Tag Archives: holocaust

Stumbling on a history of tragedies in Budapest

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The German artist Gunter Demnig was born two years after the last year of WW2. He is best known for his Stolperstein project, which he started in 1992. A Stolperstein (plural: Stolpersteine, which means ‘a stumbling block’, is a 4-inch concrete cube topped with a brass plate. The metal plate is inscribed with the name and other biographical details of a person, who was murdered by the Nazis. The Stolpersteine are embedded in the pavement outside the last place that they chose freely to reside, work or study, before they were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. Most of these memorials, upon which passersby will step, commemorate Jewish victims, but others have been placed, as Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein)  noted, to remember victims including:

“Sinti and Romani people, Poles, homosexuals, the physically or mentally disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, black people, members of the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the anti-Nazi Resistance, the Christian opposition (both Protestants and Catholics), and Freemasons, Spanish Republicans along with International Brigades soldiers in the Spanish Civil War, military deserters, conscientious objectors, escape helpers, capitulators, ‘habitual criminals’, looters, and others charged with treason, military disobedience, or undermining the Nazi military, as well as Allied soldiers.”

During a recent visit to northern Italy and Budapest in Hungary, we spotted several Stolpersteine. Amongst those were a group on the pavement of Budapest’s Andrassy Utca. They were in a row outside the front of the city’s beautiful Hungarian State Opera House, which was designed by Miklos Ybl, and opened in 1875.

It was just before 7 pm when I spotted the memorials. Elegantly dressed operagoers were swarming across the memorial studded pavement to the front steps of the opera house, where a performance was about to begin. I photographed several of the Stolpersteine, and was dismayed to discover who was being commemorated on them. Here is a list of some of the victims whose memorials I photographed:

  • Emil Kallai worked here [in the Opera House]. Violinist. Born 1893. Died November 1944 in a Roma death march at Sopron.
  • Frigyes Gyorgy Keleti worked here. Bassoon player. Born 1912. Died 1944 as a slave labourer.
  • Roza Kohlberg worked here. Opera singer. Deported to Theresienstadt 1942. Killed at Auschwitz 17 May 1944.
  • Leo Jotischky worked here. Viola player. Born 1905. Killed as a slave labourer at Gunskirchen 22 April 1944.
  • Pal Hütter worked here. Cellist. Born 1907. Deported 1943. Killed at Bor labour

camp [in Serbia]

And the other Stolpersteiner placed in front of the opera house record similar tragic stories.

I suspect that all those people commemorated in front of the opera house had at many occasions played music by the great German composers such as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Weber, and so on. Many of them must have admired the Germans for their undoubtedly invaluable contributions to the richness of European culture. I wonder what went through their minds when suddenly they were faced with the brutality and cruelties inspired by Nazi Germany. How could members of a nation that produced highly regarded cultural figures such as composers, philosophers, and writers have lowered their standards to have been able to commit the atrocities that characterised the Nazi era?

I cannot neither answer this question nor begin to guess what these people who had worked in the opera house thought when they were forcibly deported from Budapest, but I can relate a story about a friend who miraculously survived the Holocaust.

‘K’ was born in Poland of Jewish parents. Although he spoke Polish, his family spoke to each other and their social circle in German. For they regarded German as the language of high ‘culture’. In 1939, young K was separated from his parents, whom he never saw again. From that date until the end of WW2, he lived in concentration camps including Auschwitz. Somehow, he survived. After the war, a Jewish organisation moved him to London, where he completed his education, and later became one of my father’s academic colleagues at the London School of Economics. He and his wife married in the garden of our family home.

I met K often. The numbers tattooed in blue on his forearm fascinated me. The sevens in his tattoo were of the European variety with a horizontal line through the vertical arm of the numeral. When I used to visit K and his wife for dinner, I saw that K could not bear to see food thrown away, so great was his memory of hunger in the camps. Although he never discussed it with me, K must have had a horrendous time in the camps. Yet, despite this, I had the strong impression that even after all he had been through including losing his parents, he never stopped admiring German culture. And he enjoyed speaking German.

Returning to those commemorated outside Budapest’s opera house, another question entered my mind. I had read that at some of the Nazi concentration camps, inmates with musical talent were ordered to play in the camp’s orchestra, both for their captors and as the prisoners marched past them on their way to forced labour projects. I wondered how many of those remembered outside the opera house were forced to join these orchestras.

There are Stolpersteine outside many buildings in Budapest. Each one records a human tragedy, the result of fellow man’s inhumanity and the insane ideas of an Austrian who became Chancellor of Germany in 1932.

Since 1914, Budapest has witnessed many horrendous events including: WW1, the Commumist regime of Bela Kun and its aftermath, WW2 and the invasion by Germany, purges during the early years of the post-war Communist regime, and the 1956 Uprising with its brutal suppression. Although much of the city has been tidied up, it is not hard to discover – particularly in Pest – the scars of its recent turbulent history including buildings whose walls are still damaged after having been hit by ammunition fired by both Hungarians and Russians during the 1956 Uprising.

I have visited many cities with dramatic histories, but in Budapest I felt the ghosts of its recent past were ever present. I felt very much in touch with history. However, since my first visits to Budapest in the early 1980s – and especially after 1991 – the city has regained the vibrancy it must have had prior to WW2, and it is a joy to be there.  

 

 

A man from Bohemia remembered in a church in Cornwall

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QUETHIOCK IS A tiny village in Cornwall. It has a church, St Hugh, that contains many interesting features.

One small thing that fascinated me was a small brass plate attached to a wooden table. It commemorates Dr Erich Schneider of Aussig (Usti na Labem) in Bohemia, who was born in 1889, and perished in the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. His wife, Marketa, was interned in the Terezin concentration camp, but survived. She moved to England after WW2. The Schneiders had a son, Johann, who was born in 1921. He was educated in England. At school or college, he became friendly with Reverend Lintell’s children, and spent holidays with them in Quethiock. Later, Johann became an economist at the Treasury, and between 1987 and 2005, he was an assistant pastor at St Anne’s Lutheran Church in London.

It was a great surprise finding this memorial to a victim of the Holocaust in sucharemotepart of Cornwall.

Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad

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I have just finished “Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad” by Daniel Finkelstein.

Based on the true story of his parents and other family members, this is a page-turner. His mother’s family, German Jews, were caught up in Hitler’s genocidal activities. His father’s family were sucked into Stalin’s notorious Gulag system. Many members of the author’s family lost their lives during WW2. However, some of them survived. Finkelstein guides the reader effortlessly through the history of this horrific period of Europe’s history. Meticulously researched, this is an engaging read and very fascinating.

I can strongly recommend this book.

A good film about the Holocaust in Poland

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Set in about 1991, this recently made (2024) film, “Treasure”, is about a Ho;ocaust survivor, played by Stephen Fry, returning to visit Poland to re-visit where he was born and. then later interned (in Auschwitz). He travels with his 36 year old daughter, played by Lena Dunham. In brief, this film covers many aspects of the annihilation of Jews in Poland in a profound way, but with a delicate touch. The portrayal of a visit to the remains of the concentration camp at Auschwitz was handled beautifully – deeply moving but intelligently handled.

Stephen Fry is excellent in the film. His Polish/English accent reminded me of that of a Holocaust survivor, K, whom I knew well. Although I never knew what K was thinking deep down inside him, some of his behavioural aspects were portrayed well by Fry. The character played by Fry adapts well to his return to the town where he was born and the camp where he last saw his parents. The survivor played by Fry brought back many memories of my friend K.

The other actors in the film were very good, but Fry’s performance was outstanding.

A few months ago, I watched another Holocaust themed film, “Zone of Interest”, which in many ways failed to impress me. “Treasure”, on the other hand, is very good both in what it covers and how it achieves that.

Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard

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Wyndhams Theatre, London

I HAVE WATCHED AND GREATLY enjoyed many plays by Tom Stoppard. So, it was with high expectations and great excitement that I booked good tickets for his latest play, “Leopoldstadt”, which is about a tragic period during Austria’s history, a time that interests me greatly. The play follows the history of a Jewish family living in Vienna between the late 19th century and about 1955. Like many Jewish families living in Germany and Austria, they were determined to appear increaslingly less Jewish and ever more like their gentile neighbours, a process known as ‘assimilation’. As Amos Elon demonstrates in his wonderful book, “The Pity of it All”, the more assimilated the Jewish people became, the less they were tolerated by their mostly anti-Semitic neighbours. Stoppard’s play attempts to portray this sad state of affairs in “Leopoldstadt”. His play was more like a history lesson than a compelling work of drama.

“Leopoldstadt” was being performed in London’s magnificent Wyndhams Theatre. Frankly, although there were a few wonderful scenes in the play, I was mostly disappointed. Although it was clearly a heartfelt and moving exploration of part of his family’s history, Stoppard has written far better and subtler plays in the past.

Where there is smoke, there is fire

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I WAS EATING CHEDDAR cheese at tea time at my best friend’s house when his mother announced:

“We don’t like Jews, but you’re different, Adam”

I was less than ten years old at the time, but I can still picture the room in which this was said. I do not remember that I  told my parents about what my best friend’s mum had told me, but I remember it almost sixty years later.  Knowing how she felt about Jewish people did not spoil my friendship with, ‘R’, her son.

BLOG JUICE

When I  was thirteen, I  entered Highgate School,  which I  had chosen because ‘R’ was going to be there. At that time, I still regarded ‘R’ as one of my best friends. However, he did something that made me move away from him. One day he was with a group of other boys when in front of them he directed an anti-Semitic remark at me. Although that did not make me hate him, it marked the end of our long friendship.

I had other friends during my schooldays, who were half Jewish. One of their parents was Jewish. They preferred to forget that fifty percent of their heritage. Such amnesia would not have saved them had the rules formulated at the  Wannsee Conference been applied to them.

During the 1970s, I worked on my PhD topic in a laboratory at UCL. During the second year of this, a new PhD student, ‘J’, commenced working on her PhD project. ‘J’, like the others, in the lab seemed very pleasant until one day when she asked me to lend her a pencil.

At this point, you need to know that there was a shortage of pencils in our lab. I have no idea why this was the case. So, when I handed my pencil to ‘J’, I said:

“Please return it.”

To which ‘J’ snapped:

“Don’t be so Jewish, Adam”

I knew that J was most probably unaware that I am of that faith, but what she said upset me. My PhD supervisor’s wife heard what ‘J’ had said, and quickly told her:

“That was not a nice thing to say.”

I was pleased because I  was somewhat lost for words.

A few months later, everyone in the lab was invited by my supervisor to attend the large formal Annual Dinner of the Physiological Society. I sat next to my supervisor’s wife and across the table from ‘J’.

When the main course arrived, there were green peas on the plates. I detest this vegetable. ‘J’ noticed me separating the peas from the rest of my food and said:

“When we invite you round for dinner, I must remember not to serve you pork or peas.”

Remembering the pencil incident, I told her immediately:

“If you ever invite me to dinner, I shall refuse without hesitation.”

My supervisor’s wife turned to me and murmured:

“Well said.”

J’s face turned deep red, tears began running down her cheeks, she stood up, and left the room.

‘J’ abandoned her PhD a few weeks later.

Although I am regarded as being religiously unobservant by most Jewish people who know me, casual prejudice against Jews, or anyone else for that matter, does make me anxious. Prejudice, even if expressed casually, is potentially dangerous. Always remember: where there is smoke, there is usually fire.