hitler has only to give an order for it to be obeyed. Himmler is, if possible, even more demented in his racial theories than his master. From the Germanic part of Poland he deported a million Jews, and to fill the void he has been dragging from all parts of Europe people, many of whom cannot even speak German, just because they are of German blood. For them it means loss of homes, properties, friends and occupation; but these Nazis are too fanatical to care even for the welfare of their own race.

‘For my people, of course, matters are infinitely worse. They are despoiled of everything except the clothes in which they stand up. Last winter thousands of the women, children and old folk who were despatched to East Prussia, packed into cattle trucks, did not survive the journey. They were frozen stiff hours before they reached their destination.

‘In Austria things are no better. Within a week of the Anschluss, at the order of Heydrich, Karl Adolf Eichmann set up in Vienna his “Office for Jewish Emigration”. A very few, like Mr. Louis de Rothschild who ransomed himself by signing away his steel rolling-mills, were allowed to emigrate; 180,000 others were not so fortunate. Most of them are dead; the rest tortured skeletons in huge concentration camps, like Dachau and Mauthausen.

‘Eichmann’s “Office” already has a branch in Budapest. It has been spending enormous sums in stirring up anti-Jewish feeling here. As the Government would find it almost impossible to carry on its war industries without us, we are still protected. But if Hitler and Himmler were freed from their war commitments…’

‘You would not have a hope,’ Gregory cut in. ‘They would send in their Germans to take over your businesses; and it could only be a matter of time before you suffered the same terrible fate as the Jews in Germany, Poland and Austria. Now, what about the peasants?’

‘The Germans and the Russians are both hereditary enemies of the Hungarian people,’ Levianski replied, ‘but they dislike the Germans more because for so long they were bullied by the German-speaking Austrian petty officials and tax gatherers.
In their case, though, there is a more important factor than race prejudice; it is religion. Roman Catholicism still has a firm hold on Hungarians both rich and poor. The country people are devout and their village priests are looked up to by them. They are told from the pulpits that Stalin is anti-Christ and that they must think of the war against the godless hordes of Russia as a crusade. Therefore, much as they dislike the Germans, they are fighting beside them, for the most part, willingly.’

‘To sum up, then,’ said Gregory, ‘the nobility will continue to support Germany because they fear that a Russian victory would lead to their losing everything, and the peasants will fight on in defence of their religious beliefs; but your people would rather see the Russians win, as the lesser evil.’

Levianski pulled a face. ‘It would be only a lesser evil. Things were bad enough during the Bela Khun revolution. The Sovietisation of Hungary would mean the loss of our businesses and private fortunes. But at least our lives would be spared; and that is more than we could hope for under a Nazi controlled government.’

‘I think you are right that the Russians would plunder Jewish and Christian capitalists alike, if Hungary fought on to the end and Germany is defeated. But it would be a very different state of affairs if she decided to make a separate peace now. I feel sure that, pressed as they are at the moment, the Russians would be only too glad to guarantee Hungary’s independence, and that the other allies would underwrite that guarantee.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Levianski sighed. ‘If only that could be brought about how happy we should all be. But I see no prospect of it. Besides, if Hungary deserted her allies, it is quite on the cards that the Nazis would march in, and we would then be at the mercy of their Gestapo murder squads.’

‘I don’t think that would happen. Hitler has his hands full in Russia. He couldn’t spare the divisions to open up another front; and that is what he would have to do if he were opposed by the Hungarian army.’

‘Perhaps you are right.’

‘I’m sure I am; and think what such a move could lead to. If Hungary made a separate peace and withdrew her troops from the Russian front, that might be the beginning of the end. Hitler is in a relatively strong position now, but he must
know that he will have to face up to America next year. He might very well decide that he could get a better peace by opening negotiations in 1942 than if he continues the struggle in ‘43 or ‘44. As I have told you, my one desire is to see peace restored before Europe becomes a shambles. But I am convinced that neither Britain nor Germany will make a first move; so the only hope is that one of the smaller countries will do so and set the ball rolling. It was for that I came to Hungary; to find out if there was any chance of her Government entering into a secret understanding should it be approached by the British.’

‘I am in no position to say,’ Levianski spread out his hands, ‘but I should think it most unlikely.’

‘For the Jews of Hungary it could mean not only life, but future security and prosperity,’ said Gregory earnestly. ‘The fact that they control Hungary’s industry and commerce must give them considerable power. Surely there are ways in which they could exert their influence on the Government to consider a separate peace?’

Levianski shook his head. ‘You do not understand. The Jews have been well treated here because for hundreds of years they have performed many useful services. But never, never, have they sought to interfere in politics. To have done so would have been to invite an end to the tolerance with which they are regarded. It is true that we have come to think of ourselves as Hungarians, and that financially we run the country. But the fact remains that the Hungarians still look on us only as guests here. And the guest in a man’s house does not presume to tell him how to run it.’

They talked on for another half-hour; but it was already clear to Gregory that the Jews of Pest were unlikely to contribute anything worth while towards the downfall of Hitler. Despite their numbers, and immense financial resources, the fatalism which was tied like a millstone round the neck of their race weighed them down so heavily that they were incapable of standing up in defence of their rights as human beings; or even of using such power as they had in an organised attempt to protect themselves from future massacre. The best that could be hoped from them was that in devious ways they would hamper the Hungarian war effort and, should a movement for an independent peace arise, give it their backing.

Nevertheless, Leon Levianski showed himself personally to be a courageous man; for he said to Gregory before they parted: ‘These endeavours of yours to find a way to bring about peace are most praiseworthy; the more so as making them may easily bring you into danger. I am sure you would not willingly involve me in trouble with the police. But, if they get after you and you can evade them for a few hours, come to my apartment over the shop. I could hide you there for a time, until you could make a plan for getting safely out of the country.’