In Slovakia we heard of this person and that person who “went to Auschwitz” and didn’t return. I was perplexed because some of us in the family had thought our family was Jewish. They are not and probably never were–at least not in Debrod. It’s only been a village for 760+ years! All the family are Catholic, were born Catholic, married as Catholics, and died as Catholics. No Jews in 760 years. (A family name is Szeman–and some pronounce it as Seaman or Sieman. Sieman is a German Jewish name but it isn’t our name.)
Well, there I was quite confused. Why did the Nazi’s kill the people of Debrod? Well, did you ever consider who worked in those camps? I didn’t. As the killing got worse, the Nazi’s “employed” the people of Debrod, and apparently elsewhere in Hungary, to do their dirty work. Hungarians were obviously stupid because no one could understand them and they couldn’t understand the Germans; so, give them the awful work! Besides, they needed the strong smart Germans to fight and to produce more little Nazi’s.
So, what happened when one of the Hungarian “employees” was injured or sick? Off to the showers and ovens. After the war, some did return but, as I understand, they were sort of crazy. I can’t say that I would have fared any better.
Well, that’s what we heard in Debrod. Today, in the cemetery in Balf (Sopron county, near Nemesladony), we saw these very large tombstone type things, maybe a dozen, set all askew. We were told that it was a memorial to the Holocaust. Some of the large stones, which looked like very large grave markers, had names on them of Hungarian writers killed in the Holocaust. Another memorial carved in several languages told us a bit more; this was a national memorial dedicated to these writers. There were stones on the top the memorial sort of like the ones at the end of SCHINDLER’S LIST.
I mentioned to one of the gentlemen with us the story about the folks from Debrod going to Auschwitz and he said that Hungarians from all over went there. That confirmed something my mom had said long ago: Hitler killed a lot of Hungarian Catholics, not just Jews. Now I am beginning to understand.
This trip has been so revealing, not just because it’s about my family, but because it has also been about pieces of history that most of us just don’t hear. Yes, I did know about the 1956 revolution and I read THE BRIDGE AT ANDAU to prepare for this trip. But the Terror House in Budapest put a face on it all–not just the refugees we knew. I knew a little about the Nazi’s and how they operated–and I like others have learned about Gyorgy Schwartz, AKA George Soros, and his involvement. (Soros is an actual last name of families in the Nemesladony-Balf area. Is he pulling our leg by telling us that he was Gyorgy Schwarts?) I would like to say, “Never again!” but there was Uncle Joe Stalin, Chairman Mao, good old Fidel, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Sadam Hussein, Moamar Khadafi, and now, Bashir Assad. Will it ever end? Of course not! It will just wear a different name.
cybersyster 