THE MEMORIES OF JÁNOS LANG, recorded on 2 May, 2007
9 Zichy Street during and after World War II
9 Zichy Street was in some way the centre of the Jewish community in Óbuda. The rabbi lived there, and so did József Neumann. After World War II, 9 Zichy Street clearly became a Jewish centre. Not only were religious issues organised there, for example, bringing the synagogue into a usable condition, but a Zionist centre was also established there. The aim of the centre was to deal with young Jewish people who had survived, trying to convince them to “make Aliyah”, that is to go to Israel. And in many cases they did.
A little off-topic I’ll tell you that I was at the ghetto at 12 or 15 Nagydiófa Street with my grandmother. 11 Pacsirtamező Street near the Amphitheatre, where I used to live with my parents and grandparents, became a yellow-star house. When we also had to leave the yellow-star house, we were gathered by the Nyilas people (Hungarian Nazis) and the police. As far as I remember, I didn’t see any German soldiers. Everything was dealt with by the Hungarian authorities.
At the end of the summer of 1944, we had to go with my mother, my mother’s sister, Mrs. Olga Gutmann and my grandmother, Mrs. Ármin Engel carrying some of our belongings to the gatherhouse at 9 Zichy Street. This was the school building, we were led into the big hall. My father and uncle had already been taken for labour service. People were sleeping against the wall, about a hundred of them all squeezed together. We lived there for a while. Then the Nyilas and the police came again, and organised a transport from 9 Zichy Street to the brick factory and from there to the west. I was then 7 years old. I was wearing a winter coat, a hat with earflaps, it was autumn. My mother had agreed with a Christian woman that if the Jewish are taken away, she would hide me. I had to go to the cellar of 9 Zichy Street, and there I had to wait for Auntie Ganz, whose husband was Zoli Ganz, a Jewish man. It was dark in the cellar and I was really scared. As I have said, the transport was organised in front of 9 Zichy Street. And since I was scared in the cellar, I came up to find my mother in the group. My mother warned me that I had to go to the cellar, because Auntie Ganz would come to pick me up. But I didn’t want to go there. Suddenly, Auntie Ganz appeared, and my mother pushed me out of the line onto the pavement, to Auntie Ganz. Auntie Ganz took hold of my hand.
Later my mother told me, when after the war, at the end of ’46, beginning of ’47, when she came home from the Mauthausen concentration camp, that an old, grey-haired policeman who was keeping watch saw this scene with me and Auntie Ganz, and turned away. This is how I moved in with Auntie Ganz in Kiskorona Street, where a week later the caretaker’s wife told Auntie Ganz that she’d better take this Jewish kid to the ghetto, or else she’d report her. There was so much pestering that in the end Auntie Ganz did take me to the ghetto.
After the war, when I came back to 11 Pacsirtamező Street, together with other young people we went back to 9 Zichy Street, where there was a daycentre and we also got food. The Zionists spent time with us intensely. My father, my mother and everyone in the family became a member of the Communist Party. However, the communists condemned the Zionists from the beginning, so I went to a normal school.
In Zichy Street Unlce Szűcs organised cultural shows. Miklós Gottlieb was also my mate. At Pesach, Miklós and I did a performance. I played Mordecai and Miki Gottlieb was Haman. We did a dialogue, which I presume was written by Uncle Szűcs. The gist of the dialogue was that I, Mordecai had to answer Haman’s questions, or else I would be executed like the other Jews. Among other things, Haman asked me: “Tell me how heavy the moon is.” The moment was tense, as who knows how heavy the moon is. Then Mordecai answers: “Sir, the moon is exactly one ton. If you don’t believe me, have it measured yourself.” There was a great applause.
Christians
My father had a great childhood friend, a soul-mate, a Swabian (German minority in Hungary) boy, Károly Haisch, who with his wife and daughter had been evacuated with bombing, and they became homeless. My father took them into his flat at 6 Eső Street. Haisch’s wife said: “I am going to bring up Jancsi the same as my daughter.” At the time we had no news yet of my mother. I only have nice and good memories about how this lady cared for me, sent me to school until my mother returned. Then we moved back to my grandmother’s flat at 11 Pacsirtamező Street.
Search for identity, the question of assimilation
We Langs and Engels have lived through such a period, which has in Hungary, among the Jewish people of Hungary, continuously, as early as in the 19th century raised the question: whether to assume Jewish identity. I asked my parents (my father was born in 1902, my mother in 1911) that as adult, thinking humans, after 1920 how could they stay and live here as secondary citizens? Before Hitler’s power even appeared, in 1920-22 there was already racism here. Hitler only assumed power in ’33. My parents could not answer this question. A paediatrician acquaintance of ours, for example, was not able to study at the Medical University of Budapest, because of the numerus clausus, he had to study in Prague. Not to mention the later periods, when Jewish men were not allowed in the army, they had to do labour service instead.
My wife’s husband, whose name was Ernő Ács, though they were called Ábeles earlier, had a bunch of awards from Word War I. All these awards had been taken away from him. Concerning the search for identity and assimilation, I would also like to mention Dr. Endre Örlős surgeon, who in my childhood was a kind of mentor to me. He taught me that even if you wanted to assimilate, the mainstream society will always remind you of your being Jewish. This is why we have to consciously keep in mind the Jewish festivals, for example, to fast at Yom Kippur, in order not to forget that we are Jewish.
After 1956 Dr. Örlős was interned for a while, accused of only treating fighting and injured rebells during the revolution in Margit Hospital. This was, of course, untrue. He was released from Kistarcsa with the intervention of László Bihari (Braun), 3rd district party secretary, who went to Prime Minister János Kádár personally.