VERA KRAMER
Mrs. Gyula Lőb (12 May, 1932 –24 May 2011 )
“I cannot pray. This makes me suffer. As a chosen people six million Jewish died. My mother still prayed and fasted seriously.”
Profession: accountant
Class: Attended the Zichy Street Elementary School from 1938 to 1942. (See also the memories of Gábor Ottó Gottlieb Gulyás.)
SIBLINGS: György Tamás Kramer (born in 1929), on 15 November, 1944 together with his mother he was taken from Ó Street to Eichmann’s death march. Péter (born in 1937) survived the war, and lives in New York.
FATHER: Mór Kramer (born 4 May, 1896 in Veľké Ripňany, today’s Slovakia), he was the richest among his siblings. In 1942 he was taken away for labour service. He died in Usica, Russia.
His brothers: Nándor Kramer and Dezső Kramer both survived the Holocaust.
MOTHER: Kornélia Engel (born 8 August, 1904 in Baia Mare, today’s Romania). She died in Bergen-Belsen.
MATERNAL GRANDFATHER: Ferenc Engel
The family lived at 11 Pacsirtamező Street.
School
It was good to go there. On Saturdays, service at the synagogue… I only have nice memories. I had a good time.
At the Zichy School I wasn’t among the best children. I was quite a nuisance. Principle Weisz came to our flat, he hit my hand with a ruler, because I stretched my leg out towards the aisle in the classroom, I fought with the boys and not very softly either. This continued at home, because my father, who was the best man in the world, was very strict with us.
I remember Principle Weisz’s face so vividly. He had a thick moustache and a tall figure.
Classmates
I was really jealous of Kati Kaiser, “Tinkó”. She was brought up by her mother alone, who provided for her from doing embroidery. She dressed her in pretty clothes. She had a green skirt, a green top, she was a pretty girl. And I had to go to school in boots and an apron, dressed very simply.
We weren’t very religious. We celebrated the important festivals, I went to a Jewish school, but we weren’t kosher. One day I brought a buttered role with ham for lunch. I liked my stomach. One of the teachers noticed, maybe Principle Weisz himself. So what happened was, they took out the fatty ham from between the milky butter, but they didn’t take it off me, they gave it back, so that it would be separate. I put it away and ate it in the street. I didn’t feel bad about it. But I did feel bad once, because my parents wanted us to keep the rules to some extent. Moreover, my mother was brought up in a kosher family, and even though she didn’t observe the strict rules any more, at home we didn’t eat any bread during Pesach, for example. The caretaker offered me bread, fresh from the oven. She tried to make a good impression, as she was always borrowing money from my father. And I forgot that I am not supposed to eat bread. Goodness gracious! I have just committed such a huge sin that I ate from the bread, this is the end! Well, the end came later, in a different way. I was 7 or 8 years old at the time…
During festivals, at the Yom Kippur
World War II, Nyilas (Hungarian Nazi) Rule, deportation
As a matter of fact, it all started in 1942. My dad, who was still a reserve officer in ’40, was called up. At the time he was called up in uniform, as a lieutenant. He had a high award from World War I. One of his superiors, Colonel Tomanóczi did not favour him to begin with. He was so infamous that after World War II he was executed as a war criminal. In 1942, Tomanóczi put my father, among the first, into a special penal company. They were taken to the Soviet Union, and in 1943, during the withdrawal my father died in a Ukrainian village, Usica. My mother was left here in ’43 with three children. Poor soul, she fasted every day while my father was away, for him to return. The fasting did not bring any results, but I don’t suppose it did for others, either.
In ’44 we couldn’t go to school any more – I was attending the high school at Zsigmond Square and my brother went to the Árpád Grammar School – as the restrictions started. For a month we didn’t wear the yellow star, because as I have mentioned, my father had a high award from World War I. But this favour only lasted a month, after that we had to hand in our bicycle, the radio, absolutely everything. In ’44, when Szálasi took over, a lot of Nyilas people came to our house at 11 Pacsirtamező Street and demanded weapons. In the hall they broke the caricatures my father had of his friends. Then my mother took out my father’s officer sword which calmed them a little, but they promised that they would come back, but they didn’t. Then the curfew started, we couldn’t go here, couldn’t go there, we were spat on in the street with the yellow star. I had a navy blue coat, the yellow star looked good on it.
In Óbuda there were a lot of Swabian (German minority in Hungary) residents, so-called Braunhaxlers. They weren’t all anti-Semitic, that would be an exaggeration. But I clearly remember that when the Germans came in on 19 March, 1944, and marched along the Árpád Fejedelem Road, loud cheering welcomed them from the crowd. After them Hungarian soldiers came, and the Swabians turned their back. These were Swabians living in Hungary.
Later, we ended up in the ghetto, where there were decimations even. Snotty kids got hold of weapons, like in 1956, but those are considered heroes now. A child should never have access to a weapon, in any political system. As a matter of fact, nobody should have access to weapons, but definitely not children. In ’44 they boasted about it, and that was still the better scenario, if they didn’t shoot. We were totally at their mercy. We had lost our very humanness. As a child I did not yet grasp this, I didn’t understand it. At the time it was just fear. At Klauzál Square the naked corpses were piled up. That was the first time in my life to see a dead body. I even stumbled over one. At 16 Klauzál Square there was no water in the cellar. There were wholes between the houses and we had to climb over dead bodies for water. But compared to the things the people who were deported had to go through, this was almost nothing.
Anyámnak, amikor apám már nem élt, azt tanácsolták, hogy az értékes szőnyegeket adja be a zálogházba, annak bombabiztos helye lesz ott. Persze semmit nem láttunk viszont abból. Aki az ékszereket vette át megőrzésre, azt mondta, kirabolták őket. Az értékes festményekről levettük a keretet, bőröndbe göngyöltük. A harmadik emeleten lévő lakónak adtuk, aki szerint az oroszok pont azt a bőröndöt vitték el. Anyukám a könyvek belső oldalára általában beírta a nevét. Később kaptam kölcsön könyvet anyám kézírásával. De mit számít ez, amikor az ő életük, ami mindennél fontosabb volt, elveszett. Úgy szeretnék álmodni anyámmal, apámmal, de nem tudok.
After my father’s death, someone recommended to my mother to put the valuable carpets into the pawnshop, and that would be absolutely secure. Of course, we did not see them again. Whoever received the jewellery for safekeeping said that they had been robbed. We took off the frame of valuable paintings, and rolled the paintings up into a suitcase. We gave it to the person living on the third floor, who said that the Russians took exactly that suitcase. My mum used to write her name into the inner side of book covers. Later, I borrowed books with my mother’s handwriting. But what does this all matter, when their lives, which were the most important, were lost. I would so love to dream about my mother, my father, but I can’t.
After 1945, as members of the Zionist Movement we also wanted to emigrate, but Jusztina would not have been able to come with us. She was like our mother. Earlier she brought us food to the yellow-star house, risking her life. And after we were free from the ghetto, she immediately came looking for us. All the jewellery she got from my parents for Christmas she bartered for food, so that we could survive. The grandchildren called her granny.
Family
My father had a lumberyard at Filatorigát, at the corner of Szentendrei Road and Hévizi Road. He did the logging and the trading of wood. He was the richest among his siblings. The family used to gather at our house. My father supported the family members, he trusted his brother with some of his jewellery, but they were not found.
Suffering after the war
“And the rainy season comes…”
To this day I often feel cold. When the autumn comes, I am ashamed, when I feel cold. I know it’s foolish. But if I think of how my mother and the others must have been freezing in hardly any clothes, as the winter of ’44 was a harsh one, and I am winging here properly dressed! And the rainy season comes, and it all starts again in my head, after so many years.
The family lived at 11 Pacsirtamező Street.
Places of residence:
11 Pacsirtamező Street
11 Pacsirtamező Street – yellow-star house
Ó Street – where the grandparents lived
16 Klauzál Square – ghetto
1941-42, Class 4, according to the memories of Tibor Goldstein and Gábor Gottlieb Gulyás (1938-42). Some of the names are uncertain. Number of pupils: 27
Top row from left:
Gábor Ottó Gottlieb, xx, xx, Tibi Goldstein, Gyuri Goldner, Laci Tucker, xx, Tomi Sosberger vagy Schlossberger, Frici Schuk, Andor Bleier or Tomi Kohn
Middle row from left:
xx, xx, Ibi Lajusz, Andor Vándor, Ibolya Mérey, Jolán Gyenes, Béla Weisz, Vera Kramer, Adél Reisz (Titi), Adél Quite
Bottom row from left:
Kati Koos, Györgyi or Vera Kemény, Rózsi Andauer, xx, Jenő Kramer, Karcsi Löbl, Ani Blum, xx, Kati Keiser, Marika Mautner, Anni Feldstein