As a start, I have to comment that all actions, processes, and negotiations that regard
either the times before Vadász Street
or the emigration, e.g. the letters of protection, the protected houses, etc. were initiated and thought out by the Budapest office (the
Palestine
Office) of the Jewish Agency and
by the Palestine Committee. The key and the
condition of the success of these activities was the good rapport that existed between the
Swiss
Consulate (e.g. the consul) and
the Palestine
Office. It was the Swiss Consulate,
or more precisely, its special department called Delegation of Foreign Interests
that
represented the interests of both England and the
US after
they declared war and also the case of emigration to Palestine, that is,
the interests of the people who wished to emigrate to
Palestine. I have to add right away that
as far as circumstances allowed the consulate,
especially consulCharles Lutz,
did a great work representing these interests. The friendship that evolved through the
permanent contact between consulLutz and the head of the Palestine Office,
Miklós
Krausz was of great use both concerning these initiations and their successful
execution. This friendship let its beneficial influence felt in all activities of Vadász Street. The
establishing of the Vadász
Street office was in particular the merit of Miklós
Krausz, which he – as a Zionist
and the representative of Szochnut in
Hungary - wanted
to use for saving Zionist youth and cháluc
figures, that is, people who were so important for the Jewish population and for Palestine. Around the end of May, 1944, it became obvious to all of us that the so-called Kasztner-group would not leave the country soon, or if it set off its way would
not go through Romania and the destination would not be Palestine. We also understood that this kind of action would not lead to the
rescue of great masses of Jews from the clutch of Germans and of the Arrow Cross. We had
to find new ways for rescuing Jewish people without delay.
The commanding ultimatum addressing the Hungarian
government was mediated by the Swiss government.
Consul
Lutz
received a long dispatch in which his government certified to have received our material and instructed him to
personally deliver the aforementioned forceful letter of intervention from the part of the
great political powers. Several of us were present when he asked for an urgent audience from
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the phone. And when the deputy minister asked something we could not hear he forcefully answered: No, Sir,
exceptionally it regards not my government. I
want to pass on information coming from the American
government
.
ConsulLutz’s intervention in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not meet considerable resistance. There were some people also there who could observe the state of affairs objectively and took forthcoming events into consideration. However, they emphasised that this case did not depend on the Hungarian government but on the Germans.
But it appeared that similar actions had their effects also in Berlin. A few days later, a new dispatch came from Switzerland in which the Swiss government instructed Lutz to get prepared for the negotiations and start preparing the emigration since German Foreign Ministry in principle had given its consent. Already the day after the Hungarian government invited consul Lutz for an audience. Early in the morning a meeting started in the Ministry of the Interior which lasted until late afternoon, where only the head of the Palestine Office, Miklós Krausz was invited on behalf of the Jews. Almost all ministries together and also the National Central Authority for Controlling Foreigners were represented on this meeting, where the German ambassador’s deputy appeared as well.
The representative of the foreign ministry officially confirmed that the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs had approved the emigration of those who had a certificate. Further, he announced the decision of the Hungariangovernment to halt deportations and labour service conscriptions till the alia was not concluded (till the 31st of August). Later, the number of emigrants and details of their travel were discussed.
The idea of protected
houses
- as places where the people who intended to alia
could be gathered - was first raised on this meeting.
The story of Vadász-Street
started here. We moved into the building in the middle of
July. Collective passport
and the Schutzpass
that resulted
from it were made here. Next to the 60-80,000 peoplesaved by having a Schutzpass, this place gave asylum to 2,600
Jews, amongst them great masses of the Zionist
youth, who organised and led illegal and underground actions.
To be loyal to historical truth I also need to mention that among the protected people of
Vadász
Street
there were quite a number of non-Jew leftists together with their
numerous relatives. An evening in December, I witnessed how
three women blue from the cold asked for asylum at least for a night at the gate
claiming to have been relatives of hunted leftists. As several people of the leftist
fraction confirmed their identity they were let in and it was only natural that no one asked
them later to leave.
We should not be surprised therefore that the terrorist attempts on the banquet of the
Arrow
Cross in the city theatre were claimed to have originated from
Vadász
Street
. This was followed by the gendarmes’ raid the 4th of December at daybreak,
which commenced with a long series of shots in the street, and men with the sickle-feather appeared on the roofs. Luckily, the main entrance to the street was
well barred so they could not get in. The head of the gendarmes’ squad started a long debate and negotiation with our leaders – in
particular with Artúr Weisz. The commander warned us that he would got the house searched by his own men unless we
handed over the terrorists who attacked the City Theatre and all the
available weapons. Although we did not know the men they wanted we did know about weapons.
We started an endless number of telephone calls calling the Ministry of
the Interior, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, the city military headquarters and other places. Finally, we achieved that around noon the
gendarmes temporarily left, but we could not foresee when we would meet them
again.
A sign of this was the visit of two detectives from the so-called National Committee of for
Calling to Account
one morning in Vadász Street
. Their
visit regarded again forged
Schutzpasses but they were
also deeply interested in the huge mass of people accommodated in the building. They did not
hide their opinion that the whole building of the Embassy was just a
great hiding place, and told us that they were going to give their report directly to
the leading
brother of the nation
and we could hope for great clearing actions
against us in the forthcoming days.
At the same time our agents frequently reported that the Arrow Cross of the
Garrison Albrecht was getting prepared for an action against Vadász Street
. The
first reports were quite fantastic. According to these the project was to lead us into the
caves of Pálvölgy
and then to kill us with grenades. Later, we heard about only the killing
. Hence, it was not a great surprise for our leaders when a squad of
the Arrow
Cross entered the building shooting around with their machineguns and throwing
grenades the 31st of December. This break-in resulted in the death
of three and in 17 injuries and it was a fortune that we could save the people drove out of
the house to the street of being taken away using our rapports to the city military headquarters and to the police
headquarters. This way we particularly upset the Arrow Cross squad
and this led to the capture of Artúr Weisz,
a heroic figure and comrade, the day after.
After this event, the bandits of the Arrow Crossbroke in regularly. It is hard to tell how we could have saved the gathered mass if we had not been liberated January the 18th.