I didn’t write these words for you who struggled and survived. I wrote these words for those of you who constantly lament that: “Four times as many have returned than was deported!”
Those words are the preface of the book “Es Nem Verik Felre a Harangot” (“And They Don’t Toll the Church Bells”), written by an exceptional Hungarian woman called Rab Erzsebet, a survivor of Auschwitz, about her life and struggles during the Shoah.
Erzsebet (Elizabeth in English) was the wife of the local rabbi in the small Hungarian town of Dombovar, a town of 10,000 inhabitants located south of Lake Balaton in southern Hungary. Dombovar was a typical small village town of mainly Christians and a small minority of about 600 assimilated Jews, reflecting the national ratio of 6% Jews living in Hungary.
The Jews of Dombovar lived together in relative harmony among their gentile neighbors for centuries. The churches of both Catholic and Protestant denominations dominated the town square and main streets with their tall spires, casting a shadow as they looked down at the townsfolk.
Each church spire housed a large bell that, when tolled, could be heard for miles in every direction. And toll the bells did, per Hemingway’s famous line, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls . . . it tolls for thee.”
Every noteworthy event in town would merit that the bells would ring, or “toll,” announcing in their loud urgency the special occasion. Naturally, on Sundays, the church bells clanged eagerly.
Erzsebet and her rabbi husband had a cordial relationship with their gentile neighbors. The rabbi interacted on national holidays with the Catholic and Protestant priests and ministers in an ecumenical spirit. There was a spirit of tolerance in the town.
But in the early 1940s, that spirit gave way to a distancing of the communities from each other as the anti-Semitic wave gripping the nation gained strength. Newspapers began to incite discrimination and called for violence against their Jewish neighbors.
Erzsebet’s book describes the changes in attitude and the growing hostilities. But still, she is surprised and even hurt when her gentile neighbors turn their backs on her and other Jews. When they are being led to the wagons for the transport to Auschwitz, Erzsebet cries out that in every calamity they toll the church bells, warning of impending disaster. But for us, in our time of desperate need, she complains, “They don’t toll the bells!”
Background On Hungarian Jewish Organizations
In 1868, Hungarian Jewry attempted to unify all the congregations under one national umbrella and convened the General Jewish Congress to accomplish this. But rather than unify, the opposite occurred, and the Jewish community experienced a cataclysmic schism, dividing Jews into three distinct religious camps. The Orthodox camp was led by the famous rabbi of Pozsony (Pressburg), the Chasam Sofer, who had been spearheading a vigorous campaign against the rising forces of the Reform movement sweeping through Germany and Austria.
The non-Orthodox opposition to the Chasam Sofer consisted of people advocating an assimilationist agenda that was pretty close to the Orthodox liturgy but enabled Jews to integrate more readily into the gentile, Hungarian society. This movement, called Neolog, was gaining popularity throughout the land.
The Neolog movement attempted to maintain a traditional service, although often conducted in Hungarian, and advocated speaking in Hungarian and obtaining a secular education as well.
Those synagogues that did not want to choose between these two streams remained undecided and refused to join either group. These independent congregations were called “Status Quo.”
The Jewish community in Hungary was fairly evenly divided between the Orthodox and the Neolog. The Dombovar congregation elected to affiliate with the Neolog. Rab Erzsebet’s husband, Dr. Hillel Friedman, a respected Neolog spiritual leader, was the chief rabbi of Dombovar.
By and large, the Jews of Dombovar lived a discreet life among their gentile neighbors, while their spiritual life revolved around the synagogue on the Kakasdomb Hill on Deak Ferenc Street. My mother, Olga Elek, came to Dombovar in 1924 together with her mother and father. They were members of that synagogue. Olga was born in Vegvar, in the Transylvania region of what is today Romania. My grandparents immigrated to Hungary in 1922, shortly after the end of the First World War.
Hungary, a perennial loser, was on the wrong side of every war they ever participated in. The Treaty of Trianon, which set the pace for the dissolution of the losing Austro-Hungarian Empire, cutting off Transylvania and giving it to Romania. Other large sections of Hungary were given to Ukraine, Croatia, and Serbia.
My grandfather, Adolf, a staunchly assimilated Jew was Hungarian, a coveted status among many Jews, and refused to live in Romania. He uprooted his family and settled in Dombovar, a town populated by equally assimilated Jews, where he took a position as the chief bookkeeper in the local bank.
Never one to carry religious practice to excess, Adolf allowed his only child, Olga, to attend the synagogue, to participate in the social events, and sing in the choir on Friday evenings. With few options for girls, Olga was enrolled in the town’s elementary school run by Catholic nuns.
Olga always spoke nostalgically when remembering her pre-war years in Dombovar. She enjoyed going to synagogue, taking parts in plays, and spoke of her friendship with the rebbetzin, Erzsebet.
She also met in the synagogue a young and sophisticated girl from Budapest, Hannah Szenes, who often vacationed there, visiting her cousins, the Sas family. Olga and her parents were great friends of the Sas family, and Olga spent lots of time with them. Hannah was an exceptional girl, bright and educated with far-reaching, deep thoughts, and although 10 years younger than Olga, she was well-respected. Hannah made a deep impression on all those she met.
Several years later, Hannah made Aliyah and was studying agriculture in Nahalal Israel, when the British, in charge of Palestine, came to her with a startling plan. Would she be willing to parachute back into Hungary in a clandestine operation to help save downed British pilots taken captive by the Germans and their Hungarian allies? She agreed, but immediately upon entering Hungary, she was arrested by the Hungarians who turned her over to the Nazis. She was subsequently executed in Budapest.
Hannah, a prolific writer of poetry and prose, wrote often about her pleasant visits with her family in Dombovar, visiting the Neolog synagogue. Both accounts of life in Dombovar, by Olga and Erzsebet, mention Hannah Szenes.
After graduating from high school (gymnaziumin Hungarian), Olga was accepted to the University of Pecs in 1930. Although a budding physician, she was not allowed to study medicine due to the numerus laws enacted in Hungary in 1920. One of the first anti-Jewish laws in Europe, predating the Nuremberg Laws by over ten years, it was designed to limit the amount of Jews accepted to study law or medicine to six percent of the student body, to reflect the percentage of Jews living in Hungary.
So, having no choice, Olga settled for studying education instead. Her college education, however, was interrupted a few years later when her mother took ill and Olga returned home to care for her.
An additional factor influencing her decision was the political climate in the universities reflecting the growing and open anti-Semitism spreading all over Hungary. A student organization called the Turul Society routinely beat Jewish students, including girls. They were protesting the presence of any amount of Jews on campus, finding even the six percent too much.
So, due to these pressures, Olga returned to Dombovar. I learned about life in Dombovar early on from listening to my mother’s many stories. At times, I could recite them myself. The reconstruction of Jewish life in pre-war Dombovar comes from my mother’s stories as well as her testimony contained in the “Shoah Tapes” financed by Steven Spielberg.
I also have read and re-read Rab Erzsebet’s haunting description of the deportation and experiences being shipped to Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Her story, written in beautiful and passionate Hungarian, is one of the most painful accounts I have read about this subject. Hungarian is a rather difficult language; it would be challenging to translate Erzsebet’s story while retaining the pain and passion conveyed in her original words. Olga and her father were deported at the same time, placed into the same wagon as Rab Erzsebet, her husband, Dr. Hillel Friedman, and their two daughters.
Recently, on a fact-finding trip to Hungary, I found this remarkable book reprinted. My mother’s account eerily echoes the descriptions I found in Erzsebet’s book.
Although an ally of Germany, the Hungarian government resisted the demand that they deport their Jews to German camps for “work and resettlement.” Not because Hungary wanted to protect their Jews. Rather, Hungary also had designs on the availability of hundreds of thousands of capable, skilled, and free slave laborers. Additionally, with the war nearing its end and with Germany retreating and losing the effort at aggression, Hungary was afraid of international repercussions for complying with Hitler’s evil designs.
But on March 29, 1944, Hitler toppled the government and installed a new government consisting of forces of the Arrow Cross, a group of virulent anti-Semitic thugs who had already been executing Jews around the country. This new government was eager to do Hitler’s bidding and to assist in the deportation and liquidation of the Hungarian Jews.
Col. Adolf Eichmann was in charge of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” and was sent into Hungary. Commanding about 150 skilled and experienced troops, Eichmann, in close collaboration with the Hungarian government and the Gendarmerie, herded the Jews living outside of Budapest into small collection depots or ghettos located near towns and villages. All such collection centers were located in dilapidated, abandoned buildings near the railroad tracks. Olga and her father, Adolf, along with about 600 Jews from Dombovar, were ordered into a small group of buildings, situated near the synagogue, designated as the Dombovar Ghetto. When chased out of their homes, they were forbidden to take with them anything but the barest of necessities.
Without shame, Hungarian families came and, in plain sight of the Jews being kicked out, began to loot the leftover property. Many neighbors moved to immediately occupy the abandoned homes of the Jews. There is an excellent and poignant film called 1945 that deals with this subject. It’s worth seeing. Look for my column in the following weeks, as I will continue with this story.
Dr. Alex Sternberg authored the forthcoming book “Recipes from Auschwitz – My Parents’ Story of the Murder of Hungarian Jewry.” He is a lifelong student of Jewish history, focusing on the development of Zionism and the Holocaust. He is presently teaching graduate studies and is active in several pro-Israel organizations. He is a retired research doctor in children’s pulmonary health and a master karate instructor.
