Yom Hashoah

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day so I wanted to take a few moments to remember. Although numerous members of my family were killed during World War II, my father survived and a few years ago decided to write his story. He did this in a fairly unconventional way. Each chapter in his book begins with a snippet from a Nobel Laureate’s life (with whom he had conducted conversations). Later in the chapter he then relates this biographical story to something in his own life. Reading the book takes us on a journey through the lesser-known moments of many famous scientists’ lives and the details of one Hungarian Jew’s life affected by the events of over 60 years ago.

Here I share with you some snippets from my father’s book. I start with a section told by my uncle about his experiences when he was 11 in a concentration camp. Then I quote the section about my father’s visit in 2002 to the camp he had been in and how poor the remembrance is there.

Excerpts from “Our Lives: Encounters of a Scientist” by István Hargittai, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2004

[this quote in the book is from my uncle who was 11 at the time — EH]

The first day after our arrival [in the camp] the people got their work assignments. Mother was directed to be helper to a roofing master who turned out to be a humane Viennese man. He often shared his sandwich with Mother who pretended to eat it and brought it back for us. Children younger than 10 years old stayed behind in the camp during the day. Children above the age of 15 were considered adults and went to work with the rest. Children between 10 and 15 years old formed a special labor unit. I was in this unit, which had about 20 children. We were taken to bombed-out buildings, immediately following the bombing. We had to reach places that adults could not have reached. We had to bring out cadavers and wounded people and all the valuables. If we found just limbs or other body parts we had to bring them out as well. It was a cruel and frightening job and dangerous too.

Falling down killed some of us. They were replaced then by younger children. The German guards were not brutal just for the sake of tormenting us, but they required unconditional discipline. When they ordered us to climb to a place, however dangerous it was or to walk on a beam however unstable it was, they expected blind obedience. When any of us appeared hesitant, they let out a round next to us from their machine guns to frighten us. I have sharp memories of various events. I remember when we were carrying a heavy container and when the guard sensed that I wanted to pause, he gave a round and I did not dare to stop. From the heavy weight and the fright I wetted my pants. It was so cold that the urine froze along my legs. I remember my shoes, which were in a terrible state and we did not have stockings and used newspaper pieces to wrap our feet. In one of the bombed-out homes I found a pair of shoes that would have fit me and I changed into them. Upon my return downstairs, the guard noticed this, he became very angry and ordered me to return and change back the shoes. This episode stayed with me more sharply than many more horrible events. I could not figure out why he did not let me have a better pair of shoes. At about that time, I started having dreams about Father. He came for us in my dream and engineered our escape. In other dreams, we went for long walks in the woods just as we used to when we lived back home and he was still alive. Such dreams I still have occasionally, and I am now 61 years old. [My grandfather was killed in a labor camp in 1942. — EH]

István [my father — EH], who was 3 years old, was a good child throughout the deportation. He was quiet and withdrawn. When soldiers entered the room he always hid behind Mother.

The sick in the camp were moved to the attic. So was grandmother when she became sick. It was a final move because seldom did anybody return from the attic. Nobody tended the sick. Their meals were placed at the entrance to the attic and those in better condition among the sick distributed the food and reported in the morning about the recent dead. One morning then grandmother was among the dead.

[the chapter continues with my father’s return to the camp site in 2002, this is now my father’s voice — EH]

Vienna 2002

In June 2002, I visited our former camp, Lager 12 at 10 Bischoffgasse in Vienna. It was my first visit to the former camp site and I am the only member of our family who has ever visited the place since World War II. There was no trace of the former camp there, outside or inside the school, as if the camp might have not existed. I almost felt embarrassed, but the director had vaguely heard about some camp. She showed me the school and took me to the attic, where they keep the old year books. In the one for the year 1944/45, there were only short notes, and not a word about the camp that operated on the premises of the school. I found that part of the attic to which a stair-case leads and which I recognized from Brother’s narrative. I was there, alone for a few moments in empty, dusty space, held up by heavy wooden beams, and I felt very close to my grandmother.

On that visit, I contacted the Research Center of the History of Jews in Austria and they sent me photocopied material of the trial of the Lagerführer of Lager 12. There were about 130 pages, mostly testimonies of former inmates, that is, surviving Jews from Hungary, also, testimonies by Viennese people, who lived nearby, and could see some of what was going on in the camp. There were enclosures in the material, and I found my name in the listings as Stefan Wilhelm (Stefan is the German equivalent of István). [my father later changed his name to Hargittai, this is explained in another part of the book — EH]

The testimonies described how Franz Knoll, the Lagerführer, beat not only the young but also 80-year-old people, how he locked people up in the cold cellar in wintertime without food, how he stole the rations and had them delivered to his home by the prisoners, and how he tried to hide his loot, from the prisoners, in three big boxes after the camp had been liberated by the Russians. He was characterized by former prisoners and neighbors as brutal, inhuman, ruthless, and sadistic. A former inmate described how she had to witness the slow dying of hunger of her infant son, her pleading in vain for help to the Lagerführer, who then did not let her be there when her child was buried. Witnesses described how others, including children, perished in the camp. There were close to 600 grownups and about 60 children incarcerated there, and the Lagerführer referred to them as if they were things rather than human beings in his testimony. He repeatedly referred to children as children only for the age group between 0 and 10 years old.

Franz Knoll was born in 1894 in Vienna. He did not have much schooling, did not have any profession, and before the Nazis elevated him to positions of importance, he used to work mostly as a waiter. He joined the Nazi party in 1932, that is, long before the Anschluss. He was accused not only of the crimes he committed as the Lagerführer of Lager 12 but also of other crimes committed during the preceding years in other positions.

I have no expertise in legal matters, so it is only my impression that the trial was meticulous, preceded by a meticulous investigation during Knoll’s long detention of about 22 months. Knoll pleaded not guilty, but the Court found him guilty and on August 20, 1948, it sentenced him to 18 months of imprisonment. The Court considered several mitigating conditions, among them his partial confession, the difficulty of his service, his reduced sense of responsibility, and his duties of supporting his wife and underage child. The Court also ordered to deduct Knoll’s detention from his prison term. Thus, when the sentencing was over, Knoll walked free.

The book is due out in English in about a month, see here for more information including a copy of the Foreword, the Preface and the Table of Contents.