A Strong and Mighty Wind - Book 3: The Earthquake by Douglass Graem

A Strong and Mighty Wind! Book Three:! !

The Earthquake! ! !

Douglass Graem

A STRONG AND MIGHTY WIND

Douglass Montrose-Graem

A STRONG AND MIGHTY WIND

BOOK THREE THE EARTHQUAKE

And after the wind an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. I Kings 19:11 ]

CHAPTER THIRTEEN NOTHING SEEMS WHAT IT IS

[ To rob, to kill, to wench, to fight, That is our fun, and daily sport. On gallows we'll swing in morrow's light: Let's be jolly, today is short. Schiller, 1781

The avenger stole upon the citadel and destroyed it from within. John Ie Carre, 1968 ]

73.

October 23, 1944, Monday. The Wolfschanze, the Wolf's Lair, the general headquarters of the Nazi forces in East-Prussia. Hitler was waiting impatiently for his visitor to arrive. The reports his generals kept bringing him were disastrous, but here was an officer who was going to be bringing good news.

The

day before the Fuhrer had heard about the capitulation of Aachen in the West,

right on the French-German border; and another gen-

eral had announced that the Russians had reached Norway.

Just the

week before, reports had come about the evacuation of Translyvania and the loss of Belgrade.

Even his own headquarters had had to be

moved back in the face of the rapidly advancing Red armies. "

)

,\' ,

very inner fortress of the great robber was threatened.

The

The Nazis'

specialist in kidnapping and terror was concerned

as he looked at his leader. considerably aged.

Hitler appeared infinitely weary and

He had a pronounced stoop, and his left hand

trembled to such an extent that he was forced to clutch it with his right. The attempt on his life on July 20th, three months earlier, a valiant move by a group of Wehrmacht officers and anti-Nazi citizens to shorten Germany's agony, had spared his life but left him a physical wreck and dimmed his enthusiasm. "Skorzeny!

Please be seated," he said,

with the Austrian

accent which made his Viennese visitor feel

a little at ease.

Hitler's tired face lit up with a smile which said, jolly."

"Let's be

And, momentarily withdrawing to their own dreams of fan-

tasy, they did try to have fun. "Congratulations on your success ln Budapest.

I have awarded

you the Gold Cross," he said to the commando officer.

"You have

saved the Reich from a disaster of the first magnitude.

But I'm

eager to hear your own report. II Another smile lit the demon's face: IITel1 me about young Horthy, the son of that traitor!

I want

to know all the details. II "It really started with the replied Skorzeny.

securlng of General

Bakay,"

"That was accomplished as he was returning to

the headquarters at the Danube Palace Hotel.

It removed one of

the most dangerous Magyar generals and, what was equally important, his briefcase contained the detailed plans for the defense

-2-

of Budapest. Magyars.

From then on we played a game of poker with the

I had one important advantage.

I knew their cards."

"A master stroke," agreed Hitler. "It became obvious to me, my Fuhrer, that the regent's son was the key card in that game!" continued Skorzeny.

"The regent

had already lost his older son in an aircraft 'accident' two years ago, and if I could secure the remaining cub, I knew we had the old admiral where we wanted him." "General otto Winkelmann agreed to my suggestion," the visitor proceeded.

"The operation had to be planned with care because,

after the Bakay affair, he always had himself escorted by a company of Magyar soldiers.

But the spy you placed next to Admiral

Horthy told us about his son's every move.

He had a meeting ar-

ranged with two Yugoslav partisans on the twelfth.

We observed

that meeting in order to rehearse for the final one, which was held three days later on October 15th." Skorzeny then gave a detailed and somewhat fanciful account of the young Horthy' s kidnapping.

During the report Hi tIer's

tired expression completely vanished.

He changed visibly:

looked fitter and more rested. " . .. And we have received a wonderful bonus:

we have the

young Prince Chabaffy as our prisoner now." "The old Chabaffy caused us enough problems, II said HitIer. "I first met him in the 1920's when I was starting the movement. He was a staunch anti-Bolshevik leader, but then he spoiled it all by becoming our enemy!"

-3-

"Now we have his son!" cried 5korzeny.

"We can use him as a

hostage to stop his father's machinations in America!" "Of course, Chabaffy is now Himmler's guest," replied Hitler. "But tell me more about your accomplishments in Budapest. you, I want to know all that happened, step by step.

Mind

I'm eager to

have all the details." "After we secured the regent's son, there was still a lot of work to be done," 5korzeny said, launching into the second part of his report.

"The citadel was still in the hands of the enemy.

The garrison had been reinforced and all the major roads leading up to it had been mined.

The Magyars sealed off the entire area,

which included our embassy." "A bad situation," agreed Hi tIer. liAs a counter-move I suggesetd that we, in turn, surround the entire citadel with an outer ring of our troops.

The Twenty-

second 55 division did just that and occupied the railway station and many public buildings.

still, the key was the citadel, be-

cause the Magyar ministry of defense was located there.

We had to

do something drastic to stop them from sending out signals to units in the field with orders to turn their weapons against us." II

So you decided to storm it like the Crest of Gran Sasso!

smiled his leader. "I set zero hour at 6: 00 a.m., before dawn.

Total surprlse

was an absolute pre-condition if we were to gain victory without a fierce battle," continued the SS officer, "I examined the map

the citadel in great detail and came to the conclusion that we had to attack with several different units simultaneously." -4-

"I decided to lead the attack through the Viennese Gate, at the northern rampart of the Citadel.

My plan was to seize that

gate as quietly as possible, relying on the element of surprise. If we could accomplish that without firing a shot, then I could quickly advance to the square in front of the royal palace.

planned to reach it as quickly and as silently as possible, as I expected that to be the heart of the resistance." "I gave each unit a specific job.

The battalion of cadets

from the Viennese War Academy would attack from the south.

That

was a difficult task because there the slope of the Citadel was steep,

and we knew the Magyars had reinforced it with several

nests

of machine guns.

My commando unit was to attack the west

slope to seize a key side entrance to the palace.

Then elements

of the 600th 55 Paratroop Battalion would storm the underground corridors under the ministries of defense and interior through the highway tunnel under the citadel.

For my own attack, I reserved

the balance of my commandos, the great part of the 55 paratroop battalion with its four Panther tanks and all the Goliaths.

held the Air Force paratroopers in reserve to deal with emergencies." "An excellent plan!" beamed the dictator. "My Fuhrer, I was at my combat post at three in the morning, at the foot of the Citadel," said 5korzeny, shifting his formidable bulk.

"I assembled all officers, gave each of them a piping

hot cup of coffee and went over the plan with them while they traced the details on their maps with the light of their flashlights."

"We had reached the heart of the citadel without having fired a single shot.

We had reached the ministry of defense. "

"Where is it located?" "To my left, my Fuhrer! the distance ...

Then we heard a muffled explosion in

Then another one ... and another.

I assumed

they were coming from my paratroopers storming up from the highway tunnel through the bowels of the citadel. \I "The moment of decision had arrived. ministry.

We roared past the

The large square fronting the royal palace stretched

out straight ahead of us.

The Magyars had set up a huge barricade

several meters high in front of the palace gates. II "What did you do then?" "My Fuhrer,

I signalled for the Panther tank immediately

behind me to charge.

The barricade crumbled, and the momentum of

the charge carried the tank right into the courtyard of the royal palace--to look down the throats of a battery of anti-tank guns." liMy platoon ran around the Panther, leaping over the pile of debris and through the gates of the palace.

We were met by a

colonel of the guards, with a gun in his hand. mand charged into him and pushed him aside.

My second-in-com-

"To my right was an imposing gate, which I surmised was the main entrance of the palace," Skorzeny continued, reveling in his memory.

"We charged through it, and as we were leaping up the

first few steps, an officer rushed towards us.

"Take me to the commander of the palace, sofort!" I said, "Instantly!"

-9-

A STRONG AND MIGHTY WIND

BOOK THREE THE EARTHQUAKE

And after the wind an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. I Kings 19:11 ]

"I explained to them that the core of the plan was to silently climb up the citadel until we reached the Viennese gate near the top,

acting a if this early morning jaunt were the most obvious

thing in the world. trucks.

Meanwhile, the troops would be hiding in the

We would try to make it appear as if they were just passing

by these streets by pure chance.

There was a risk in this plan, a

big one, because ln case of an attack we would be, for all intents and purposes, defenseless.

But I had to take that risk in order

to get to the top of the citadel without having to fire a single shot!" "I agree," said Hitler. "Then what happened?" "After outlining the method of the assault,

I ordered the

commanders of the various columns and units to open fire only in case of extreme necessity.

I even ordered them to refrain from

firing back at snipers or small groups of Magyar soldiers so as not to jeopardize our principal objective--to reach the gates of the royal palace without having fired a single shot and with our vehicles

and equipment intact.

All weapons had to have their

safety-catch on." "The last item was my order of battle," continued Skorzeny. "The first column would be spearheaded by a light truck with me and five of my most trusted non-commissioned officers, all veterans of the Gran Sasso affair.

We would be followed by four heavy

tanks and then a group of Goliaths. columns,

These lead the rest of the

with all my soldiers inside the trucks.

After passing

the Viennese Gate, we were to split into two columns and race down

-6-

the two principal streets along the spine of the citadel to the royal palace. II IIWhat was the distance? II asked Hi tIer. liNearly two kilometers, my Fuhrer, II IIGo on. II liMy veterans took a last minute nap.

At five fifty-five, I

waved my arm in a circular motion and with that the engines started up.

Precisely at six, I stood up in my truck an raised my arms to

motion 'Forward!'

Progress was slow because the northern slope of

the citadel is steep of course. I crouched in my lead truck the whole time,

fearing the explosion of a land mine would ruin

everything. II IIWhen we reached the Viennese Gate, luck was with us again, because there was a gap in the barricade and only a few soldiers were around.

They only watched us curiously, despite the time.

let out a soft whistle of relief when we reached the top of the citadel. II IIWhat a story! II exclaimed his listener. "In low whispers, my Fuhrer, I ordered my driver to accelerate.

The Magyar barracks appeared on my right.

At the front gate

there were two machine guns sheltered by piles of sandbags. lowing my battle plan,

Fol-

I took the street on the right where our

embassy was. " IIWhat did happen when you passed the barracks?1I liMy Fuhrer, there was no movement either inside or outside the building.

Our course, a flank attack from there would have

ruined our plans. II -7-

II Incredible, Skorzeny!1I "The element of surprise, II the lieutenant-colonel replied. IIThen at that point, we were free to speed up to forty kilometers an hour, and my column advanced with a deafening roar.

We were

already half-way along the spine of the Citadel, only about one kilometer from the royal palace." The commando leader paused for a moment, the he continued: "The first part of the operation was a total success ..â&#x20AC;˘ " The knock on the door stopped him. II I told everyone I don't want to be disturbed, II Hi tIer said testily to the adjutant at the door. "Obersturrnbannfuhrer Skorzeny's Gold Cross has just arrived, my Fuhrer. II

74.

During the brief investiture, Hitler could barely contain his impatience.

When all the officials and the photographer were

dismissed, he bid Skorzeny, wearing his new decoration around his neck, to continue with the Budapest caper. "Where did we leave off?1I he asked. liMy Fuhrer! royal palace

We were charging along the street leading to the II

IIGo on, please."

-8-

IIColossal!1I cried Hitler. IIDer gute Mann--the good man, my Fuhrer, accompanied us on our way up a sweeping staircase.

We reached a long corridor.

With a motion I ordered my six men to stay on the landing and keep me covered.

The officer pointed to a door.

I charged through it

and found myself in a small room with a large table.

On top of

the table was a machine gun, and at that moment the soldier behind it was firing his first salvo at the SS paratroopers. II IIWhat happened then?1I asked the dictator with mounting excitement. 1I0ne of my sergeants by the name of Holzer, a short, thickset man, grabbed the machine gun and threw it out the window.

The

soldier was so thunderstruck that he fell from the table to the ground!" IIColossal!1I repeated Hitler. IIGlancing around,

IIAbsolutely magnificent!"

I noticed another door to my right.

rapped on it and quickly entered.

I was met by a brigadier-

general, but I didn't let him utter a sound. II lI'you are the commander of the palace, are you not?' I asked him.

I demand you capitulate instantly.

Sofort!

If you don't,

you'll be held responsible for the bloodshed that will be unleashed. Therefore, make up your mind, sofort!

Right now!"

"From the palace square I began to hear bursts of machine-gun fire interspersed with rifle shots. lose.

I realized I had no time to

with as much persuasion as I could muster, I pushed him:

'Resistance is useless. have occupied the palace.'

My troops are already. in control.

I was not entirely bluffing, because I

-10-

knew that Lieutenant Hunke,

in charge of my commandos--a brave

fellow he is--was doing his job and was in the process of securing all the key positions in the palace.

And just at that very moment,

Hunke rushed in to report that he had secured his objectives without firing a shot,"--the last three words seem to have been a favorite turn of expression. "At that point," continued the newly-decorated Skorzeny, "the general said, with a heavy heart, "I surrender. soldiers to stop shooting.'

I'll command my

We agreed on the spot to have one of

my officers and one of his own jointly pass the order on to everyone in the palace and on the palace grounds." "Then, my Fuhrer,

I went in search of the regent.

astonishment, I found that he was not in the palace.

To my

I was In-

formed that the previous night he had put himself under the protection of Lieutenant-General Karl Pfeffer-Wildenbruch, the same officer who held under his protection Salassi, the man who had succeeded the admiral as regent." "Wunderbar," chuckled Hitler, "Absolutely wonderful!" "Anyway, I felt I had secured my obj ectives ... " "You did!

You did!" the Fuhrer assured him.

" ... so I stuck my head through the window to survey the palace grounds. withdrew.

I was greeted by a hail of bullets.

I quickly

Lieutenant Hunke informed later that the fusillade came

from a detachment of the Life Guards who had held out on the slopes of the palace gardens overlooking the Danube river."

-11-

"My Fuhrer, the entire affair took only about half an hour. I wish to thank you for the marvellous toys you procured for us!" "The Panthers ... " " ... and the Goliaths were effective.

To have tanks which

can be operated by remote control has been a big factor

"I'm glad they proved to be useful." "Also the bazooka, our new anti-tank weapon.

It was extremely

effective against the Life Guards on the palace grounds. personally I like best our new little eggs,

But

the hand-grenades

which are so small I can put them in my pocket.

I used them at

Gran Sasso, and again when we secured young Horthy. " "You took charge of his father then?" "Yes, my Fuhrer. to him the next day

General Pfeffer-Wildenbruch introduced me yes, that was Monday.

I took him by embassy

car to the railway station where your private train was waiting for us." "You brought him back with you as per my orders?" "J a, mein Fuhrer, I took him to Schlos s Hirschberg in Bavari a. "

"You have been treated well?" "Absolutely.

I'm almost ashamed to admit it,

but I have

never been treated with greater consideration then during the weeks I spent in Budapest. " "It was fully deserved.

In those weeks," remarked Hitler.

"You saved the Reich from a disaster." "I only did my duty, my Fuhrer.

Since the enemy challenged

us to an unconditional surrender, my duty has been crystal clear: to fight on with fury until victory! -12-

"Gobbels told me the story of that unconditional surrender, that Anglo-Saxon phraseology ... II "Please tell me, my Fuhrer. II II

It was first used by a northern general after the American

civil War who observed that if a crow were crazy enough to fly over the conquered south, it would be well advised to take its food along.

"Ja, mein Fuhrer!

"We'll fight until victory. II Believing the meeting was over, Skorzeny rose and raised his hand with the Nazi salute. "Heil Hitler!

he said.

"Please sit down, Skorzeny," said the Fuhrer.

"I have a new

mission for you ... possibly the most important one I have ever commissioned you with ... coffee. II

I'll get my adjutant to bring us some

He rang the bell on his desk.

liVery few people are in the know so far. ing intensely on a top-secret operation.

We have been work-

I picked you ... tI

75.

The sound of a muffled explosion woke Ian. looked at his graduation present.

It was 6:14 a.m.

riser, he pulled down the covers over his head.

-13-

Half asleep, he Not an early

When a second, then a third explosion seemed to reverberate within the bowels of the Citadel, he jumped out of bed and hastily dressed himself. Ian's bedroom was on the second floor, street.

fronting Treasurer

It and with Gentleman's street, in the back of the town-

house, were the two main arteries along the backbone of the citadel. He walked into the living room, which had an enclosed balcony overlooking Treasurer street.

Cautiously, he opened a chink in

the heavy curtains. Ian saw two dark, crouching figures leap from doorway to doorway, hugging the walls.

They wore steel helmets with camou-

flage nets and multi-colored battle dress, the kind worn by paratroopers.

Peering closer, he noticed the two figures were armed

for killing, the one with a light machine gun, the other with a steel pipe, which was about one meter long, on his shoulder. had stick-hand grenades buckled to their belts.

Both

Moments later the

two figures disappeared from his view. Stepping to the south window of the balcony, Ian saw the same two figures being joined by several others.

They moved rapidly

toward the massive building of the ministry of defense. A sinister clatter hit his hears.

It reverberated allover

the street, followed by the groan of truck engines.

A procession

roared past the townhouse, then past the ministry in the direction of the royal palace. or three minutes.

The entire spectacle lasted no more than two It left Ian stunned.

floor.

-14-

He felt rooted to the

His vision then split into two distinctive views. One, dependent on his eyes, was mechanical.

It was every-

thing that went on around him and on this planet.

It appeared to

Ian as a fantasy.

The other was the inner vision of the eternal,

the invisible, the reality.

It gave him a feeling which was reas-

suring, a feeling that everything was all right. with his eyes looking in a southerly direction, he could see Ornament Square.

On its south side was the grey mass of the minis-

try of defense; on the east side the small palace of the papal legatee wedged among several other palaces and townhouses; on the west side the palace of the Maltese Knights and the lowrise apartment buildings. He watched the unfolding scene and heard the ominous, loathsome clatter as if it were a dramatic performance, with himself having a rig-side view. Did they fall from the skies? Where did they come from? Ian was looking for the right words to define them. So purposeful? So professional? Alien? Yes!

Clearly something had gone terribly wrong.

His feet began to walk to the other side of the house to wake up Liza.

She was not in her bed.

room was empty too.

-15-

He ran down the stairs.

Jakab's

He walked to the back of the house to find Vince, who he knew was an early riser since he also worked as a postman. on the door.

He knocked

Both Vince and his wife Juliska were already dressed.

Vince motioned to Ian to keep quiet.

His two small children were

still sound asleep. He hadn't been in this apartment before.

It was small but

spotless, with beautiful hand-embroideries from Juliska's native Somogy County predominating.

It had a warm,

inviting feeling to

it. Vince and Ian stepped outside into the large anteroom.

had four more doors:. the first opened to a stairway leading down to the rear gate, the second to the cellar, the third to the inner courtyard and the fourth up to the rear of the second floor. "Make sure," bolted.

Ian told him,

"that all doors are locked and

Don't let in anyone under any circumstances,

not even

Captain Jakab or Baroness Liza unless you are certain it is really them.

Until then he had not given much thought to Imre.

He hadn't

seen Tonus in six months since she had gone to Churgo to join the twins.

Suddenly, he felt lonely in the emptiness of the big town-

house.

Of all his family, only he was there.

He couldn't remem-

ber this happening ever before. When Vince returned from his rounds, Ian told him, "1'11 have to get out of here tomorrow. entrance.

My plan is to leave through the rear

I don't trust the underground passages any more.

out through that gate, I'll need your help, Vince.

-16-

To go

You can be my

look-out from this end of the street, the other side of the street. I'll exit quickly.

and I'll need another from

When you tell me the coast is clear,

Vince assured him that he'd find someone in the neighborhood to help him; he had several friends in the households of the neighborhood palaces. First confirmation of the disaster came from Radio Budapest. The only items it was broadcasting were martial music, Nazi slogans and Jew-baiting propaganda.

When I an heard references to the

Jewish-Communist menace he was shocked.

When he heard the regent

referred to as " a mercenary of the Jews" and country,

a traitor to his

his worst fears began to take monster-like proportions.

As the day wore on, he became increasingly concerned about Imre.

He began to feel a premonition of disaster, the kind he had

felt when the country was invaded by the Nazis in the spring. the late afternoon,

he felt immensely relieved when he discerned

ln the distance the excited chatter of Jakab and Liza. of his room to meet them.

He ran out

He embraced both of them and spilled

out the events he had witnessed at dawn. "A terror is being unleashed out there, before he took his coat off.

said Jakab,

even

His impudent smile had left him.

drew Liza closer. "Ian,

I want to marry Liza immediately.

We love each other,

and Liza, being my wife ... it may save her a lot of ... unpleasantness," he announced.

liMy uniform gives her some protection for

the moment, but God knows for how long.

-17-

" I sn 't he wonderful," was all Liz a managed to say. "We want to go to some place to be married," Jakab continued, "where we are not too well known." "I have an idea,1I exclaimed Ian. You can get married there.

"Let's all go to Butnok.

Then we'll stay there until all this

blows over." "Ian, this is not going to be over in a few days!" said Jakab earnestly, "but we thank you." IIlan darling," Liza added, "you are a true friend.

Let's go

to Butnok!1I IIWhen do you want to gO?" asked Ian. liAs soon as possible," said Jakab, lIyou have no idea of the chaos that is out there!" "What is happening?" "Please sit down."

When Jakab said that and Liza pulled her

chair close to Ian, he knew what was going to be said, and he didn't want to hear it.

He turned to the inner vision agaln, but

however much he tried to get that into focus, a slight tremor cut into him. "Imre was captured this morning."

Jakab had a directness

which cut so sharp that Ian didn f t feel anything. He whispered to himself:

"God, my God, this didn't happen.

Don't let this happen!" "Do you know any details?" his voice asked. All were silent for a long time, then Jakab answered in a measured tone, breathing evenly:

-18-

"He was captured with the regent's son.

That is all we know.

Liza pressed Ian's hand to show how much both loved him. An even longer silence followed. "And what else? II liThe Nazi putsch deposed the regent. tapo blackmailed the as hostage,

old man.

replied Jakab,

sure beyond that.

Undoubtedly, the Ges-

After all, it was holding his son

"but we really don't know much for

liThe city is full of rumors,

added Liza,

"one rumo:r often

contradicting the other but nothing to be cheerful about. "It appears certain," continued Jakab,

"that the Jews are

going to be the target of the mob's violence. II "What about your own situation? 11

IIS

What about your brother' s?"

I haven't got time to worry about that,

replied Jakab.

ome of the officers at headquarters fear there is going to be a

Jewish bloodbath, a pogrom, engineered by the Gestapo, the 55 and their friends ... " "It's insane," remarked Ian, lithe Nazis have already lost the war, and here they are unleashing terror on Budapest. II "wi th the Gestapo and the 55 in full control,

said Liza

sadly, IIi t' s going to be a disaster of the first magnitude.

liMy invitation to go to Butnok is looking better all the time,

remarked Ian, after another pause.

"How are you going to get off duty?" he continued. liMy brother. in the morning,

He'll give me an authorization tomorrow, early to leave for a few days, with some kind of an

excuse he hasn I t dreamed up yet.

-19-

"So, it's all settled.

We'll leave tomorrow," said Ian.

"We'll take the Rolls Royce," replied Ian.

"I meant to take

it anyway ... to hide it in some out-of-the-way haystack." "That's dangerous," mused Jakab,

"but we can't go by rail

because I don't think the trains function much any more. The Russians might be here by next week. " "I'll take i t . . . no, you take it to police headquarters," suggested Ian. "Can't do that," countered Jakab curtly.

After some more

brain-storming, it was decided that at dawn Jakab would drive the car to its garage for a check-up and that they'd all meet there at nine the next morning. with the help of one of Vince's friends,

Ian and Liza left

the townhouse shortly after eight the next morning. already waiting for them.

Jakab was

He was armed with a letter to the Chief

Constable of Putnok's county.

with a few deft touches and with a

bit of camouflage-netting covering the old car, Jakab had made it look like a staff car on active duty.

In full gendarmerie uniform,

he was armed with a gun and a few hand grenades, all that was needed to escape the bedlam of Budapest. Less than two hours later, the Rolls pulled into the circular driveway of Putnok. The place was magically serene. the countryside were a miracle.

The stillness and calm of

The hysteria, the confusion, the

asylum-like atmosphere of the capital, where the inmates were in control and the staff in strait-jackets, where all the monsters

-20-

Ian had dreamed about six months before had established their home, was left far behind. Ian heard the call of a thrush in the silence of the afternoon. For the first time that Tuesday, he managed to forget Imre for an instant.

76.

During that momentous week Liza and Jakab felt one not only in each other, but with everybody and everything around them. One of those days right after their marriage, Butnok was blessed with superlative fall sunshine, a double blessing after the cold snap which had set in on their arrival.

Nature sparkled

especially bright in the virgin, pellucid purity of the sun's rays. Liza and Jakab felt every hour, every day snatched from the ghostly outer reality, was a gift of the gods.

Their eyes were

dazzled by the colors and their lungs braced by the fragrance of the fall air.

Even the night was mild.

On their nocturnal walks under the spreading branches of magnificent trees, the honey-mooners looked up to the star-studded sky in the black velvet night, and shuffled their shoes through masses of dead leaves lying ankle-deep on the ground. And when the two walked arm-in-arm in the pale gold light of the evening sun,

the dark days of the capital were momentarily

-21-

pushed far away.

A touch of breeze stirred the naked branches.

Whenever Liza moved her head, a vivid flash of light would streak through the stray strands of her black hair. The newlyweds cherished most the silent intervals amid their spare utterances.

For long moments they appeared to be oblivious

of each other's presence, yet their twin consciousness was soaking up each other's closeness. For the first time in weeks, Ian tried to write a poem.

dedicated it to Liza and her husband Jakab.

[ Peace is a lease on life! strife is lifeless a sightless blight but peace is a delight. Don't wait to love to love my doves! ] He carefully copied it on parchment paper and put it in their room as a wrapper for a bunch of marigolds. After the wedding Ian had a long talk with Aunt Mitzi.

suggested she pack away all valuables, buy gold coins with her liquid assets--she had a considerable amount,

as a few months

before she had sold a chunk of the three farms and had had no opportunity to buy equipment to update the vast acreage still

-22-

left--slaughter all pigs and livestock and prepare a giant storage of potatoes,

lard,

eggs,

and preserves in preparation for the

times ahead. 111'11 take back a wagon-load of valuables and food-stuffs to

Budapest and put all that in our cellar,

he suggested.

Ian had urged her for months to get prepared, and her reply had always been that her nephew was far too pessimistic, there was plenty of time to do all that.

that

In any event, it was not

the season for killing this or that animal.

Furthermore, to store

anything in the capital was not to her liking.

Everybody knew

Budapest was where the root of the infection would be found.

Ian

hoped this time his personal plea would have a greater impact than phone calls and letters.

While Aunt Mitzi didn't come out with a

plain 'Yes' or 'No,' she found an inexhaustible supply of excuses for not doing anything. "At least get the Constable and the Tiepolo drawings and a few hundred kilos of lard together, and we'll take it back with us.

After much hesitation, she finally consented to load a cart with foodstuffs, but the art was to remain in Butnok.

On the last

day before their departure, she finally agreed to load a few pieces of French antique furniture and to slaughter a few pigs, but she refrained from doing anything about the livestock or trying to sell her bonds. "I'll be very secure here with the estate in your name," countered with an air of finality.

-23-

she

Ian gave up arguing with her.

Despite his lack of experience, he judged himself wiser and smarter than Aunt Mitzi:

she was hopelessly out-of-touch with the times.

How could he fight with an old lady who was all goodness and incapable of seeing evil?

Her great interest over the past decades

had been the village school and nursery.

She was certain that

tlher tl children would never do anything harmful and detrimental to the estate or to the great house.

Ian remembered an aphorism

about stupidity which pronounced it quite incurable--even the gods can't change denseness--and he gave up trying to influence Aunt Mitzi to change her mind. Jakab came up with a brilliant cover for their cargo--a consignment of caskets for the police mortuary. his credentials,

When he presented

the Chief Constable even unwittingly confirmed

the ruse in writing. It was thus that Liza and Ian climbed on the rickety farm cart drawn by two nags--all the good horses have been requisitioned by the army--and sat next to Jakab,

the driver of this

funereal consignment. The journey back to the capital took two full days. mind kept going back to Imre like a dull pain.

Ian's

However much Ian's

mind protested against the return to the place of terror,

his

heart, his other vision, told him he should try to take over Imre's place.

He had to try to keep the underground together.

The voice

also told Ian about an archangel--no name--in Budapest who needed many helpers to carry out his miracles.

He didn't think he was

capable of doing any of this, but the voice kept on nagging him.

-24-

Anyway, he liked keeping Liza and Jakab company and decided to return to the hunting grounds of the twelve demons, the streets and alleys of Budapest. Jakab purposely timed their arrival to occur after sunset. His uniform once again repelled all questions--it even kept questioners at a distance. Vince helped to unload the cart, roll in the barrels of lard, lug in the sacks of potatoes, flour and other provisions which would see them through the winter. had not remained idle.

While the trio was gone, vince

He had helped to install powerful steel

crossbars to hold the enormous oaken front and back gates against all maurauders.

He had also made progress transforming the town-

house into a fortress.

In a few weeks nothing but a battering ram

or a tank could force itself into the Chabaffy home. Jakab came home with a tale of terror the evening after their return. "Groups of youths, many in their teens, are roaming the streets, he said during dinner. bery.

"A wild spree of looting, murder and rob-

The object of fury is the Jews.

Jews in the crowded yellow-

star houses or Jews wherever they can find them." "Where do their weapons come from?" Ian asked. "Heaven knows.

They are equipped with guns and hand grenades

and have slaughtered hundreds of Jews already. II "That's hideous, II cried Liza. "Can you believe it, onto bridges and shot.

exclaimed Jakab, lithe Jews are herded

The Danube is a cheap and convenient cemetery. II

-25-

"What has already happened?" snapped Jakab. cide by the Jews.

I/Wholesale sui-

On the day we left many of the yellow-star

houses were sealed off, and they were re-opened only today. one, but absolutely no one, was allowed out. still is,

impossible.

Shopping was,

No and

Not even doctors were allowed in, but for-

tunately most buildings have their resident MD's who look after their own people. " "Do you think it's safe for me to stay here?" asked Ian. "For the moment:

yes,l/ Jakab replied carefully,

keep a watch out for you. local gangs'

Right now the Gestapo, the SS and the

targets are the Jews.

rounding them up,

"but I'll

As long as they are busy

we are comparatively safe here."

He added,

"That could change any moment. " "Did you talk to Janos?

Did your brother have any further

news about Maria?" "I talked to him, but he knew nothing more. In the next few days

Ian tried to track down some of the

Union Party congressmen and resistance leaders. deep hiding.

All had gone into

He met Zoltan by accident, almost bumping into him

on a street. "I haven't seen anyone for weeks," he said, then added:

"But

it's foolish of you to be about." "Any news

about

Imre?"

His questions were pregnant with

pain when he returned home. "I heard a rumor he has been handed over to the Gestapo. Pray for him."

-26-

"And Maria?" "All communications have been cut off.

You'd better keep out

of sight until the violence spends itself," replied Jakab. "I hope the Russians will be here soon!" said Liza and Ian together.

77.

Ian was trying to make sense out of the insane outside.

Why

1S it that I have been taught that sin is real, and that it must be punished? That punishment is justice and therefore inescapable? Is humanity in Budapest living in resignation to the inevitability of punishment and death? He thought about the religious beliefs he had heard about so often at school and elsewhere.

They went something like this:

are all sinners; therefore sin is real; therefore punishment is just; therefore punishment cannot be escaped. not mix with happiness. were born into sin? death.

Somehow sin does

After all, how can you be happy if you

The wages of sin are suffering, followed by

We are earning these wages.

Sinners know punishment is

lurking 1n the shadows--it seeks them out and tracks them down, sooner or later, for one purpose only--to pay the wages.

In the

end, sinners do not even wish to escape on account of the fear they were indoctrinated into, the fear of God. less pursuit of sinners, and escape is hopeless.

-27-

God is in relentIt follows that

salvation is something fearsome for it will gradually, in many refined ways,

torture and kill,

taking everything away from the

Slnner, one by one, until the sinner gets to such a state that death appears to be a welcome relief.

That final solution comes

when the sinner is reduced to a skeleton. tion" be somewhat mitigated. pity but absolutely just.

Only then will "salva-

Divine wrath is limitless, without

God curses those who crucified his Son.

This insane philosophy seems to hold Christians and Jews in its grip in the Magyar city.

Who in his right mind would pray for

such cruel and unusual punishment?

Who would not try to escape

from such "salvation," would not try to run far enough away to be out of earshot of the voice which offers this undigestible, even poisonous menu?

Does it make any sense to listen to and accept

such offering? There must be a better way,

Ian mused.

God can't be cruel

because God, through his son Jesus Christ, taught love.

Love and

implacable punishment resulting in death are totally incompatible. There must be a better way. He was trying to lift the fog of hate and despair from around himself.

He was attempting to find some ray of light,

some joy

and happiness. Ian was starved for joy and happiness. He was tired of all the questions and speculations which buzzed around in his brain.

He was sick of all the suffering

which was spreading in concentric circles in the insane world.

-28-

[ I have not been born to see this. I was not meant to witness this. I was not destined to go through this. God is merciful and just. God is perfect happiness. God is joy and laughter. So let me not paint myself into a crazy corner of sin and punishment. The robbers out there believe in their hearts that the present spree of murder and looting cannot last, that their punishment is inescapable. ] Ian's brain wouldn't leave him alone.

His thoughts turned

from the robbers and murderers to the victims. [ The victims out there believe in the fervor of traditional faiths rammed down their throats by a traditional hierarchy that believes in control through fear and punishment, that they are sinners. Suffering and death meted out to them, therefore, nothing but a just reward for past misdeeds and deadly sins, be they Christians or Jews. Has all this absurdity been twisted out of the Old Testament and grafted onto the modern world? Yes, all this doctrine is idiotic, insane, incredible. Yet it is real because that topsy-turvy crazy drama of crime and punishment, that vicious circle of sin, suffering and cremation is dancing its dance of insanity in the moment in which I live. There must be a different dance. Another life, another music. There must be a liberation from these songs of past absurdities. There must insanity.

another,

true

reality beyond this

If this insantiy is reality, I had better take refuge in fantasy, create my own world of joy and happiness. The still small voice tells me that everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt. ]

-29-

Ian got dizzy thinking and wracking his brain.

These ques-

tions were triggered by the propaganda on the radio, on the walls and in speeches, which attacked everything that was sacred, noble, elegant, harmonious, decent and, if possible, Jewish. He felt like a dancing pair which keeps whirling and whirling and whirling around until the outside is a blur.

Only the partner's

face, so very close, the fingers resting on each other's shoulders, are real, unblurred, clear.

Yes, he wanted someone very close,

like Liza and Jakab were close. becomes perfectly clear. other there is clear joy.

In that closeness everything

In that state of being entwined in each In that beauteous embrace pain becomes

but a memory of a terrible misunderstanding. Ian was ready to escape from madness. He wishes that that very closeness would be a woman called Maria.

He desired that entwining into each other with the fiery

princess of his dreams.

He so powerfully fantasized about those

beauteous embraces in the haystack that they became the reality of the moment. But Maria wasn I there.

She was somewhere in the wreckage

around Warsaw, where the demons of Ian's dream were reaching full maturity. He was in that vulnerable state where a counterfeit smile, a false embrace, a calculating glance, a phony compliment, a fake laugh were barely distinguishable from the genuine, the true, the innocent, the real, the authentic.

-30-

He decided to call up Magda. In an ambivalent manner, the two had kept in touch all summer, but had not seen each other again after the Komlo weekend. During one of their conversations on the phone, Magda had told Ian about her half-brother who was a Jew, now drafted into a labor unit somewhere in the rear out on the eastern front.

On another

occasion, she mentioned she had lost her job and complained that her wasting disease, a kind of consumption, had flared up again. Then she reported she had found a job at a night club.

Each time,

Magda repeated her offer of refuge in her apartment. Jakab had been transferred to a post near the capital; and although he kept up his residence at the citadel townhouse, he was often away for days, taking Liza with him.

Ian became terribly

lonely. And so it happened that he invited Magda for supper to a place where there was still some good food to be had.

Magda

accepted enthusiastically.

78.

The gypsy picked up his violin and began to play [ The trembling leaves of the aspen have fallen down. ]

His instrument was a

magic box bringing forth tunes which were sometimes wild, like the whistle of the wind on the plains,

and at other times tremulous,

like the moonbeams over the bed of a lonely girl.

-31-

Ian and Magda were having supper at a restaurant not well known to outsiders, on a quiet street in Buda. to dress up for the occasion.

They had decided

Ian wore a black tie, and Magda had

something on with a trick bodice which revealed more than it concealed. They promised each other not to talk about the violence.

His

Papi had once said to Ian that events themselves are given significance only by the way people react to them. their insignificant moments what they could.

Instead, they made The everyday happen-

1ngs became momentous because they talked about them:

the re-pot-

ting of a geranium plant for the winter, a speck of dust stuck 1n Ian's bow tie, why all the light bulbs in a house tend to pop at the same time. Only once was there back-sliding. "It came to me suddenly," Ian said. "What? II "The root of all that insanity! tinued.

It's guilt, guilt!" he con-

liThe Jews believe they are destined to be victims on

account of sins committed in the past; in short, they feel guilty. The Germans believe they are destined to be hanged for sins committed in the present; in short, they feel guilty. in an insane world!

We are living

How can ... "

"Ian, darling, II Magda interrupted him, "you promised! " She managed to convey the electric desire she felt for Ian by a touch of her little finger, a shift of her bodice, a lingering glance; by hanging on every word he said and not contradicting him; by keeping her lips half parted. -32-

For Ian, after the long summer and the even longer aloneness, all this seemed delightful, lingering over a bottle of wine and the pungent coffee. Ian felt mellow and ready to fall to any suggestion Magda might have. "Let's go dancing! II she exclaimed. IIWhere?"

Ian had never been in a nightclub before.

IILet's go to the Arizona! II When she saw Ian's doubtful expression, she added: IIWe'l1 have fun, you'll see! II IIWhat is the Arizona? II he asked timidly. "About the swankiest night spot in town. II IIwill it be prudent ... II 1I0h, don't be silly, nobody would dream of looking for you dressed like this,ll laughed Magda, IIbesides, there are always one or two German officers there. II III 'm really not sure I want to go, II Ian objected. IIAre you afraid?" That got him hooked.

He helped her on with her fox coat,

which nearly reached her ankles.

It was past midnight when the

cab deposited them in front of the Arizona, whose doorman was decked in a field-marshal' s uniform.

The place was jammed.

The affable proprietor, who had managed to survive the earthquake,

greeted them effusively.

He apparently knew Magda and

showed the pair to a tiny table near the dance floor, which was about the size of two umbrella closets hooked together. drop for this scenario was a row of boxes around the wall. -33-

The back-

"Herr Eichmann 1S here tonight," whispered the head waiter when he came up to get their order.

Those species of nightlife

have an infallible nose for the aristocracy and free-spenders, in that order.

To the head waiter Ian looked like a fine specimen of

the former.

He was all deference as Ian cautiously ordered two

champagne cocktails. "Let's dance," said Magda impatiently, even before the order arrived. In the intermittent spotlight her tantalizing even1ng dress showed off to its full advantage to the ring-side snoopers in the crowd around them.

[ Soft kisses, eye-to-eye dancing touching folding fingers as one lingers near an embrace. ] The soft indigo mood was momentarily interrupted by an officer of the Reich who guffawed at a ring-side table.

But the music had

its magic, and both were soon back in a sort of indigo-hued trance, with Magda eddying in and out of her trick bodice.

She wanted to

show how easy it was to get reacquainted with her, and Ian was not about to argue with that. While returning to the table,

I an noticed a distinguished

looking man of about thirty in the box above.

He had a high fore-

head and thick lips, and he was sitting with an adoring companion. The man looked fixedly across the crowd to a box at the opposite

-34-

end of the club which was occupied by two SS officers with two women.

When the man's gaze moved back to his adoring companion,

Ian resumed his steps and reached his own table where Magda was waiting to say,

Egeszsegere,

"To your health,"

a Magyar toast.

Ian could not help looking back at the box behind him.

He swiftly

sensed there was a man of his kind and motioned the head waiter to come close. "Do you happen to know that gentleman in the box behind me?" It is the business of head waiters to happen to know, and he whispered back with a flourish: "That is his excellency Wallenberg of the Royal Swedish Embassy. " "Come on darling," Magda interrupted his reverie, "drink up! " Ian knew he had traded off emotions, the real emotions he had felt for Maria,

for symptoms.

drink since his graduation,

He hadn't had much of anything to except on Liza' s wedding day, when

Aunt Mitzi had brought up a few carefully husbanded bottles of French champagne from the cellar. The wine he had drunk with supper and the second glass of champagne were beginning to take effect.

Soon his momentary regret

of having traded love for its symptoms evaporated in Magda's smile. She led him back to the ring. The band broke into a South American rhythm from a Rita Hayworth film,

the tunes of which had been the craze of the Magyar

capital during the twilight of the summer. closer to Ian.

This tune, Magda danced

As she moved her thigh slightly between his legs,

a flush of passion befuddled his brain.

-35-

She realized that, unless

she took charge, the frustrating scenario of Komlo was about to repeat itself. II I want you!

she moaned.

Ian was presented with the biggest check of his life.

A few

minutes later, the pair was in a taxi bound toward Magda's apartment.

It was not yet two when she let him into her small place. III like it," he said. "Please, make yourself ... " she whispered and disappeared,

only to reappear a few minutes later--stark naked. Ian almost sobered up. "She looks so different ... himself.

He gave her a quick appraising glance. All that dark hair ... " he thought to

Her breasts were full and just as jutting now as they

had been in her trick bodice. "Don't look so silly," she said, coming close to him.

Then

she quietly took his hands and led him into the bedroom. When he woke up the next morning, she was bringing in a simple breakfast of coffee, toast and two soft-boiled eggs.

He ob-

served how well rehearsed, perfumed and professional, slick and well polished it was.

Yes, he had traded emotions for sYmbols.

Magda wouldn't let him leave until after lunch,

and only

after he had promised solemnly that he'd be back for dinner the day after next. That night Liza and Jakab were not at home, alone was a rediscovered void.

and to sleep

He wanted to fondle Magda's beauti-

ful breasts and feel the yielding swaying under himself.

-36-

He remembered he had left a pair of shoes at the cobbler down on Gentlemen's street,

in the direction of the German embassy.

Juliska was preparing a

marvellous

noon-day treat of country

sausages, potatoes fried in the droppings and her special poppyseed cake.

She had reproved "Master Ian" about not letting her

know he was going to be out for the whole night.

"You gave us all

a terrible fright," she had complained. "I'll just run over to the cobbler to pick up a pair of my shoes," he shouted to her, "I'll be back in a few minutes." He walked down Gentleman's street with springing steps. cobbler's shop was just round the next corner.

The

He spotted a group

of three uniformed men and a civilian walking in the same direction.

He accelerated his steps to get a better look.

to be having a good time, laughing and jostling.

All seemed

The young woman

in their company had ,a fox coat which nearly reached down to her ankles. Ian froze.

-37-

CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE LIGHT IN THE NIGHT

[ Hear us, love us, when the zephyr drives the petals spinning and spring comes in! We too were made of the flowers and leaves. And what do our tortured bodies mean? At the time when the iron silently broke Our mouths, the word of the blossom spoke. Poem by anonymous prison inmate in Magyarland ]

79.

Just before take-off, an SS officer entered the small plane. smiling at Miklos and Imre, he said: "Wilkommen,

Herr Horthy und Prinz Chabaffy. II

The welcome

sentence started out rather affably, but by the time he reached the end of it, his smile had vanished and he spat out the last two words:

Prince Chabaffy.

"I am Standartfuhrer Dr. Hans Geschke,

commander of the Security Police in Magyarland, proudly.

he announced

"I'm escorting you to a place near Vienna where you will

be our guest at the special facilities reserved for important people like yourselves.

As if it were a second thought, he added smoothly: "We are all gentlemen here, gentlemen, I'll have you untied.

and if you give me your word as

Both Miklos and Imre kept quiet.

-38-

"Very well, gentlemen, as you please," he said after a long pause.

"WeIll have lunch on arrival, and then we'll have plenty

of time to talk.

But don't complain to me about being mistreated.

I offered you comfort, and you don't want it." The plane slowly ascended from a small airfield on the Buda side of the Danube, then turned in a westerly direction.

As soon

as it gained cruising altitude, it was hit by a strong wind.

The

small plane lurched, then dropped about a hundred meters, then lurched again.

The engine wheezed and groaned, and finally the

aircraft stabilized. Imre had been thrown against the side of the fuselage.

But

he soon forgot about the pain in his shoulder, because his mind was awhirl with the events of the last fifty minutes. He admired the efficiency with which the kidnapping was executed.

The Germans were noted for meticulous planning, and this

had been no exception.

Despite his armed escort and continuous

caution, he had fallen into a Gestapo trap.

He berated himself

for his own stupidity. Then his thoughts turned to the armistice negotiations.

How

many Magyar divisions were turning their weapons against the Nazi occupation?

How many generals were surrendering to the generation-

old menace of Communism, letting the Red Armies pour into the heart of Europe?

How many were fighting to the desperate end, to

unconditional surrender? Imre thought about his own partisan units he had been unable to warn.

He thought about his many underground contacts who didn't

-39-

know about his fate, who were also in the net of the Gestapo or on the run once again.

What had gone wrong?

Where had he made a

mistake? Then his thoughts beat to the rhythm of Tonus, who he hadn't seen for months:

after the spring invasion she had gone to Churgo

to join the twins. a sad farewell,

June 30th, her seventeenth birthday, had been

as her family had decided it would be safer in

Graz, on the other side of the Magyar-German border.

A family's

survival instinct, bred over thousands of years, had led them to a safe refuge.

Thinking about her, Imre was able to keep his atten-

tion from his right shoulder which, he suspected, had been dislocated during the brief scuffle immediately before his capture. Imre's whole being contracted at the suddenness of it all. He felt humiliated when he remembered the violent but short scuffle.

He felt like a hare picked up by a hawk plunging swiftly

from the skies.

He felt the degradation of being bundled up 1n a

dusty carpent, then brutally thrown on the floor of a van. But

Ian?

hope he doesn't try anything foolish,

thoughts raced on.

When he had gotten away with spiriting that

Jewish girl out of the ghetto, place in Ian.

Imre's

a subtle transformation had taken

By nature shy, but also gregarious, he had devel-

oped a cockiness born out of the belief that he led a charmed life.

Doesn't cockiness lead to overconfidence,

dence to downfall?

and overconfi-

Only experience can cure overconfidence, and

in these days experience can lead to prison, agonizing death.

-40-

even death:

slow,

"Our father who art in Heaven ... 11 Imre murmured the Lord's prayer.

The words "deliver us from evil" took on a new signifi-

cance today. IIDeliver us from evil," he repeated several times.

[ What about my favorite psalm? The words elude me now. My shoulder hurts so badly I can't make the effort to remember. Perhaps it's better I don't remember anything. My psalm. Try and remember the psalm, and the pain will be gone. The psalms! Danger, love, pain, suffering, exaltation, joy! Psalms about peril and psalms about deliverance: Be gracious to me, 0 Lord! Behold what I suffer from those who hate me, o thou who lift me up from the gates of death ... ] I can't remember the next few lines.

Let me think:

[ ... that I may recount all your praises "And then? that ... that 'I may rejoice in your deliverance?' ] Deliverance! [ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But that is self-pity I can't have that ... I must be strong ... There are other psalms, many others. I knew so many by heart "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death ... " and then yes, "I fear no evil"! Dido' t Papi say that an event's only significance is the way we react to it? Can I ignore this?

I have to!

How many times did I sing "Eine Feste Burg. II Yes, that was written by a German, and my German nanny taught me to sing it: A safe stronghold our God is, A trusty shield and weapon.

-41-

Those weapons which glittered in our faces. That psalm still eludes me. I must remain strong. There is that expression, German again: lIDie Innere Haltung." Quite untranslatable. Inner strength? Inner integrity? Inner nobility? Perhaps all three. ] SloWly Imre drifted into an unconscious sleep. The plane

lurched again.

The sudden movement threw his

shoulder against the inside skin of the plane, and he came back to the pain. "Meine Herren," said the 55 Colonel, border of the Reich. ground.

"We are close to the

Imre and Miklos tried to peer down to the

A thick blanket of clouds obscured their view.

Fear started to creep into his stomach, into his bones. the

stories

tortures.

about the Gestapo prisons.

The brutalities.

All The

The pain, the interrogations, more pain, then the cell,

then more interrogations, more torture; the mindlessness.

[ I have been a prisoner less than two hours, and I feel sorry for myself already! Where is my belief in God? Where is my Innere Haltung? Where is my Piarist training? This is just the beginning. I must think about happy things. Together with Tonus. Beholding her ... touching her. But she is so far away! Not really, I'm flying closer to her all the time. Yet so far. up! ]

Oh God, give me the strength not to crack

A few minutes later the plane landed on a military airfield full of pot-holes.

There were no more than twenty aircraft of

various types scattered over the field.

-42-

Most appeared damaged.

An Allied air-raid must have taken place very recently.

Up there

they are fighting for us, thought Imre his confidence momentarily regained. The door swung open and a small ladder let down. overcast, and a heavy rain was falling. to Imre and Miklos to follow him.

The sky was

Colonel Geschke motioned

Two vehicles approached the

plane, a large Mercedes and a truck with six baby-faced soldiers. still handcuffed, the two Magyars were shoved into the spacious back seat of the car with a guard on each side. nor the prisoners uttered a word.

Neither the escort

Imre and Miklos were trying to

preserve dignity with stony silence.

The colonel was absorbed in

his own thoughts. After a twenty minute drive during which the rain never let up, the two vehicles stopped in front of a barrack, a drab, large grey building, several stories high, on what appeared to be the outskirts of Vienna. The sentries saluted the colonel with "Heil Hi tIer! II squad took the prisoners into a reception room. dance started.

The

Here the paper

Admittance papers had to be filled out, Imre no-

ticed, at least in quintuplicate, exchanges made, orders issued, cells allocated.

All with exemplary efficiency and dispatch.

Imre barked in German: II

I have to see a doctor! II

"All in good time, prince, auf wiedersehen, see you again," replied the colonel who vanished after giving a few instructions to the duty officer.

-43-

While the military bureaucracy went through its prescribed ballet, Imre whispered to Miklos: "Three short knocks on the wall followed by two long ones will identify me." "I'll rap the wall with the one short and two long ones," whispered Miklos back. The Magyars were separated and taken to their cells.

80.

Really, it was a relief to be alone. Imre stretched himself out on the too-short bunk.

Let me think this situation through. Miklos and I were captured right after nine; the proclamation was due a few hours later; the armistice will be thwarted. What a grim scenario, but we'd better face it. The Gestapo ... poor Miklos ..â&#x20AC;˘ how selfish of me not to think about his situation. It's allover for his family. will they spare his father--after the blackmailing? A prison somewhere, perhaps. The Gestapo takes control of the entire country. What do they want from me? The names and addresses of all the people we know. They'll want them immediately, because once the Gestapo takeover is publicly known, all our friends will go back into hiding. Miklos knows much less, but they'll keep him alive for a week or so. They'd have to! My situation is clear: What I know is only hot for twenty-four hours or so ... at the most. I'm sure I'll be hauled out of here any minute now. ]

-44-

To his surprise, he wasn't.

More than two hours passed before

another baby-faced guard came to fetch him.

A few minutes later

he was facing Colonel Geschke and another man. " I'm sorry we kept you waiting. Hauptsturmfuhrer Schrecklich.

May I

May I add,

[ Schrecklich meaning terrible in German. ] ready.

introduce you to

an appropriate name," "We have your luncheon

Please be seated and be the guest of the Third Reich. "

Imre could hardly believe his ears and eyes. roast chicken and potatoes slowly.

He ate the

I can gain more time.

His

captors watched him wordlessly. "I'm glad you enj oyed our German cooking," the colonel finally said.

"Now that we have treated you like a gentleman, please

reciprocate by treating us as gentlemen." Imre became very alert. "We need the names of your conspirators and anything else you care to tell us about your preparations for the betrayal," continued Geschke matter-of-factly.

"We have here plenty of paper

and writing instruments." Imre didn't move. "We know everything from Herr Horthy, Prince Chabaffy. only need confirmation on a few details.

From the experience you

went through this morning, you must realize that we know everything, absolutely everything.

Please co-operate."

Imre didn't move.

-45-

IIPrince Chabaffy, we know you are a realist. we know.

So please don't waste any of your time."

a decibel, "or ours!

You know that His voice rose

Once you have complied with our requests,

you'll be transferred to a Schloss where all the conveniences you are accustomed to are waiting for you." Imre didn't move. IIPrince Chabaffy, we have acted reasonably. reciprocate,

If you don't

the consequences can be quite unpleasant.

Please

don't put me under the obligation to hurt you! II Imre didn't move. IIPrince Chabaffy,

I suggest you cooperate!

Because if you

don't, I'll have to hand you over to Captain Schrecklich.

Once

that is done, I have no influence over the outcome. II Imre still didn't move.

[ How much time did I gain? need twenty more hours.

Twenty minutes perhaps.

IIThis is a solemn warning, Prince Chabaffy.

If you don't

cooperate, we'll have to match your unreasonableness. II Imre didn't move. liVery well!

I see you are a stiff-necked, stupid Magyar ... !"

Imre noted this time he left his name out.

"You think you can

play the role of a haughty aristocrat, but I assure you that once you are under the care of my colleague, you'll wish you had listened to me.

For the last time, come forth with the details I

requested."

-46-

For the first time Imre uttered a sentence: "If you know everything, what do you need from me?" "Don't be impertinent!" shouted the colonel. our intelligence with such an assinine question.

"Don't insult We know a lot

more about you and your precious Union activities than you think. This is the last warning!

If you don't heed it, I'll have to hand

you over to Hauptsturmfuhrer Schrecklich.

You force my hand and

leave me absolutely no other alternative!" "Yes I do," replied Imre slowly. doctor.

"You can take me to your

My shoulder needs attention."

"That will be gaken care of, Prince Chabaffy, as soon as we I ve finished our little meeting here. " "You have no right to detain me," replied Imre in a calm clear voice.

"You are acting contrary to international law.

You

are making a terrible mistake for which you'll be held fully

Imre couldn't finish the sentence. "Schwein!" screamed the Colonel on top of his voice. swine!

"You

Captain Schrecklich, take him away!"

[ Lord, make me strong. spirit. ]

They can touch my body but not my

Imre was led down to the cellar and into a spacious room, with exposed brick walls and a vaulted ceiling. "Number Three!" barked the captain. Half a dozen men jumped at him and beat him until he fell onto the floor.

-47-

"This is just the beginning, you SWlne of an aristocrat, you bloody traitor ... !

We'll teach you to be humble and submissive,

you dog of a Jew lover!

Had enough?

Number Seven! II

Two giants came up to him and broke his left leg. a sickening crack.

He feigned unconsciousness.

Imre heard

One of the young-

est ones, a mere boy, turned a water hose on him, drenching him to his skin. "00

number fourteen!

shouted the boss gleefully.

The two

giants lifted him, and broke his right arm. A burning match under his earlobe woke him up. "You filthy blue-blooded rat!

Are you too stupid to know

that your body has over one hundred bones? only two.

So far we have broken

Do you want to speak to the Oberfuhrer?"

The Hauptsturmfuhrer took the roll of Imre's head as a "yes." He barked an order, and two baby-faced soldiers carried him up to the interrogation room. How much time have I gained? across Imre' s befogged brain.

Flotsam of thought drifted

Another hour?

He was deposited in front of the same table where, not long before he had enjoyed his lunch. arms as Imre was held up.

Colonel Geschke sat with folded

Imre bent forward and vomited his lunch

on the colonel's table and collapsed in the arms of his escort. Even the collapse was an agony because one of the guards gripped his broken arm.

He drifted toward consciousness again.

Through the fog of fainting he heard a few angry words: want him alive! II and "Dummkopf, idiot! II dreamy feeling of hope. -48-

This gave him a vague,

[ At least they are not going to kill me tonight. ] He drifted into blessed blackness. chamber of horrors.

Imre woke up back in the

He felt the stab of a needle in his arm.

[ I'll be left alone as long as I'm motionless. ]

He was wrong.

Another needle stabbed him.

A few minutes

later, he felt two rough slaps on his cheeks. IIDon't feign, voice.

you filthy swine! II shouted the now familiar

liDo number two! II

A hot iron touched the nail of his big toe. time he screamed.

For the first

Soon the pain paralyzed even his tongue.

"Wake up, you dirty dog!

Every ten minutes one of your toe-

nails gets manicured until you decide to talk!" After two more toenails were burned off, deep, deep unconsciousness.

Imre drifted into

He was swimming in boiling pitch.

tried to shout, but no sounds came through his lips. an antomical cross-section of his skin, huge screen.

He could see

greatly enlarged, on a

There were many layers of skin.

innermost skin curled up in smoke.

He watched how his

Successive layers were con-

sumed by flames in slow, remorseless succession. When he woke up, he found himself on the bunk of his cell. A legion of separate pains began to call, one by one. legion is ten-thousand,

and ten-thousand visited him during the

next few hours.

-49-

Imre remembered a childhood incident:

He had been climbing

down a steep hillside, and, slipping, he had stabbed his toe on a rock.

That pain was now his first visitor. Their variety was astounding.

After less than a dozen visi-

tors, he was no longer astounded because he couldn't be. count either.

He couldn't stretch at all.

He couldn't

The bunk was now big

enough for his shrunken, twisted body.

81.

Imre was free-falling through a tunnel of pain lined with barbed wire.

Drifting in and out of awareness, he had the feelig

that each of the cells in his body had sprouted a thorn.

At other

times, he felt like a grand piano which up to now had been touched only lightly on a single key but on which now a virtuoso played every key, every second, with every ounce of his energy. Oddly, Imre had no open wounds.

But the swelling was worse

than that in the Nazi prison's chamber of horrors. The only taste he felt was bitter. The only color he saw was dark grey. The only texture he felt was the sharp point of a thorn. The hiss he heard was full of malice. The stench he smelled was fUll of brutality. Then all his senses failed. greeted him.

In a vision, a magic procession

He remembered himself as a child:

-50-

playing with his

father's shoes on the polished hardwood floor of the town house on the Citadel; peering into the dark eyes of Daisy in kindergarten, mesmerized by their beauty yet repelled by something brusque in her; watching a seed sprout into a blade of grass in his elementary school's botany class; smelling the lavender aura of an aunt; fingering his first erection; exploring each other's nine-year-old bodies with a gypsy girl in Zsibo; holding on for dear life to his father's waist as they descended on the back of a mule into the Grand Canyon in Arizona; and watching his father speak. memories sped up.

Then the

He sawall of his women, starting with Magda

and continuing with magical clarity through Tonus.

His and Tonus'

first kiss, their first "I love you," their engagement were all so magnified that he could observe the exact curve of her eyelashes. Then he was on the campaign trail with his father, speaking for the first time on the stump.

Next, he recalled hunting around

Zsibo; and toasting of the twins' coming-out party The reel of his memories went on and on, the speed now gradually slowing, the images eventually fading, until Imre floated in a lilac cloud interpenetrated with the angelic strumming of violet harps playing "Mood Indigo" as a waltz, very slowly and full of yearning.

He drifted in this lilac cloud until his undulations

matched the undulating waves of Lake Balaton, and he saw himself in a sailboat, with Natasha, the girl who had wanted to marry him. Playfully, she pushed him overboard.

He fell backward into the

lake, and the water flowed into his nostrils.

-51-

Pepi, the new guard at Imre's cell, heard a strange gurgling sound.

He was a retired corporal in the Austrian gandarmerie, who

has hastily called up with everyone sixty and above to release the baby-faced generation for new cannon fodder on the front. kindly eyes and white, closely-cropped hair,

He had

a slight stoop and

the strong accent of the Alpine Highlands. Pepi entered Imre's cell.

He had heard these sounds before

in the first great war, in the trenches along the Anzio river, on the Italian front,

nearly thirty years ago.

The death rattle of

dying soldiers! Soon Imre was carried in a stretcher to the infirmary. nostrils and mouth were full of clotted blood. Imre up with difficulty, remains of his clothing.

Imre's

Two nurses propped

and started to peel off the rags, the The younger nurse fainted.

Imre's skin had an almost unbroken, uniform coloration like that of a toad.

Only his broken shin-bone pierced it.

were bleeding, and his heartbeat was barely detectable.

His ears He had no

pulse. The doctor shuffled into the emergency room.

He was about

fifty, with the broken stoop, faded eyes and premature wrinkles of a failure.

Just before the Anschluss, as Hitler's acquisition of

Austria was called, he had been drummed out of his profession for malpractice.

He was exactly what the Gestapo needed,

eager to please his masters.

for he was

His ethics did not demand the heal-

ing of injured prisoners; instead, he was quite willing to patch them together just enough so that they could be returned to the chamber of horrors. -52-

When the three were through, Imre's arm and leg were in casts and the rest of his body swathed in bandages. into the ward,

the head nurse told Pepi,

As he was wheeled

who had stood guard

throughout the proceedings: "If he lives through the week, you may well have saved his life, corporal.

If you had waited just a few minutes longer, he

would have choked to death on his own blood.

Then he dreamt that Natasha pulled him out of the water; the sail boat sprouted wings; towards Africa.

and the two migrated with the storks

Warmth flooded him over the Sahara desert, where

he found himself alone in pastel colors, muted sounds, and barely fragrant alr. paln,

Everything went completely still.

only an absence

absence of mind. echo.

of hurt.

There was no

There was no logic,

only an

Then Imre heard the faint sounds of a distant

He was floating in milk without getting wet.

He detached

himself slowly from his body and floated up towards the ceiling. He made himself comfortable in the white web of a white spider. He watched Imre in the ward bed. made of Edelweiss petals. spoons,

Below himself, he lay in a bed

Ants scurried to bring him forks and

and butterflies brought him a banquet of unending dishes.

Wasps and crickets played:

[ Oh, the You, my Could I For the

earth is vast and spacious lass, are small and gracious: win your heart so true! wide world I would not swap you. ]

-53-

82.

Imre had reached the awareness of oneness, without being aware of it.

That was God's gift to him in the cataclysm of ter-

ror and pain.

Monday, the day Hitler gave his Gold Cross to his

hero, was the day Imre opened his eyes for the first time in a week.

He was a returning voyager from other galaxies.

very tired and exceedingly exhilarated.

He felt

A certainty of his des-

tiny spread over him, although he was unable to think in terms of logical systems and destinies. Lying still and motionless, he tried to remember the previous week.

He tried hard to put his experiences into language.

could he explain?

How

He didn't mind failing because, really, words

soiled the whiteness, dimmed the light inside him.

He began to

feel a superiority, but immediately felt uncomfortable with it. His experience was irreducible and elemental, even to himself. could no more reduce saltiness,

light,

sandiness,

hardness or

softness to descriptions. At the same time his two visits to the chamber of horrors began to fade in his vision: ence,

the details submerged in the experi-

and the experience into love.

ing to resist.

He felt at peace and unwill-

He seldom feared what would happen to him here.

Whenever he did fantasize about the tortures still in store for him or sudden salvation by the Russians or Americans, he quickly climbed back into love.

He was growing, progressing due south,

due center.

-54-

Imre had made a quantum leap--absolutely motionless. reached the peak of effort--effortlessly.

He had

A shift of perception

occurred which was to remain with him forever. It was Gretchen, the young nurse, who first noticed that Imre had re-emerged from his coma and called the doctor.

Imre greeted

him with the faintest, the most tentative of smiles; and he fancied that,

for the first time, the doctor looked beyond the bedsheets

and pillows, beyond the bandages and casts. "Gut,

all he said, "Good!

From then on Imre's recovery was extraordinary. he was back in his tiny solitary cell. torn clothing was mended by a stranger.

By Christmas

It was bitterly cold.

His

It felt tissue-thin in

the icy humidity and of the walls of his cell. Imre was not allowed to read or write, and he was never allowed contact with any other prisoner. winter.

Pepi became his friend in the

He told Imre that Miklos had been transferred to the

Mauthausen concentration camp.

Then, after Christmas, he brought

the news that Hitler had decided to send reinforcements to Budapest. Imre knew that the agony of the Magyars was nearly over. When, on January 21, 1945, Imre was summoned into the interrogation room, he wondered if another guard had perhaps overheard their whispered exchanges.

Escorted by two enthusiastic 55 guards,

he mounted the steps slowly,

for his shin bone still acheq.

beautiful feeling enveloped him. new knowledge: horrors:

Was it courage?

No, it was a

he had survived two sessions in the chamber of

he could survive anything.

-55-

Imre was led directly in front of Hauptsturmfuhrer Schrecklich. When he looked up and into the SS captain's eyes, the officer averted his gaze: "This is a black day for Magyarland!" he screamed without any preliminaries.

"Your traitors have signed a pact with the Bolsheviks!

You have embraced your mortal enemies! their just dues.

Traitors will be meted out

You, Herr Chabaffy, son of a traitor and a traitor

yourself, will be among the first to get what's coming to you!

[ That's it. Am I going to die? skin and bones? ]

No more worries about

There were already three other prisoners ln the chamber in the

cellar with exposed brick walls and vaulted ceiling.

guards were waiting for the arrival of the fourth. Croat,

The

One was a

a former member of General Mihailovich's army, betrayed to

the Gestapo by members of the rival army headed by Josip Broz, a Communist;

a Polish priest captured in Magyarland; and a worker

from a Schwarz factory south of Budapest caught disturbing leaflets urging a strike. The quartet was made to sit down inside a huge wheel.

Imre

could see only a single chain at the spoke of the wheel and his fears left him again. But not for long. The SS baby-faced lads made them stretch out their arms. Four pairs of wrists were bound to the outer rim of the wheel with another set of chains.

The wheel moved slowly at first, none of

-56-

them felt any pain.

Then the barely healed bones in Imre's arms

and his leg felt as if they were slowly, very slowly being rebroken. Imre's barely healed muscles were torn apart in super-slow motion. This went on for forty minutes. Imre was the first who howled out in pain. because he was the first who had broken down.

He felt ashamed Each of his cries

was rewarded by a lash on the soles of his feet, administered in tandem by the two 55 lads. The shrieks became inhuman. The other three prisoners desperately tried to ease Imre's paln.

But loosening or increasing the tension of the chain was

impossible.

Then private agonies obliterated any awareness of the

others' presence.

The 55 boys went round and round the writhing

circle administering lashes with practiced accuracy. Two hours later the unearthly music stopped.

Imre was allowed

to collapse on the cot of his cell, with his ears bleeding and his soles raw.

83.

This time around, Imre had no nurses to take care of him, no shots to ease the agony, no pills to dull the pain.

When Pepi

came on duty at midnight, he found his ward unconscious. down close to

Imre' s

face

and

He bent

found his breathing irregular.

Occasionally his tortured limbs twitched.

-57-

At dawn he regained consciousness and began to howl like a whipped dog.

He howled constantly in a low staccato.

off in terror.

Pepi rushed

He wheedled two pain-killing pills out of Gretchen

and ran back to Imre's cell with them.

But he couldn't get the

pills down Imre's throat because it was full of clotted blood. Pepi burst into tears. The howling got quieter, but didn't stop.

He fetched a blan-

ket from the guardroom and covered Imre's body with it. Imre was beyond human help. A snowy dawn came after the next night. sciousness for the second time. all earthly thoughts. body.

Imre regained con-

He tried to clear his brain of

He tried to wish away every cell in his

He was getting ready to transit, and he was jettisoning all

excess baggage for the trip,

lightening the load to the minimum.

What was the irreducible minimum load allowable? load of spirit?

A feather-weight

A nail-filing weight of heart?

Imre was bidding goodbye to his five senses.

The alpha of an

enraptured smile, the omega of a microscope capturing the phosphorescent decay of his cells.

The alpha of a saraband of gypsy

music, the omega of a dying bagpipe tune. kiss,

The alpha of a breathed

the omega of a goosepimple on his swollen nipples,

captured between his fingers.

both

The alpha of a pefumed garden, the

omega of the smell of his own rotting flesh.

His beloved's tongue,

his own clotted blood choking him to death.

Imre was saying five

farewells and five times five farewells. hands and waved slow-motion goodbyes. of the evening outside the prison. -58-

He lifted his disembodied He faded like the shadows

Everything was void.

How was that possible?

Was it magic?

It was not, but by shutting off his senses, the cells of his body were able to work their wonders without the interference of pain.

The light shining in the night.

twenty-third Psalm, pastures.

An angel sang softly the

restoring Imre's soul.

Imre was led to green

He was given the faintest hint,

the merest intimation

of the peace of God that passes all understanding.

He was pleased

to prepare for the return Journey to his world.

For Imre was

bringing with himself the promise of changes.

He,

as witness,

was carrying it back to earth, which was about to emerge from the slaughter, destruction and suffering. Imre was

unconscious for another twenty- four hours.

Only

after Pepi came on duty the next night did he finally come out of his trauma. "Gatt sei dank," Pepi sighed, when he realized Imre was still alive.

"Thank God! II

He was hanging onto life on the thinnest of

threads, but he was hanging on. soup.

Pepi managed to get Imre some hot

It was not much more than gruel, but it was hot and warmed

up his insides. IIBig news! II he whispered. "Tell me,1I said Imre's eyes. "Your highness," he said,

IIWe are preparlng for the defense

of Vienna! II IIHas Budapest been liberated by the Russians?" Imre's voice asked.

-59-

"Yes.

And now they are advancing towards Vienna,

getting

very close to us." "How far?" he whispered. "I don't know.

Very close, your maj esty. "

"PI ... find ou ... ," he breathed. "We have received orders for evacuation!" reported Pepi with heat.

"Our shift has been increased to twelve hours, and all the

55 boys have left." Imre gave a faint smile in response. That morning,

Imre was surprised agaln.

He was carried to

the infirmary for medical treatment. During his next tour of duty Pepi explained: "The doctor has received orders, well.

was,

your maj esty,

to get you

Food rations were drastically reduced, heating,

such as it

50 you could be evacuated."

eliminated. The little food available was of poor quality:

only a few pieces of overcooked beans and bits of potatoes floated in the soup.

Now the guards' rations were reduced to the level of

the prisoners'.

And the prisoners?

Nonetheless, Pepi managed to

get Imre two hot bowls of soup during the next night. got off his tour of duty,

Before Pepi

Imre was summoned to the interrogation

room to see Captain 5chrecklich.

-60-

84.

The prison atmosphere went through a noticeable but intangible change.

Imre bathed in its luxury.

The guards' nudges became

gentler, the tone of the voices a shade more human, the plates perhaps a little cleaner, the slamming of the doors less violent; the stench less overwhelming.

And the walls didn't sweat so much

cold. Imre was able to think about his body again. discomfort was the lack of personal hygiene. had been swabbed with lukewarm water.

His greatest

In the infirmary he

Later he could have used

the shower; but the water had been so cold that he had started to shiver violently.

Dirt was a gradation better than cold.

contemplated his nails and felt his scraggly beard. ness in the cell made his flesh creep.

The filthi-

The small window was opaque

with dirt and criss-crossed with ancient, empty cobwebs.

Imre was

a keen sportsman, but since he had been captured, he had had no exercise.

As a result, he hadn't the strength for even the most

elementary tasks.

As he was kept in solitary confinement, he had

no regular daily exercise periods like the other prisoners. All this was about to be over. The Russians were perhaps no more than one hundred kilometers away.

If they kept up their advance, they would be here any day. For the first time since his visit to the chamber below,

Imre's thoughts turned to Tonus.

A violent desire seized him.

Violence requires strength and the awakening of his passion was

-61-

a sure sign of his returning strength.

He wished he had her photo-

graph with him, but all his personal effects had been confiscated on arrival and all he could do was vividly visualize that much beloved face.

He wondered where she was and what she was doing.

Another emotion,

also violent,

attacked him when Pepi and

another gray-haired jailer helped Imre up the stairs and along the corridor leading to the office. That emotion was revenge.

At first, there was comfort ln the

temptation of rage and revenge offered him. erance was not far off.

He sensed that deliv-

Imre's mind seethed with violent thoughts.

[ The tormentors should suffer the same torment I suffered. must never be allowed to happen agaln.

This

Those criminals must not

be permitted to get away with it. ] Oddly enough,

he remembered a remark a

made at the Piarist College,

a bespectacled,

fellow student had serious boy whose

father was an ardent friend of the Nazis: "Revenge is a Jewish sin," the boy had said to Imre, when l~

they debated a united Europe,

the Danube valley federation and

German reparations after the war. "Another of your fantasies," replied Imre. "Haven't you read Shakespeare.

Listen what he had Shylock

say:

[ If you If you If you And if

prick us, do we not bleed? tickle us, do we not laugh? poison us, do we not die? you wrong us, shall we not revenge? ]

-62-

"That only proves he was human, "But a Jew said it."

retorted Imre.

His schoolmate liked to have the last

word In. "It was only a question."

Imre was not to be outdebated.

"Not a statement." Imre was reproving himself for that memory when he got to the top of the stairs; he asked the guards to stop for a moment so he could catch his breath.

It was a sign of the times that he had

old men escorting him, not the enthusiastic boys of the 55 who would have answered his request with an enthusiastic kick. As Imre regained his breath and started to shuffle down the now familiar long corridor, his feverish lust for revenge simmered to self-righteousness. Look what happens to me when I'm out of love.

I get out of

breath and I feel weak and filled with unworthy thoughts.

Remem-

ber the love-light in the night? ] By the time he reached the door of the interrogation room, he no longer luxuriated in imagining exquisite torments for his persecutors.

His thoughts had given way to a feeling of expectancy.

Even here,

there was a slight shift in ambiance.

He was not

greeted with the "Heil Hitler" salute of the Third Reich. surprise,

To his

the Hauptsturmfuhrer deigned to use his name when he

addressed him. "Prince Chabaffy, lS everything ln order?"

-63-

As far as he could remember, he had never been asked a question like that in the last ten weeks. II

I need nothing but liberty, II he replied quietly.

"I have received new orders, II said Schrecklich, ignoring his remark.

lIyou' 11 be transferred tomorrow."

"Where?lI he asked. "You'll find out in good time." Did Imre fancy that the SS insignia on his collar, those flashes of lightning, shone less brightly?

Did he really see the

first signs of nervousness, even uncertainty, in the Hauptsturmfuhrer's face?

Was it possible, even remotely possible, that he

was beginning to have doubts about the ultimate victory the Nazi propaganda machine never ceased mentioning? Unbelievably, Schrecklich saluted, signifying the end of the interview.

He used a voice which no longer had any force behind

it. Imre tried to analyze the announcement of his removal.

liked to look at his situation positively.

[ Let's see. The removal means evacuation, and evacuation spells one fact: the Russians must be pretty close if the SS made a decision to abandon this prison. What does my removal mean? Obviously they do not wish to lose me and let me fall into Russian hands. Does this mean they wish to hold me as a hostage, or merely keep me in their power to do with me whatever their whim dictates? Or am I going to be swatted like a fly on the very last day of the war? ] Perhaps not even Schrecklich knew.

-64-

[ Are my prayers being answered? ] During his return to his cell, Imre asked Pepi and his mate to find out more about his transfer.

Where to?

Would he be going

alone or were others included in the order? The soup tasted better that evening. Imre tried hard to remember a psalm which sang about the goodness of God.

[ The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down. ] His memory became stuck there. to be.

It wasn't as good as it used

But self-pity wouldn t t jog his memory, only concentration.

[ The eyes of all that look at you and you give them their food in due season. you open your hand ... ] and ... and ... ? [ You satisfy the desire of all living beings The Lord is just in all his ways and kind in all his doings. He fulfills the desire of all who adore him He also hears their cry, and saves them. The Lord is near to all who call upon him. To all who call upon him in truth. ] One more line!

Yes!

[ The Lord preserves all who love him.

-65-

I'll bet I remember these psalms better than Ian does. He reads the Bible every day; can he remember half the psalms I do? I need to read something only once or twice and I have memorized it for good. I wonder what that rascal is doing? He must be liberated by now, unless he made a last-minute foolish mistake. ] Imre slept better that night than any other night in the prison.

Pepi brought him an unimaginable delicacy:

"It's from my wife,

your highness," he said.

lives in the country and brought us some eggs. ettes for eggs.

a boiled egg. "Her sister

We barter cigar-

I get the cigarettes from the other guards here.

I don't smoke myself, your majesty, and I use my ration and the cigarettes I can get from the others to barter with my sister-inlaw.

We poor folk," he continued his chatter,

best we can ...

"must make do as

There are long lines for everything.

My poor

wife had to line up for nearly three hours yesterday to get a half a loaf of dry bread ... " The old guard went on in this vein until Imre interrupted his flow of words: "Have you heard anything about tomorrow?" "Nothing at all," Pepi replied. was told.

"It's all super-secret,

If you ask me, the officers don't know either.

all kinds of orders, and before you know what happens, countermanded,

your highness.

It's

all

and no food

We get

they are

very confusing

don't know what this world is coming to ...

With all the bombings

During the good old days under emperor Franz

Josef ... "

-66-

Imre let him ramble on, because the presence of another human being was balm to his soul. It was snowing the next morning. to get ready immediately.

At seven Imre was ordered

This really didn't mean much, because

the only belongings he had were the clothes on his back. As a parting favor, he asked Pepi for the opportunity to use the guards' toilet.

He hoped he'd be able to wash himself and

look in the mirror to see what he looked like. Imre was sitting on the stool when two soldiers came in, who were apparently unaware that a prisoner was in there. "When will you be back, Heinz?" one voice asked the other, as they were relieving themselves. "I don't know, Wolfgang," the other voice said.

"Under normal

conditions I should be back tomorrow night, but conditions are not normal.

With all the enemy air attacks ...

Give Trudi my greetings."

"You'd better get going, Heinz, if you want to reach Dachau by tonight."

-67-

CHAPTER FIFTEEN SWEDISH ARCHANGEL

[ Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven ... his face was like a sun ... He had a little scroll open in his hand. The Revelation of John He does everything in a simple way, as it was self-evident one should conduct oneself in such a manner. It does not seem possible for him to behave in any other way. Ian If the center of the thought-system is true, only truth extends from it. But if a lie is at its center, only deception proceeds from it. A Course in Miracles. ]

85.

I am Wallenberg, from the Swedish embassy,

man, in precise, firm German.

announced the

He had just arrived at the border

checkpoint between Magyarland and Germany east of Vienna.

It was

a cold early November afternoon. He had travelled nearly four hours from Budapest to reach the border.

Divine zeal burned in him, simple elegance marked him;

and despite the overcast sky, the sun shone in his distinguished face. -68-

He had a little notebook in his hand. The two lieutenant-colonels from the SS, Eichmann and Wisliceny, turned around to look at him with annoyance.

The two were in the

process of checking another column of Magyar Jews who had walked the two hundred kilometers from Budapest into the German Reich. It had been Eichmann's idea to have the Magyar Jews go on foot to destruction, now that the rapidly deteriorating military situation precluded the use of trains. Much earlier in the day, Jakab had burst into Wallenberg's office: "The Nazis are marching the Jews out of the country. have already grabbed eight thousand!

They

Thirteen thousand more are

on the way!" Wallenberg had snatched up his coat, called up Per, a fellow diplomat at the Swedish embassy, to join him as soon as he could. It was his way of answering Jakab's report.

He had nodded at the

Magyar officer and almost run out of the building.

Passing on

intelligence to the Swedes as well as the Swiss was Jakab's way of helping the Jews.

They were the help of last resource.

Eichmann didn't like to be interrupted in his head count. Wallenberg didn't like to be deterred in his mission of saving as many of the marchers as coolness and bluffing would allow.

What

he had witnessed on his way here, along the road, had exceeded his worst fears. seven

It had steeled his determination.

Marchers needed

or eight days to reach the border from Budapest.

been haphazard, usually consisting of soup.

-69-

Meals had

Sometimes days had

been skipped.

Stragglers, people who were obviously too sick and

weak to walk,

had often been shot by the escorting soldiers.

Raoul Wallenberg could see the bodies scattered over the countryside, not far from the highway. As soon as Raoul's car,

followed by a convoy of trucks with

the markings of the International Red Cross, had passed through the capital's suburbs,

he had seen the first column of several

hundred people, mostly women and children.

The next columns had

followed at intervals of about twenty-five kilometers. The closer Raoul had gotten to the German border, ragged the columns had become. gaps between the columns,

the more

Stragglers had begun to fill the

and some had merely sat down in the

ditch. "These will never make it!" the Swede had exclaimed. Near the border he had come across painful scenes of degradations.

The marchers had begun to lose their dignity, and social

conventions were breaking down.

He had seen men as well as women

satisfy their bodily needs in front of each other, feeling apparently no shame whatsoever. "It's a terrible thing," Raoul had muttered to Per Anger, his faithful and courageous colleague from the embassy, a lean, handsome diplomat. inside me.

"seeing these people almost creates a revulsion

God save me from this perception."

"Look over this side," his driver had said.

"Another group

of dead people in the ditch!" IIThey look like the scum of the earth, the dregs of humanity."

-70-

liThe fiendishness of it is, that is precisely what the Nazis want us to believe. Raoul

A self-fulfilling horror!

remembered this conversation,

and repeated a little

louder. II

am Wallenberg, from Sweden!

Eichmann and Wisliceny looked at the diplomat with distaste and didn't respond in any way. was.

They knew perfectly well who he

Eichmann hated confrontations.

He kept quiet.

Wisliceny

stopped counting heads. "In the name of the government," Raoul continued firmly. order all of you with Swedish passports to raise your hands!

He was referring to his own invention. These were identification papers, in blue and white, bearing the triple crown of the kingdom of Sweden,

an impressive-looking seal, and the signature

of Ivan Danielsson, the Swedish ambassador.

He had already issued

more than seven thousand of these "passports,

and now he was

calling for their owners to identify themselves. Several hundred stood along the railway-siding, were many more further back. at the tortured faces, in the

gas

chambers

Not one person stirred.

and there Raoul looked

resigned to the fate of being incinerated of the

concentration camps.

Many looked

anxiously in the direction of the group consisting of the two 5S lieutenant-colonels and a handful of guards. Raoul knew something dramatic had to be said to jolt this stunned humanity to action. He switched into Magyar and pointed at one person near him:

-71-

"Yes!

Yes you! ... Sir!" he shouted.

still frightened.

The man looked at him,

"Give me your passport!

and start to form a line!

Stand over to my right

Now that the captive had heard an

order, he obeyed, almost automatically.

He had obeyed many orders

in the past week, and he credited his survival so far to obeying orders unquestioningly. The ice of terror was broken. the crack ali ttle wider. "

Raoul was not slow in prying

The words flowed effortlessly.

and you over there.

I have your name right here!

he started waving his notebook.

and

"Step up right behind the first

man! " Thus he managed to galvanize the brutalized humanity into movement.

His eyes, gestures and words urged them on.

more people, women and children too, began to move. into pockets and dragged out documents, dirty piece of paper.

anything,

More and

Hands moved even just a

Raoul swept them up into his hands and

motioned the columns towards his trucks. Bodies began to move.

Faster and faster.

The Nazis didn't move to stop the Swede. In a few minutes several hundred people disappeared in the bowels of the International Red Cross convoy. cisely the limit of Nazi patience.

Raoul knew pre-

Instinctively .

.He jumped into his car and motioned the convoy to follow him. Gathering speed, it was soon out of the Germans' sight. One the way back to Budapest, Raoul spotted some more bodies lying motionless along the road.

-72-

"You know, Per,

he said, leaning back.

"These remind me of

the story we heard from a Magyar journalist last year " ... who had returned from the Russian front

continued

~路Anger.

" ... Yes, the one who had witnessed the execution of several thousand Jews,

after they were forced to dig their own graves.

Just two German soldiers mowed them down with machine guns in a matter of minutes.

"He met the two soldiers In the village pub later In the day

replied Wallenberg.

"0ne of them sat down at the piano and started to play a piece by Beethoven

" continued Anger.

"One of them told the newspaperman they were both teachers by profession and how proud and satisfied they were for having served humani ty so well that day by getting rid of a few thousand Jews!" The two Swedes did more than talk on the way back to the Magyar capital.

The convoy stopped at several places and set up

first-aid stations and distributed food among the marchers. "We have to come back here!

said Raoul to Per, when the

convoy neared Budapest. "When?" asked the Swede. "Tomorrow," replied his colleague unhesitatingly. The first day's success infused Raoul with tremendous courage. The two Swedes were even better prepared this day than the previous one.

Raoul brought along a stack of blank Swedish "passports,"

and Per brought a typewriter.

The diplomats stopped at several

-73-

checkpoints and inserted the names of the marchers over the signature of their ambassador. When the convoy, now empty, reached the German border, Raoul jumped on the train packed with humanity, ready to take off toward the concentration camps beyond close-by Vienna. "Sir! you!

he shouted to the nearest Magyar Jews.

Get off!

my book here!"

Give me your paper,

"Yes, yes,

as I have your name right in

Again, Raoul succeeded in getting people to move.

When the convoy was filled up again, he threw bottles of brandy and American cigarettes to the guards as a thank you for not interfering. Again, the young Swede had pushed the Germans to the limit of their tolerance. When a group of SS guards started to move up to the train, he greeted them in German. "Don't you know, I'm acting under the authority vested ln me by the government.

His voice was firm, his government quite unspecified, and his bearing aristocratic, authoritative, authentic. The guards stopped the advance.

Obeying authority was condi-

tioned into them. Raoul used that momentary hesitation to his own advantage. The convoy was filled up again. check-point,

Raoul

Thank you, gentlemen!

shouted II

As it pulled out of the frontier

in parting,

"Danke,

meine Herren!

and threw them a couple of flasks of brandy.

Before the guards had recovered from their surprise, Raoul and Per

-74-

were on their way back to Budapest, with a precious cargo of several hundred humans. "That was a close call!" exclaimed Per. "Thank God we could do it twice," replied Raoul.

"We managed

to save several hundred more!"

86.

Before October fifteenth, when the Nazis occupied Magyarland the second time, Raoul was ready to pack and go home. appeared to have been accomplished. forced into ghettos,

His mission

The Jews of Budapest had been

but they had survived the quiet interval

between his audience with the Magyar head of state in early August and the onset of winter.

He had even written to his mother in

stockholm about returning home for Christmas. October 15th changed all that.

The observance of laws, pub-

lic safety and order broke down in a matter of hours. was back inBudapest, and zeal.

Eichmann

ready to resume his mission with dedication

Local mobs attacked the capital's Jews with ferocious-

ness, just as the lions of Rome's Coliseum had attacked the Christians nearly two thousand years before.

Wallenberg sprung back

into action, revitalizing his mission with dedication and zeal. In the first week of December, Raoul sat down in his office ln Budapest and wrote a lengthy report to stockholm summarizing his activities and bringing the Swedish Foreign Office up to date on the situation in the Magyar capital. -75-

It began with a page

filled with an impressive chart, detailing the rescue mission's order of battle.

On top appeared the triple Swedish crown; below,

Raoul's name and the address of his headquarters.

Three groupings

listed his officers and their respective duties, the fourth the addresses of his hospital and quarantine station.

On the bottom

of the page appeared the addresses of thirty-three houses which enjoyed the protection of the Kingdom of Sweden.

These were packed

with Jews, equipped with Raoul's "passports." After referring to the necessity of decentralizing operations since the Nazi putsch of October 15th, Raoul reported that: [ The embassy is hard put to carry out its responsibilities because the movements of the staff and its agents are considerably hindered. Numerous duties cannot be carried out because of arrests which are made during their performance. New regulations further restrict the execution of our responsibilities. Notwithstanding, the embassy is striving to shield those under its protection. ] After this introduction, the memo listed the duties of its various agents and departments.

It described care and conditions

in the fever hospital and the general hospital and outlined information and provisions services.

It spoke of the embassy's upcom-

ing audit of protected people and outlined passport aid, heating, the soup kitchen, and the care of children and old people. then attached a cover letter. the letter stated,

Raoul

After dealing with generalities,

"The Jews are now quite destitute.

When they

were moved into the ghetto, they were allowed to bring only what they could carry.

The food situation will soon become critical."

He went on to report that many of them were being dragged out by

-76-

local thugs who were torturing and abusing them at will, before being taken to detention centers prior to deportation. Raoul

concluded

his

letter

with

paragraph

entitled

IIAchievements ll : liThe department has prevailed upon the minister of defense to return to Budapest all the Jews in the forced labor batallions who have foreign documents.

About fifteen thousand were indeed returned,

after an officer travelling in a car provided by the department distributed the order throughout the country.

When possible, food

and medicine were provided for the marchers moving in columns towards the German border.

About two hundred sick people were

picked up by ambulances from various detention centers.

By inter-

fering in one way or another with the loading and transportation of Jews, some two thousand were returned to Budapest, including fi ve hundred from activi ty

had

the checkpoint on the German border. cease

because

Eichmann's

threatened to use force to stop it.

Sonderkommando

This has

So far the Jews who have our

protective passports have done better than those enj oying the protection of other countries.

Only about eight to ten people

have been killed so far in the greater Budapest area.

Here the cover letter ended abruptly, with only Raoul's signature and the seal of his embassy.

87.

The oppresslve atmosphere didn't really weigh on Ian very heavily.

In fact,

it reminded him of a boy-scout experience in -77-

Transylvania where he had felt himself steadily sinking in the slimy slush of a mud hole--unpleasant, yes; lethal, no. There was a boyish derring-do in him which ignored the negative.

He felt charmed,

that is, invulnerable.

His nose filtered

out the stench of decay, his ears the ugly noises, his tongue the taste of rottenness.

with his eyes he beheld a hero who could

have been his blood-brother. The two shared the same love of music and art, the same lanky figure,

the same closely guarded emotions.

Both had a

loving

step-father, a sharp wit, the uncanny ability to imitate, the full lips and high forehead, and piercing eyes. That Raoul was nearly twice his age only increased Ian's admiration. When the Nazi terror had settled down into a routine horror, Ian dared to go to the east side of Budapest to see what he could do to help at the scottish refuge for children. foot.

He went there on

During his walk he reflected on Imre, the twins, his mother,

Maria, all scattered by the strong and mighty wind. for a hero.

He was ready

He dressed elegantly in a business suit he had found

in Imre's extensive wardrobe and wore one of his father's homburgs. This borrowed finery made him look older than his years and, has he had correctly guessed, intimidated the armed hoodlums roaming l_

)

the streets. Less than half an hour of leisurely walking got Ian to the shelter, a favorite charity of the twins. him with surprise.

-78-

The head nurse greeted

"Master Ian.

And what may you be doing walking the streets

as if you owned the place?" the elderly lady asked him with a smile. II Aunt Gabi, is there anything

At that moment Wallenberg poked his nose into her tiny office. Introductions were barely necessary,

although Ian had not

been formally introduced to the Swede before. appeared on both faces, as if to say:

A delightful grin

we are together in this

crazy world and let's make the most of it; we have learned the rules of these lethal games, and we not only know how to play them but are better at them than their inventors. [ Did we

covort together

Nebuchadnezzar or Nero?

in the

courts of a

Pharaoh,

Did we ride together in one of the cru-

sades and again against the sinister Inquisition?

Did we witness

together the Massacre of st. Bartholomew or the slaughter and betrayal of American Indians? ] The sudden chemistry was interrupted by Aunt Gabi: "You don't know each other?

Raoul Wallenberg, and this

Ian Campbell." 1I0f the clan Chabaffy? II smiled Raoul. "I'd like to help

IIYou'd better go back into hiding, Ian. share the fate of Imre!

I don't want you to

We'll need people like you when it's all

over!" "What about you?" countered Ian.

-79-

III am a neutral diplomat, and you are a hunted foreigner. have no choice.

I have volunteered to carry out this assignment. 1I

IIAren't you scared sometimes?1I asked Ian, awestruck by Raoul's determination. "0f course I get frightened sometimes.

But I'd never be able

to return to stockholm without knowing I'd done everything possible ...

Well, I really appreciate your offer.

go back into hiding.

But you'd better

Please don't add to my concerns ...

got time to worry about individual cases.

I haven't

I have to concentrate

on saving thousands and thousands of lives

Dear Gabi, every-

thing in order?" liDo you know what happened last night? replied.

That's why

she

Ian felt left out, but he had too much admiration for

the Swede to argue. A few minutes later Raoul left on his energetic rounds. IIWhat a grand-seigWeur!" exclaimed Ian, when Raoul was outside the door. IIThat he is, II agreed Gabi. "He does everything in a simple way, II remarked Ian, lias if it were self-evident one should conduct oneself in such a manner.

does not seem possible for him to behave in any other way. II , ,

That afternoon Raoul found himself in the living room of the minister of finance in the Quisling government.

Countess Andrew

Pogany, the minister's wife, greeted the Swede effusively. "My dear Raoul, you look tired. II

-80-

"We had a little emergency last night at the children's shelter. The minister's wife was an Austrian baroness, Mausie Meran, from Graz,

the capital of the province called styria.

deep grey eyes and light brown hair.

She had

She was a lissome, vivacious

person whose passion was outdoor sports, skiing in Italy, toboganning in Switzerland and sailing the Mediterranean.

Her family

belonged to one of the aristocratic families who had served the Habsburg emperors for centuries.

She was happy to have the love

and comfort her husband could provide. already a cabinet minister. his chivalrous Magyar ways. life.

He was barely thirty and

She loved his dark penetrating looks, Then,

this Swede had come into her

She wished sometimes that she'd met him earlier, two years

before, when she was not yet seventeen, and not yet married.

She

liked Wallenberg's dedication and unselfishness. Both were the children of generations of long privilege. When the two had first met a few weeks ago, they had instantly felt the same chemical energy that Raoul and Ian felt at the refuge. That immediate recognition had touched a chord in Raoul's brain, which had hitherto been exclusively occupied with the saving of underdogs. Again,

there was that sharing of love:

love of good music

and fine paintings, love of the elan of life and the responsibilities created by privilege,

love of the game of outwitting the

hunters. Thus, when the Swede brought up the matter of his protective "passports,

she listened with childlike interest.

-81-

liAs a diplomat, it's unthinkable for me to run a clandestine operation.

Mausie, please talk to your husband and let his govern-

ment confirm the validity of my documents.

We, you and I, must be

together, must conspire, we have to--to save lives.

Please help

me! II Such an appeal from a member of her class would have been impossible to refuse.

Raoul was determined to save lives.

knew the precise rules of the ancient code of conduct as well as he knew the limits of Nazi patience at border check-points. Mausie knew on what basis Raoul made his appeal to her, and Raoul knew that she knew.

She responded with characteristic

vivacity in English, which both spoke fluently: "You know you needn't put it that way. sense of rightness?

Don't you trust my

You give me an opportunity to be decent and

honorable in an indecent and dishonorable world. we are here to redress the balance!

The two of us,

"Thank you, Mausie. II "You may think I'm only a chit of a girl," continued Mausie, "but you just wait and see what I can accomplish! II The next day Raoul's secretary put in front of him a typed message, an excerpt of Radio Budapest's newscast made that morning:

[Attention! Attention! The following is an announcement from the Magyar Government's information office. Effective immediately, members of the armed forces and government officials are instructed to recognize the validity of passports issued by neutral embassies, as well as the diplomatic status of all buildings bedecked with their flags. Passport holders must not be drafted for forced labor. ]

-82-

This single message, repeated all day over Radio Budapest, was electrifying news for Raoul. He had already issued twice the four-thousand five-hundred passports previously agreed on.

Now he

had the legal basis for saving thousands more. That was the message to which Raoul referred at the German border check-point when Nazi guards made threatening gestures, and he managed to snatch about two thousand human bodies back to life. On the day that Raoul had met Mausie for the third time, they had lingered in her salon to talk of other things.

Even a few

minutes' conversation unrelated to the outer horror, both felt, was a blessing. III'd like to get married myself, Mausie, and start a family, II said the Swede.

IIBut now is obviously not the time.

What we have

to do, is save thousands more lives!" lIyou have done so much already, II replid Mausie.

IIBe careful! II

IIThis cannot wait! II IIYou are like my husband, II smiled the countess.

IIAll passion

and fire! II A week later Mausie took off for her native land. sians were closing in on Budapest.

The Rus-

Enough of her husband's anti-

Bolshevik rhetoric clung to her that she became determined to evade the net the Red Armies were casting around the Magyar capital. Raoul was there, with a large bunch of fall flowers: lIyou have been my ally and friend. 111'11 be back, Raoul, II she replied.

-83-

You'll be very much missed. II

Waving goodbye towards the chauffeur-driven, tightly packed Mercedes, he said, USee you soon!

That was not to be.

88.

Wallenberg knew by instinct that the best defense was offense. He was in the habit of appraising the character of the hunters, trying to find a chink in their armor, and after finding the weakness, exploiting it to the advantage of the hunted. He needed every little bit of advantage he could get.

His

ambassador was, of course, aware that Raoul was not only his secretary, he was also the representative of the Washington-based War Refugee Board which had put several million dollars at his disposal. Ivan Danielsson admired the work of his subordinate and backed him to the hilt. Despite all his backing, Wallenberg was heavily outnumbered. The hunters had the entire Nazi occupation apparatus, that is, the 55 Divisions and the Gestapo, at their disposal, plus their local counterparts.

Many of them had sided with the Nazis not because

of admiration for Hitler's dictatorship but because it was considerd a lesser evil than Moscow's tyranny. Nonetheless, Wallenberg fought.

One of his most grandiose

bribes was fifty million to a cabinet member.

Wallenberg offered

thirty-seven and one-half as an unrestricted loan with the balance

-84-

of twelve and one-half, as a gift from the Kingdom of Sweden, to be used for feeding the Jews.

He argued that he would continue to

administer the stockpile after the Russian occupation. posal was vetoed by the cabinet.

The pro-

The Swede gained precious time.

In the case of Eichmann, Wallenberg kept probing until he fond his weakness,

too:

an aversion to confrontation.

It had

become obvious during his two forays to the checkpoint on the German border.

Accordingly, Wallenberg prepared a meeting with

Eichmann--head on.

This time it was going to be an eyeball-to-

eyeball confrontation at a place of the Swede's own choosing. He undertook the preparations with great care. want to invite Eichmann to his own villa: member of the Magyar underground, hiding there.

He didn It

he had an important

Imre's first newspaper editor,

Therefore he approached his fellow diplomat, Lars

Berg, to invite the S8 officer to his own house for dinner. Would Eichmann accept the invitation? It was a gamble, and it paid off. It was early in December. Budapest.

The Red Armies were closing in on

The distant rumble of their approach could be clearly

heard that cold evening.

At that point, Eichmann had to his credit

the extermination of at least one-half million human beings.

fervently believed he was serving humankind by purifying Europe of a pollutant race.

Despite this awesome display of power, the 88

lieutenant-colonel was insecure. He liked to be surrounded by the coterie of his closest advisors, and he seldom moved around without weapons.

-85-

For his dinner with the two Swedish diplomats,

he slid a

small walther pistol inside the jacket of his custom-made dovegrey uniform.

The automobile ride from his palatial house on Rose

Hill, the northernmost hill in Buda, close to the Danube, to Gellert, took only a short time. Lars Berg, a tall, distinguished-looking blonde man, greeted his guest with diplomatic correctness.

He introduced him to his

colleague, who with his prominent nose and dark hair, didn't give the impression being a Scandinavian archangel.

Wallenberg shook

the hand of the Nazi, who bowed with stiff formality. every moment of this confrontation.

He savored

He was immediately confirmed

in the rightness of his decision to meet Eichmann eye-to-eye. Throughout the dinner he observed with keen interest his guest, who was sitting stiffly in his chair.

Wallenberg sat at

ease and easily tossed off the banalities of a diplomatic function.

Under the steady gaze of the Swede's penetrating look,

Eichmann became increasingly ill at ease. Wallenberg waited until coffee was served to make his move. lIYou have lost the war,

lilt's only a matter of time. conclusions ... II ,

he started with quiet conviction. May I suggest you draw the necessary

Eichmann put his coffee cup down and let the

Swede continue with his offensive. ~,

lIyou are at the end of the line. l

over.

Hi tIer's reign is almost

disagree completely,

replied Eichmann.

tremendous reserves and secret weapons.

-86-

liThe Reich has

Our fight is by no means

over.

We are going to defend Budapest like the bastion of our

inner fortress, it were Beriln,

which it is.

We are going to fight for i t as if

and we are going to drive the Bolshevik hordes

back into Russia."

And tapping the table lightly with his fist,

he continued, "Mark these words of mine!" lIListen to

the

artillery

fire.

Budapest by the day and the hour.

getting closer to

Your days are numbered indeed.

Why don't you retire to your native Austria?

Why don't you call

it quits, while going away is possible?" "You don't understand, can eat the best food,

do you?" replied the 55 officer.

drink the finest Tokay wines and have the

most beautiful women at my disposal. everything else I need.

The Jews provide me with

The other day we asked the Jewish Council

to furnish us with a piano,

and it was ready to deliver six.

asked for a good painting for our dining room, and the Jews produced a magnificent Watteau. I'm enjoying my work.

Budapest is a beautiful city,

and

What more could I ask for?" he said shrug-

ging his shoulder. "For your

life!"

shot back Wallengerg.

policies were doomed at birth.

"Your anti-Jewish

You'd better get away now, before

the Russians capture you. II IIWhen the Bolsheviks get here, I know perfectly well what to expect,1I said Eichmann. leaning forward,

Putting both his hands on the table and

he declared,

II I'll be put against the nearest

wall and shot. II

-87-

"Call it quits," Wallenberg urged him, leisurely sipping his coffee. "I'll stay on to the very end.

My job is not finished by any

means!" "It makes no sense for you to stay," persisted the Swede. "I can't expect any pardon," said Eichmann.

111'11 fight the

Bolshevik menace with the last drop of my blood.

And I'll cleanse

this beautiful city from its Jewish pollution if it is the last thing I do!" "There is still time to save yourself," Wallenberg suggested calmly, flicking a particle of dust from the sleeve of his jacket. "Let's just suppose I agree with you ... " declared Eichmann slowly and very politely.

"Let us assume that I agree you are

right ... " Everyone around the table turned to look at the SS officer with diplomatic courtesy. "

... That still would not make us friends.

You have a

Swedish diplomatic passport ... " Everybody suddenly became very still. II

I am not at all sure that it'll provide you with adequate

protection

The maid stopped clearing the table. " . .. Even a neutral diplomat can have

"Eichmann paused

for a moment, rose from the table and added: " ... an accident." The SS officer bowed politely, then abruptly left the house. l

-88-

A few days later the Swede's car was involved in an accident. It was parked in front of his office when a truck ran into it, demolishing it.

Wallenberg was not in the car.

The hunt of the Swede had just begun.

89.

Two major orchestras were performing in Budapest in December. One was Peace conducted by an archangel, the other was War led by the mons ter

f Murder.

War was gradually and relentlessly pounding the beautiful city from inside and out.

Moving closer with the speed of a cen-

tipede the Red Armies rained Katusha rockets and artillery and tank fire on the capital.

The most impressive instruments were

the "Stalin organs," each equipped with pipes of astonishing range which discharged musical notes of disharmony:

deadly projectiles

with lightning speed which created magnificent fireworks at night. Not to be outdone,

the Luftwaffe's Focke-Wulfs and Messer-

schmitts, heroes of Hitler's seemingly endless Blitzkriegs, kept sweeping down on the two approaching Russian armies and everything around them.

The overture of this war-symphony was orchestrated

by the U. S. Air Force,

whose Liberator bombers pulverized the

industrial areas in and around the capital.

Inside the city, the

Gestapo, Eichmann's Sonderkommando, the SS and its puppet counter-

-89-

parts contributed their own inimitable cacophony to the Monster's symphony. The other piece of music was orchestrated by Wallenberg. Charles

Lutz,

of the

Swiss Embassy,

was

the concert-master.

Assorted players included all the available members of the neutral embassies, those representing Spain, Turkey, Portugal, the vatican and,

of course,

switzerland and Wallenberg's own

country~

The

Swede's stand in turn attracted the International Red Cross and the Swedish Red Cross. These groups

issued various protective documents

thirty thousand people,

mostly Jews.

so-called international ghetto. were in the large ghetto.

some

These were jammed in the

Another seventy-thousand or more

Thus the two ghettos held all the Jews

who were not hidden by the rest of the population, but who had, so far, survived Eichmann. The entire fabric holding up the thirty thousand in the international ghetto was spun out of the most unsubstantial material. It was woven out of the puppet regime's desperate clutch for respectability and the bravado of the Wallenberg-Lutz duo.

The pup-

pet regime wanted recognition from the governments which were neutral in the conflict. the neutral embassies,

Holding out the prospect of recognition, led by Wallenberg,

after another from the puppet regime,

wrung one concession

such as recognizing the

protective "passports" issued by them as legitimate and authentic papers.

He saw another opportunity to save lives.

-90-

Charles Lutz vied in bravado with the Swede .. When the Swiss took over the interests of San Salvador in Magyarland, at American request and issued thousands of San Salvadoran passports to the Jews of that Central American country.

Up to then, there was not

a single San Salvadoran living in Magyarland. Perhaps even more daring was Lutz's earlier caper.

The Swiss

represented British interests in Magyarland, and Britain held the mandate on Palestine.

Scramblig these facts, Lutz issued thousands

upon thousands of Palestine passports to Jews. In addition to these fictitious passports, Budapest was flooded by forgeries of these protective papers:

fiction was wrapped

inside fiction. This fantasy fabric of imaginative orchestration was rudely interrupted by the Nazi takeover on October 15th.

By the time the

Russians surrounded Budapest, it had become almost non-existent. In the pressure chamber created by one million Red Army troops battling up to one million Germans, conditions for Wallenberg's Peace Orchestra began to hover near the explosion point.

Trapped

inside the Russian net, the fanatical Nazi defenders reached the threshold of mass-suicide, not caring for their own lives and even less

for Wallenberg's

and Lutz' s protective passes.

In the

Gotterdammerung these were indeed nothing more than pieces of paper, insubstantial shadows. In this bizarre dusk of the Herrenvolk almost anything could happen, and it did.

Blond, Christian-looking Jews dressed in SS

uniforms and armed with forged orders and forgeries of fictitious

-91-

passports saved fellow-Jews in daring raids.

American pilots shot

down during bombing raids on Magyarland were rescued by Imre's Magyar underground troopers and taken to the underground hospital of the Citadel, where Elma and Ellen were nurses.

Many were saved

by Swiss penicillin air-freighted by Swedish diplomatic pouch into a Russian-battered city. Most impressive of all, Jews were saved from Eichmann's extermination squad with the help of the Germany Army. The musicians of the War Monster were starting to see the light.

One of these was Obergruppenfuhrer Hans Jutter.

On an

inspection tour of SS units, the general came across death marchers on the road to Vienna.

His sharp protest back home helped compel

Himmler to put a stop to the marches. Another was SS colonel Hans Weber. who,

He was a friend of Jakab,

later in the fall, had been assigned to act as a liaison

officer to the German Army.

He had no taste for this dubious

honor but performed it with the expectation that being on the inside track he'd be able to do some good. During an air raid by American bombers, the Magyar sat down with Weber and his adjutant and won an epic poker game.

Hans was

the same height as Jakab, fair-haired, blue-eyed, broad shouldered, elegant and--sick of HitIer.

They became fast friends.

Hans

asked Jakab to provide him with civilian clothes to be stored in Budapest and, more importantly, a letter testifying to his antiNazi stand.

Jakab raided Imre's wardrobe at the Chabaffy town-

house and found an exact fit.

Father Istvan composed the testi-

-92-

monial.

The hour would soon come when Jakab would ask his new

friend to come to his aid. During this time Wallenberg performed another of his miracles and rescued several hundred Jews in the outskirts of the capital, just as Eichmann's 50nderkommando was assembling them for train shipment to the gas chambers.

He hid them in a bombed-out school,

but the hunters soon found the scent of the hunted again.

He had

to stand by as an 55 detachment, reinforced by local Nazi stromtroopers, lined them up against the wall. perate.

The situation was des-

Wallenberg jumped on his bicycle and pedalled to his

nearest office. He dialed Jakab's direct line at police headquarters. "We must do something 1 II he started out, quickly explaining the situation to Jakab. "1'11 call Hans,

he replied.

That was at eleven in the morning.

Hans was not in Budapest.

Both Raoul and Jakab knew there was less than twenty-four hours available to rescue the Jews.

According to standard operating

procedure, the captives would be marched to the banks of the Danube, and pushed into the icy river. Some would be shot first, others would drown later. Jakab reached Colonel Weber

after a series of telephone

calls, in Berchtersgarden, Hitler's retreat near Salzburg. "Hans, I need your help! II shouted Jakab into the receiver. Hans needed no explanations. Budapest in a matter of two hours.

-93-

He had his own plane and reached

He connected with Jakab when evening fell.

The sky was il-

luminated by Red Army projectiles and the burning buildings of the Magyar capital.

Hans showed up at the bombed-out school with four

Tiger tanks belonging to an SS division defending Budapest.

That

was a better argument than any words. The next morning Wallenberg wrote his last letter.

[ Dearest Mother! All you receive from me today is a hurried scribble sent through the diplomatic pouch. Please forgive my long silences, but the situation here is explosive. I'm buried under a mountain of work. The thunder of Russian artillery is our background music ... There is a desperate shortage of food. Nonetheless, we managed to build up a fair stockpile. It looks like I'll be able to reach stockholm around Easter, at the earliest after the Russians have captured Budapest. But all that is in the future. Really, we have no idea what the Russian occupation has in store. Believe me, I'll try to get back home as soon as I can. I really did believe I'd be able to spend Christmas at home. Now I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year long distance. Peace, for which we all pray, can't be so far away. ]

90.

The last flicker of the candle is the brightest. Wallenberg knew the last flicker of the Nazis in the Budapest would be the most dangerous.

-94-

He was pretty certain that,

with his wheeling and dealing

during the siege, he had managed to save about twenty-five thousand in the international ghetto, perhaps more.

But the seventy-thousand

and more crowded into the large ghetto were still in real danger. Wallenberg had managed to foil Eichmann's last hurrah on December twenty-third. Budapest, escape. Council.

Immediately before the closing of the ring around

the SS lieutenant-colonel had decided it was time to Not, however, before executing the members of the Jewish The Swede had known something was afoot and warned his

friends to go into deep hiding.

When Eichmann had paid a last

visit to the large ghetto he had found the offices of the Jewish Council empty. Now the danger was even greater. ghetto was in doubt.

The very survival of the

Wallenberg often heard about last minute

pogroms which would wipe out the ghetto in a few hours. The last minute was close at hand. The

siege of Budapest was an agonizingly slow procedure.

What very few people knew was the exact order of battle of the armed might of Russia.

Even fewer knew about its overwhelming

losses and the consequent extent of its weaknesses in December 1944 and January 1945.

Two Red armies had already been within

reach of the gates of the Magyar capital in October, but their weakness hadn't allowed them to exploit the immense advantage. Manpower had been ample, but not supplies. used as they were to living off the land,

The Red armies,

really needed only

ammunition, gasoline and spare parts to sustain an offensive.

-95-

The

two armies which had broken into the Danube valley late ln the fall of 1944 hadn't had even that irreducible minimum. Stalin's highest priority was the capture of Berlin before Eisenhower's troops got there.

Only second in importance was the

thrust up the Danube Valley into Magyarland, and Austria, into the very heart of Europe.

Thus, a goal that Russia has been striving

for for centuries would be attainable:

a warm water port on the

Mediterranean. There simply wasn't enough of anything to carry both thrusts off simultaneously and with full vigor.

Clearly, the armies march-

lng up to Berlin had to be sustained at the expense of the offensive against Budapest and Vienna. The delay, inside the city,

so inexplicable to the Chabaffys and Wallenberg gave the German High Command precious time to

regroup forces after the sudden loss of the Balkans, and organlze stiff resistance along the Danube river.

Rumors were ripe in

Budapest that the two Red Army marshals leading the Danube valley offensive, Malinovski and Tulbukhin, were not the best of friends, a rivalry not out of character in the Byzantie labyrinth of Kremlin power politics. Whatever the reason, the slow Russian advance promised not only slow death for Budapest but also serious danger to all its inhabitants.

Those not shot by local Nazi street gangs or exter-

minated in a pogrom could have easily died of starvation and disease in the constant rain of shell fire.

-96-

Jakab spent increasing amounts of time shuttling back and forth between city hall and the German town command.

His friend

Hans had flown back to Germany not many hours before the Red Armies closed their ring around Budapest.

Jakab was out to make

friends with the remaining German officers, as information gained from them could prove to be vital to Wallenberg. Curiously, Jakab came across the most vital information by accident.

In the first week in January, he saw one of his acquain-

tances, a police major, rUShing towards him in the corridors of ci ty Hall.

Passing by Jakab, he nearly knocked him over.

"Servus , II said Jakab.

"What's the big hurry?"

"No less than five hundred German soldiers and a squad of local Nazi storm-troopers have been alerted to proceed to the Hotel Royal immediately. nies of my men.

I have been asked to supply two compa-

The operation:

to exterminate everyone in the

ghetto." "When is this going to take place?" asked Jakab, paling. "Immediately,1I replied the major.

"I was told that if my

companies don't show up at once, the firing squads will go to work wi thout them. II Jakab didn't wait for any further details.

He broke into a

run as soon as the major had turned around the next corner.

fast as his legs would carry him, he was off to see Wallenberg. "The pogrom is about to start!" Jakab used only these few words,

this single sentence, to

alert the Swede when he found him after nearly an hour-long search.

-97-

"You must tell 5chmidthuber," replied Raoul, without blinking an eyelid.

"I have the following message for him:

'If he doesn't

stop the massacre, Wallenberg will see to it that he'll swing from the gallows as a war criminal after the war! '

"You want me to tell him that?" "Don't waste any more time!" replied the diplomat. that is a personal, yes, personal message from me. Jakab, every minute counts!

"Tell him

Now, hurry up,

The Magyar officer doubled back to City Hall which was also the headquarters of 55 General August 5chmidthuber, commander of the German garrison. Jakab entered into the general's office with some trepidation and delivered Raoul's message word for word. What happened next astonished the Magyar. The German general picked up the telephone and made three calls. The first went to the commander of the 55 regiment who had put his men on alert, the second to the commander of the Magyar puppet regime's soldiers and the third to the local representative of the puppet-government which has fled weeks before to Western Magyarland, close to the German border. He had all three men line up in front of his desk.

Jakab

watched the scene from as close to the wall as possible. "Was fur eine furchterliche 5chweinerei! your men to the battle stations! officers.

Immediately return

he barked at the astonished

"I will not tolerate any mass slaughter."

-98-

Next he called in his adjutant. "Bring in two of my officers, the first two you can find! Sofort!

At once!

When the officers appeared, he said to them: "I Marsch!

put this

regimental

Out with him!

commander under

immediate

arrest.

When the German officers left, he turned to the puppet government representative: "You should do the same with your military commander. II

I have no such authority,

he relied.

The two Magyars left

the office together. Jakab gave the German general a smart salute and doubled back to Wallenberg to give him the good news. of the Swede's aids.

He could find only one

The diplomat moved from apartment to office

to apartment at least twice a day, as Jakab and others warned him that the Nazi bloodhounds were after his life.

Exhausted, Jakab

went back to the citadel to bring Liza the great tidings.

-99-

CHAPTER SIXTEEN BARBED BARBARITY

[ We have also cried unto God, de pro fundi s, out of the depths. Pastor Niemoller ]

91.

"Ah yes, Chabaffy, that traitor family 1S well known to us." Imre didn't bother to answer that greeting.

A few minutes earlier,

Imre had taken leave of his cell with a perfunctory glance when Pepi had told him: "Your majesty, I have to take you to the interrogation room.

[ That was all done with ... Gestapo prepared this time?

What new surprises has the Am I going to be shot? ]

When Imre's eyes fell on the spare figure with the angular features, the pitiless shifty eyes, and the dove-grey uniform with flashes of lightning on the collar, he quailed for a moment. recognized

Lieutenant-Colonel

Adolf Eichmann immediately.

He The

ironic intonation still had a trace of assurance behind it, the assurance born by the power to kill. Another seSSlon in the chamber ln the cellar? he is here is good news for Budapest.

-100-

The fact that

The

Obergruppenfuhrer didn't want a

taking you with me," he said after a pause.

confrontation.

"I'm

"We'll leave at once."

with a curt nod he dismissed the guards from his presence. The escort took him to a large camouflage-colored Mercedes. Imre was handcuffed and motioned into the back seat.

Two very

young SS soldiers took their seats, one on each side of Imre. Eichmann followed a few minutes later, along with a dispatch rider on a motorcycle whose sole function was, as it turned out, to pave the way for the staff car--westward. Imre noticed signs

of deterioration everywhere:

vehicles

left in the ditches along the road, disabled by bombs or over-use; the road itself in poor condition, with bomb craters only crudely repaired;

neglected buildings,

eaten up by fire. people.

some smouldering,

The most noticeable deterioration was in the

Almost all wore uniforms;

no one smiled;

looked tired and dispirited, even bedragged. almost non-existent. The

little convoy quickly arrived in

noticed further signs of the Reich's agony. well,

their insides

the figures

Civilian traffic was ~~.~ Here

ll.'i:ClJIla'.

Imre

He knew the city

as he had spent many a happy weekend there in the years

immediately before his graduation.

Six years of Nazi domination

had pock-marked the beautiful city.

It seemed to have painted it

an uniform gray. keit by fear.

Gaiety had been replaced by dirt, and Gemutlich-

The large red and white German flags with the black

swastica in the center looked out of place amid the old-fashioned dignity of Vienna.

The snow was falling and it was bitterly cold.

The car stopped in front of a large grey building. -101-

"Warten Sie,"

said Eichmann.

through the portals of the building.

"Wait,"

disappeared

They waited nearly two hours.

It stopped snowing but it was still cold. with lunch for his crew:

and he

He finally reappeared

a loaf of bread, a large sausage and two

wine bottles, all in a bulging suitcase carried by an orderly.

threw the lunch to his driver, who passed it back to the guards. Imre noted the labels Hertz on the sausage and Tokay on the bottles. No one thought to give the prisoner any food.

[ The Gestapo lives well on the loot taken from my country. ] The small convoy was on its way again.

Shortly after it

left the city, it stopped abruptly.

[ Is this my last hour, my last five minutes? ]

Everybody left the ditched his motorcycle.

car except

Imre.

The

dispatch rider

Then Imre noticed with satisfaction that

the flower of the SS was crawling on bellies in the ditch.

heard a few muffled explosions behind him, and for a few seconds, he had the wild hope of scrambling out of the car and taking off into the fields. Too soon he saw Eichmann and his crew coming back to the car. The Mercedes started up again,

led by the dispatch rider.

recognized the valley of the Danube getting closer.

-102-

Imre

Late in the afternoon the convoy reached the industrial outskirts of Linz,

which Eichmann called his home town and,

just

before nightfall, the Mauthausen concentration camp. Exactly ten months earlier, the Obersturmfuhrer had been here to plot the destruction of Magyar Jews.

Exactly ten months ago,

Imre remembered vividly, he had been talking to Tonus, planning the future together.

[ This mad world 1S gOlng to end soon, and I'll be back 1n Magyarland. ] Imre was not taken to the camp itself, but rather led through the guard room at the gates to a solitary cell. snow again,

and it was pitch black.

It started to

Imre couldn't make out very

much. The cell didn't seem much different from the one he had just left.

It was perhaps a shade warmer,

as it was directly next to

the guardroom. Of course he had heard of Dachau.

until he

Vienna

earlier in the day he hadn't had the faintest idea where it was.

Will I be part of the last blood-offering of the insane high priests of the Herrenvolk? In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds on half the nations. ] Imre could almost hear the funereal swelling of the Gotterdammerung, awesome dirge of a mad dictator. He sought refuge in the lyre of the psalmist:

-103-

[ Be merciful to me, 0 God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge, In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by ... ] Imre felt stirrings of growth within, even amidst this cry for deliverance.

He realized profoundly that the purpose of life

is to strengthen contact with God, God within oneself.

to become fully aware of the

He began to feel stronger even though he was

a captive. [ I should stop interfering with that eminently natural process of establishing conscious communication with my personal God. ] Imre, lying on his narrow cot,

started to realize that the

process that had begun inside him could not be stopped, even by the destruction of his body.

Definition still eluded him, but the

feeling of growth could no longer be denied. as an earthquake.

He looked back on his old life:

tions, desires he had had. ,

It was as powerful the many ambi-

He found them superficial and frivolous.

When he had fallen in love with Tonus, Imre had called it a gift of the gods to make his life's journey easier.

That's when he had

begun to think about their future together and the kind of world he wanted for them and his children. A sentry came in and brought him a bowl of thin soup.

slept soundly and had a strange dream about three sisters and their brother.

He was saving the life of a young woman with long,

blond hair, about seventeen. was called Johannes.

Her name was Victoria, and her brother

The person to be saved gradually evolved

-104-

from the oldest sister, through the middle sister to the youngest. The brother was involved somewhere, but not as an adversary.

was a war to gain possession of Victoria, but it was a bloodless war with no deaths, not even casualties.

There was a huge board

on which figures moved; they looked like amoebae. movement had the

Their protozoan

slowness of lUmbering medieval knights.

combat took the form of waves moving back and forth.

The

That move-

ment created an area in which victoria came under Imre's influence and was freed. He felt good even after a sentry woke him up, poking his shoulder.

It was still dark outside.

slop which warmed his insides. weather to a Black Maria. quite a while.

Imre was given a cup of

He was led out into the freezing

The driver and Imre had to wait for

The sun came up slowly; the landscape was still

shrouded in grey mist. II

I'm ready to go,

explained the driver,

other passenger gets here."

as soon as our

He wasn't wearing an SS uniform, but

that of the regular army, and was not unfriendly.

He muttered to

himself: "Papers ... always more papers. II Shortly thereafter an older, erect man in clerical garb joined Imre in the back of the van. "My name is Neuhal t-Howenlohe," he introduced himsel f politely. "I'm the bishop of Graz ... and who are you, young man?"

-105-

92.

Mutual recognition was instantaneous. "You are

"You are

Tonus' uncle!"

and you Tonus'

" the bishop let his sentence trail

into silence. They both looked at each other with intense curiosity, then, almost at once, both started to talk in rapid and confused sentences: "How did you get here?" "You look so thin, Imre." "How is Tonus?" "Tell me all about it." "Call me Uncle Egon, please." "I sn 't it amazing?" "When did you last see her?" "What have they done to you!" The Black Maria heaved, and Uncle Egon and Imre were taken in a westerly direction.

It was cold inside the van.

The bishop

gave Imre a warm blanket that the Nazis had allowed him to keep. He was a man of slight build, with a rosy, comfortable face, blue eyes and light hair turning almost imperceptibly gray.

He was

dressed in ordinary black clerical garb, with no outward sign showing his high rank in the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

This sim-

ple, even comfortable appearance hid a man of iron determination and strong purpose. -106-

"I started,

haven't seen Tonus

since Lent ...

even before

Lent

you know," the bishop said, "but first tell me about

your experiences." After he quickly highlighted his own story,

Imre brought

Tonus back up again, but Uncle Egon couldn't tell much about her: she was well, she looked healthy. "Rather quiet, withdrawn," he remarked.

It became apparent

to Imre that he wasn't anxious to pursue the subject of his niece, so he abruptly changed the sUbject. "What have you done to displease the Nazis?" "Aiding the enemies of the Reich was the charge." "Did you?" asked Imre. "The charge was absurd, except to the Nazis," explained the bishop.

"They knew all about my views on the Anschluss.

No, I

certainly didn't keep secret my strong distaste for the way Austria was raped by Hitler.

What a betrayal of his own father-

land by that upstart corporal!" "Were you actually tried in court?" "The Nazis attempted to keep the proceedings secret ... and of course that was quite impossible, in view of my position." "What were the specific charges?" asked Imre.

"In Magyarland

the bishops took a very strong stand against the invaders.

As far

as I know the Nazis didn't dare to arrest any of them." \

"Magyarland is different," explained Uncle Egon.

"Austria is

now regarded as part of the German Reich, but your country is still, at least nominally, an independent ... "

-107-

ity,

that's rubbish

and sovereign state.

" The Nazis are sticklers for legal-

and their hold on the Magyar bishops is necessary circum-

scribed by their action of Magyarland being a foreign, independent entity." "Uncle Egon, please continue." "My arrest was the result of my own stupidity." "Really!" asked Imre, aghast. "I was on the edge for a long time.

My superiors realized

the danger of my position much better than I did," replied Uncle Egon.

"I was transferred to Munich, as auxiliary to the cardinal-

archbishop of Bavaria to get me out of sight of my enemies. delayed my departure by a week. and grabbed me.

The Nazis got wind of my transfer

It was my punishment for not obeying the order of

transfer immediately.

The sin of disobedience, young man, brought

its swift retribution." "But why were the Nazis so anxious to get rid of you?lI Imre asked, still perplexed. "For performing my apostolic duties.

My diocese was quite a

large one in what turned out to be a strategically important corner of the Reich," Uncle Egon went on. ,

"We were the closest to Yugo-

slavia and therefore Venice, and that palt of Italy ... " " ... yours was the soft underbelly "What are you

" murmured Imre.

SAiiN6" ~"

"Of no importance ... so continue," asked Imre.

-108-

"Being so close to Slovenia and Croatia, my diocese is full of refugees fleeing from the triangular warfare between the German occupation troops, replied Uncle Egon.

the

Chetniks

and the

Communist partisans,

"At first we had only a trickle, but when

Churchill threw in his lot with the Communist Tito ... decision if you ask me

a crazy

supporting the godless can only bring

mischief ... instead of General Mihailovich

"Are you sure he is Communist, this Tito?" "Makes no secret of it!1I explained Uncle Egon.

III happen to

know that he is a Communist agent, trained in Moscow, an operative well versed in terrorism and bolshevik techniques, an out-and-out atheist!

His name was Josip Broz.

Tito is just a name he assumed

to cover his nefarious past in Russia. King!

He is against God and

IIA strong statement, II remarked Imre. "Mark my words, II said Uncle Egon heatedly.

IIMost of the help

the British and Americans are giving to the Communist patisans is being used by Tito to fight General Mihailovich,

the legitimate

defender of Yugoslavia's political and religious freedoms, not the German occupation troops, who keep themselves in the cities and don't venture out much into the country side! II Imre's questions apparently hit a raw nerve in Uncle Egon, because he continued in this vein for some time, until Imre interrupted him: IIWhat did you do with the refugees?"

-109-

"We took care of them,

replied the bishop.

found housing and jobs for them. refugees were them ...

"We fed them,

But the Nazis said that the

all relatives of the Yugoslavs fighting against

They even found one who had signed a statement that he

was recruied by us to act as a liaison officer between the Yugoslav underground and my diocese. there I was,

utter nonsense, of course, but

first under surveillance ...

Mind you, there there

was nothing subtle about it ... two men shadowed me all the time. Their idea was to intimidate me ... was underhanded ...

Mauthausen camp.

Even my arrest

The Wehrmacht commander asked to meet me ...

or so I was told put under arrest.

And then ...

When I got to the army headquarters, I was After my so-called trial,

I was put into the

The Black Maria arrived in Munich early in the afternoon.

entered an imposing grey building which was heavily guarded by sentries and sandbags. and an SS driver.

Their escort was replaced by two SS guards

This changing of the guard took several hours.

[ I'll bet all the documentation and papers must be put in perfect order, all the signatures in the right places, inscribed and counter-signed. ] Uncle Egon and Imre were given bowls of soup and a slice of bread for lunch. Around five a third prisoner appeared under heavy escort, amid inevitable "Heil Hitler's" and commands.

He joined the other

two in the back of the sinister wagon. II

I'm Elser,

he whispered timidly to the others.

-110-

"Kein Wort!

shoute

an official.

"Not a word!

They muttered something in return, new arrival and remained silent.

looked cautiously at the

The Black Maria rolled out of

the building. "You needn't be afraid of me, II

I'm not a Nazi to spy on you.

whispered the third prisoner.

My name is Georg Elser.

been interned by the Nazis Slnce 1939.

I have

Have you ever heard of the

bomb attack against Hi tIer on November 8th of that year?" "af course,

replied Uncle Egon.

lilt exploded after Hitler departed from the Munich beer hall where he made a speech, wasn't that i t?" added Imre. "Yes,

yes,

continued Elser,

still whispering.

lilt was a

plot by the German general staff, but the Nazis tried to pin the blame on the British; it was a ploy to rally the people behind the Fuhrer, right after the outbreak of the war.

"How do you know about that?" asked Uncle Egon. II

I was commissioned to build the bomb,

he replied.

"For

all my trouble I was put in a concentration camp at Flossenberg." The two listened in stunned silence. II

I was allowed to work in the shop and play my zither,"

continued in rapid whispers,

"I had an 55 guard outside my cell

day and night ... II "Quiet back there! one more word!

came the yell from the front seat.

"Not

A few minutes later the wagon stopped in front of a large gate.

After a tedious wait, the guards opened the back door.

-111-

"out!

All of you!"

[ So this is Dachau. ] An all-pervading, acrid odor hit them, entering their noses, every pore of their skin, and every particle of clothing.

It was

not to leave them while they were there, and the survivors would never forget it. The odor was the stench of burning human flesh. The prisoners were escorted to the guardroom, where papers were handed over, documents examined, signatures exchanged, photographs taken and numbers and cells allocated.

Before being marched

off to their individual cells, Uncle Egon got a chance to whisper to Imre: "Thirty-three." Imre was taken to cell number seventy-one, ln a vast underground bunker.

It was a cheerless concrete box,

with a small

window near the ceiling. Imre's spirits rose noticeably when dinner was brought in an hour later.

It was a substantial meal by recent standards:

thick bean soup,

two eggs with potatoes,

three slices of dark

bread and a hot cup of ersatz-coffee. [ Perhaps, perhaps, not such a bad place after all. ]

-112-

93.

A piercing shriek broke the stillness of the morning. another and yet another.

Then

First a man's, then a woman's.

Imre felt a violent vibration down his spine.

Did one of

those cries ... did that shriek have a familiar sound? Those few seconds shattered Imre's momentary peace. had a dreamless, refreshing sleep. he had felt like a new man.

He had

After a substantial breakfast,

Then he had heard a knock at the door

of his cell--even the knock sounded to him like an extravagant form of courtesy.

An orderly had come in,

garbed in prisoner

stripes: "1'11 take you to the tailor for your outfit. time for that last night.

There wasn't

It was when he emerged from the bunker

that he heard those heart-breaking human cries.

Was i t a last

anguished appeal for pity? The tailor, a prlsoner himself, outfitted him with the uniform of the camp:

striped pants and a jacket in blueish-green.

stitched a red triangle on his jacket. "What is this?" Imre asked him in German.

He tried the same

question in French. "Red is a political prisoner, II the tailor replied in French. IIJews have yellow triangles; ordinary criminals green and homosexuals violet.

Over the triangle the tailor sewed a white stripe

with the number 57,216.

This happened on February 24, 1944.

-113-

He was then led to a little walled-in courtyard with a few benches and patches of struggling grass partly covered by snow.

scattering of prisoners were shuffling around, performing their exercises. Imre

immediately recognized Uncle Egon among the walking

figures and joined him. "Come

cell thirty-four tomorrow morning;

Sunday observance.

we'll have a

Pastor Niemoller will deliver a sermon."

could barely belive what he heard.

Sunday observance?

Imre

A sermon?

The next day, the tiny cell was packed with a group of perhaps ten people.

Uncle Egon introduced Imre to Pastor Niemoller,

the symbol of the German resistance to Hitler's tyranny, eighth year as a captive. He had a friendly,

in his

He was the Fuhrer's personal prisoner.

confident face; his prominent noSe held thick

glasses for his dimming eyesight; his receding grey hair was parted on the left side,

few centimeters above his large ear.

His

small frame exuded faith and energy; his beautiful smile put wrinkles on top of his nose and on the edge of his eyes. He selected Matthew 15, 21-28 for his text.

[ And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, 'Have mercy on me, o Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.' But he didn't answer her word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, 'send her away, for she is crying after us.' He answered, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.' But she came and knel t before him, saying, 'Lord, help me.' And he answered, 'It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.' She said, 'Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.' ] -114-

The pastor stopped for a moment, then, stressing every word, he continued:

[ 0 woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire! And her daughter was healed instantly. ] What an appropriate text,

exclaimed Imre inwardly, letting

himself steep in the luxury of the soothing words. [ ... In today's Gospel lesson it is wholly manifest that the healing of the ailing girl is only incidental in the whole narration, ] said the pastor.

[Moreover, it is utterly insignificant

in this instance whether we think we can explain this healing or regard it as something inexplicable, namely a miracle.

In reality,

the central theme which is emphasized is the battle of wits between the mother and the Lord, and precisely therein lies the meaning of this story as it concerns us. ] How true! thought Imre. [ Yes, precisely in this battle a real miracle takes place, something at which we must marvel no less than the Lord Jesus did at the time.

He was so astonished, as we are told, that he finally

granted his request and said to her, '0 woman, great is your faith' . And in this word of Jesus we have, at the same time, the key to the understanding of the whole incident.

We have here before us

an instance of 'great faith'--a faith such as Jesus met rarely ln his life on earth. ]

-115-

[ In the New Testament we read repeatedly of the obstinate unbelief of the contemporaries of Jesus and particularly of his Nazarene townspeople, II continued the pastor. not belong to the people of Israel:

IIBut this woman did

she was a

'heathen', as we

should say, and as such she had no immediate claim on the help of the Jewish Messiah ...

She had nothing to which she might appeal

and through which she may add force to her plea ... ] [ ... Even at the beginning, ] Imre heard the firm German of the pastor say, even this

faith

[the woman stands before us as a believer, goes beyond ordinary,

everyday standards.

and We

human beings are always inclined to think that on our own part we need to supply certain conditions in order to have faith.

We have

the feeling--rooted in the depth of our being--that in order to appear before God we may not come with empty hands, that we must have something to present to Him, be it a regular material offerlng,

as in most primitive reilgions, be it a certain minimum of

reilgious convictions to which we may appeal,

be i t a certain

moral excellence which shall make us agreeable and acceptable in the sight of God. ] Every word is meant for me! thought Imre. [ But with reference to the Lord Christ, all this is nothing but a superstition, which, far from helping us, may hinder us from really going to him.

His glad tidings are addressed to the poor

and suffering, who have nothing and can give nothing, the hungry and the thirsty ... ]

-116-

That's us, thought Imre. [ ... We must therefore guard against yielding to that excessively human feeling which would persuade us thus:

'Since I am

spiritually as poor and empty as a beggar who has nothing to give, I cannot turn unto God; since I am not sufficiently pious, believing, self-collected, I cannot pray to Him.' ] The pastor

look~d

around his small congregation, and continued

fervently: [ From my own experience ln these years, I know how, in this situation with its monstrous uniformity, with its enormous distress that weighs upon us like an unalterable destiny, with its apparent hopelessness, such thoughts come and oppress us, and how they gnaw at the root of our faith ... ] In that other prison I was afraid, Imre remarked to himself. [ ... the faith of the woman was, of course, subjected in a hard test.

Jesus at first didn't even seem to hear her cries. ]

Imre looked around the cell and was momentarily lost in the rapt faces of his fellow worshippers. [ ... What was taking place at that moment in the heart of the unfortunate woman we can only guess.

She had received no

answer to her appeal for help, and from the words of the disciples she could infer that her hope and faith had been fruitless ... ] Imre's eyes turned toward the ceiling; he was lost in momentary contemplation. [ ... Possibly we ourselves know something of such a crlS1S of faith.

]

These strong words brought Imre's attention back to

-117-

the sermon.

[Possibly we also have cried unto God 'de profundis',

out of the depths,

because we simply didn't know which way to

turn--and God was silent.

And then we stopped our cries and re-

signed ourselves to the inevitable ...

How many people around us

may have called and cried unto God, precisely in these inexpressibly distressing days,

because they saw that here all hope in

human help is in vain--But he didn't answer. ] The pastor paused significantly. [ And how soon may not we ourselves find ourselves in the same situation. ] Imre involuntarily shuddered because he remembered the terrible cries he had heard since his arrival there. [ The woman in the Gospel withstood and overcame that blow. She could and would not admit that Jesus was not expressly available to her. not end here.

And so it is really a miracle that the story does But it may happen to us also, and it does occasion-

ally happen, that from the portion meted out to us in our life we may gain the impression that God deliberately ignores us. think that He burdens me beyond my power to bear.

I may

He leaves me in

the lurch when I try to live my life in accordance with His commandments, as I would like to do; and so in all my difficulties, I hear but one 'No' after another. ] After a short pause, Niemoller continued: But whoever endures this

'No'

is all submissiveness and

relies on the undeserved free grace of God, which is so superabundant that even one like me does not appeal to him in vain.

-118-

One like me will hear the silent 'Yes' of God that brings the trial to an end ... ] Ours will end soon, Imre added in his thoughts. [ We see clearly that Jesus,

as the good pastor, denied the

poor woman in order to awaken in her the 'grat faith'

It will

be sufficient for us if in our trials we remain convinced,

that woman, that God's grace is still abundant enough to embrace us;

if we,

like that woman,

tirelessly persist in praying ...

Amen. ] "Amen," responded the tiny congregation ln unison.

94.

Imre bathed in the light and, when the communion followed, he was, for the first time since his capture, fully alive and well. He met the other members of the little congregation: man named Dr. VanDyck, them,

a Dutch-

a cabinet-minister and the oldest among

who had managed to convince the camp commander to allow

Pastor Niemoller to hold services;

Clavenus and Johanson,

two

Norwegian ship owners; a Yugoslav diplomat, a Dr. Popovich; and a Macedonian journalist, Tomolitsky, with whom he felt a professional affinity.

He was also introduced to a Roman Catholic priest who,

with Uncle Egon, assisted the pastor in the services. Then a striking-looking man, not much older than Imre, introduced himsel f .

-119-

liMy name is Richard Stevens, from Brighton, Sussex. II "When were you captured?" asked Imre. "That goes back a long way to the beginning of the war," explained.

"I was a military attache at the British Embassy in

the Dutch capital.

I was kidnapped on November 9, 1939

"Just like we were," interrupted Imre.

"Please continue. II

" ... along with Best, Captain Payne Best, who was in charge of military intelligence in Holland.

We were approached one day

by a man who said he represented a group of German generals who wanted to get rid of Hitler.

He needed to find out if the new

German government could count on fair treatment by us." "So this plotting dates as far back as 1939?" asked Imre. "During our preliminary meetings,

continued Major Stevens,

"a bomb exploded in Munich ... " Imre could barely restrain himself, but he didn't want to interrupt the Englishman a second time. "

and the following day a Dutch officer, Dirk Klop, took

us near the German border, where we were ambushed:

the Dutch

lieutenant was killed, and we were dragged across the frontier ... " "You mean the Gestapo kidnapped you on Dutch soil before the invasion of Holland?" asked Imre incredulously. "Right you are.

Not only that, but Payne and I found our-

selves accused of planning to kill Hitler, which was sheer nonsense of course.

But it was a brilliant propaganda coup, as it

helped to rally the German people behind Hitler right after the outbreak of the war and put us in the role of villains. II

-120-

"And what happened to you?" "In concentration camps ever since.

"When did you get here?" tlln 1941." "So you've been here almost three years?1I "Right you

are.

What an improvement over 5achsenhausen,

where I was kept in chains!

Here,

I'm allowed to leave the camp

in mulfi and go to Munich to the library and for shopping." IITruly amazing!" exclaimed Imre.

"Are there many other Eng-

lishmen here?1I "Qui te a few--there is captain Peter Churchill and, of course, Payne...

We were separated for awhile,

but reunited here,

this place." "You know who I

arrived with last night?" Imre continued,

answering his own question.

IIA

man named Elser ... "

"Not Georg Elser?" IIYes, yes! 1939.

He told us

The very same man you were involved with back in Well, let me start from the beginning

At the end of his accounting, Major stevens exclaimed: "50 we all meet here in the end!

After a short pause, Imre

asked: "What is the treatment for us special prisoners?" "Fairly decent," replied the major, "but you never know.

The

55 steals our International Red Cross package, and then, out of the blue, kills one of us. "

-121-

"Do you meet any of the others ... of course I know about the Sunday service ... " "During our daily exercises we have a chance to see some of the others ...

and during air raids.

Our shelter is right ...

the entrance is plumb in the center of the exercise yard," continued Stevens.

"That's the one time when we can really talk."

"Do you know anyone here from Magyarland?" asked Imre. II I know there are some Magyars here, but I have not met any of them so far," and, his face brightened up, he added, "but last year a young Canadian officer arrived here who had come from Magyarland ... " "Don't tell me--I know his name!" exclaimed Imre, beside himsel f .

almost

II Squadron Leader Andy ... "

"That's him! II his new friend interrupted. IIHe is my sister's fiance!1I continued Imre. in Budapest last March when the Nazis invaded us

"He was captured "

The two would have chatted in this vein for hours, but a guard came into view to escort Imre back to his cell. "Do you know how I could get in touch with him?" Imre asked quickly, with urgency in his voice. IIHe is not let out much, but we communicate through the walls of our cells ...

He is next to Payne ... with taps on the wall ... "

Imre was in turmoil.

So much had happened at once.

Dachau

appeared to him to be a little cosmos of Europe, with every nation represented.

-122-

[ This was a place of miracles with protestants and catholics conducting divine services together and people of various religious faiths taking communion together. A world of paradoxes and contradictions. There is hope for mankind! It's a shame Dachau is needed to get us all together. This unity must survive this hell, for the new world we'll build when this war is over. ] On the way back to his cell he entered the prison courtyard. Another strong smell of burning human flesh hit him.

A moment

later he heard human shrieks so desperate and penetrating that his blood seemed to stop circulating.

As another shriek pierced his

consciousness, with an involuntary gesture he stopped up his ears.

[ There is something awful, something beyond description, that is going on in the other parts, on the other side of the camp. I don't want to know about it. I do not wish ... no, I do not want to recognize it. If I recognize it ... only then will it become part of my reality. I can't bear to think about it. That is the only way I can keep my sanity. ] He looked up, and noticed a few prisoners exercising in the courtyard.

His legs started to move towards two familiar figures.

He went up to them, almost running. "Gentlemen," he announced quickly, introductions.

All I

"I'm not allowed formal

can say is that I'm quite a criminal, a

really shady character

at least some powerful people think

so ... so if you do not wish to consort with a criminal, lest you get into trouble yourself,

just say the word ...

leave!"

-123-

I' 11 take my

IIWe are not exactly blameless characters ourselves,1I a resonant and light-hearted voice replied,

IIbut join us by all means,

if you wish. II Each noticed the twinkle in the others' eyes and the amused smile on the others'

faces.

Two young men burst out with happy

laughter at the same time, and even the third person allowed himself a smile.

Imre greeted Uncle Geza reverently and Atilla with

a quick embrace.

The Magyars instinctively knew that such hilarity

and familiarity would be frowned upon by the guards. were delighted to see Imre,

The Tollays

they were eager to ask innumerable

que@tions about his experiences.

And they were horrified to learn

about the tortures he had gone through. IINone of the special prisoners as far as we know,1I remarked Uncle Geza,

II went through serious physical maltreatment,

that so, my son! II

isn't

Both looked gaunter than Imre remembered them,

and Uncle Geza hair had turned almost white. "I just met an Englishman, II said Imre, "who was kept in chains and solitary confinement for years." "But out here?" shot back Uncle Geza.

Imre noticed an urgent

appeal in Atilla's eyes, and he hastily replied: 1I0f course not." anxious to shield his possible.

Imre immediately understood that Atilla was father from any bad news for as long as

Uncle Geza had aged noticeably since Atilla's wedding--

that was the last time Imre had seen him--and there was a deep sadness in his eyes.

But not in Atilla's, whose eyes continued to

twinkle and sparkle even after the first moments of this remarkable reunion. -124-

"We'll belong to the most exclusive club in the world, if we survive this ... " growled Uncle Geza. "

when we survive this," Atilla corrected him firmly.

to have been an inmate at Dachau," continued the prime

minister, "will be an honor. " "Are there any other Magyars here?" asked Imre. "We haven't seen Miki ... we heard he was here," replied Atilla, "and we once had a glimpse of George Pallavicini." "The old devil," exclaimed Imre.

"Do you know Andy is here?"

It was the Tollays' turn to be surprised. "We have never seen him!" father and son announced at the same time.

"Prince Potocki has passed on last month," added Atilla.

Imre's thoughts turned to Ian. The guards shouted.

The exercise period was over.

"We walk around here almost every day in the morning," Atilla said quickly.

"We'll see each other soon."

Imre was touched to see the loving care with which Atilla guided his father out of the courtyard. Atilla had lost none of his fire.

Imre was glad to see that

Then he suddenly remembered all

the questions he had forgotten to ask. not asking more about their experiences.

He upbraided himself for All he had found out was

that they had first been taken to Mauthausen,

like Miki,

then

transferred here last October. He realized wit a new anxiety that he hadn't asked a single question about Veronka and that he hadn't mentioned Tonus to them.

-125-

[ What is becoming of me! Am I becoming so sexless that I can't even think about women! That one moment in the other place, I felt a desire for her, but not once since then. Have the doctors injected me with something which has robbed me of my manhood? Did the tortures take away my potency? ] Imre looked around, and his attention was instantly turned away from self pity.

He saw a group of prisoners on the other

side carrying some coffins, and soon he heard the terrifying sound of humans being dragged out to be shot ... or hanged? Even that question was soon asnwered--by a report of rifle shots. One sound was more overwhelming than the other, and perhaps worse than the ever-present stench and the smoke curling up from the chimney of the crematorium. It was all too horrible.

Imre realized with anguish how

fragile the serenity of the Sunday service was.

It had come back

for a short time while he talked to the Tollays, but it had almost vanished amid the shouts of dying people, the crack of shots, the inescapable stench. He heard a cry like he had not heard before. of a woman in the extremity of anguish.

It was the cry

Stopping up his ears with

his fingers, he shuffled back as fast as he could to his cell.

[ This up-and-down is more unbearable than the constant suffering I had before. Then I knew what was coming, and I was able to steel myself against the pain. I could enter into the secret innermost part of myself as a shield against the pain. I had the time to wind myself into a state where I felt one with the Almighty. But here?

-126-

I feel I'm on a swing, flying from reunion to horror, from a sermon to the shattering of shots, from communion with God to stench. No, it's not a swing-like feeling at all. It's like being on an elevator which descends with reckless speed, and then bounces back with electrifying force. It's like a roller coaster with its breathtaking plunges and gut-tearing ascents. I'll never get used to this, never! ] Imre felt his new found strength ebbing away, and sank onto the cot ln his cell.

He pulled the blanket over his head and

started to touch himself.

Slowly,

very slowly he was able to

visualize Tonus' much beloved face, her sunny smile, the spring of her body, the scent of her hair ... came back to him.

In gentle masturbation, warmth

[ I am a man, after all.

I can still feel the

joy of sex. ]

95.

In the next two weeks, Imre swung from hope to despair, from serenity to fear. fel tweak,

He upbraided himself for the moments when he

although his body got stronger from the meager but

adequate meals served by an orderly who was also a prisoner. Occasionally a man who spoke German would poke his nose in the cell. II I'm Doctor Rascher.

How are you doing? II

III 'm all right. II But he wasn't. hell.

Some vibration inside him resonated to another's

It told him that someone close to him was in peril.

-127-

His privileges were

abruptly terminated the Monday after

Pastor Niemoller's service.

No more walks in the courtyard, no

unattended meandering in the corridors and contacts with other prisoners. day, file,

Imre speculated that because he had arrived on a Satur-

the camp bureaucracy had needed a

few days to digest his

which probably contained a little memo from Eichmann, or

perhaps even from General Kaltenbrunner, the chief of the Gestapo, warning the camp-commandant about his record as a dangerous enemy of the Reich. The withdrawal of privileges didn't bother him much. without them he was much better off than before.

Even

He was allowed

to have a shower at the end of the corridor every day, his food was adequate and the cell was quite comfortable and much warmer. Imre missed the smile which had wrinkled Pepi' s face, but soon he met another Pepi. air-raid alarm.

friendly

It happened during the next

Again, he wasn't allowed into the shelter, but

could go to the courtyard.

He was glad to hear the roar of Allied

bombers and the distant thud of bombs hitting targets. alone in the courtyard.

He was all

In that unguarded moment, a prisoner from

the other side walked in to tend to the ground around the edge of the wall. III'm going to have some flowers here and a lettuce patch for the spring, II he announced in German.

lIyou are new here,

aren't

you? II lIYes, I just arrived a couple of weeks ago,

-128-

replied Imre.

III can hear that German is not your native tongue,1I the prisoner said.

IIAre you Magyar perhaps?1I he continued, and then repeated

the phrase in Magyar. IIHow did you guess?1I

Magyars tend to be surprised that the

rest of humanity often spots that unmistakable accent. III speak many languages. prisoner continued.

I was a circus clown,1I the other

"And we often visited Budapest.

place, so hospitable and friendly.

A beautiful

What is your name, may I ask?1I

"Chabaffy, Imre Chabaffy. II IINot Prince ... II IIPlease, II

Imre interrupted him.

"I f

you wish to call me

anything, just call me Doctor Imre. II II Imre, II the clown repeated.

II An unusual name. II

IINot in my country, II replied his new friend. IIDid you notice anything? II the clown asked a little later. IIWhere?" Imre asked. II There , on the walls, those hooks." Imre looked around. noticed them before.

Of course they were there, but he hadn't

Just as he had tried not to notice the barbed

barbari ty strung around the camp,

the high tension wires,

the

watch towers. "If those walls could talk, II the clown remarked. III'm glad they can't," Imre said, somewhat abruptly. "Up to last spring, none of the prisoners who entered this courtyard left alive.

Those hooks, you know ... If

-129-

and the 55 calls it a recreation yard," exclaimed Imre

angrily. "Your high

"Doctor, please!" "My name is Federico.

I can speak many, many languages, and

if I can bring you any messages from friends, your fellow Magyars, from other prisoners ... " "Please, do you know any Canadian airmen?" said Imre.

"I'm

looking for a squadron leader who arrived here around spring, or last summer,

of last year,

certainly not before that.

He was

caught in Budapest in March of last year; I was told he is here." Imre realized that it had been almost exactly a year before, but it seemed so far away, in the distant past. "Yes, Doctor Imre, I'll try," then added with a grin.

"I've

been here for many years, and I know my way around ... but now I'd better do a little work!" Imre was heartened by this encounter.

Federico was a short,

squat man, powerfully built; he had a thick shock of black hair with only a

few silver strands showing, a prominent nose and a

warm, Mediterranean smile.

Imre could visualize him as a clown,

with makeup on and baggy trousers.

Yes, Imre said, I have found a

good friend. Imre walked around the yard a few times.

Then a snit, as the

prisoners called him, a particularly obnoxious guard, appeared and ordered Imre back to his cell.

-130-

The odor was even stronger than usual today.

Imre was usually

glad to be back in the cell, but today he seemed to have brought the stench back in his prison garb.

Even the seams smelled of

that unmistakable scent, the very buttons. The restrictions applied to Imre but not to some of the other prisoners in the bunker. A few days later, he heard a knock on the door: stevens, with a book in hand.

it was Major

He had heard through Federico about

(

Imre's solitary confinement. "I haven't got much time, Prince C

"Please call me Imre." "Thank you, Imre ... " he said, a little embarassed. here is a book ... you know ... Andy ... I mean ... Andy. get him to meet you. the second best

"Here ... I couldn't

He is as confined as you are ... but I did He has a book of English ... an anthology of

English poets, and he asked me to bring it to you first, before circulating it among the rest of us. " "Oh, thank you, thank you,

replied Imre.

"He is all right," said Maj or stevens.

"How is Andy?" "But he ... he is

he has been sentenced to death ... II Imre paled. "We all are, in one way or another "The Gestapo

I mean,

there's a formal order for his

execution. II "But the war can't last much longer! anything we can do? II

-131-

cried Imre.

"Is there

"He knows he ... I mean, his life hangs on a thread ... " said Major Stevens.

liThe timing depends on the workings of the bureau-

cracy and the whims of the camp commandant. II II

I s there any way I could see him! II

Imre' s was a desperate

cry against the inevitable which he refused to recognize as inevitable.

Surely ... II

"I have to go now.

Cheerio... Imre."

Maj or Stevens quietly

closed the door.

[ Not even twenty-two? God, help, help! ]

This can't be possible!

Please

Imre had gotten quite used to the solitary confinement, but this blow touched the root of his faith.

He started off on some

new doubts.

[ Andy is in solitary confinement. I am too. Andy is under sentence of death. Does it mean I am also under sentence of death? Is solitary confinement a prelude to execution? Those hooks in the courtyard Federico pointed out to me. No, those are no longer in use. A bullet? The crematorium? A medical experiment I heard whisperings about. A deadly serum? A fatal injec ... ] He forcibly stopped this negative current, which was running down the energy of his life force. Imre glanced at the book, and began to read the poems in no particular order.

He knew that Andy liked Shelley, Keats ... he

remembered Ellen had told him that much. He found a few lines underlined by Andy:

-132-

[ The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light forever shines. Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many colored glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity. ] Andy hadn't marked a single line of Byron.

In Blake he had

marked the words:

[ Everything that lives, Lives not alone, nor for itself. ] He turned a few more pages back and forth and found Andy had written "for Ellen" above this poem:

[ Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove Of golden sands, and crystal brooks, with silken lines and silver hooks. ] Hooks!

Imre shut the book.

[ What is the matter with me? I can't find peace even in the flowers of these poets. Oh, Lord, give me peace. stop the shadows stealing into my soul. ] Imre opened the anthology again.

He found Blake's America.

The entire poem was maked up by Andy, two passages had exclamation marks in the margin:

[ For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life ... ]

-133-

and Awake! awake 0 sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand! I am in you and you in me, mutual in love ... Fibers of love from man to man ... lo! We are one. ] He was about to close the book when he found a poem, written in Andy's handwriting on the back page.

[ Life will prevail, Love will furl sail, These will not fail. ] The next morning he heard a knock on the door agaln.

erect little man stood rigidly at attention: "I am General Delestraint, mon Prince," he said ln French. Commandant de l'Armee Secrete." "Yes, mon general, II replied Imre in French.

IICan I be of

service ... ?II IIMais oui,1I replied the Frenchman, who wore the uniform of a French field officer.

II I came for the book of poetry ... Maj or

Steven said today was my turn. II IIBut of course ...

Do you 1i ve in the bunker too?"

III do ... I'm just two cells away from you. II said Delestraint. III'm in solitary, just like you, but we have a human (he used the word 'humain') guard today, and he let me sneak out to visit you ... He'll be here any minute to take me back. II IIHow long have you been here, mon general?" asked Imre.

-134-

II Almost a year, II replied Delestraint.

II I was captured in

1943, imprisoned in Paris, then brought here.

I was put into the

other part of the camp, with French soldiers and lower-ranking officers.

I straightened them out soon enough:

was interrogated by the 55, I told them: French Army.

II I am a general in the

Even General de Gaulle served under me once!

transferred over here immediately. course nothing like in France. uniform ...

The next time I

I was

The food is much better but of

At least I am allowed to wear my

It t S pretty crowded on the other side. II

IIPlease tell me, mon General, II asked Imre.

IIWhat

it like

on the other side ... ? II

96.

ilLes sales Boches! II exclaimed the general with heat in his voice.

IIThose damned Germans! II

Then he started to speak rapidly.

Inmates soon learned that being able to talk to another prisoner without any guards present was a rare occasion, and so they tried to compress as much communication as possible into their privacy time. II It t s unbelievable!

It t s big!

It t S monstrous!

how many there are ... I estimate 10,000-12,000. up to eight hundred people into a house. II IIHow is that possible? II asked Imre.

-135-

I don t t know

The 55 squeeze

IIThey put them in two and three tiers, one series of bunks on top of the other. "The food is worse.

The crowding is bad," continued the general. The treatment worse than worse. "

IITortures?" "Anything you can imagine and you have it. tortures, mental tortures, medical tortures.

There are physical

You believe you have

seen the worst, and it can't be any lower, any more degrading, and then you descend one step further down." "Give me an example?" II I can give you many."

The Frenchman stopped for a moment,

then continued rapidly: "I'll give you an example of something bad, alright? give you an example of worse, and a worse than worse. introduction we got on arrival.

And

Bad: the

A little speech, mon Prince.

ran roughly like this: "'You are not here in a holiday camp but in the Dachau concentration camp.

There

only one way out of here, through the

chimney of the crematorium.

If that does not meet with your

approval, you can depart this very minute through the high-tension barbed wire.'

Charmant, n'est pas, charming, isn't it?

I think

this little speech is taught in the elocution class of the Gestapo, as I heard it is being used in other camps too. II IIHas anyone used the barbed barbarity option?" asked Imre. IINot in my experience.

But I heard of Stalin's son.

know about him?" Ills he here toO?1I

-136-

Do you

"He was,t1 replied the general. wire.

t1He did rush into the barbed

Out of sheer desperation, that is the way he chose to com-

mit suicide.

But the electric shock didn't kill him.

He fell to

the ground, doubled up in agony, until a guard was kind enough to put a bullet into him ...

Oh,

almost forgot the end of the

welcoming speech," continued the spry little man.

"'If there are

any Catholic priests, Poles, Frenchmen here, you have a right to live two weeks i Jews one month and the rest of you, three months. '" "Tres charmant," remarked Imre, "Quite charming." "All right, I've told you what bad was. worse," continued Delestraint.

And now we get on to

"The 55 made us work, of course,

mostly burning our fellow prisoners.

The hardest jobs were handed

out to Polish priests ... I think the Nazis have a master-plan to destroy,

annihilate the Polish middle-class,

priests and doctors ...

including the

The 58 does not call them priests but

pig-priests, schweinerische pfarrer, and pig etcetera. II IIBut I'm digressing," added the general.

"To begin with, if

the guard's whim is that you are slack, you get a kick in the stomach and, if you collapse, a dozen or more lashes. priest, meted out a lash or two, tormentor. boss,

Yet I saw a

turn around and smile at his

That only made him madder:

just to show him who was

he jumped on top of the load the unfortunate priest was

carrying! II "It must have looked like a scene taken from Goya's series called The Disasters of War, II remarked Imre.

-137-

"Worse," said the Frenchman. worse,

"So now I have told you what is

and now an example--it's really horrible--of worse than

worse." "I'm not sure I want to hear it," said Imre. His visitor straightened himself out: "I have seen my fellow prisoners, parched with thirst, drink their own urine. " "I thought I

knew what degradation was," was all Imre was

able to say. "Now we have descended into the cellar, n'est pas?" explained his visitor. Dachau,

"Do you know there

below the cellar?"

1.S

a descent below hell here in

Not waiting for Imre to answer his

question, he continued: "The medical experiments conducted by a team of doctors A shout came from the corridor.

The guard came in to get

General Delestraint back into his cell, confinement.

back into his solitary

He put the anthology under his left arm and, with a

smart salute, left Imre's cell. The hard moments now assaulted Imre.

A visitor, even a visi-

tor who was a bearer of horrors, was a treat for him. came the solitariness.

But now

The slow ticking away of seconds, minutes,

hours. Imre noticed it was getting slightly warmer. far away.

The Americans,

he hoped,

Spring was not

were not far away either.

Even through the walls, he could hear the arrival of another train, the arrival of another big batch of prisoners.

-138-

Then he understood

why the odor's intensity had increased recently:

the crematorium

was working overtime to make room for the new arrivals. He heard the tumult of voices.

The expletives of the guards.

Then another shriek penetrated through the walls.

Imre tried to

hide under the blanket, tried to roll himself up into a ball where he couldn't hear anything at all. rifle shots.

But he heard the crackle of

He stopped his ears and tried to hypnotize himself

into a state in which he couldn't hear anything, see anything, feel anything.

He tried to empty the thoughts and images from his

brain which crowded it like the bunkers on the other side.

tried to think of something positive which somehow would crowd out all the ghosts in his mind.

It had often worked in the past; it

might work again. It did.

[ Hear my prayer, 0 Lord; let my cry come to you! Do not hide your face from me, in the days of my distress! For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. ] Those last words brought Imre back to Dachau with the impact of an unexpected blow. Did a spiritual lung collapse inside him?

Did his faith

start to hemmorage with irreversible speed and intensity?

Did the

fatal dose of solitariness begin to paralyze him limb by limb? He jumped up from his cot and tried a few push-ups. do only two.

Trying the third he collapsed.

-139-

He could

panting on the floor

he heard another shriek.

familiarity which somehow persistently eluded him.

He kept coming

back to the familiarity like a tongue to an aching tooth. It was the agonizing cry of a woman.

-140-

It had a

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ASHES TO ASHES AND CHILL TO CHILL

[ The fatherland be cursed Where outrage, shame is nursed, Where every bud is nipped, Decay by worm is sipped. Heinrich Heine ]

97.

Imre heard a knock on the door. To his great surprise it was Federico.

The clown obviously

felt out of place in the cell. "That South African flier of yours ... " he said uncomfortably. "Please tell me," said Imre. II

"Is there anything we can do?"

I'm afraid not."

"Tell me, how is it on the other side?1I Imre was almost obsessed, wanted to know more.

The cries, the tumult, the arrival of trucks

and trains, mostly trains, seemed to grow louder and more frequent as the month of March progressed.

The chimney of the crematorium

was belching a more acrid stench since the snow had turned into rain. At night Imre. rolled himself up into a bundle; during the day he tried to coax the strength back into his body. five push-ups a day.

He was up to

His lungs no longer felt collapsed, the

-141-

humming of his injured cells had ceased and the dirt from under his nails had disappeared.

He was allowed to shave every day.

But the rifle shots, the anguished cries, the loathsome sounds, the agonized vibrations emanating from the humanity so close by could not be ignored.

Imre felt their currents through the doors,

walls, fences and buildings.

He sometimes felt like a twig caught

in the rapids. At other times, during the night, he fantasized about rats ,nibbling at the fuselage of the camp. the other rats.

There were good rats and

The good ones were American fliers who visited

the neighborhood with increasing frequency, works.

paring away at the

The others had big chunks of humanity's flesh as daily

fare. The seconds, the minutes, the hours clocked on. The alchemy of fear, hate, pain, stench, rain, gas, blind obedience, ideology, cruelty, ambition, greed, urges, purges, decay went through hideous combinations and permutations. ing as it was nipped in the bud.

Imre could hear each flower-

He could sense the munching of

worms feeding on the corruptions of flesh and high ideals which had taken a wrong turn long ago.

He could vibrate with the ashes

flying through the chimney up into the overcast sky.

In his soli-

tary cell he felt no less part of a whole than the humanity jampacked into antichambers of destruction and fire. Everything was predictable and unpredictable.

Predictable

was the destruction, the disintegration, the atomization of the body.

Unpredictable was the "when. II

-142-

But why do the Nazi high command keep us here? squashed like a fly by a goosestepping heel.

We could be

As a bargaining tool

to get a better deal for themselves? On March 15th, Magyarland's Independence Day, the sun broke through the clouds.

Imre was back in center with a resurgence of

optimism and faith.

He was feeling stronger and stronger about

his chances of survival.

Time was working in favor of survival.

The Americans were getting closer and closer. Then came the news about Andy.

And the increasing activity

on the other side. liDo tell me, how

it on the other side?1I

Imre repeated his

question. liThe greatest in number,1I replied Federico, staying close to the door,

are the Poles and the Russians. II

IINot the Jews?1I asked Imre surprised. liThe Jews are now only about one-tenth of the inmates, II replied the clown.

IIWe also have a lot of Frenchmen and Russians. II

III would like to go over, II said Imre, liThe idea, your high

and take a good look. II

I beg your pardon, Dr. Imre, is

insane, II Federico shot back alarmed, making an unclownish face. "I can't be more of a prisoner than I am now," remarked Imre. "The guards might shove you into the shower,1I continued the clown vehemently, "and up you'll go in smoke!" "Please arrange it." "Out of the question!" insisted Federico.

"Please remember

that the Gestapo, the SS, doesn't want any witnesses. "I, myself,1I

-143-

he added, with the tragic mlen of a sorrowful circus performer, III am in great danger all the time ... good. II

I'm sure I know too much.

He made an expressive gesture with his fingers.

II I can wear some sort of a disguise. II IIDr. voice.

Imre was mulish.

Imre! II the clown exclaimed, with exasperation in his

He quickly changed the subj ect and continued raipdly:

IIToday I heard about a new crisis in the crematorium. to be overloaded!

It is said

The commandant's office is working on new ways

to get rid of a lot of prisoners. II After a brief pause, he added, III hear the Americans captured Colgne. 1I II When? II IIA few days ago. II liThe end is near and we must strive to do everything possible to save the Canadian airman.

We can't lose him just before the

liberation of this camp. II IIWatch out, Dr. Imre,1I said the clown.

liThe greatest danger

for you will be when the Americans are only hours or days away!1I Federico ducked out of the cell.

[ What a remarkable man. Incredible courage. Unfailing kindness. Compassion. Not the tragic clown but the clown who smiles in the face of death. ] It was only after his visitor had left that Imre noticed that he had dropped a small bar of chocolate in the corner of the cell.

-144-

He reopened the door to thank Federico.

The clown had van-

ished and in his place stood a tall old man with a prominent nose, shuffling towards the shower.

He was Leon Blum, prime minister of

France before the war. Imre's thoughts kept going back to Andy.

[ Is it possible Dachau represents an enormous block of humanity being sculptured by a master hand? Could it be that each chip chipped away brings us a hammer-blow closer to perfection? But does humanity which is chipped away add to the perfection of what remains? ] At that moment he heard the sound of a zither, a few strains of a melody from across many walls.

[ A communist carpenter brings me the solace of music. A clown brings me the gift of friendship. A pastor a deepening of faith and sustenance of the spirit. A striped criminal sustenance for the body. Are we at the dawn of a new age in which the aristocracy of giving will point the way? ] A chorus of screams tore into the fabric of Imre's thoughts. It forcibly reminded him that horror and piercing anguish were packed around him.

[ I am bountifully rich.

May everybody be equally blessed. ]

-145-

98.

That day Dachau's doctors convened the most insane medical meeting in history.

Hauptsturmfuhrer Sigmund Rascher, M.D., opened

the meeting of doctors in the Munich offices of the Bodenstaendige Prufstelle Fur Hohenforschung der Luftwaffe,

the Ground Station

for high-altitude experiments of the Luftwaffe. Dr.

Rascher hosted the conference as resident head of the

medical laboratories at Dachau.

He was under the direct authority

of Himmler, Hitler's second-in-command and more recently minister of the interior as well.

At first Dr. Rascher had continued his

work on blood crystallization.

Then he had branched out into

freezing experiments and other research.

He remembered with pride

one of his proj ects testing the hemostatic preparation " po l y gal 10. II

He had also had a Russian prisoner shot from above in the

right shoulder by an SS man standing on a chair.

The bullet had

emerged near the spleen, but because the ruptures were tamponed by blood clots, the Russian had twitched convulsively for about twenty minutes before dying.

The other doctors at this meeting were of

Dr. Rascher's ilk. "We have gathered together, my dear colleagues," Dr. Rascher began,

lito hear reports on our intense chilling experiments--of

vital importance--conducted at the express orders of SS Reichsfuhrer Himmler.

We welcome Surgeon-General Hopke.

is appreciated.

-146-

Your gracious presence

"I first call upon Professor Doctor Karl Holzloser to make his report on freezing experiments," announced the general. "Very well, my colleagues," said Dr. Holzloser, clearing his throat and putting his watch in front of him as he began to read his essay: "At Dachau, we have made considerable progress in our intense chilling experiments.

The criminals were placed in the water

dressed in complete flying uniform, winter or summer combination with an aviator's helmet. was to prevent sUbmerging.

A life jacket made of rubber or kapok The experiments were carried out at

water temperatures varying from 2.5 to 12 degrees.

In one experi-

mental series, the brain stem protruded above the water, while in another series of experiments the brain stem and back of the head were submerged in water." "Electrical measurements

gave

low temperature readings of

26.4 degrees in the stomach and 26.5 degrees in the rectum.

Fatal-

ities occurred only when the brain stem and the back of the head were also chilled.

Autopsies of such fatal cases always revealed

large amounts of free blood, up to one-half liter, in the cranial cavity.

The heart invariably showed extreme dilation of the right

chamber.

As soon as the temperature in these experiments reached

28 degrees, all experimental subjects died, despite vigorous attempts at resuscitation.

The above discussed autopsy finding conclusively

proved the importance of a warming protective device for head and brain stem when designing the planned protective clothing of the foam type.

-147-

"During attempts to save severely chilled persons (Unterkuhlte) it was shown that rapid rewarming was in all cases preferable to slow rewarming,

because after removal from the cold water ... II

Professor Holzloser paused for emphasis, " ... the body temperature continued to sink rapidly.

I think that for this reason we can

dispense with the attempt to save intensely chilled subjects by means of animal heat.

Rewarming by animal warmth--animal bodies

or women's bodies--would be too slow. "Thank you,

Dr. Holzloser.

the Surgeon-General.

I call upon Dr. Rascher," said

"I f you would, please present your own report."

"This will take some time, but I promise I'll finish in time for dinner, so please bear with me,

said Dr. Rascher.

"Up to the

present time there has been no basis for the treatment of shipwrecked persons who have been exposed for long periods of time to low water temperatures.

It was not clear,

for example, whether

those who had been rescued should be warmed quickly or slowly. According to the current instructions for treating frozen people, a slow warming up seemed to be indicated.

Well-founded sugges-

tions were missing for a promising medicinal therapy.

"AII these uncertainties rested in the last analysis upon the absence of well-founded concepts concerning the cause of death by cold in human beings. question,

In the meantime,

in order to clarify this

a series of animal experiments were started.

warm-blooded,

one finds

In the

a varied degree of development in the

heat-regulating mechanism.

Besides this,

the processes ln the

pel ted animals' skin cannot be carried over to man.

-148-

"The effect of water temperatures of 2, 3, to 12 degrees Centigrade (34, 37 to 54 F) were investigated. meters served as an experimental basin. attained by adding ice to the water.

A tank 2 x 2 x 2

The temperatures were

In one grou.p, experimental

subjects were generally dressed in equipment, and in another the cooling of unclothed persons was studied. measured thermoelectrically.

The bodily warmth was

We adopted the procedure of continu-

ously registering rectally the body temperature OCerntemperatur). Simultaneously the skin temperature was recorded, too." "In severe cooling, checking of the pulse is difficult.

The

pulse becomes weaker, the musculature stiff and shivering sets in. Auscultation during the experiment by means of a tube stethoscope fastened over the tip of the heart proved effective. II "Electrocardiographic controls were not possible in the water. After removal from the water they were possible only in those cases in which severe muscle shivering did not disturb the electrocardiograph records." "The clinical picture and the behavior of the body temperature show certain regularities; the time of appearance of certain phenomena was, however, subject to very great individual variations.

As one might expect, a good general physical condition

delayed the cooling and the concomitant phenomena.

Further dif-

ferences were conditioned by the position of the subject in the water and the manner of clothing." "If the experimental subject was placed in the water under narcosis, one observed a certain arousing effect.

-149-

The subject

began to groan and made some defensive movements. a state of excitation developed. the cooling of head and neck. of the narcosis observed. about five minutes.

In a few cases

This was especially severe in

But never was a complete cessation

The defensive movements ceased after

There followed a progressive rigor which

developed. especially strongly in the arm musculature; were strongly flexed and pressed to the body.

the arms

The rigor increased

with the continuation of the cooling, now and then interrupted by tonic-clonic twitchings.

with still more marked sinking of the

body temperature it suddenly ceased.

These cases ended fatally:

resuscitation efforts were useless." "Heart-death was established clinically in all cases of death observed by us.

In two cases,

with the heart activity.

breathing ceased simultaneously

These were cases in which it was specially

noted that the neck and the back of the head lay deep in the water. In all remaining cases breathing outlasted the clinical chamber cessation by as much as twenty minutes.

In part, this was 'normal,

much decelerated breathing,' in part an angonal form of gasping. An auricular flutter could be demonstrated cardiographically during the irregularity ... " "Now I wish to turn to a group of experiments

May I

continue, Surgeon-General?" asked Dr. Rascher. "By all means continue.

This is most interesting."

"In these experiments we tried to rewarm intensely chilled human beings with animal warmth," continued the doctor. experimental

subj ects

"The

were cooled in the usual way--clad or

-150-

unclad--in cold water of temperatures varying between 4 and 9 degrees centigrade.

The rectal temperature of every experimental

subject was recorded thermoelectrically.

The experimental sub-

jects were removed from the water when their rectal temperature reached 30 degrees Celsius. were unconscious.

At this time all experimental sUbjects

In eight cases they were then placed between

two naked women ln a spaclous bed.

The women were supposed to

nestle as closely as possible to the chilled person.

Then all

three persons were covered with blankets. II 1I0nce

the subjects regained consciousness they did not lose

it again, but very quickly grasped the situation and snuggled up to the naked female bodies.

The rise of body temperature occurred

at about the same speed as in experimental subjects who had been rewarmed in blankets. who,

Exceptions were four experimental subjects

at body temperatures between 30 and 32 degrees Centigrade,

performed the act of sexual intercourse.

In these experimental

subjects the temperature rose very rapidly after sexual intercourse, which could be compared with the speedy rise in temperature in a hot bath. II Dr.

Rascher paused to

light a

cigarette,

then went on:

IIAnother set of experiments concerned the rewarming of intensely chilled persons by one woman.

In all these cases, rewarming was

significantly quicker than could be accomplished by two women. The cause of this seems to me that in warming by one woman only personal inhibitions are removed and the woman nestles up to the chilled individual much more intimately.

Also in these cases the

return of complete consciousness was strikingly rapid. II -151-

"Rewarming subjects

experiments

demonstrated

that

intensely

rewarming

chilled

with

animal

experimental warmth

can

therefore be recommended only in such cases in which other possibilities for rewarming are not available or ln cases of specially tender individuals who possibly may not be able to stand a massive and rapid supply of warmth.

For example, I am thinking of intensely

chilled small children, who are best rewarmed by the body of their mothers with the aid of hot water bottles." "It won't be long now,

Surgeon General," said Dr. Rascher,

nodding toward the general.

"Here are our general conclusions.

Death usually occurs at rectal temperatures below 30 degrees Centigrade (86 F). also

chilled,

Death results from heart failure. the

lowering of the

If the neck is

temperature is more rapid.

Respiration of the chilled subject is rendered difficult due to the rigor of the respiratory musculature.

After removal from the

cold water, the body temperature may continue to fall for fifteen minutes or longer.

This may be an explanation of deaths which

occur after successful rescue from the sea.

Intensive rewarming

never injures the severely chilled person.

The most effective

therapeutic measure is rapid and intensive heat treatment, best applied by immersion in a hot bath. tive clothing,

By means of special protec-

the survival time after immersion in cold water

could be extended to double the survival time of subjects who were immersed wi thout protective clothing." Dr.

Rascher

Surgeon-General.

stood

up.

"Thank

you

for

your

attention,

May we have your permission to adjourn?"

-152-

"Thank you

for

an expert and concise presentation,

the

general replied, beaming. "Dinner is almost ready,

announced Dr. Rascher with a smile.

"We have time for a pleasant drink and an agreeable exchange of views.

99.

Andy was glad that,

throughout his captivity,

the Gestapo

hadn't taken away his Bible and anthology of English-speaking poets.

To his surprise, he hadn't been tortured either.

At the

beginning, while he had been interrogated by General Kaltenbrunner's lads in Budapest, he had had a few bad moments.

He had been kept

on short rations and lost quite a bit of weight. A week after his capture, and when the first series of interrogations were over, cell.

another prisoner had been pushed into his

The Gestapo was working already overtime, and all the prisons

of the Magyar capital were overflowing in the days following the invasion. At first the Gestapo had doubled up the prlson populations, mixing various peoples who couldn't speak each others'

language.

That is how Milan Banovich had become Andy's cell-mate. He hadn't been able to understand much of what he said except that he was a Croat,

had fought with the partisans of General

Mihailovich and had been captured a month before.

-153-

Milan must have been a good-looking young man, with blond hair,

blue eyes and broad shoulders,

small hands and feet. lucky as himself:

and an athletic body with

But Andy had been able to see he wasn't as

the marks of torture and mistreatment were

written allover him.

His nose was deformed, his eyes bloodshot,

his face swollen and, if possible, his frame thinner than Andy's. More than his body, his spirit had been broken.

His eyes had

darted around the cell constantly and, when Andy made a move, he had involuntarily shrunk into himself.

He had been full of nervous

twitches. Andy had tried to solace him, but it had been difficult with the language barrier. have a cellmate,

Nonetheless,

Andy had been delighted to

even a cellmate as unwhole as Milan.

He had

recited to him the poem of the psalmist and also the verses of his favorite poets:

Blake,

Shelley,

Keats,

Donne.

He had recited

them slowly, in the hope that Milan would understand the drift of ideas if he pronounced every word, every syllable distinctly:

[ To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ... ] Andy had stopped: liDo you understand ... ?

Prometheus?

Shelley?"

He had repeated it in his schoolboy French he knew. seen a faint flicker in Milan's eyes and continued:

-154-

He had

[ Neither to change, nor falter, nor repeat; This, like thy Glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free

]

Andy had repeated the word "free" and then finished off with another line:

[ This alone is life, joy, empire and victory ... ]

Milan had rewarded him with a faint smile. The same day Andy had been taken away for another interrogation session.

His cellmate had appeared to be hysterical when

he was brought back.

He had tried to explain he had not been

physically mistreated, but Milan hadn't seemed to understand. His mate had pointed at his wrist, where his watch had been, as if trying to say something about the length of time Andy had been away.

At least that was what Andy had understood he wanted

to say. TwO days later the squadron-leader had been taken away again. This time the session had lasted longer than usual, because Andy had been asked to write down his own biography.

The interrogators

had given him ten sheets of paper and made it clear he was expected to fill up all the pages with details of his family background and flying missions.

Andy's writing was as spare as his language and

he had agonized over the sentences for hours.

When darkness fell

even the Gestapo boys had gotten tired and sent him back to his cell. A shocking sight had greeted him.

-155-

And had stepped back and almost fallen into the arms of the guard, who after letting out a string of curses, had shouted: "Schnell,

schnell!"

and cut Milan down.

"Quick,

quick!"

Milan had been beyond help. The body had been speedily removed. every pore.

Defeat had oozed out of

Andy had been badly shaken.

Andy had remembered the solo flights at night, when stars and the velvet darkness had kept him company. coming in from North Africa,

The sky above Sicily,

had had colors,

shapes, contours,

gradations, mutations and orchestrations beyond description. Andy heard celestial versions of Vivaldi r s music for the stars to dance and for the clouds to roll by.

The galaxies com-

posed their perfect progressions to the tunes of a concerto accompanied by an etherial sound with the highest mathematical precision and freest exultant melodies.

A voice was speaking to Andy

and he knew the tongues of angels singing like a Bach chorale about creations with unlimited value, about places without spaces, about timelessness in eternity. The next day, Andy had been taken to Berlin, where the dictatorial hierarchy had marched him through the bureaucracy and spat him out at Sachsenhausen.

There he had been kept in solitary

confinement and decorated with heavy chains.

A prison guard had

paced up and down in front of his door, day and night. Just before camp,

Dachau.

Christmas he had been transferred to another

No more chains,

better food,

solitary.

-156-

but still in the

Andy had tapped on the walls with the Morse code alphabet and he had heard answers back. "I'm alive and well. " "Who are you?" "Squadron-Leader McKenna." "What cell number?" "Sixty-six." "Will contact." Major Stevens had come by.

He was the first non-German he

had seen since he had found Milan's suicidal earthly shell in his cell. He had heard news of Allied victories in Europe and Asia, of the crumbling of the Reich and the near end of carnage and destruction.

[ It can't be long now.

We'll all be free.

Dachau will be liberated.

]

The Englishman had brought him books and love, news and sympathy,

friendship

and communications--hitherto unknown luxuries

for a prisoner confined in a concrete box. Together they had read the psalm about the maritime earthquake: [ God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. ] And very quietly, Major Stevens had added: [ Be still and know I am God. ]

-157-

It was March 30, 1945, Good Friday.

Major stevens reported

that the American and French armies had crossed the river Rhine. The end of the European war was a matter of weeks, if not days, away.

He brought Andy books which Pastor Niemoller had already

read:

A Forsythe Saga and Vanity Fair.

After he had left, Andy

lay down on his cot and serenely dwelled on the image of Ellen and their all-too-short romance.

He remembered her beautiful tresses,

the perfect accents of her devotion ... her fierce protectiveness and her loving tenderness.

He whispered to himself:

[ A girl of beauty is a joy forever Her loveliness increases; she will never pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. ] Loud noises marched down the corridor.

The noises stopped in

front of Andy's cell door. "Heraus, Sie Piloten-Schwein," the order, "Out, you pig-pilot!" shattered Andy's quiet breathing like a sacrilege. Andy looked at them as he had once looked into the onrushing clouds of a mountain storm as he landed after a mission over Italy. He put on the goggles of invulnerability and hobbled between two SS boys along long corridors to the main building, through the ki tchen and the scullery which was full of prisoners from the other side,

washing dishes and peeling potatoes.

looked at him with bewilderment and fear.

Sunken faces

The fear was meant for

the escort, but Andy caught the panic in the eyes, the pallor of the shrunken cheeks,

the piteousness of the glances.

-158-

Andy was

marched past them, greyness

through the wall,

to the other side,

where

and death hung more threateningly than the stormiest

cloud formations over the English Channel and the thickest dust sweeps of the North African deserts.

The small group stopped in

the shadow of the crematorium which was belching a foul miasma over the entire camp and beyond. Piloten-Schwein!

Passen sie auf!"

Andy, unversed in German, of him.

soon understood what was required

One of the SS youths pushed a shovel in his hand and, in

the universal language of gestures and signs, motioned to him to dig.

Not one hour later the SS lads looked at Andy's handiwork

with satisfaction.

Their pitiless aim was perfect.

Andy's body

fell into the grave he had dug for himself.

100.

April 2, Easter Monday. Imre's restrictions were lifted for the holy days. allowed to attend Pastor Niemoller's Easter sermon. After the holy communion Major stevens came up to him: "You heard about Andy?" Imre nodded. "And Elsen ... " "Georg Elsen, what ... ?"

-159-

He was

"He was murdered yesterday," said Major Stevens.

"And a

British intelligence officer the day before. " "One a day ... " mused Imre, "Andy on Friday

"The Scot on Saturday and a German on Sunday, yesterday.

The

Nazis are getting desperate ... " "At this rate, we'll all be murdered," said Imre. cans had better hurry up

"The Ameri-

let's pray they'll be here before

tomorrow." "The front of the river Rhine has been breached in many places, " added Maj or Stevens, "and the Russians are at the gates of Vienna. " The air-raid sirens started to wail.

Pastor Niemoller and

his congregation began to move towards the air-raid shelter entrance ln the center of the courtyard. "Where do you get your news?" asked Imre astonished. "Federico installed a shortwave system inside my radio a few months ago ... 11 replied Major Stevens with a smile.

IIThere was a

fire in my cell and my radio had to be repaired. II Imre never ceased to wonder about the ingenuity of the British officer and the Italian clown. Almost a hundred prisoners jammed into the shelter. "Who are all these people?" asked Imre, who kept close to Major Stevens.

It was Imre's first visit to the place.

"Over there is Leon Blum, erstwhile prime minister of France "I saw him the other day." " ... and next to him is General Alexander Papagos, Commanderin-Chief of the Greek Army and, to his left, Schmitz, mayor of Vienna ... " -160-

a cosmopolitan group

IIAnd there is Prince Philip of Hesse, and now you see Prince Frederick Leopold of Prussia, the nephew of the late emperor is coming to greet us

stevens made the introductions. "And what brought you here?" asked Imre. "Listening to the BBC, II replied the German nobelman."

and

here is young Badoglio!" "Son of Marshal Badoglio, who brought Italy over to our side," explained stevens. "Who is the man he is wavlng to?" asked Imre. "0h, that's General Garibaldi, the Italian partisan leader,

said Prince Frederick. " ... and who is that old man ln the corner?" asked Imre with mounting excitement. II

That 's August Thyssen,

replied Stevens.

"Didn't he finance Hitler's rise to power?" At that moment another group descended the stairs. "Here are your Magyars! II exclaimed Stevens. The Magyars and Uncle Egon crowded around Uncle Geza.

They

spoke in almost staccato voices, excited to see each other and exchange experiences.

Uncle Egon, who was barely able to follow

the language, watched with a wry smile. Imre joined them.

There were no chairs or benches to sit on.

Atilla and George Parravicini spread a few blankets out on the floor, and while Uncle Geza and Micki engaged Uncle Egon's atten-

-161-

tion in German, Imre told Atilla about Andy. in getting his father upset.

There was no point

Atilla noticed how deeply Andy's

execution had affected Imre and changed the subject.

There was an

unwritten agreement to tip-toe around the pain. This was the one place where the prisoners could communicate without guards present and the one place where the stench of burning flesh was not in their nostrils--the ventilating system took care of that--and where the shrieks of the prisoners and the crackle of gunfire was absent--the American Air Force took care of that. But Uncle Egon had his own plan.

He bid everybody present to

cease talking. "Today is the day of Resurrection.

It is a fitting day to

remember the three of us whom God has embraced on His bosom in the last three days.

I ask anyone who wishes to say a few words to

come forward. The Greek general, Papagos, said, quoting Homer in Greek:

[ One duty

best, to fight in defense of one's country. ]

The Italian general, Garibaldi, said, quoting Horace in Latin:

[ It is sweet and becoming to die for the fatherland. ]

The Italian marshal's son, Badoglio, said, quoting Dante in Italian:

-162-

[ Pure and disposed for mounting to the stars. ]

The English major stevens said, quoting the Book of Common Prayer:

[ We therefore commit their bodies to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. ] Uncle Egon said, quoting the apostle Paul in Latin: [ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead; the fruits of those have fallen asleep. For as death came by means of a man, by a man has also come the resurrection of the dead. ]

The Prussian prince Frederick Leopold said, quoting Goethe in German:

[ Overall the peaks Is peace. ] The other German prlnce said, quoting Schiller: [ Our life was a restless march, Like the blast of the wind, homeless, We stormed across the war-shattered earch. ] Uncle Geza said softly: [ God bless you, my sons. ] The French general Delestraint said, paraphrasing Moliere: [ Here in Dachau they hang a man first and try him afterward. ]

-163-

Imre,

quoting his brother Ian's favorite lines in English,

those by James Graham Marquis of Montrose, scratched on the window of his jail the night before his execution added:

[ Let them bestow on every dirth a limb; Then open all my veins, that I may swim To thee, my Maker! In that crimson lake; Then place my parboiled head upon a stake-Scatter my ashes--strew them in the air; Lord, since thou knowest where those atoms are, I'm hopeful thou'lt recover once my dust, And confident thou'lt raise me with the just. ] Pastor Niemoller gave the benediction with a firm voice 1n German: liThe Lord 1S risen

the Lord Christ, whose rule is now

heavenly and hidden from the earth, will truly come in order to renew everything:

'Behold,

I make all things new.'

The spr1ng

outside and everything that is still beautiful and alive 1n this world of death is transformed for us who know the Risen One. II

Amen . II

"Amen." This was the farewell of the special prisoners of Dachau to an airman from south Africa,

a communist carpenter from Germany

and an intelligence officer from England. A beautiful woman in the company of a young man came up to Imre: "I

am Elizabeth von Stauffenberg,

Fabian von Schlabrendorff.

-164-

she said," and this is

"Her husband was the leader in the plot last year to get rid of Hitler," said the young German.

"I would have gladly given my

life on the gallows in place of Countess Elizabeth's husband.

"I wonder," said the contess, "if we could get the poem that poem you just quoted." Imre repeated the poem to her companion, who wrote the words down; then he added: "I didn't realize

you know I'm supposed to be in solitary

confinement ... that there are women here in Dachau. II II

Many , many," replied the countess.

liThe Nazis sell the hair

off our heads for profit before they shove us in the fire." Her quiet words had the impact of a body blow. "My children are here, too ... I feel fortunate that we are alive.

My husband did the honorable thing by trying to get rid of

the monster that is destroying our people .. , II "Every good German realizes now," added von Schlabrendorff, "that we were bound to lose the war.

"50 the dissatisfaction is widespread?" asked Imre.

"We think after my husband's plot,

replied the countess, " a t

least five hundred people were executed and more than five thousand arrested.

Fabian and myself are some of the few who escaped, we

don't know by what miracle ...

But generals, high ranking civilians,

the decent elements in the general staff of the Wehrmacht, people allover the country know the war was hopeless. The Magyars joined as the topic of conversation turned slightly: why did one of the most advanced people in the world submit itself

-165-

to the tyranny of Hitler?

The crushing burdens of the peace treaty

following the 1914-1918 war, inflation, unemployment, the desperation of a people bowed by the worldwide depression, the magic of the Fuhrer's personality and Churchill's demand for an unconditional surrender were subjects which were heatedly discussed and dissected.

The

air-raid sirens which sounded the "all clear"

finally put an end to the whys and hows and the might-have-beens. When the prisoners reached the top of the stairs, the guards were there,

ready to order them back to their cells.

That the

rest of the camp staff got busy again after the "all clear" was sounded became clear to the prisoners on this side of the camp: the awful chorus of rifle shots and anguished cries resumed their deathly dirge.

101.

An hour later the sirens started up again. "What happened to you after the Germans invaded us?"

Imre

was back in the air-raid shelter talking to Uncle Geza and Atil1a. "That was the gravest day of my life," replied Uncle Geza. "We were completely cut off from the regent," added Atilla. "Did you think of ordering armed resistance?" asked Imre. "Of course I did," continued Uncle Geza, two good reasons, my son.

"but I didn't for

First of all, I had no such authority.

Under the constitution, only the regent did.

-166-

I'm sure that's why

Hitler devised the plot to keep him captive during those decisive hours in March last year. II IIAnd the second?1I liMy thinking went along these lines: a lot of fighting takes place. last?

I order resistance, and

How long could we expect that to

The odds were overwhelmingly against us.

An order to fight

would have given the Nazis a perfect excuse to do away completely with our independence.

That was going to happen anyway, but I

figured this way we would be able to save a semblance of independence.

Don't you agree, Atilla?1I

Uncle Geza shifted his position and looked keenly at his son, then at Imre. IIThat semblance of independence was better than none, II agreed Atilla. IIWe could build on that and, step by step, regain our freedom of action.

But you can't build on nothing, II declared Uncle Geza.

liAs it turned out, this line of reasoning proved to be correct, at least until November 15th, II continued Atilla.

IIFrom what we

were able to find out, the regent did reassert his authority last summer and saved the lives of up to a quarter of a million Jews in Budapest. II lilt's easy to be an armchair critic after the event,1I agreed Imre.

IIparticularly when you didn't have the experience of high

level responsibility

What happened when you found out that

the Germans were marching in? II

-167-

II A Crown Council meeting was called immediately after the regent's return from Schloss Klesheim. 1I IIWere you arrested them?1I asked Imre. IIWe were, II replied father and son at the same time.

Uncle

Geza urged Atilla to continue: IIAre you familiar with the underground facilities below the Sandor Palace?1I 1I0n l y vaguely Imre.

I went to a meeting there once, II replied

IIWe had a direct underground passage from my townhouse. II liThe Citadel below the prime minister's palace and the royal

palace is a small underground city, II continued Atilla. passages led to the garden of the royal palace,

II Secret

to the tunnel

under the citadel and to another one to the west side of the hill. When the Gestapo arrested us, we asked the commander for permisS10n to collect our shaving gear and other pesonal belongings from the bathroom below. II IIListen to this! II urged Uncle Geza. 1I0f course, two Gestapo men were detailed to escort us down. We asked them to wait for a moment while we relieved ourselves. What they didn't know,1I laughed Atilla, II was that there were two doors to the bathroom.

We locked one side and let the Gestapo

agents wait outside, which they obligingly did.

In the meantime,

we gave them the slip by escaping through the door on the other side, which led to the garden exit of the royal palace. II IIWhat did you do then?1I Imre asked, fascinated.

-168-

"The Portuguese ambassador was a good friend of ours," replied Uncle Geza.

"At the bottom of the citadel we took a fast walk to

the embassy and asked for asylum.

We realized something might

happen any time, so I had asked the ambassador more than six months earlier and he had said that when the Germans finally march, we should try to reach his embassy." "A good friend to have," remarked Imre. "We stayed there for nearly seven months. we were there.

The Germans knew

In October our situation became so grave I didn't

feel we wished to place such a burden on the Portuguese." "What happened?" "A few days before the second Nazi takeover, when the regent was arrested, four Gestapo agents showed up at the embassy," replied Atilla. "

can you

lmaglne what they said?" Uncle Geza smiled,

continuing the Tollay tale.

"The Germans offered asylum because

they claimed the internal situation of Magyarland was not conducive to our personal safety.

The pressure was mounting.

The

Nazi-appointed foreign minister called the ambassador to his office twice in the following week. " " ... putting the screws to him," added Atilla. "I didn't feel it was right," continued Uncle Geza, "that we should be the cause of an international incident, so we put ourselves under the authority of the foreign minister, who promised that we would remain under Magyar jurisdiction. II

-169-

"Needless to say,"

added Imre,

"the promise was not kept,

never was meant to be kept." "We were taken to a jail near the German border,

said Uncle

Geza. "Do you know what the Nazis were mostly interested in?" asked Atilla.

"Our relations with the British-American paratroopers."

" . .. arrested the day after the Nazi invasion," explained Uncle Geza. "Including Andy?" asked Imre. "Unfortunately," replied Atilla. "That's how he got here!" cried Imre. "For hours and hours we were interrogated about those damn paratroopers," said Uncle Geza. "What did the Gestapo want to know?" asked Imre. "Whether I had negotiated with them,"

replied Uncle Geza.

"Of course we had arranged for their coming, I told the Gestapo. That was the truth.

But I hadn't met them face to face."

"We didn't have time!" exclaimed Atilla. "The Gestapo kept returning to the subject week after week after week," explained uncle Geza. cation with the British?

"Had we had any radio communi-

with the Americans?

Had I ordered them

to signal the Allies that, when the regent was in Germany, he was being held captive by Hi tIer?" "It got very tiresome," Atilla added. "In the end I got fed up and told the Gestapo that, if I had wished to communicate with the Allies," said Uncle Geza.

-170-

"I could

have sent a senior envoy to Portugal:

from there he could have

easily flown to London and negotiated directly with the British government. II liThe Gestapo also wanted to know whether I had prepared an address to the nation, II continued Uncle Geza.

III denied that, but

during my interrogation I added that it would be in the interest of Germany not to make Magyarland a scene of large-scale military operations. II IIWe had only two options:

an independent policy and a policy

supporting Germany.

If our first option was taken away, we had

only one way to go:

to bow to German demands with the all-important

condition that they would have to defend the Carpathian Rockies, including Transylvania, against the Russians. II IIBut the questions kept harking back to the paratroop mission, II said Atilla. IIApparently someone had heard me making a remark about it and reported it to the Gestapo. II IIHow did you explain that?1I Imre asked, admiring the maneuvering of an old fox under relentless Gestapo interrogation. III told them,1I replied Uncle Geza, IIthat it was not impossible that I might have made some remark in a sort of gallows humor way to the effect that the mission could then send a report that the Germans were here! II The conversation turned to the prison in which all this had taken place.

The three came to the conclusion that all had been

kept in the same prison near Vienna.

-171-

"Fortunately we didn't find out about your chamber of horrors,

said Uncle Geza. "How long did you stay there?" asked Imre. "until the end of January.

"You must have left just before we did!

"There were quite a few of us Magyars there, including Endre. II "ls he here, toO?" Imre asked, surprised. IIHe was executed on Christmas day, in the courtyard of our prison,

said Uncle Geza.

"By hanging,

added Atilla.

"This can I t last much longer,

Atilla said after a poignant

pause. "We Magyars keep saylng that," remarked Uncle Geza.

"We have

been saying that for hundreds of years ... and somehow we manage to survive. II "We are in God's palm,

Imre said quietly.

" ... along with the Poles,

added Atilla.

idea how many of them there are here?

liDo you have any

First the Russians exter-

minate the officer class in Katyn in 1939.

Those who have sur-

vived the Russians the Germans are doing a good job finishing off here in Dachau.

We were told there are thousands of Catholic

priests here ... after the officers come the priests, and then the university professors.

Poland is losing the cream of its middle

c1ass." "Did the Gestapo question you here?" asked Imre.

-172-

The all-clear sounded.

In the shuffle to go upstairs,

the

answer was lost.

102.

Easter Sunday was a sunny day in Graz.

It was still cold,

but the end of the long bitter winter was near. air,

spring was in the

and the snow had just about disappeared from the rooftops,

the trees and the public parks. After attending mass with her mother and sisters, Tonus went to Feldafing, an hour drive away, near the Magyar border, to visit the refugee camp.

Her car was full of relief packages which came

from many sources:

the burghers of Graz, the Catholic archdiocese,

the International Red Cross and relief organizations in Vienna. There was another reason Tonus went to Feldafing.

It was to

see Aunt Tima, sister of the Baroness Wesselenyi of Transylvania, and the widow of the Duke of Auersburg, an Austrian nobleman who had been killed ln a Luftwaffe engagement over Russia three years earlier.

Tonus kept hoping Aunt Tima would have news about Imre.

She had had none the last six months. small

She arrived at her home, a

ancient fortress on a promontory overlooking the Magyar

border,

late in the afternoon.

After two wars and a revolution,

the only surviving piece of her husband's great estates was the small holding close to where the Magyar, frontiers met.

-173-

Austrian and Yugoslav

These days it was Aunt Tima who plowed and milked the few cows.

She loved the soil, and the tiny farm's output helped toward

her two daughters' education.

Despite the generation gap, Tonus

and Aunt Tima had a tremendous affection for each other.

The

older of the two tried the relive through Tonus' youth her own romance with the dashing Bohemian duke.

Tonus in turn found a

proxy-mother who listened with compassion to the saga of her relation with Imre. It was getting dark when Aunt Tima bade goodbye to her young friend.

Tonus hadn't gotten hold of any news about Imre either in

the camp or from Aunt Tima.

The separation and her family's 1n-

difference only tended to increase her all-consuming passion for Imre.

Uncle Freddy had told her that the Gestapo had captured

Imre.

Her fiance became a romantic hero to her, the object of her

fervent and unquenchable adoration.

When her uncle, the bishop,

was arrested her feelings had reached a new pitch.

Weren't her

uncle, the Roman Catholic bishop, and her beloved, the resistance leader, victims of the same tyranny? It was impossible for Tonus to be inactive.

Thus, she had

taken over much of her uncle's duties in the refugees camps. immersing herself in relief work,

she found relief for the ache

she felt caused by Imre's absence. It was quite dark when she arrived at the outskirts of Graz. She was waved to a stop by the same checkpoint sentry who had let her through on her way to the Magyar border. papers.

Instead of waving her on,

-174-

He asked for her

as was usually done on her

frequent trips, Tonus was asked to wait. car, keeping the engine running.

She sat patiently in her

A few minutes

lat~r

the sentry

came back. "Please follow me." He was so civilized, and very polite. In those micro-seconds, Tonus became a prisoner. she had been a free woman.

In her car

A moment later she was a captive.

Tonus wasn't even aware of what was happening. "What is it?" she asked, quite bewildered. II I have to wait for instructions. all she was told.

Please be patient, II was

Her patience was rewarded.

She was shoved into

a staff car and taken to Gestapo headquarters in Graz. The same security police officers who had dealt with her uncle interrogated Tonus.

It sounded too ridiculous to be true.

She was accused of IIconsorting with the enemies of the Reich. II Her uncle's arrest had been a warning she had obviously ignored, and she was accused of the crime of carrying on her uncle's activities. IIIf you don't cause us any trouble you'll be all right,lI was the assurance given to her.

She wasn't aware she had caused any

trouble at all. The Gauleiter of Styria province summoned her to his office. He dismissed her escort,

an intimidating pair of SS lads.

Face-to-face Dr. Sigfrid Uiberreither made a proposition to her, on the second floor of the Palais Meran in the heart of the city. "I'll offer you a job on my pesonal staff ... " he began. Even her naivete saw through the real meaning of the offer.

-175-

She jumped up indignantly from her chair. "Thank you, but I'm busy, very busy helping needy people!

She ran up to the French window overlooking the courtyard of the palace confiscated by the Gestapo in 1938, when Hitler had attached Austria to his emplre. liMy dear countess,

said the provincial governor smoothly.

"Please don't excite yourself.

IICan I go home, please?"

The governor's polite words scared

her even more than the rudeness of the ribald non-coms on duty when she had arrived at the palace. liDo I understand you correctly, my dear countess?" the Gauleiter continued.

lIyou are more anxious to carryon the traitorous mach-

inations of your uncle than work for the defense of the fatherland?1I lIyou don't understand

"But I do," and there was a new edge in his voice.

"You are

trying to scorn my offer. II "But not at all ... ! II said Tonus piteously. IIS 0 you are going to work here ... as my personal assistant?1I III can't ... 11 she said, almost crYlng. Uiberreither began to lose his patience. IIYou'd rather give yourself to that dog, Chabaffy, than to the cause of the fatherland?" Tonus panicked. [ How did my beloved get into this discussion? How did they know about my love for Imre? ] IIPlease let me gO!1I was all she was able to say.

-176-

"Your stubbornness is putting me in a very difficult position, said the governor.

"And an equally dangerous position for yourself!

A beautiful girl like yourself should be more cooperative, if you know what I mean!

You will compel me to do something which I do

not want to do, but you are not leaving me any choice! Tonus noticed he no longer addressed her as

countess II and

didn't bother to conceal his intentions any more. "Let me out of here immediately!

"That's quite impossible," he shot back sternly.

"1'11 give

you until tomorrow to think it over. II The next day Tonus still had only one wish: Instead, she was put in a staff car. at Mauthausen,

to go home.

That evening she found herself

the concentration camp where her uncle had been

taken. She stayed there only a week. "You'll be put in care of your uncle, Pfaffen'--the dog of a priest--immediately!"

'Den schweinerischer She understood his

words, but not their meaning. On April 8th she was put ln a Black Maria and taken to Munich. After several hours there a small group of men joined her car ride.

The journey to Dachau was short and uncomfortable.

Not

much was said. There was another interminable wait at the gates of the camp. In the darkness the place looked like a well-tended country estate: clipped hedges, well-kept roads bordered by pink begonias. of course,

Except,

there was that penetrating smell of burning bodies.

Tonus was barely able to supress her tears. -177-

While her small group was kept waiting, a train pulled in on the railway siding close to the camp. it was crammed with human beings.

Tonus noticed with horror

She could hear moans and sobs

which gradually trailed off. Because it was all so hopeless?

Because there was no strength

left to cry? Tonus didn't know the answers.

She was filled with bewilder-

ment, then terror.

[ What am I doing here?

How did I get here? ]

Finally the gates swung open.

The group was led to the ma1n

building bordering on the courtyard. processed first.

The men in her group were

The longer Tonus had to wait, the more desperate

she became. "Mein Liebchen," the duty officer greeted her.

"My darling,

you look quite ill." Tonus started to cry. cold.

She was famished and trembling with

She mechanically answered the questions put to her.

Female

guards stripped off her clothing and issued her the uniform of Dachau, a shapeless blue-gray-green jacket and striped trousers. She was taken to a barber who clipped her beautiful long hair. Tonus felt dehumanized and terrified.

[ What next?

What else 1S there in store for me? ]

-178-

She was taken back in front of the duty officer. "You still look very ill," he repeated his first greeting. "I have asked a doctor to see you.

He will take care of you."

Tonus let out a sigh of relief. The officer added with a smile: "Dr. Rascher will be here shortly."

-179-

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ICE CHAMBER

[ Come to the edge, he said.

They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them ... and they flew. Guillaume Apollinaire Something we were withholding made us weak until we found it was ourselves. Robert Frost ]

103.

On April II, 1945, the day after getting to Dachau, the Black Maria's occupants met in the cell of General Alexander, Baron von Falkenhausen, former military governor of Belgium. Discipine among the camp guards had begun to crumble: old general had been allowed to keep his uniform. ribbon order Pour Ie Merite, brilliance shone from the cot:

hung around his neck.

the

The red silk A scarlet

it was the lining of his general's

cape. One by one the prisoners arrived: ber of the Kremlin's Politburo; Dr.

Wassili, nephew of a memHjalmar Schacht, Hitler's

early economic czar whose financial wizardry had helped to restore

-180-

the Reich's finances between the two world wars; Colonel Bogislaw von Bunin; Dr. Kurt von Schuschnig, chancellor of Austria until Hitler had made it a German province; General Franz Halder, former chief of the German General Staff, accompanied by another German general, Georg Thomas, former head of the Office of War Economy. The last to arrive were Major Stevens and Imre. IIGreetings officer.

gentlemen.

Welcome to Dachau! II said the English

IIPlease introduce yourselves and state why you are here. II

"Von Falkenhausen," said the general.

"For not allowing the

Gestapo to execute Belgian resistance leaders." "Halder," said the second general, "for participating ln the plot against Hi tIer. " "Schuschnig," said the chancellor, "for defending Austria's independence." "Thomas,1I said the third general, "for participating in the plot against the Fuhrer and for advising against invading Poland." "Von Bunin," said the German colonel, "for signing an order at my superior's instructions, an order with which Hitler subsequently disagreed." IIVassili," said the melancholy Russian slowly, IIfor being my uncle Molotov's nephew. II IIChabaffy, II

said Imre proudly,

II for defending Magyarland

against Hitler's invasion. II IIDr. Schacht,1I said the last man, IIfor conspiring against the Fuhrer. II

-181-

and

am Stevens, II said the maj or , IIhere because of a

false accusation of conspiring to bomb Hitler as a British intelligence officer. II IIWe were told, II said the chancellor,

IIthat without Oachau

there is no way for any meaningful reconstruction. II liThe work of generations, II said Schacht, lIis being destroyed, and all we have personally worked for as well.

However, my con-

cern is not the ruin and destruction the war is bringing about. My deep worry is for the humanistic and spiritual heritage of my country which Hi tIer is squandering away so recklessly. 1I0id you believe Schuschnig pointedly,

in Hi tIer's

policies

in 1936, II

asked

IIwhen you came to visit me in Vienna as

president of the German National Bank?1I liMy aim, my belief, was to make Germany strong both internally and externally,1I replied Schacht.

"I believed in fighting

the unemployment which was undermining the political and social fabric of Germany.

For a while, I believed Hitler was open and

honest 1n his opinions.

Later I found out that he never utters a

word of truth ... that he constantly changes his mind, II continued Schacht.

"He is totally deaf to pleas of logic and common sense."

"Our country's greatest disaster,"

exclaimed Falkenhausen

angrily. "Do you believe the other leaders," asked Schuschnig, "are more responsible?

Ribbentrop for example, or Marshal Goring?1I

"A clown!" shouted Halder.

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"I take it you ask this question in jest," replied the Fuhrer's erstwhile economic right-hand man. "Do you think there was a way to avoid this war?" asked Imre. "Of course!

Absolutely!1I declared Schacht.

had responsible leaders!

I advised again and again that Germany

couldn't hold out for more than a year. economic staying power.

IIIf we had only

We just didn't hve the

But I might as well have talked to the

walls!" "I f you had such great insight," persisted the Austrian leader, IIwhy didn't you turn against Hi tIer much sooner?" "The answer is very simple, II replied Schacht.

"I really

believed I could convince Hitler, particularly on the question of the German colonies in Africa.

It was my firm opinion that those

colonies could have acted as a safety valve for the energies of the German people.

In Africa, Hitler could have had his great

success without having to go to war in Europe. " "That is what I hoped for too, II remarked Schuschnig. least early in 1938.

To gain time and avoid disaster."

"It was too late by then," continued Schacht. die had been cast.

II At

IIBy then the

With much fanfare I handed Hitler my resigna-

tion as a member of the cabinet.

He refused to accept it.

But

two years earlier, in 1936, I had had every reason to believe that the Fuhrer was interested in regaining Germany's African colonies, the ones we lost after the Great War.

Why?"

Schacht went on:

IIBecause he had authorized me to go to London and Paris to negotiate the return of our colonies.

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After prolonged and involved

negotiations,

I had gotten as far as

'not impossible'

in London

and 'we agree in principle' in Paris. " "But when I

arrived home from my trip,"

added the German

financier, "Hitler only talked about changes in Europe!

He was no

longer interested in Africa! " "Is

there

any guilt then,"

direct or indirect?

asked the chancellor,

"either

What is the distinction between the two?"

"It would be easy to place the collective blame on you," growled the Russian.

"The German general staff and the Fascist

leadership. II "with due respect, II said Imre, IIWhat about England and France? Who allowed Hitler to re-arm in 1935?

Who stood idly by when he

mili tarized the Rhineland the following year? spine when Austria was invaded in 1938?

Who showed any

And who went to Munich

with his umbrella and played Hitler's game, and who watched silently when he began to dismember Czechoslovakia in 1939?

We had

a saying then in Budapest that Chamberlain had breakfast in the country on weekends and Hitler had countries for breakfast during weekends." liDo you have any idea," asked General Halder,

II what it was

like to watch Hitler, helplessly watch him pulling Germany down wi th his amateurish blunders?1I IIHis favorites haven't the faintest idea about tactics or strategy.

Hitler himself was convinced he was a military genius,"

remarked Falkenhausen.

-184-

"We tried to eliminate him in 1938. spoiled it all.

The Munich conference

Even at that point it was inevitable," said the

former chief-of-staff.

"And after the Eli tzkrieg in Poland, he

called all the generals together and told them that they had contributed zero to the war effort, in fact, had only thrown obstacles in his way.

According to him, the lightning victory over Poland

was due exclusively to his own genius and the help of the Nazi party! " "And then came the crazy attack on Russia!" said Falkenhausen bitterly. "Hitler not only ruined the honor of our army," said Halder angrily,

"but also started the process of corruption!

Closed

envelopes with up to a half-a-million in cash were handed to some top men, but woe to you if you had some well-grounded objections! Suspensions, arrests and even death sentences followed. my own fate. me.

That was

One fine day the Gestapo came and put handcuffs on

I was never told why.

That was not enough!

My wife was

arrested too!" "Mine was a typical example," added the young colonel dryly. "I had to sign an operational order required by your successor. carried out the order, here.

but I was immediately arrested and sent

No court martial, not even a court of inquiry." "Talking about orders, I have a copy of one here," said Major

stevens.

"It is dated the first of this month.

It says that

Himmler has ordered, on the highest authority, that a well-known prisoner here be executed by a squad of very reliable men.

-185-

The

order also includes a directive for a press release:

it should

state that their victim lost his life during a terrorist attack on Dachau by the enemy." "Are we going to be next?" several voices asked. "That we are alive at all," Schuschnig said very quietly, "is probably due to a bureaucratic error." "How long have you been a prisoner?" Imre asked him. "Since 1938." "You mean you have been here Slnce 1938?" "Oh, no," replied the Austrian chancellor.

"I arrived here

only last night. " "Were you the only one they brought?" Imre queried him. "Not at all!" replied Schuschnig. group.

"I was part of a small

Are we all here now? II

"General Thomas?1I "Yes, and von Falkenhausen and our Russian friend. Bonin and also Dr. Schacht.

And von

We had no idea of our destination."

A silence ensued. 110ÂŁ

course my wife and daughter, who is just four, were with

us," added the chancellor as an afterthought. I forgot to mention someone.

"Which reminds me,

We had a young woman with us from

Austria." Imre had an awful foreboding. IIWho is she?

He asked anyway:

What's her name?"

Schusching thought for a while, then replied: "Countess Dadian ... Antoinette Dadian."

-186-

104.

Tonus cried for her life. Her energy ebbing away, would be heard.

she had no idea whether her voice

She screamed at the top of her lungs anyway.

She

also cried because it helped to relieve the pain momentarily. Even a micro-second of relief was better than no relief at all. Tonus cried piercingly.

Sometimes she cried:

"Imre!

Imre!"

Dr. Rascher watched the alcohol level of his cryometer with clinical attention.

It was very important he keep track of all

details, as this was going to be one of the last experiments, one of the final experiments which would confirm the data gained from all the previous one. The doctor's specialty was cryogenics, the branch of physics that deals with very low temperatures.

This field of science had

a special medical application known as cryoscopy.

Cryoscopy de-

termines the freezing points of certain body fluids, for diagnostic purposes. Dr. Rascher.

like urine,

Its leading practitioner in Germany was

His laboratory had a head start over all others in

the world because he had a large pool of human bodies available for his cryoscopic experiments. limited numbers.

Bodies, in fact,

in almost un-

Bodies for which he didn't have to account,

except as a line item in his periodic reports.

Bodies which didn't

have families and relatives. Dr. Rascher liked the body he had pirated for his final experiment.

The body was not the usual skin-and-bones specimen from

-187-

one of the blockhouses. body,

It was a small,

but well-proportioned

which in all probability would tolerate lower levels of

temperature than the previous ones. The great thing was that if he made a mistake he was praised for it.

One more dead body relieved a minute pressure from the

commander of the Dachau camp.

Quotas had to be met constantly and

recently the quotas had increased alarmingly.

One by one the

other death factories were being overrun in the east by the Russians and in the west by the Americans and their allies. The doctor's research,

he felt,

promised to make a giant

contribution to the Reich's war effort and victory, concentrated in unmanned rockets now, but soon to be made even more formidable by manned rockets which would fly at high altitudes and very low temperatures.

Dr.

Rascher dreamed of a professorship at some

leading university once his findings were put into practice. His focus was entirely on his cryometer and the columns of numbers he was able to formulate.

He was entirely oblivious to

the advancing columns of American soldiers. The doctor sat in an isolation booth: ing the cries of his bodies.

he didn't fancy hear-

It would interfere wtih his concen-

tration on the level of alcohol in his cryometer. all,

It was, after

to measure the temperature of Tonus' body fluids,

not her

crles. The good doctor watched with lCy detachment as Tonus' body was slowly deep-frozen in a metal container measuring two meters by two meters.

Two of his orderlies kept throwing frozen blocks

-188-

of ice to further cool the water in the container.

He noted with

satisfaction that his original assumption, namely that this young and heal thy body was able to take lower temperatures than the others,

the emaciated ones, was absolutely correct.

He wondered

if he dare go another notch to get a further confirmation on the exact ratio between the tolerance level of the corpuscules of the red blood cells and the fluid left in the uriniferous tubule after the extraction of urine, and more importantly, between the spinal fluid and the corpuscules in the medulla oblongata. Tonus floating in the cryostat, the metallic tank filled with cryohydrate, let out a last, desperate cry: liMy God!

My God!

Imre!

Imre!"

Federico, trundling the laundry baskets out from the medical research

facility,

stopped in his tracks.

A woman's voice,

voice he had heard earlier, was crylng out for Imre.

There were

tens of thousands of inmates at Dachau, but surely there was only one called Imre. Federico left the cart in the corridor leading to the back entrance and started to run as fast as he dared without catching the guards' attention. shadows to walls.

He darted from building to shed and from

He was out of breath when he reached the kitchen

in the main building, the only link between the camp and the compound of the special prisoners.

Dinner was being served.

Every-

body was far too busy to notice Federico, a familiar enough sight to the guards, orderlies and captives alike.

Stealthily he worked

his way from the back through the kitchen into the central corri-

-189-

dor.

He went, hugging the walls, carrying a bowl with a slice of

bread he had snatched up in the kitchen, trying to look like an orderly delivering the evening meal. He knocked on Imre's door and pushed it in without waiting for an answer.

The cell was empty.

and darted toward the shower.

He put the bowl on a stool

He nearly collided with Imre, who

had a towel around his body, vigorously drying himself. "My prince tor ... building

listen to me ... terrible ... urgent

doc-

medical ... your name!" he said, with a stac-

cato burst of excitement. "wait a moment, Federico!" cried Imre. me slowly.

"Calm down and tell

I can't understand any of your gibberish."

very slowly:

He added

"What is it you wish to tell me?"

Federico paused to catch his breath and then started to speak rapidly but coherently: "I was on laundry duty, getting the laundry from Block 46 in the medical building tonight, like I regularly do on Wednesdays when," and he threw his arms up and moved his hands with a ballet dancer's expressiveness, "I heard a ... I heard your name: Imre!

'Imre!

from inside the building."

"A cry?" "A woman's cry."

Deliberately, Federico underemphasized in

words what he expressed with movements, but his lips formed an involuntary O. "It came from Dr. Rascher' s laboratory."

-190-

"You mean that devil is working her over!?" Imre asked in panic.

I haven't a moment to lose!"

"We have to have a plan ... let me think "We haven't got much time! "I've got it!

How much?"

The crisis triggered the elements of its own

solution in the clown's mind and arranged them in perfect order of sequence. "We'll be orderlies delivering dinner to the doctors and the staff there.

know the back entrance to the building.

it'll be up to you to

Then

Like people are wont to do when they know they are doing right,

Imre and Federico moved with perfect precision and effort-

lessness. kitchen.

The pair walked along the long corridors leading to the Federico said words to the chief cook on duty, and his

assistants moved like puppets and followed wordless orders. Within less than fifteen minutes, the pair were out of the main building, and in another ten minutes or so they had reached the back entrance of the

research building.

minute, every second was precious. it led into a storeroom.

Both knew every

Federico tried one door, but

The second door opened to the right one.

Dr. Rascher had finished his experiment a quarter of an hour earlier and then pressed the buzzer for the orderlies to lift Tonus out of the tank and fling her body on top of half a dozen corpses in the corner of the laboratory--tomorrow morning's detail knew exactly what to do with the bodies.

An eerie light from a

naked bulb dangling from the ceiling cast a glow over the stone

-191-

floor and the human garbage ln the corner.

When Imre touched

Tonus' naked body he imagined crystal particles had formed where he felt her skin. He wordlessly undressed and threw himself on his frozen bride. His mind directed only solutions, no questions.

He didn't hesi-

tate for an instant as to what to do or how to do it--he just did it.

Imre embraced the beloved form.

Not for a moment did he

shrink from the pallid frozen sculpture. shiver uncontrollably.

His own body started to

His heart rushed to his aid and pumped

warm blood close to every pore where his body touched hers. He embraced her and kissed her, but her body didn't respond. Not a single nerve, not a single atom in her, answered his calls of love.

Imre went on and on, even when it appeared it was quite

hopeless to bring her soul back into her body.

He held on to her

with desperation for about another quarter of an hour, even though there was no response.

with luminous clarity,

Imre remembered

Pastor Niemoller's Sunday sermon about the desperate mother praying Christ's help and the two cruel denials that had followed. Hadn't the pastor talked about the great faith which sprung out of extreme adversity and mortal emergency? In that instant Imre was given the solution. strength filled his body. ginal body.

Super-human

He inserted his strength into her vir-

Slowly, very slowly, he began to make love to her.

with infinite delay the first response came.

[ Delay is tragic in time but meaningless in eternity. ]

-192-

105.

The following Wednesday,

four people, an intelligence offi-

cer, a general, the head of a state and a financier, sat with Imre in the rays of the sun on benches in the courtyard. This was Imre's first outing since he had saved Tonus' life. Both had ended up in the camp hospital.

When Federico and Imre

trundled her in the laundry cart, through the kitchen, to Major Stevens' room the week before, there had been no assurance that Tonus would survive the ordeal. The Englishman had been the first to alert Uncle Egon about the incident.

He had fearlessly demanded to see the camp comman-

dant about the atrocity committed against his niece.

It was a

sign of the winds of change that an inmate could insist on an interview with the dreaded SS officer.

The signs had multiplied.

Tonus had been admitted to the hospital and Imre as well, both on orders of the commandant.

The good doctor had been put under

arrest and placed in a cell among the special prisoners. Imre had quickly recovered from the incident and been released back to his cell. skeleton.

But his body had shrunk almost to the

The diet of the special prisoners had deteriorated

sharply in the last few days, which had hampered Imre's recovery. The daily ration now consisted of a bowl of soup, and even that soup got thinner day by day. The situation in the rest of the camp became disastrous in unimaginable proportions.

The trains kept arriving in increasing

-193-

numbers from other parts of the fast-shrinking Reich.

The crema-

torium working round the clock couldn't possibly burn enough bodies to make room in the overcrowded buildings and bunkers for the thousands of new arrivals.

The condition of cargoes of the trains

were also deteriorating rapidly.

Many of the new arrivals were

barely able to get out of the boxcars. the sealed cars,

When the 55 guards opened

increasing numbers of prisoners simply fell out

of them, dead or near death.

Most of the inmates who were strong

enough to move were drafted to dig large pits into which bodies, some still slightly alive, were piled by the hundreds and thousands. Only the frequent air-raid alarms provided a measure of relief. One followed another,

and inmates who could still hear were able

to listen to the gradual pulverization of nearby Munich.

Those

inmates who could think coherently wondered when the destruction of the railway lines would become complete, putting an end to the appalling ferries of human cargoes to Dachau. That day one of the five men on the benches sought desperate relief from the chaos all around, passages from Homer's Iliad, war,

and started to recite in Greek

the three-thousand-year-old tale of

jealousy and heroism, of an angry hero who had refused to

take up arms until the eleventh hour. had a prodigeous memory.

General von Falkenhausen

The words he uttered were about the

generations of man, which Homer compared to the leaves of trees.

[ The trees burst into buds and put on fresh ones. ]

-194-

Was Imre able to smile through his tears? The talk was taken up by Schacht, who recited some more of the verses which had been memorized by European school boys of his generation. When the Greek bard f s poetry stopped spinning out of the five's memories, the chancellor recalled the opening lines of the Aeneid, sumptuous terseness unsurpassed in two thousand years:

[ Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris Italiam fato profugus laviniaque venit Litora--multum ille et terris jactatus et alto vi superum, saevae memorem junonis ob iram ... ] "I sing of arms and a man, who first from the shores of Troy, driven by fate, came to Italy and the Lavinian shores, having been greatly tossed about both on land and on sea by the force of the gods above, on account of the mindful wrath of savage Juno.

This was the beginning of the story of the Troj an prince Aeneas, who escaped after the sack of his city and sailed with a band of his warriors to the west coast of Italy and whose descendents helped found the city of Rome. In some way the five prisoners, reciting parts of this stupendous story, were gaining strength and solace from a tale which began in disaster and despair but ended, after innumerable vicissitudes and setbacks, in the glory of Rome.

Imre then heard the

lines with which Aeneas consoled his men after a mighty storm at sea:

-195-

[ Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit, ]

that is,

"perhaps someday it will be pleasing to remember

even these things and:

[ 0 passi graviora, dabit deus his quoque finem, ]

"0 you who have passed through worse things, God will grant and end to even these."

Imre added another line:

[ Durante et vosmet rebus servate secundis, ]

"Endure, and save yourselves for better things."

The chancellor spoke of:

[ Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor ]

And Imre repeated: ashes."

"Someone is to arise avenger out of our

Was this not the cry of the thousands in here?

[ Nunc animis opus 1 aenea, nunc pectore firmo, ]

'Now is the time Aeneas, for spirit, now for the firm heart! ' The five went on this vein for quite some time. cier awoke the memory of a marvelous thought for Imre:

-196-

The finan-

[ sic itur ad astra, ]

"Thus you shall ascend to the stars ":

he felt these words

were meant for him in a very special way. Then the English officer's memory brought back Imre's ordeal of the week before:

[Hos successus alit: Success feeds them: able. ]

Possunt, quia posse videntur. they are able, because they seem

When the five had finished spinning out their ancient verses, Schacht persisted in his gloom and switched to Goethe's Faust:

with dread I awake in the morning, I wish to be in bitter mourning, To perceive the day which on its course will not fill one wish, not one, of course. ] But the general wanted none of this gloom and, without rhyme or reason,

recited the immortal refrains of Wilhelm Busch,

the

great humorist, moralizing on the ingenious pranks of a pair of brothers, Max and Moritz:

[ Dieses war der erste Streich Doch der zweite folgt sogleich! This was but the first caper The next comes not much later! Imre wondered:

whose caper?

-197-

]

The alarm sounded again.

The small group moved off to the

air-raid shelter. In the semi-darkness, Imre was introduced to Prince Xavier de Bourbon of Parma, the brother of the ruler of Luxembourg who had become a victim of Hitler's Blitzkrieg four years earlier. "I have seen Philip, Prince of Hesse.

He asked me about his

wife, Mafalda," he whispered to the newcomers.

"I didn't have the

heart to tell him that Mafalda was killed in Buchenwald. " A little later the chancellor told Imre that Mafalda had been the daughter of the Italian king.

He then turned to Major stevens:

"Any news about Tonus?" "She is holding her own. II Imre was not allowed to visit her.

Thoughts about her brought

him back full circle into the reality of the concentration camp. In his cell again,

Imre heard another chorus of anguished

cries piercing the skies.

In the distant Danube Valley the artil-

lery fire sounded closer than it had in the days before. Imre wondered how much longer he would have to listen to death and destruction.

And how much longer would he have to lis-

ten to talk about nations and nationalities? l

-198-

106.

The woeful scene repeated itself. The prisoner, shovel in hand, digging into the earth on the side of the crematorium. a la Dachau.

Another group waiting in line:

a shower

In the spring breeze the obscene pennants fluttered

in the spring breeze with the logos:

[Work frees!

] and [ Clean-

liness is next to godliness! ] That spring morning,

late in April,

the crack of gunshots

freed the body of the commander of the French Secret Army.

tumbled into the self-dug grave. Imre balled his fist when the news reached him, but he didn't have much time to be angry because orders had been received to get packing--although there was precious little to pack--as the special prisoners were to be evacuated within a few hours, perhaps even within the hour.

Fate seemed to have cheated Imre again.

The

liberators were once again closing in, but the Gestapo and its chief,

Heinrich Himmler, now second only to Hitler in authority

among the crumbling ruins of the Reich, seemed determined to hang onto the special prisoners. the thinnest of threats:

The inmates knew their lives hung on they were pawns in the imaginings of

desperados. The rumor factors was as busy as the death factory across the building:

evacuation to Munich?

province of Austria?

To Tyrol, the southwestern-most

To the next forest clearing for a quick,

-199-

unwi tnessed execution?

Imre was

doubly in suspense--what was

going to happen to Tonus in the rickety hospital? enough to move? Gotterdammerung?

Was she strong

What awaited her in the closing days of the There was

no way to

see her.

Imre begged

Federico to convey a "goodbye"--he didn't even have a piece of paper and a pencil to scribble a few words of comfort. Major stevens, an unvarying tower of strength, was consoling the inmates who were to be left behind with the women and children.

Federico whispered to Imre: "Rascher was executed this morning.

Personally ordered by

Himmler." Then Imre heard the order to get to the buses waiting outside the camp gates.

[ This can't go on much longer! Time is running out. Dragged from camp to camp. Space is running out. The very air is breathing an end. The guards are moving mechanically, they are functioning on long-ingrained habi ts. We didn't get any breakfast today. ] The guards were indeed mechanically following orders.

They

gave the impression of having no idea what was to happen next. Dachau was ablaze with uncertainty as a rumor swept through it that the whole complex, holding upwards of thirty-five thousand prlsoners,

was about to be evacuated.

There was barely enough

transportation for one hundred special inmates and their escorts. Was everybody going to walk?

Where?

unbearable.

-200-

The waiting became almost

"You have to walk through the camp to get to the buses!" came the order from a "snit" who Imre had always tried to avoid whenever possible.

[ That he is one of our guards on our journey is not a very promising sign. ] The

first

small

group of special prisoners--the Tollays,

Churchill, the German generals, George Parravicini, Best, Schacht, a few more Magyars, Austrians, General Baribaldi, Marshal Papagos, and a Czech cabinet minister--slowly filed through the administration building. Imre didn't see many of his new friends.

Uncle Egon, the

chancellor and his wife and their child, born in captivity, the Countess Elisabeth von Stauffenberg, and Leon Blum and his wife were no where to be seen. When Imre's group got inside the building, he heard someone say: "The Americans are at the gates of Nurenberg. " Another said: "And have reached the Czech border." Yet another said: "The Russians have occupied Vienna and are ready to storm Berlin!" No one was speaking in low voices. news!

-201-

Let the guards hear the

"Hurry!" they shouted nervously to the prisoners. are waiting outside the main gate.

Hurry!

Once outside the administration building, towards the gates.

"The buses

the file headed

But first the prisoners had to go through a

large square in the central part of the camp. An unexpected sight greeted them.

It seemed to Imre that all the inmates of Dachau had thronged to the square along the walls and electric fences.

Imre saw a

human wall, in fact several layers of human walls, dressed in the drab uniforms of the Nazi concentration camps. readied for evacuation. the back,

Dachau was being

It was only now that Imre noticed, toward

piles upon piles of corpses,

stacked like firewood.

Smoke curling from the crematorium chimney blanketed the whole camp.

The spring sun struggled to break through the ghostly scene. The other time Imre had been in this part of the camp, his

mind had been fixed on a single purpose: had seen the shadows but not their forms.

to save his beloved.

Now it all appeared in

stark reality. A narrow corridor opened up for the file.

Imre was watched

by a phalanx of shrunken, silent, scared faces, indifferent faces, hungry faces with sunken cheeks and the hollow eyes of scarecrows, the faces of the living dead.

The mass of humanity eddied back

and forth in slow swaying motion. to a standstill.

The column slowed down, almost

Imre looked into countless faces.

averted eyes and resignation.

He saw defeat,

The apparitions of the enslaved

humanity of Europe.

-202-

The faces looked all the same to Imre. There were no Polish faces, French faces, Jewish faces, Magyar faces,

Russian faces--only faces stamped with the inhumanity

of man to man.

There were women, men,

children; young and old,

short and tall, all bore the uniformity of barbed barbarity. Slowly, the narrow file of prisoners started to move again. Imperceptibly a skeletal hand reached out. Then another. Then a dozen.

A hundred.

A thousand palrs of hands.

Per-

haps one among the onlookers recognized a prisoner or two in the column moving toward the gate. A slow murmur arose, waves,

like the distant swelling of oceanic

like the subdued roll of far-away thunder.

The faces be-

came human beings, huddled together, shoulder to shoulder.

Where

there had been despair, there now was a tired smile, but a smile nevertheless.

Where there had been resignation moments ago, there

were now arms, skinny arms but arms nevertheless, greeting them. Imre was reminded of a newsreel scene he had once seen of the marathon runners proudly bearing the Olympic flame to an enormous stadium.

A tremendous roar of greeting had saluted the champion

runners.

Imre now imagined what those Olympic runners had felt

when the wave of applause had greeted them.

But this subdued

greeting to the young Magyar meant infinitely more. today,

after hours and hours,

This greeting

days and days of isolation was an

almost silent, compassionate, fraternal outreaching. Imre thought,

-203-

[ Humanity there is for many, starved, humanity

is still alive and well; there is still hope; room for faith and love after the months and, the years of barbarity. Brutalized, browbeaten, abused and treated to unspeakable atrocities, is still human. ]

Imre felt flooded with thankfulness. [ Feeling is back! Feeling and love was here all the time even if hidden in the darkness. ] The greetings continued until the file was let out through the main gates of Dachau. Imre looked back and noticed the large banner strung across the entrance:

Arbei t Macht Frei!

"Work frees.

When he had first arrived he hadn I t

noticed

the sign, nor any of the others strung around the camp.

Now, he

wanted something more than liberty:

to forget.

To forget the

sight of death, the sounds of horrors, the smell of decay. tried to concentrate on the now and the future. next few hours, the next day perhaps. guard brought him back to the present.

Imre

To survive the

The angry shout of an SS One of the brutes was

urging him to get on a crowded bus.

107.

Imre estimated there were nearly a hundred prisoners--men, women and children--packed into three buses.

Some guards travelled

up front with the drivers; others were in a truck, leading the

-204-

way; and two more trucks and a motorcycle made up the rear.

Imre

quickly noticed that the escort included a contingent of Gestapo men who treated the other guards with contempt.

The Gestapo leader

was named Bader.

he spoke to the

Although only a lieutenant,

commander of the convoy,

a captain called the Hauptsturmfuhrer

stiller, as if he were his subordinate. Death was in the air.

Imre had thought leaving Dachau would

mean escape from destruction.

He had been wrong.

ruin were all around, particularly in Munich.

Desolation and

Imre was shocked to

see that the once proud and beautiful capital of Bavaria was little more than rows upon rows of gutted buildings. His uncle had lived there with his German wife right in the heart of the city.

Imre had visited them several times in the

years after his graduation. Hitler, theirs.

he knew,

He wondered if they were still alive.

had frequently stayed at a house not far from

The Allied bombers appeared determined to destroy all

signs of Nazi glory. still on fire.

Some buildings were still smouldering, others

Air raid defense crews were doing their best to

localize the raging inferno. Progress was exceedingly slow:

the buses had to negotiate

through rubble, and travel on roads full of enormous potholes and patched-over bomb craters.

By nightfall, Imre figured the convoy,

travelling in a south, south-easterly direction, had covered barely fifty kilometers.

Finally, the buses reached Rosenheim, a small

town and a key rail junction.

It was in worse shape, if that was

possible, than Munich.

-205-

The

moon

rose.

The bus

suddenly lurched

forward,

then

downward. "Everybody out!" shouted the guards. huge crater.

The bus was stuck in a

The silhouette of the railway station's ruins was a

ghostly play of shadows in the moonlight.

The men put their

shoulders to the bus. The air raid sirens started to wail. A squadron of bombers began to sound louder and louder. party flattened itself wherever possible.

The

The aircraft zoomed by.

A few moments later Imre saw bombs lighting up the skyline--a few kilometers away.

They were safe again.

The convoy turned southwest and, after a bumpy ride, arrived ~n

Innsbruck and, finally, the nearby camp, called Reichenau.

trip had taken nearly twenty-four hours.

The

In peacetime, it would

have taken not much more than one hour by car. This was Imre's fourth camp.

He looked with the eyes of a

veteran at the barbed wire and the filth.

He imagined the bed

bugs. "It'll soon be over!" said George cheerfully. "They can't keep running," responded Imre.

"There are not

many places left to go from here." A few days later, the rest of the special prisoners arrived from Dachau.

Everybody was in a good mood.

But the combined

group had no time to settle down. "Kolonne startbereit urn acht Uhr!" came the order: by eight tonight."

"Be ready

The enlarged convoy moved at a snail's pace in

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the darkness, straight south, through the Brenner Pass.

Frequent

stops were made to allow German troops to move in the opposite direction, fleeing from Italy to Germany in the narrow pass. Early in the morning the convoy emerged on the Italian side of the valley.

Imre felt cold, high up amidst some of the most

beautiful mountains in Europe. Daylight brought out the armored birds of prey, the Allied aircraft,

which were decimating the fleeing Wehrmacht columns.

One of them spotted the prisoners and swooped down. moments an alpine mist enveloped the convoy.

In the last

The hunter veered

away to look for other targets. "Just like in Homer," exclaimed Major stevens.

"We are saved

by a veil of mist sent by the gods." "It's a good sign! II added Imre.

IIWe are meant to stay alive!"

The convoy veered eastward, up the Puster valley.

After two

or three hours, it arrived at Villa Basta, at the Lago de Braies. The date was April 29, 1945. IIEverybody out!" sounded the familiar order,

this time hap-

pily obeyed, as legs were cramped after fifteen hours of tightness. "I feel like the juice in a cocktail shaker," announced Imre. He didn't have much time to contemplate that image, because the guards herded them all together. There was death in the air once more. way the guards looked at them.

Imre didn't like the

Were the prisoners being herded

together like sheep for slaughter? Military convoys kept roaring by,

-207-

Confusion reigned uneasily.

loaded with troops,

furniture,

civilians, cows, equipment.

From the village a group of Italian

partisans came to greet them.

It was bitterly cold.

The snow

still covered the ground. The guards finally decided to march the prisoners towards the town hall.

The Italian partisans, with their red scarves around

their necks,

recognized General Garibaldi and started to cheer.

The German guards

got

jumpy and pointed their guns in their

direction. Tenseness.

One false move and we could have a massacre,

thought Imre. "We'll have to do something fast," said Uncle Geza, who, with Atilla, was walking next to Imre.

The guards threw bales of straw

on the floor of the town hall building. "You sleep here!" they barked and then left. Captain Best, who had been elected chairman of the prisoners' council organized in the camp near Innsbruck a few days earlier, called for an immediate emergency meeting. "Our job is to neutralize the Gestapo, gence officer said.

the British intelli-

"I'm sure the SS boys under captain stiller

don't want violence, but Lieutenant Bader and his Gestapo squad are up to no good.

"The Gestapo have every intention of killing us all off,

exclaimed the last chancellor of Austria. "I have an idea," said Colonel von Bonin.

"I know the com-

mander of our Southern Armies, General Vietinghoff, quite well. He's a personal friend of mine.

I'll try and get in touch with

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him over the telephone and ask for his help.

I'm sure he'll do

what he can." "I'll go with you," added General Thoma; and the two German officers of the general staff, dressed in uniforms bedecked with decorations,

and thus giving no clue they were prisoners, immedi-

ately left the meeting. " ... And I'll go with you," said Pastor Niemoller, captain Best and Imre, almost simultaneously. "We'll get the guards drunk!" exclaimed Atilla.

captain Best

adjourned the meeting and led his foraging party to the nearby Hotel Bachmann. Shortly thereafter, corks were popping and Imre, in his excellent German, asked the one remaining guard to join them. "Let's drink to Bruderschaft!" suggested Captain Best: "What is your name?" "My name is Hans," he replied sheepishly. When drinking is in order, Magyars don't take second place. The Magyars,

including Atilla, Imre, George and, of course, Uncle

Geza, surrounded the guard. "Hans,

we are your friends!" each and every man separately

assured him, as they kept refilling his glass. "We are on your side," added Lieutenant Colonel Churchill and Major Stevens at once. "Bruderschaft!"

said Uncle Geza in German,

touching the guard's glass.

-209-

"brotherhood!"

"Naturlich," Hans finally said.

"Of course, I realize you

are my friends and will stand by me--should you remain alive!

But

I have an order in my pocket stating we have to shoot you all. You won I t live to see the end of tomorrow. "Rubbish," retorted Best.

"Nobody would be crazy enough to

kill us now that the war is practically over!

You and your com-

rades will be prisoners in a day, two at the most." "But I assure you," replied the guard, visibly embarassed. "1 ' m not bluffing," and pUlling a piece of paper from his pocket, he added:

" It's from the highe s t command in Berlin."

Captain Best interpreted the document to the circle around him: "It's from the Reichsicherheitsdienst headquarters, signed by Himmler.

It says that no prisoners shall be allowed to fall into

the hands of the enemy alive.

They must be liquidated."

"Let's have another toast!" suggested Imre. "Bruderschaft!" shouted Atilla. "You are my best friends," responded the soldier, who was qui te drunk by now.

"But we have a plan.

hotel and shoot all of you

We herd you into the

"Nonsense," interrupted Churchill. "Rubbish," said Atilla. "I don't like the plan at all," wailed Hans.

"The bullets of

our tommy-guns are too small, and half of you would not be killed off.

One just can't aim correctly with these tormny-guns," he

-210-

continued,

fondling his weapon.

"And we have to set the place on

fire, too!

I don't like to burn people when they are not dead.

He lurched back and forth. "Herr Best and you, friends.

Bruder, brothers

ful monologue,

Prince Chabaffy, 0

f mine.

you two are my good

The guard went on in cheer-

I'll do a special favor for you ... a big favor ...

Listen to me carefully

We'll arrange a signal

When I give

you the signal, you'll know that the shooting will start .... come up to me ... when I give the signal the nape of the neck won't feel a thing I'm a crack shot.

Kaputt!

You

I'll shoot you ln

That's the best way ...

You

I assure you ... I never miss, you know ...

Hans suddenly lurched onto a straw bed and promptly fell asleep.

Pastor Niemoller and many others soon joined him.

The

Wlne had completed its pacifying mission. But Best,

Imre and Atilla stayed up to await the return of

General Thomas and Colonel von Bonin, who finally arrived at three in the morning. "We got in touch with General Vietinghof in Bolzano, and he promised officer,

he'd send up a Wehrmacht company under the command of an II

the two reported.

"When?" asked Best. "Later this morning."

Best asked Imre to wake him as soon as

the rescue squad had arrived. "Captain von Alvensleben reporting!

saluted the Wehrmacht

officer, when he arrived at nine in the morning.

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"Prince Chabaffy," Imre greeted him with a big smile.

" I ' 11

wake up our chief." "We have to talk to Captain stiller," said Uncle Geza, who was wide awake. "I'll fetch him," Atilla said firmly. It

was a beauti ful morning.

distance, tains.

The 1 ake,

shimmering in the

reflected the magnificent peaks of the Dolomite moun-

The dark green pine forest marching right up to the shores

of the lake provided a dramatic contrast to the snow-covered fields. The sun was out, and spring was in the air.

A distant viewer may

have thought it a happy group, engaged in a friendly conversation. A conversation it was--for life or death. The prisoners knew they had to pull off a fantastic bluff. "Look, best,

Captain stiller," said Uncle Geza at his imperial

twitching his moustache proudly.

"You'd better behave!

This is your chance to insure your future." "Many of your men are on our side ... " warned Captain Best.

and have turned their weapons in already," added Churchill. "If you were so stupid as to start firing," said Atilla with

a threatening tone, "we'd have a massacre." "A lot of needless bloodshed,"

Imre pressed him,

looking

straight into his eyes. "Meine Herren," said Captain stiller, awesome barrage. tions.

"Gentlemen.

crumbling under this

Please be assured of my good inten-

But I can't speak for Lieutenant Bader. "

-212-

"You must hand over the command to captain Best!" said Colonel von Bonin sternly.

"You will do so under my authority as your

superior officer!" "You will also call a meeting for noon," announced General Thomas with equal force.

Looking at his watch,

he continued,

"exactly two hours and ten minutes from now!" II. .. And inform Lieutenant Bader," added Best,

you have the

full support of the German Army and our own! II IIAgreed!1I said stiller, with a smart salute.

To everyone's

immense relief he left the committee. They were standing at the gates of the town hall.

Young

Badoglio rushed up with excitement in his eyes and his every limb: IIGeneral Garibaldi has organized a brilliant operation," exclaimed in heavily accented English.

1I0ur partisans are going

to pull off a massive ambuscado ... and catch the German guards. IIPlease bring General Garibaldi over immediately," replied Best. "Why did he have to do this! II asked General Papagos, IIwithout consulting us first?" A few minutes later Garibaldi showed up at the town hall. Best and the generals explained the situation: IIcaptain stiller agreed to act under Best's command,

and we

are also backed by a Wehrmacht company led by a German captain. II "Bene, II replied the Italian general. Army a chance to redeem i tsel f . II

-213-

II I' 11 give the German

Precisely at noon Best opened the packed meeting of the prisoners.

Garibaldi positioned his partisans outside,

out of the

Germans' sight. "We have an important announcement to make, intelligence officer.

said the British

I'll let Captain stiller speak.

"Meine Herren und Damen. solemn best.

The German officer was at his

"Ladies and gentlemen.

accept orders from Captain Best.

From now on I will only

Excited murmurs greeted this sensational statement. "Acting under the authority of Colonel von Bonin, I'm handing the command to him."

Everybody applauded and smiled.

The chess-game wasn't over yet.

Lieutenant Bader had not

accepted this highly unusual arrangement. Geza,

Atilla,

Imre,

Garibaldi,

Papagos,

Best, von Bonin, Uncle Falkenhausen and Thomas

accompanied stiller outside for the confrontation with the Gestapo officer.

Out of the corner of his eye,

Imre noticed the Italian

partisans were fingering their weapons. "Lieutenant Bader," said Colonel von Bonin, with the stern accents of Prussia, "throw down your arms!

" ... or I'll order those guns to fire!" shouted Captain Best, pointing toward the Wehrmacht machine-guns behind him trained at the Gestapo squad. Without a word the squad obeyed. The Italian partisans scooped up the weapons. "Can we have some gas?" Bader said humbly. move on."

-214-

We , d like to

108.

Less than two weeks later Imre was luxuriating in the magical sunlight of the island of Capri, a short ferry-ride across from the port of Naples in southern Italy. Imre couldn't shake the memories of his four concentration camps fast enough.

He kept praying for oblivion and forgiveness.

He could remember the details as blurs in his panorama of the past, telescoped into a nether world without rhyme or reason. Blanks seemed to have obliterated many details,

but some,

exciting, comical and beautiful, kept recurring. One was the search through the Gestapo trunks, Tyrolean mountains.

up in the

It had yielded some one hundred fifty Red

Cross parcels meant for his small group of prisoners ...

And the

magnificent banquet that had followed, prepared with love by the women inmates. One hundred and thirty-six people had sat down for their first feast in months,

if not years.

The youngest celebrant was

the four-year-old daughter of Dr. Schuschnig, the Austrian head of state.

She had been born in captivity.

The oldest was Leon Blum,

former prime minister of France, a man of intellect and fluency, a noble character. It was a magnificent assemblage of the best of Europe: less politicians, sional

civil

thinking,

servants,

responsible army officers,

amateur intelligence heroes,

self-

profes-

poets

and

philosophers, proud industrialists, exalted witnesses for Christ,

-215-

humanity in all the colors of the ancient continent,

shining ln

splendor and bright in simplicity. Imre prayed on that May fourth,

nineteen hundred and forty-

five, when the Americans liberated them.

In his vision he saw the

many-splendored diversity of Europe and fervently wished it might transfigure into the beauty of the mosaic called the united states of America,

which in turn transfigured into the oneness called

humanity. He also remembered the first press conference and snatches of phrases:

"Bolshevism is too much like Nazism

There is no

room for either among our disillusioned millions

I wouldn't

believe Hi tIer is dead if he would inform me so himself." Then he thought of Baron von Falkenhausen in his gorgeous robe of honor which the Chinese had presented him before his return to Germany soon after the outbreak of the war.

He had just

emerged from the showers on the day of liberation and joined the ladies he so much admired on the terrace of the Prags Wildbad, the hotel where all moved on May first when the Gestapo guards were disarmed.

A polite applause had greeted the old-world gentleman

and the heavy silk robe, gleaming with silver and gold.

Then the

general had realized that its back was split from top to bottom, and he had retired hastily amid mock confusion. Imre also remembered the troops of the u.s. Ninth Army's 85th Infantry Division, led by Captain John Atwell, who had taken formal charge of them on that memorable May fourth.

-216-

America, the generous, the kind, the thoughtful, the giving, the superabundant. tortures,

After the inhumanity, the humanity; after the

the balm of courtesy; after the barbed barbarity, the

smooth elegance of giving; after the starvation, the feast. And Tonus?

The authorities hadn't allowed Imre to return to

Dachau.

The group had been taken to Naples and distributed from

there.

The European armistice had been signed a day or two after

their liberation, but the continent had still been in the grip of convulsions and chaos. Munich,

Uncle Egon, however, was not to be stopped.

he had found out, was occupied by the Americans on the

last day of April; he had refused to go to Naples and left the Tyrolean mountain lake resort the day after liberation, to take over his ecclesiastical duties in Munich and to get Tonus out of nearby Dachau.

He had promised Imre, who had given him a letter

for his beloved, to keep him posted.

In the note he had begged

her to join him in Budapest as soon as she was strong enough to travel. Imre was in worse shape than he realized when the American Army doctors examined him in Naples.

He was nearly deaf in one

ear,

He had developed astigma-

tism.

and weighed barely forty kilos.

The letdown after months of struggle for survival in the

shadows of extinction and the physical damage caused by his tortures demanded immediate attention as soon as such attention was feasible.

His body picked up the signals that help was finally

forthcoming--and nearly collapsed. That happened in Capri.

-217-

The prospect of separation from Tonus screamed for correction.

That was just impossible to remedy.

The Americans patiently

explained to him that the only place he could go back to was Magyarland, because he had been born there.

They also tried to en-

lighten him as gently as possible about conditions in his homeland which, after having been plundered by the Germans, was now being laid waste by the Russians.

Then, they would not let him return

home until he had recovered his health. So, until then, it was Capri. The ferry ride to the isle of enchantment. Imre remembered the first day he was able to go swimming and the anguish on Uncle Geza1s face when he noticed his lacerated body. Gazing into the incredibly opaque depths of the sea around the island, the Roman emperors' idyllic retreat some twenty centuries earlier, Imre was deeply grateful for his returning strength. But it was not returning as quickly as he had hoped.

The joy of

seeing couples in the harbor didn't make him jealous; it did accent his separation from Tonus.

He had fits of loneliness not even te

balmiest breezes of the Mediterranean could waft away. None of this affected the rock of his faith which had been built second by second, atom by atom, in his solitary confinement. Imre felt totally unafraid. Purified.

Purified of hatred.

Nonetheless,

Purified of vengeance.

it took Imre several months to push back the

impression of the previous six and get accustomed to the idea that

-218-

the next morning he was not about to be led to a firing squad or a deadly shower.

It took him many weeks to get used to the idea,

that, yes, he'd have breakfast, lunch and dinner the next day ad no one was going to order him out of his soft, warm bed. As his faculties began to focus properly,

everyone around

him--the peasants on the road and in the fields,

the waiters in

the cafes, the warmth of the Tollay clan, the proprietress of the villa where he was staying, the daughter of Mussolini sipping her drink at a restaurant, the wrinkled smile of the shepherd on the hill behind his bedroom--assumed a new significance. Then one day Imre heard the strains of Leoncavallo' s coming from a house he was passing by. of the heroic clown of Dachau. wondered.

Where was he?

.!. Pagliacci

They brought back memories

Whatever happened to Federico, he

It had been only one month ago that he

had helped Imre save Tonus,

and yet all that seemed so far,

far

away, receding with merciful swiftness. Another day he heard the capture of Vienna discussed at a neighboring table,

and he remembered Pepi, already no much more

than a shadow in his memory. The future, that's what concerned Imre and Atilla. of the Magyars,

The future

of the Danube valley, of Europe, of the world.

Whatever was going to happen it couldn't be the repetition of the awesome cycle of hate, revenge, war, must have the land.

retribution.

The peasants

The Danube valley's mUlti-splendored humanity

free from the methodical rapacity of the Germans and from the wholesale plunder of the Russians.

-219-

The writers, poets, students,

the professionals, the people of the country and the citizens of the towns free to pursue their inalienable right to happiness. That is what the Atlantic charter promised. That is what the American president smiled about when he faced the press corps. That is what Churchill was orating about in his finest hour. Imre and Atilla were going to be in the forefront of the building of the new world. tion.

Atilla was devoid of political ambi-

His great love, after Veronka, was the ancient soil of his

clan, which he was eager to get back into production; he was eager to teach the peasants the most up-to-date methods of farming and animal husbandry.

Imre was also filled with fire.

He wanted to

help create the new order, learn Russian and endeavor to establish l

good relations with all.

After a month in serenity and sunshine,

both men were getting restless.

Atilla was anxious to rejoin

Veronka and to arrange for his mother's and father's reunion in Italy.

Imre felt his place was at home.

He became particularly restless during an early summer dawn. He woke up to the strains of what he imagined to be a bagpipe. got up and opened the shutters of his bedroom.

The first rays of

the sun, still hidden below the horizon of the sea, soffused the olive grove and Imre's face. Imre looked down and he did see the bagpiper.

He had the

wrinkled face of a Mediterranean shepherd. Ian! thought Imre, Mami!

The twins!

him homesick.

-220-

Somehow the sight made

Tibor sent a telegram to his son, welcoming him "back, but Imre didn't hear from the rest of the family. A week later, full of hope and expectations, Imre and Atilla were on their way to Naples, bound for Budapest.

to.. -'

, ,

-221-