My oldest brother, Gyuri (left), my American sister-in-law, Marion, my other brother, Imi's wife, and me. This is Salzburg. There is a castle up there on the hillside, and you can see it from here. We were here in 1977.
Once I met Imre and his family in Austria. My oldest brother was there, also. I think, at some lakeside. We were at the Salzkammergut lakes. My older brother, Imi, his wife, Marion and my oldest brother George and his wife, Rozsika, all of us, the whole family had summer vacation there. I and my wife went by Trabant, I’ll never forget it. They got into the Trabant, I say, let’s go two lakes over. Well, they’d never been in a Trabant in their lives. They didn’t laugh at us. It was probably strange for them, but they never said a word that wasn’t said in a tone of love. It was a huge thing to go over the border to Austria then. People today couldn’t even imagine what the closed borders during Communism were like, what it meant to go to a free country. That was something! I parked the Trabant somewhere on the street in Salzburg and my wife and I went walking to look around. I come back, and they’re standing around the car, the young people. I said to the kids, ’Schon! Auto von Papier! [German: Pretty. A paper car.] They started laughing. It was good, I had no problems. I thought it was funny, too.
I know less about my oldest brother, because as a child six years is a big difference. Gyuri only finished his Civils [Civil School] 3. I do know that my oldest brother courted his wife from the time he was eighteen years old. Rozsika, who he loved to the day he died. I mean, so much that they even held hands in the street when they were already old. They have one daughter, Evike [from Eva] who is sixty-five years old today and retired, she was born in 1939. She’s got such heart, both my brother and his wife are Jewish but they raised their daughter as a Christian. My brother Gyuri was an especially big photographer. He made slides, and has a lot of video.
During the war [Second World War], the family was in the ghetto [Plight of Budapest Jews] 4. Gyuri was in work service [Forced Labor] 5. Then later, in 1942, he went into hiding. I also know that there was a confectionery shop on the Korter [Moricz Zsigmond Square] whose boss was a Christian, they hid him. In the ghetto, I don’t know how, but he worked as a doctor. [sic - Obviously, as a medic or nurse along with the doctor]. His wife was there with my own dear mother, together. First my mother got into a star house [Yellow Star House] 6 on 2 Suto Street. From 2 Suto Street, she went to the ghetto and my brother’s daughter was with her until the liberation.
My oldest brother, Gyuri found a position after the war here at home as a civil servant. In those days, in 1945 it was enough if somebody could write and count. I know that he was a civil servant for the Csemege Nagykereskedelmi Vallalat [Delicacy Wholesale Enterprise] among others. Then he worked as a clerk in some factory. Gyuri was a ‘grey soldier’ here in Hungary. He worked here, worked there, he had a really good wife, and they have a daughter, who’s already retired. She’s my last living relative, because I haven’t got any children or other relatives. We didn’t have children, nobody. She’s the only one, who calls every two days.
Gyuri died in the hospital, in the Robert Karoly Ringroad Hospital. I went in to see him every Sunday, and told him how great it will be, we can go to Sopron in the summer on doctor’s orders. We went there for eight years straight, I always got convalescent leave. The next Sunday I went in, and the bed was empty. If we’re going out on Vaci Road toward Ujpest, he’s buried there in Angyalfold. Properly in an urn, cremated.
