I'm sharing Zvi's story but it's not "his story." It's his story through my eyes. And my eyes have seen complicated, painful, happy and weird situations. Ups and downs and what is yet to come, I'm yet to see revealed.
I'm sharing the story with the details I feel comfortable sharing, and when I'm done I'm getting a big hug; there are those who sympathize, and those who tell a similar but different story. I'm happy I shared.
On the way to Hungary, I search the map and find the location of my grandmother's home town - Nyiregyhaza. Two hours drive away from Budapest. In a dazzling speed I reveal the details, the history, the story behind the events but what about the people? I will not visit Nyiregyhaza this time. There is no time. It's not that someone waits for me there. No one waits for me there.
My great-grandma Sara Bruier and great-grandfather Menachem Goldberger had nine children. They themselves and four of their kids, including my grandma Erica, came to Israel (Palestine) following Herzl and the Zionist dream before the Holocaust. First the parents with their son Binyamin and then during the following years my grandma Erica, her sisters Luiri (Dvora) and Erinca (Rivka) followed them.
The fate of the other five children is well known. Five children were murdered. I know the names of two of them: my grandma's sister, Gittel Goldberger Goldstein was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. My grandma's brother, Dr. Chaim Goldberger was murdered after returning from Israel back to Europe in search of lost family members. Chaim was an educator, head of a school in Israel, who went back to the horror to try and save his family and he was lost without a trace.
And what was the fate of Nyiregyhaza Jews? In 1930, there were 5,134 Jews living in the small town, making up about 10% of the general population. They were traders, tradesman, craftsman or other professions.
When World War Two broke out, Jewish refugees escaping from Poland and Slovakia came to the town of Nyiregyhaza and the local Jews supported them. The situation got worse in 1942, when men began to be taken to work for the Hungarian army. In April 1944, the Nazi SS soldiers arrived in Nyiregyhaza, gathered all Jews and forced them to move to the Ghetto. This Ghetto was made up of 23 houses, inside of which 11,000 people tried to survive in inhuman conditions. No plumbing, no running water.
In May 1944, the Nazis moved the Ghetto to local farms, where many people did not even have a roof over their heads. If all of that was not enough, a Typhoid epidemic then erupted and took the lives of many.
From this point, from May to June 1944, all the Jewish people from Nyiregyhaza were sent in four transfers to Auschwitz, 11,000 people in 4 one-way transfers.
Miraculously, 1000 survivors came back from the hell of Auschwitz. In 1946 surprisingly we found 1,210 Jews in Nyiregyhaza, but 25 years later only 180 stayed. If you survived the horror of Auschwitz and returned home, you probably understood that you don't have anything to return to, and you start to wander again.
This is what was most painful for me in Mikolov.
In Mikolov, where we visited on our journey, there once lived a flourishing Jewish community, one of most important and influential in Jewish history. Jews were one 50% of the general population!
When our guide told us their story she first used the term "disappeared״ - "when the Jews disappeared." I was mad! They did not disappear; they were murdered!
She continued, and said that 20 survivors returned to Mikolov but did not stay for long. I was furious. "They did not stay."
Similar to Nyiregyhaza, the survivors, beaten and bruised, against all odds, a remnant of their former strength they returned home - returned only to find out that their neighbors were living in their houses - those who murdered (even if not directly, but also by not protecting, hiding or uprising) they are also the ones who inherit.
And to see a town like Mikolov empty of Jews: it hurts, it burns, it make me mad. And the fact that the guide knew enough to exactly say that in Mikolov today, there are only "two half-Jews" living was no less troubling to me. I would feel more comfortable if she would say she had no idea how many Jews are living there - just because she doesn't know who is Jewish and who is not...
-Yael Vatury
This is what was most painful for me in Mikolov.
In Mikolov, where we visited on our journey, there once lived a flourishing Jewish community, one of most important and influential in Jewish history. Jews were one 50% of the general population!
When our guide told us their story she first used the term "disappeared״ - "when the Jews disappeared." I was mad! They did not disappear; they were murdered!
She continued, and said that 20 survivors returned to Mikolov but did not stay for long. I was furious. "They did not stay."
Similar to Nyiregyhaza, the survivors, beaten and bruised, against all odds, a remnant of their former strength they returned home - returned only to find out that their neighbors were living in their houses - those who murdered (even if not directly, but also by not protecting, hiding or uprising) they are also the ones who inherit.
And to see a town like Mikolov empty of Jews: it hurts, it burns, it make me mad. And the fact that the guide knew enough to exactly say that in Mikolov today, there are only "two half-Jews" living was no less troubling to me. I would feel more comfortable if she would say she had no idea how many Jews are living there - just because she doesn't know who is Jewish and who is not...
-Yael Vatury
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