HOMEFRONT ESCAPE FROM HUNGARY A new photography exhibition at IWM London has brought together 50 contemporary portraits of Holocaust survivors and their families. The aim of Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors is to shine a light on their full lives and our collective responsibility to ensure their stories live on. One of the portraits is of John Hajdu, a Hungarian from Budapest who experienced the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Hungary. Born in 1937 to a middle-class Jewish family, Hajdu survived the Budapest Ghetto before he escaped to Britain in 1956 following the Hungarian Revolution. He recalls being separated from his parents, the appalling conditions of the ghetto and how he finally escaped from Hungary. HOLOCAUST IN BUDAPEST What are your earliest memories of WWII? They are vague but I remember my father being taken to a labour camp in 1943. Labourers were made to undertake very heavy labour and some died. They didn’t 70 have enough food so my mother and I were ‘allowed’ to visit my father. We could only drop off the food, say goodbye and leave. What happened when the Nazis occupied Hungary in March 1944? It was an incredible shift and they ordered all Jews to wear a yellow star. This resulted in constant abuse from a group of anti-Semitic youth who were members of the far-right Arrow Cross party. They were more Nazi than the German Nazis – Hungarians were much worse than the Germans in many ways. I was dimly aware that something wasn’t right. I was seven years old but I kind of got used to wearing the yellow star even knowing that it was discriminatory. How were you separated from your mother? It was terrifying. Adolf Eichmann stationed himself in Budapest and ordered the confiscation of Jewish properties. A mass roundup started in October 1944 with the Arrow Cross searching each flat and herding Jewish women and children into the courtyard Above: A German soldier stands guard as Jews are rounded up in Budapest, late 1944. Approximately 568,000 Hungarian Jews were killed during the Holocaust of each block. They gave them just a few minutes to say goodbye. This happened to us on 13 October 1944. My mother was taken away but my maternal aunt grabbed me and rushed across the corridor to a non-Jewish friend’s flat. She begged him to hide us in a cupboard. If we had been discovered, we would have all been shot. Luckily, he hid us and that saved our lives. We had to move into the ghetto after that. What were conditions like in the ghetto? The ghetto was a huge, restricted, walled area and around 20 of us lived in each flat in unbelievable conditions. We survived on very little food – I think we had some horse meat, dripping and bread. Water was brought up in buckets and there was no medicine. If you became ill it was unfortunate and if you died it was bad luck. There were no cleaning materials, no rubbish was collected and there were dead bodies all over the pavement. Below, left to right: John Hajdu pictured with his teddy bear and IWM portrait at the launch of Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors, 4 August 2021 Demonstrators on top of a tank in front of the parliament building in Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution John Hajdu’s only surviving toy from childhood was this small teddy bear. He managed to keep it through the Budapest Ghetto, Hungarian Revolution and escape to Britain How was life in Budapest under Soviet rule? Everything was controlled by the Communist Party, including the press and radio. There were spies everywhere and we were forced to learn Russian at school. If you said anything against the government, you could be disappeared and never seen again. The irony is that there is a building in central Budapest that was used by the Nazis to torture people. It was used by the Soviets for the same reason. I tried to live as ‘normally’ as I could but life was very hard because you had to survive on very basic food. We had no fridges or washing machines so it was a different way of living. I also wasn’t allowed to go to university because I was middle-class and Jewish. I didn’t have a choice but to go to a railway technical college. I graduated in 1955 and had the most menial, mind-numbing job on the railways checking the safety of rails along the track. This kind of life couldn’t go on, people were fed up and that became obvious when Hungarian students said, ‘Enough is enough.’ We were under a Soviet regime and they were going to rise up and free Hungary. What are your memories of the Hungarian Revolution in October 1956? We lived in a small flat close to Parliament Square. There were constant bombardments and we slept in the bathroom because we were afraid. On 25 October, thousands of people went to Parliament Square to demonstrate but they didn’t realise it was surrounded by the armed forces on the rooftops. A lot of people were demonstrating but then we started hearing shots. I decided to go home because it was really uncomfortable. That saved my life a second time because the police ordered the dispersion of the crowd[without exception]. They started opening fire and at least 300 people were killed. I returned the day afterwards and you could see blood on the pavement with pieces of clothing and bodily remains. The Soviet regime then began a brutal revenge. How did you escape from Hungary? My mother and I, along with a friend of mine, decided to escape. Because I worked on the railway I had free tickets so we crossed the Danube in November 1956 and took a train towards Austria. We travelled in constant fear that it might be boarded by Soviet officials but we got off near the border. It was icy and we had to cross canals and bridges while there were constant mines, searchlights and tanks. It took us 12 hours to cover 25 miles [40km] towards the border. When 10-12 of us got to the border we found ourselves under a watchtower. If it had been occupied we would not have survived. This was the third time I was lucky because there was nobody there. As we approached the border, the Austrians shone searchlights to show us where to go and before long we were free. You couldn’t think about what you’d done – it was unreal. Some people had been killed on the border. Some stepped on mines while others were arrested and killed, so we were lucky. ‘NEVER AGAIN’ What are your thoughts on the IWM exhibition? It’s a wonderful opportunity. There has been immense thinking behind the exhibition, particularly about what survivors from different countries have gone through with different ways of surviving. What is the significance of the teddy bear in your portrait? The teddy has been with me since I was three years old. It’s funny but also sentimental and sad. I had him in my pocket through everything – all the escapes, the ghetto, revolution and England. He reminds me of several things, including my early life, which I don’t really remember but I knew it was a good life. It also reminds me what I went through and by looking at it memories come back. You’ve spoken about your experiences many times, particularly to schoolchildren. What is the message that you impart to them? I always say to schools that you are normally told what happened in Germany or Poland but very rarely about Hungary. One of my motivations is to explain that we suffered as much as other countries. Not many realise that there were two periods of persecution in Hungary – Nazi and Soviet. I hope that by talking and writing about it future generations will say, ‘Never again.’ Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors runs at IWM London until 9 January 2022. For more information visit: www.iwm.org.uk. To read John Hajdu’s autobiography visit: www.hmd.org.uk © John Hajdu Speaking as part of the Imperial War Museum’s new Holocaust exhibition, John Hajdu MBE reveals how he survived the Budapest Ghetto during WWII and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 How were you reunited with your family? My aunt found someone who said my father had survived the labour camp. He and my uncle escaped to Romania and had no idea what happened to my mother, aunt and me. We travelled there by getting lifts in various vehicles before I was reunited with my father. My mother had been taken to Mauthausen concentration camp and survived in unbelievable conditions. She suddenly HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION © Getty ESCAPE FROM HUNGARY © Alamy © John Hajdu Inset: John Hajdu pictured in 1944 wearing the yellow star How did you feel when you were liberated by the Red Army on 18 January 1945? The Russians entered Budapest, were told that the ghetto existed and freed us only minutes before we were supposed to be blown up. The Germans didn’t have time because they realised they had to escape. The Russians found around 3,000 bodies in the ghetto. My aunt was still with me and without her I wouldn’t be here. In the ghetto she did everything she could for me, including finding food. She was an incredible woman. We left, along with thousands of others, in a completely dazed condition. By that time you were in a different frame of mind and not really with it. It’s hard to explain but in the ghetto you were conditioned to be almost hypnotised. When we came out, it was to a city that we hardly recognised. Everything was in ruins: the bridges were blown up, most of the houses were damaged or on fire and we didn’t know what to do. appeared in Romania and it was like she returned from certain death. There was surprise and happiness but my father hadn’t expected her to survive. He had started a relationship with a local lady and was planning to marry her. Can you imagine the situation! My mother was very courageous and took me back to Budapest before she divorced my father. © IWM The Russians were also advancing into Hungary and started bombing Budapest. They had no idea about the ghetto – to them it was just Budapest so they bombed it. We had to go down to the cellars many times and on one occasion part of the building collapsed. Fortunately, nobody died. We hated the Nazis and Arrow Cross but staying alive was the primary issue. The Nazis would take Jews to the concentration camps or kill them as they went – anywhere at any time. They also mined the ghetto, which they could blow up when it was convenient. I was in constant fear but I also did not understand what was going on. 71