New York, NY – Moving Account By Holocaust Survivor At Raoul Wallenberg Commemoration

New York, NY – A Holocaust survivor gave a moving account of her survival in war-torn Budapest in 1944 at a recent event commemorating Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish humanitarian who is credited with saving the lives of tens of thousands of Jews from Nazi-occupied Hungary.

ISRAELNATIONALNEWS.com (http://bit.ly/1bW8vhJ) reports that Vera Koppel, who credits Wallenberg with saving her life, took the time to recall her story following the event held at New York’s Young Israel synagogue.

The event was organized by Dr. Joseph Frager, and featured Michael Reagan, son of former US President Ronald Reagan.

The following is a transcript of Koppel’s account:

I was born to a middle-class, 100% religious family…I went to religious schools until I could. In 1944 everything changed in Budapest. My parents probably knew this before, because we tried to go to Palestine. They sold everything we owned, and the first ship we were supposed to go with, was not allowed to leave anymore. So we got stuck in Budapest.

My father was taken into the so-called ‘working camp,’ and I was living with my mother. I don’t remember the exact date, but there was a time when we had to move out of our comfortable apartment into a house which was designated only for Jews to live there. On the front of the house there was big yellow star. Luckily my mother had a friend who lived there, and she gave us one of her rooms.

At the time we didn’t appreciate it enough, that from our apartment we still had a room of our own. Everyday there were new regulations. We couldn’t go out only at a certain time of the day, of course at that specific time, all of the prices…everything went up…but we were still able to live a relatively normal life…if you could call it relatively normal life… but in a building that had only children, women and elderly. I don’t know…until today—and unfortunately my mother is not here to know—that how did the word get around that in the city, Budapest, there was this man that was giving out what was called Schutz-Pass…Schutz-Pass is an identification paper which the Swedish government guaranteed that these people who held these documents were under the Swedish government’s protection.

My mother went every single day to stand in line to get one of these papers. She really played with her life because it was obvious that only Jews were standing there, and by that time it wasn’t only the Germans…there was a Hungarian group called Nilash…who were probably even worse than the Nazis, because I still know that the Nazis killed Jews because it was their job, the Hungarian Arrows did because it gave them pleasure.

Anyway, after the second or third day my mother came home happily that she had the Schutz-Pass in her hand, we packed I think two bags..I don’t even remember, and we moved into this designated house—which I do not even remember the address—but I know that it was close to the Danube. This time, we didn’t have a room of our own. There were lots and lots of people. We had a corner of a room. Every single day, three times a day, the Nazis, with their boots, came up to examine our papers. And you have to understand that the buildings in Europe, the staircases are high, long, marble…and these Nazis came with their boots…womp, womp, womp…and everyone of us, our hearts are beating what was going to happen. They came to look at everybody’s papers, and then they left.

In our room, there was only one family with three children. They were scared also, but probably less than the rest of us because they were the only ones who really had the original papers. All the rest of us had only copies and false.

The third day the Nazis came, again with the boots, and when they saw these peoples’ paper, and it was different from everybody else’s, they thought that’s the wrong one. They took away the family, and we never saw them again.

And I have to add only one thing…I don’t know if you are familiar with the beautiful song about the Blue Danube—everybody all over the world sings that song—but I just want to tell you that in1944…there was no Blue Danube, it was only red from all the Jews’ blood.

Anyway, after this it din’t look safe anymore, because everyday they came and everyday we thought they were going to take another family or whatever. Again, my mother found that there is an orphanage, and this orphanage was under the protection of the Red Cross.

After that my mother took me to that orphanage, which was open during the year—maybe forty children—with bunkbeds, but this time they put down mattresses wall to wall, and we were over a hundred children who stayed there.

I don’t know why, where, or how, but my mother was able to find a small salami. And before she said good-bye she gave the small salami and said, “Save this salami and eat it only when you’re so hungry that you’re really starving.”

So I put the salami under my mattress, waited every night until everybody went to sleep, and I took it out every night just to smell it. I’m not sure if a smelled it because of the meat, or I don’t know if I smelled it because it reminded me of my mother…but that’s what I did.

And one of these nights, at the end of the hall, the ladies who were taking care of us… they were talking among themselves, and I heard them saying that next week they will be taking the children to the ghetto.

Budapest didn’t have a ghetto. I had no idea what a ghetto is. But the way that they were talking… the sound of it sounded like it was a dangerous place.

The girl who was sleeping next to me, I woke her. And I said “Aggie, Aggie, they are taking us to the ghetto.”

Today, with an adult mind, I know I woke her up from a deep sleep. She didn’t know what a ghetto is, so she started to cry…very upset that they’re taking us to the ghetto.

So this is the only time in my life that I was spanked by adults for lying.

Nevertheless, the same time that my mother gave the salami, she also gave me some postcards which were addressed and stamped to a Hungarian neighbor of my grandmother, and she said if you want to and if you can, send her a postcard.

I did write to her that next week they’re taking us to the ghetto. And you have to believe that we were saved only by a miracle, because I told you earlier that the Hungarians were really really anti-Semite, this is before we had the post office going through with the machinery, every piece went through by hand…yet this postcard arrived to where I had sent it to.

The following week came…we never spoke about this again, not with the children, not with the adults…we were just told in the morning “wear your warmest clothes.” We got dressed, and I was the shortest child…I was the first one in the line…and a policeman was holding my hand. And from far away I saw my mother is coming.

And I said, “Mommy, Mommy!” And she said “Don’t call me your mother.”

What I didn’t realize was that she wasn’t wearing her yellow star, which meant immediate killing. She wet over to the policeman and said that I’m a good friend of this girl’s mother, and she’s dying, and I promised her that one more time I would come over to look at her.

Whether the policeman believed it or not, I don’t know. But he let go of my hand for a minute, and my mother grabbed my hand and we ran away.

You also have to understand that this was during wartime. There were bombings day and night. This was probably the first day that there was no public transportation. So we just walked and walked and walked, and what I didn’t know until then, was that because Budapest was bombed all the time, the non-Jews…if they could…they left from Budapest…they went out to the countryside, because there the bombing was much less. So there were empty houses. Empty houses, again, Budapest…nobody had refrigeration, so people had hoarded–especcially because it was wartime, potatoes and flour and onions by the bags, and that’s what we ate, for days and days and days and days. And at night we would go out to get some fresh air.

But the bombs were coming, and this was a small house. There was no shelter or anything. The funny thing is that even today I still remember that we were not scared. Somehow we felt that bomb or no bomb…it’s our friends. But again, one day a bomb fell right on the stone gate between us and the house next to us. From after that day we couldn’t even go out anymore because we were totally exposed. Though the windows were closed, there was regulation that outward windows had to be blocked…the previous owners, because of the lighting and the bombing,. So at night, we would just peek out a little bit every night, and we saw some shadows next door.

After being there for ten days or so, two weeks or so, and of course the first days there was potatoes and onions, the next days there was…I don’t know… and the last days there was only beans and beans and beans.

And one day my mother says, “You know, I didn’t see any of those shadows walking.” So the following day we stand specifically by the window, watching, and there was none. So my mother got dressed. She put on a big hat that she found…like a peasant woman…and went outside. And about an hour later she came back and she said,” The war is over. The war is over.”

She came back with a piece of meat. I hadn’t seen meat by that time for…I don’t know…months and months and months…yet for some reason I couldn’t eat it. Only later on she told me that it was a piece of horse meat that they carved up from dead horses on the street.

So the war was over as far as we knew. My mother said we have to back to grandmother, who lived in a small house…and we had no idea what happened to grandmother. All we knew was that she was taken away probably to a labor camp.

So my mother said we have to go back to the house because we have to take care of it by the time grandmother comes home. So again we walked and walked and walked and walked and we got to grandma’s house, but a large family was living there.

And even today I don’t’ know how it happened, but from that day, within one day it became communism. And the communists’ idea was that a small family like my mother and I, we couldn’t have a large apartment. But we were Jews, they had to give something to us, so we got back one room from them.

In essence, it was Raoul Wallenberg who saved our lives. Because you didn’t know from one day to the next what was going to happen. But if he wasn’t there…if we couldn’t stay for even the short time that we stayed in that house…I am sure not my mother, not myself would be here and it means not my son, not my grandchildren, and all the generations that are coming, because he gave us a safe place.

And that’s why I’m grateful forever to Raoul Wallenberg.

Every once in a while people ask me to speak to children. I’m not a speaker, but I feel that it is my duty to tell it because I am the last generation that people can can that I knew a survivor. After that people will just say that I knew a survivor’s child. So I feel it’s my duty to tell it to people what’s happening.