Four Scraps of Bread (7 page)

I let the present moment receive me.

Each presence gives me a unique moment.

Its beauty soothes me. Then I can hear what You do not say.

Joy in living is heaven on earth.

M
Y
F
EARS

My unacknowledged, unconscious fears have simply stoked the flames of violence in me. Fear is a dangerous refuge. If I let my fears overwhelm me, I lose my way. But could I ever lose myself, since all paths lead inside where the Breath of Life lives?

Let us not be afraid. Let us dare to show and let us give, in our own way, our beauty to the world.

We aspire to freedom, but fear does not let us rest.

Are we not as scared to live as we are to die? Through fear I do not dare to dare!

When fear possesses me, I become Fear, deprived of all expression and all spontaneity, of my passion for life, of my plans. Surrounded by fear, I no longer exist. It empowers death over me and immobilizes my conscience: I empower all dictators. If I only seek the meaning of life for myself alone, then I am scared.

Our feeling of inability, overwhelmed by exaggerated demands, scares us and paralyzes us. Fear drives us to raise the bar ever higher, and then we find ourselves facing an ideal that we are unable to achieve. The feeling of worthlessness and inferiority drives us to compensate, just like “the frog who would be as big as an ox”—and puffs himself up until he bursts.

If I acknowledge my fear and I manage to identify it, a new strength is unleashed in me which allows me to take a stand against it once more. For a long time I held out, for fear of uncovering the truth. In the camps, accepting death made me feel detached, soothed, at peace, which allowed me to survive in the midst of shadows as if I were immortal, and to live each minute as if it were the last.

I give You thanks for the harvest of all that I have gone through.

You help me to knead my daily bread.

For each crumb, my heart praises You.

M
Y
F
AMILY

My family—my husband, our four children, and the ten grandchildren whom we have today—is for me the first circle of society. The family can be a place of welcome, of grounding, of learning about life, a source of endless creation and re-creation.

It is within the universe of the family that a love of life or of violence is passed on. The family is a landmark. It is the beginning of our children's journey toward responsibility and life. I am convinced that peace in the world depends on harmony in the family.

A midrashic commentary tells why the Almighty never perfected His creation: “It is so that each human being can make it perfect.”

When it is through love, the impossible becomes real.

L
OVE

I have no words to speak about love, whether with a small “l” or a big “L.”

I shall remain an ardent apprentice until the end of my days.

Night, day plunged into mourning on the lips of time
.

Light, day revealed, dawn of creation
.

I am not done exploring the night, emptying its heaviness to lead it to the beginning of the word
.

Long road to deliverance
.

Passing from death to life
.

To die is not to disappear, it is to be born again to oneself
.

I would like to die in a state of joy
.

Life on earth has tested me. It has also given me much. I have been fed by so much warmth, so many smiles, looks, faces, that I feel sated. I have so many thanks to give that the whole sky could not contain them
.

I would like to depart, loving
.

H
ISTORICAL
N
OTE

Nathalie Caillibot and Régis Cadiet,

teachers of literature and humanities in Rennes

This summary, included in the original text, was the outcome of many hours of discussion with Magda Hollander-Lafon and historical research at the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation at the Holocaust Memorial in Paris. This activity was preceded by an educational project which led to a school trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the company of Magda and by the production of a film co-financed by the City of Rennes
.

Magda Hollander-Lafon's story is set against the backdrop of the Final Solution, a small story of one individual in a much bigger story: that of the Holocaust, and of the Holocaust in Hungary, which, like the story of Hungarian Jews in general, is unique and paradoxical. Indeed, whereas Jews in Nazi Europe were systematically subjected to the program of extermination, in Hungary they were more or less spared until March 1944. That does not deny the existence of a strong feeling of anti-Semitism among the Hungarian population, which was echoed in the taking up of explicitly anti-Jewish
political positions. In fact, following the territorial decisions imposed by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920, which redrew Hungary's borders, the Jewish community had ceased to be just one minority among others and had become the visible minority. Hungary's racial laws were adopted between 1938 and 1941. Modeled on those of Nuremberg, they were stricter still, and in particular extended the status of Jew to 100,000 converts to Christianity, taking the number of people officially belonging to this community to 825,000.

Magda was born on June 15, 1927, in Záhony, a small village on the border between Hungary and Slovakia. Her parents, Adolf Hollander and Esther Klein, were not practicing. They considered themselves assimilated and Hungarian. Her maternal grandparents, however, were more orthodox. Like the majority of Jews in the area, who were merchants, laborers, or artisans, her grandfather Samuel Klein was the manager of a modest shoe factory in Zsurk, less than three miles from Záhony. The Kleins would get together on Saturdays, which is how Magda got to know some Jewish traditions.

Her sister, Irene, was born in 1932. Two years later, the Hollanders moved to Nyíregyháza, to be closer to the town of Debrecen to allow the two girls to study.

Things changed dramatically when Adolf Hitler invaded Hungary on March 19, 1944. By that point in the war the Nazi army was essentially in a defensive posture, although its leaders still believed in victory. Hitler knew that landings in the west were being prepared, but he thought they could be repelled. His forces
were therefore concentrated in the east to counter the Soviet advance. Military occupation of Hungary was motivated not just by the desire to complete the Final Solution; another aim was to keep the country firmly tied to the Axis powers, and to ensure its military support. Moreover, this would allow the country's industrial and agricultural assets to be commandeered. Finally, the deported Jewish population would provide a major source of labor at a time when the Reich was beginning to face a serious shortage.

On March 22, the prince regent of Hungary, Miklós Horthy, named Döme Sztójay as prime minister in the belief that he could negotiate the fate of the country and of the Jews, since he was not particularly known for anti-Semitism. Horthy explained to the new government that the “Jewish question” was for them alone to decide. Neutral in appearance, Sztójay knew perfectly well what the Nazis wanted to do, and was determined to collaborate. He appointed two confirmed anti-Semites to key posts in the Ministry of Interior and made them responsible for resolving “Jewish matters”: László Endre took on administrative and legislative questions, and László Baky took on the political aspects. They developed the overall plan, working closely with Adolf Eichmann's team, which contained some of the most confirmed SS officers: Dieter Wisliceny, who had directed the deportation of Slovakian and Greek Jews, and Theodor Dannecker, who had directed the deportation of French, Bulgarian, and Italian Jews. These were true experts, and they planned in minute detail each step in the process: establishing central and local Jewish councils, isolation, expropriation, placing
in ghettoes, rounding up, and the departure of convoys toward extermination.

In no other country was the Final Solution carried out with such conscious inhumanity and speed. It should also be pointed out that the political decision makers had at their disposal all the tools of the state—police and security forces—without which the deportation en masse of 437,403 Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau between May 15 and July 9, 1944, would not have been possible.

Once the decisions were made, local police began their raids, starting with the region where the Hollanders lived. This region was the closest to the Polish border and to the advancing Red Army troops. Starting on April 16, Jews from sixty villages near Nyíregyháza were arrested and taken to houses identified as belonging to members of the Jewish community, which constituted the town's ghetto. On April 27, it was the turn of the Jewish inhabitants of Nyíregyháza. Esther, Magda, and Irene were betrayed by neighbors, which was a common practice; the Gestapo and the Hungarian police registered more than thirty-five thousand such reports. Magda's father, Adolf, was not there when they were arrested. (Magda later learned that he had died in the ghetto “hospital” before his deportation.) Before they left, Magda saw neighborhood residents hurry into her family's home to get their hands on what the Hollanders had had to leave behind.

Between fifteen thousand and seventeen thousand Jews remained concentrated in a few homes for about ten days—a very visible enclave right in the center of
town, under police guard. There might have been twelve to fourteen people per room. They were then rounded up in other places, which they walked to while carrying their bags and being abused. Magda and her mother and sister were penned in Harangod-Birke, a locality with three large hay barns. Families would sleep on the ground. The police continued to search them so that they could steal from them.

After a few days, the Jews set off once more for Nagykálló station, about 9 miles away. Weakened by hunger and ill treatment, they were forced into cattle wagons big enough for forty-five to fifty people but which ninety, one hundred, or even more had to get into. The police repeated as they pushed them, “Don't worry, you are going to work.” And they believed it. The journey in darkness lasted three days. There was a bucket that served as a latrine, a water can, and a little food for some of them. The process of extermination had already begun.

Starting in spring 1944, anticipating the arrival of between twelve thousand and fourteen thousand Hungarian Jews each day, the commandant of the Birkenau camp had had the railroad extended up to 200 yards from the crematorium and quadrupled the number of special commandoes for the gas chambers. At the end of May 1944, Magda's convoy arrived at the so-called Hungarian unloading ramp in the bitter cold of a dark, early morning. Some deportees were assigned to organize the arrivals. They knew what was going on. Risking his life, one of these prisoners passed between the
rows several times and Magda heard him murmuring without moving his lips: “You are eighteen years old, you are eighteen years old …”

First, the adults were separated into two rows, the men in one and the women in the other. According to their gender, the children remained with one of their parents, to avoid any attempts at resistance, and to ensure as much calm as possible. Then the selection proper would begin: those who would go into the camp sent to the right, and those who would be gassed immediately sent to the left. Joseph Mengele
¹¹
participated in the selection process for Magda's convoy. When he asked her age, she replied, “Eighteen years old.” He pointed to the right with his cane. Esther and Irene went to the left.

Those who were “fit for work” were taken to the “sauna.” On the way in there was a round tray on which the women had to put whatever they still had in their possession. In it Magda placed photos of her family. The women were pushed into a room. They were shaved with brutal handling and blunt tools. In the following room was the shower, where a few drops of water, now icy, now scalding, would fall, with no soap or washcloth to get rid of the dirt, the sweat, and the smell of the wagons. Then finally disinfection by puffs of burning, irritating white powder.

A beige smock, more or less in the right size, was then thrown at the still wet prisoners. By the time they left this building the process of dehumanization had begun. Another step should have been getting a tattoo. But like some other Hungarians, Magda was not tattooed,
perhaps because they were destined to be gassed quickly, or perhaps to be sent as laborers to other camps.

The female prisoners ended up in a group of barracks known as “quarantine.” Completely lost, yet sure they were in a work camp, they wondered where their loved ones were, and questioned the
Blockälteste
.
¹²
The woman pointed toward the chimneys above the ovens. “Look over there.” Magda saw the smoke and flames but did not understand. “Look, your mother and your sister are already in there …”

In quarantine, Magda learned the rules that governed the deadly logic of the concentration camp: hunger, violence by the commandants, thefts, endless roll calls in the sun by rows of five, and the exhausted bodies collapsing. After a couple of weeks Magda was transferred to Lager BIIc, known as the “Hungarian women's camp.” Almost a thousand deportees were crammed into these blocks. At night between six and ten bodies had to find room on each bed frame.

During the day they had to work. Magda had to join several work groups: she broke rocks, was ordered to pick up dead bodies from around the barracks, and she carted human ashes—a job normally reserved for men. When about forty women were up for selection Magda was assigned to Crematorium IV, where she had to shovel ashes into a cart, which she then pushed to a nearby lake. It was necessary to go into the water in order to tip out the contents. Several times Magda thought she would drown. From the lake she saw Ditch V, where bodies were burning. The smoke was thick
and the smell unbearable. Magda witnessed the worst horrors; like the
Sonderkommandos
,
¹³
she was never meant to survive.