A Displaced Person

A DISPLACED PERSON

PART 1

MEMORIES

A faded photograph or two, maybe more. A little love note. Memories of good times and bad, of smiles together and tears together. Promises of love forever, since long forgotten. A dried and compressed little flower between the pages of a book...where is it from? I have forgotten. Two tickets to the theatre, yellowing with age. Two bus tickets...where was the journey to? A serviette with the monogram of a restaurant. Then from another restaurant...a receipt. A cork from a lovely bottle of wine, the aroma still lingers. And a wine label, soaked long ago off the bottle.

Is that all there is left? Of many years of struggle and of joy, of happiness and sadness, of great times and not so great, of sacrifices, of giving and receiving, of wonderful love-making, of caring...

What is left? What is life? As though it never existed...yet it did. Living on now only in our memories, and perhaps the memories of others.

Like the wisps of smoke from a dying candle, wafting and fading into the air, then to disappear for ever. The scent from the candle lingers for a moment or two longer, then that too is gone.

The mists of time hide it all.

Except perhaps from our children and their children.

PREFACE

This is not really intended as just a story about war. But as the war of the time occupied a large part of our lives, and left it’s legacy imprinted indelibly in our minds and souls for the rest of our days, it is inevitable that it would play a part in my chronicles, at least the first part.

Whilst I don’t want to overemphasise those years, I also don’t want to diminish their importance. Thry certainly shaped the world for a long time since, and for more time to come. Maybe forever.

And they shaped me. And through me, my family.

My story is not sugar-coated. Many events I would rather not reveal. But, the truth is the truth. So, here it all is. Or if not all, at least most.

And in a sense, it is as well, in part, a condensed story of the Hungarian people during, between and after World Wars I and II. And before..

As I flick through the pages, I realise that in some ways it is also a sketch as well of parts of ‘Old’ post-war Sydney... as it was when I first saw it. 1949...70-odd years ago!

As in any works of History, there are bound to be some inaccuracies. But the essence is true to the fullest extent that can be verified at the time of writing.

PROLOGUE

Sometimes the words fly off my keyboard, like scattering flowers, or like playful if unruly butterflies. At those times, I feel creativity gripping me like the warm, gentle arms of a loving and true woman. And so I write from my memories and my heart, and let it lead me where it will.

At other times, no matter how I wish otherwise, the muse leaves me like an unfaithful, perfidious woman, leaving only frustration. And then not a word makes sense.

I write this and other real-life true stories so that my children and grandchildren and maybe descendants further down the family tree, and also friends, may gain an understanding of what their father, grandfathers, grandmothers, friends, brothers, sisters, and the whole family, experienced in the lifetime of me, Anthony Paul Marton Janicska (Anthony Janicska-Boross, ‘Boross’ originally and more correctly spelled Boros).

Why do I append the Borss name to my name, Janicska?

It is in tribute to and recognition of my mother, Margaaret.

Much of our life experience fades into the background, becomes buried under layer after layer of more recent events. Sometimes, then, it is with difficulty that one can dig deep enough to uncover valuable and worthwhile fragments of the past.

Very much like archaeology, which in fact is my main hobby, aparrt from flying, piloting aeroplanes, motorcycle competitions and SCUBA diving.

At times, it becomes like a series of tiny windows into one’s own history of life; a bit from here, a bit from there. Then it is often difficult to string the little windows together, so that when one looks into any of them, he/she can see more than what is revealed by that one, and hopefully sees a bit of the ones on either side as well.

So it is in these chronicles, that here the result is more like a mosaic. You may have to piece the parts together, the good with the mediocre, to make sense.

And ‘good’ to some is ‘mediocre’ to others, and vice-versa.

Then again, each story segment I have written can stand alone.Like a photograph image.

So if one of my little true stories does not catch your fancy, then I ask that you go forward to the next, or the one after, or the one after that. I am sure that soon, you will find one that strikes a chord in your own soul. I will be so happy if it does.

I trust that the Lord above will guide my hand to write in truth, and avoid even unintentional prevarication.

If I am then eventually fortunate enough to be ‘above’, I will look down upon you and bless you.

I hope, dear reader, that you are ready for the task, and that you will enjoy what you read.

It should be mentioned here that in writing up a lifetime piece by piece, there may be the odd duplication. If so, please just skip over it.

You will notice that this being a ‘chronicles’, I have in most cases appended a ‘Year’ following each heading. Not every time, though, as in some cases it would be more confusing.

Also, although not an Encyclopaedia, my story ranges also from things like how to fly aeroplanes to how to avoid chilblains, and a multitude of subjects in between.

I must confess to the occasional fleeting smile during the setting out of my story, and to the occasional tear-drop during that process.

Finally, my Autobiography has not been purpose-written for publication, and I had no aspirations in that direction. No possible (if highly improbable) literary merit was sought. However, since embarking on these chronicles, I have actually written several stories, since published.

As I said, my readers will hopefully be my descendants and those friends that are still on this earth.

Admittedly, it may be that I tread on toes, so to speak, and even that I may destroy some ‘sacred cows’.

If so, and where relevant, I speak in conviction.

Thank you for picking up this story.

VOLUME I

BEFORE AND DURING THE WAR, WW II.

Greater Hungary, as it was before the Great War(s).

Before dismantling and before the Trianon travesty.

The picture above is a poor photo of an old original from the Museum, and the red central portion is roughly the present territory.

MOUNTAINS 1939

HUNGARY, CHILDHOOD, WAR AND ESCAPE.

Laying as a boy of five in the long grass at the top of the Transylvanian Carpathian Mountains, with the red deer just metres away. I had relatives in Hungarian Transylvania, (including my sister-i-law Ilona) ,which in those parts was called ‘Erdély’, for a thousand years. Now, taken, stolen by others. And handed to other countries on a plate.

The sky is azure blue, the sun is strong, only the odd wisp of a fluffy white cloud floats overhead.

The ground is warm, and the does are on heat, the great horned bucks paving the ground, impatient, aching for love or fight, whichever comes first.

I witness my first sight of such an event.

The deer are everywhere in these mountains. Their main predators of old, the bear and the wolf, are all but extinct. Man has stepped into their place.

The new top of the food-chain here.

I lay and watch, and the grasshoppers leap over me in droves. I don’t know that in times to come, I would be shot, I would contract a dreadful disease, and lead a life of agony for some time. Then followed byhappiness and many joyful events.

I also don’t know that my ambitions will be nipped in the bud, when Dad leaves us.

In fact, I don’t know that Dad will actually go.

I still have the illusion of permanence, the hope of youth, the faith of innocence, in my heart.

Then I don’t know that in a few years, I would be practically starving,

Nor that in time, I would start a new life on the other side of the planet, abandoning friends, relatives, education, career, possessions, values.

Yet in the process gaining wonderful children, new siblings, and many dear grand and grat-granchildren. And new and caring friends. And freedom.

I don’t know anything at all of the future.

Maybe just as well.

So, on this day, I am happy enough, my small body filled with warmth, my nostrils with the gentle aroma of newly-born grass. I recall all this as though it were yesterday. If I close my eyes, I can still see the sky as it was then.

And the faint montane breeze stirs the grasshoppers and some tiny butterflies to frolic as I lay still, body moulded into the warm earth, not knowing nor caring what tomorrow may bring. I am not yet aware of my dharma.

Dream little boy, dream.

I don’t know this, but he first shells of the new war explode far-far away, and will soon shatter the dream.

KILLER PLANES 1942

It’s another Air Raid

Searchlights criss-cross the night sky. Sirens sound moments earlier - the pitch of their eerie whine rises and falls, rises and falls, in a morbid tune of monotony.

Sparse anti-aircraft cannon spew their charges into the sky, seeking the swiftly-flying targets.

Very few hit the mark, but there is flak, shrapnel all over, and metal particles shower down.

The acrid smell of cordite is everywhere, as smoke drifts aimlessly, swirling about in the dark air.

Grey shapes rush down ten thousand stairways, into ten or a hundred thousand cellars, converted to Air Raid shelters, the faceless people there to huddle together in fear.

From the cellars, long gone are the bottles of wine, carefully hoarded over the years. Gone the items of furniture, long kept for some future and indeterminate use. Gone are the piles of firewood, of coal, collected to keep the people warm next winter. All these are re-stacked in the corridors outside, or hidden back into apartments.

In the place of all this, in the cellars, there are cots, makeshift beds, camp stretchers, mattresses, often not an inch between them, taking up almost all the floor space available.

In any odd remaining spaces, there are bags and boxes of personal belongings, each person’s own private treasure. Their tenuous ties to LIFE.

Some hold photographs, or perhaps faded love letters, some little special mementos. The kids have teddy bears, dolls, toy trucks, tin soldiers, whatever. Some have costume jewellery, expensive trinkets. There are also more items of sentimental value, and others try to fit into any available space, even overhead, everything they can hang from the beams, from pots and pans to musical instruments.

Every building has a Fire Warden. In fact, he is in charge of the cellars, or evacuation, or rescue attempts, or gas leaks, or power outages. You name it, he is it.

Above, B17 Flying Fortress, one of a type used to bombBudapest.

The grey shapes sit or lay, some weary and some agitated, each in his/her own little world of terror, or resignation, or whatever mood is thrust upon individuals, according to their personality and situation. The odd child cries, perhaps a baby whimpers. A breast is exposed to pacify the infant.

Always bored; sometimes I sneaked out, although to get past the Warden, you had to wait until his attention was diverted from the door.

At those times, and assuming that the next door to the staircase was open, I would sprint up the stairs to the highest level of the apartment building and go out onto a balcony - in this building, Pannonia Utca, there was a small one at every landing. From there, like viewing a play in the theatre, I could watch the panoramic view of many hundreds of bombers sweeping overhead, or rather, if at night, which was most of the time, they flew without lights; even then I imagined I could see them. I certainly heard them. The unforgettable weary drone.

In reality, you could see them only when the searchlights caught a few, and even then, their dark camouflage coloration made them barely discernible. I was at the time not sure if they were British Lancasters, or American B17 Flying Fortresses, B24 Liberators, B-29’s, B-52’s or B-59’s, or the newer P51 Mustangs, but later I found out that they were indeed a mixed bag. In any case, I got lost in the alpha/numerical descriptions. Not that at the time I knew them all, but later in life, I sure tried.

I then just called them ‘Killer Planes.’ Used for Terror Bombings. And killer pilots.

And I will never forget the terrible monotone drone, like the whole sky was full of a million angry hornets, and then the sound of the bombs screaming as they sliced through the air, then crashing and exploding, the flashes of light signalling yet another building destroyed, another few dozen more people dead or crippled. ‘Gyilkos repülők’. Killer planes.

Then the columns of acrid smoke, which you could smell always but only see at dawn and during the day, then forming a layer like a grey, dirty cloud, blanketing the city.

CARPET BOMBINGS 1942.

That is what they called it, because it was like laying a carpet of destruction over the City.

A thousand (or so it seemed) planes would just sweep across the sky, en masse, dropping a few bombs every couple of seconds, not against military targets, but against the civilians, men, women and children, and older or infirm men in principally residential areas. Usually at night, they came in multiple raids.

The British called it Area Bombings, but quite openly, blatantly, the aim was deliberately to kill civilians. This decision was made by Winston Churchill, on advice of his scientific advisor, Lindeman. Historically recorded.

Keeping in mind that most of the able-bodied men were away from home in the Armed Forces, it is not hard to accept that the vast majority of the population thus injured or killed were in fact the children, the women, and the men that were too aged or unfit to be in the Army.

So, in reality, and as I said, it was no less than a plan to kill off as many of these innocent people as possible, to further spread terror in the population. Doing this supposedly had the effect of reducing morale in the fighting troops. I think that in fact, it raised the ire of fighting men.

But having mentioned women; I see that in more current wars, women often take up arms, or even do suicide-bombs; in those days, on the other hand, women did what society expected them to do; look after the home, the children, nurture the family, perhaps support the bread-winner, the husband, with maybe a career as well. And so they earned the respect of past war-makers; ‘save the women and children.’ It’s no longer so now. Save the children,-yes. Save the women, - depends on which women.

I will, however, mention the old-old days, specifically in the year 1552 CE, where, as I describe elsewhere, the Magyar women of the Fort of Eger, County Borsod,Northern Highlands, fought together with their men and beat off the invading Muslim Ottoman Turks. These were truly fighting women, defending their families and homes, alongside their men.

SATURATION BOMBINGS 1942 and on.

Another method the Allies used was called saturation bombing. This meant that hundreds of planes flew over, and released all of their bombs somewhere around the target area. This could be a power station, factories, army barracks, artillery positions, the City Centre, water works...whatever the War Office decided.

Most of these usually daylight bombings were by the U.S. Eighth Air Force, Americans who soon entered the air-theatre in 1943, and who could not at first quite stomach the deliberate killing of civilians, as the British did.

The plan was that if not all, at least most of the bombs would hit the target, and the rest would spread despair, start fires, wreak havoc among the population in the nearby areas, thus once again reducing morale, and increasing fear.

At least saturation bombing was primarily against military or industrial targets. But sometimes also civilian ones.

Carpet-bombing, on the other hand, was no less than cold-blooded, deliberate and pre-planned murder of the defenceless.

Of course, back in their homes, the British and to a lesser extent the American airmen were heroes. I saw the newsreel celebrations in later-years’ documentaries.

Then I reflect back to the much-later atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the Americans, where in the case of Hiroshima, the crew of Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber, the one that dropped the first atomic bomb ever used against humanity on August 6, 1945, so instantly killing 92,000 innocent people and injuring or maiming another estimated 100,000; this crew were made heroes. The bomb was named ‘Little Boy,’ and wiped Hiroshima off the map. And then three days later, August 9, 1945, on Nagasaki, another 80,000 killed outright and during the next few days and an equal number horribly maimed, by a bomb called ‘Fat Boy,’ after Churchill.

I find that apt.

But then even the act of giving these bombs a personality, via a name, seemed obscene to me. They were nothing but cold, inhuman lumps of metal hardware with a radioactive core, Uranium-235 for Hiroshima and Plutonium for Nagasaki, designed to kill. Mass-kill. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity proven, by J. Robert Oppenheimer, said to be the father of the Bomb, and may he never rest in peace.

Were these American crews really heroes or mass-murderers? Judge for yourselves. Perhaps they will find out themselves, when they meet their Creator.

I have listened to interviews with many of these airmen, and I was dismayed by the lack of remorse by some, and even more disturbed that they almost all justified their action. Some even displayed pride! Are we human?

These crews were volunteers.

Not that the British did not do much the same, although with more conventional weapons.

On February 13, 1945 with 800 aircraft of a combined Anglo-American force, and continuing for some weeks later, they dropped several hundred-thousand incendiary bombs on the German residential city of Dresden. Capital of Saxony. The Florence of the Elbe, as it was then referred to. It then became a true, a veritable INFERNO. Burning buildings, mainly wood, collapsing onto the cellars where people hid, it is not hard to conjure up an image of hell on earth. Planning and strategy courtesy of British Bomber Command, and the final decision by Churchill.

The cellars became an added killing ground; you were there for protection, but since everything was burning around you, even if one could survive the flames, by-products of partial burning, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, seeping into the cellars, killed many more thousands by displacing oxygen.

In the streets, observers have depicted human torches, bodies alight but some still moving, often caught in explosions by delayed-action bombs that would explode when you may think you are safe after a raid. Maybe as you were searching for loved ones amongst the ruins, one would blow up right in your face. The inhuman ingenuity. (Today, 80 or so years later, our soldiers are still being killed in Afghanistan, by IED’s.)

The Brits-Amis did well, out of a population of (I think) about 150,000, they managed to fry to death 135,000 old men, women and including some 90,000 children. Able-bodied men were away at the front. Again, why? Why burned to death? The airmen used incendiary bombs, the sole purpose being to burn, and so to destroy and kill.

Well, Churchill and the British War Office decided that this horrific act would strike terror into the remaining German population. This, even though the war was nearly over by then. D-Day on June 6, 1944, the invasion of Normandy, signalled this well ahead of Dresden, Normandy was 7 months earlier than Dresden...

They neatly barbecued the terror-stricken civilian population, and flew home to get heroes’ medals for all that. And Churchill, the sacred cow of British contemporary politics, being safe enough in his ‘war-bunker’.

Where were the upholders of humanity? Were there any left then?

Not that it is really relevant now, but it was not all that well known that Dresden did not even have really large-scale air defences, the scattering of anti-aircraft batteries that someone, a German, once sardonically said to me (true or not? This I don’t know) were probably more suitable to target Tiger Moths.

If so, the ‘heroes’ had not a terrible lot to fear.

Dresden was one of the most beautiful cities in Europe preceding the bombings. Of it’s many historic churches damaged or ruined, the Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady), the largest Protestant Church in Germany was completely destroyed. It was rebuilt and completed in 2005, whilst earlier in 2004 it was topped by a cross made by a British silversmith, who was a son of one of the pilots that bombed the City in 1945.

A genuine act of personal attrition, and I think greatly and warmly of this Brit.

Talk about war crimes trials, fashionable since that war and in more recent times. Certainly, there were many war crimes for which blame should have been laid.

Magyar Parliament House across the Danube from Buda.

Fortunately, no direct hits during the war.

And I don’t excuse the

Germans for the absurd inhumanity of the Holocaust, or the Japanese for their Asian atrocities. But what about the other side of the coin? The British, American, Russian and French, the latter two also ‘in the know’ of horrific events, deeds to be committed?

Well, when you are a victor, the winner, all is pardoned, all is forgiven, and everybody shuts up.

But, in the case of Budapest, I will always remember the threatening drone of the carpet-bombers.

Night after night, the air-raid sirens scream, and you must extinguish all lights under your control immediately.

Blackouts applied every time the sirens sounded.

Not even a cigarette can be smoked outside, or inside near your paint-blackened window, as the tiny glow can be seen for miles. Next time you are up in a plane, and fly even thousands of feet above populated areas, just pick out one single street or building light.

You will see that this can be distinguished many miles away. A pin-prick target.

During the war, people who so much as lit a match outside after dark and during a raid were often executed: so serious was the risk of 5th-Columnists (spies, saboteurs) deliberately signalling planes several thousand feet high, to pinpoint locations. The crews in the planes in fact could locate onto even the tiniest glow. Hence the penalty.

And considering that during raids several thousand people died under the bombs, I thought the penalty to those offending with light signals was fair.

Sometimes, just before a raid, there would be a few scouting planes ahead of the others, and at those times, soon, the sky disgorged a million shreds of silver.

No-one knew what they were, and people assumed that it was some mysterious new weapon sure to spread untold suffering upon the population. I dwell a bit on this in the following.

SILVER SHOWERS 1942-44.

The sky opened up. Little slivers of sparkling silver drifted downwards, by the millions. Soon, they covered the streets, the parks, the river ice.

The populace were in panic. What on earth is this onslaught of alien material, like something out of science fiction (mind you, this term, invented by Hugo Gernsback in the 1920’s was not yet widely used at this time). Mothers scream at their young children in panic; don’t touch!

The radio, the news, ignorantly speak of some sort of injurious material. Even of disease. Surely, although the showers of metal came certainly from Lancasters and I think maybe Liberators and Flying Fortresses, surely the Brits and Amies could not be so inhumane as to spread disease amongst the civilian population!?

Could they? But could they?

I learnt not to bet my life on that principle since.

But, in this case that was not the truth.

At first, no-one knew what they were, and many people assumed that it was some strange new weapon, sure to spread death or suffering onto the population. After much warning to the children to stay away from this mysterious stuff, finally the news said that there was no danger.

But who do you believe? After mustard gas, white phosphorus, incendiary bombs and the like, what could you expect? Maybe the Authorities, via the news broadcasts, were just covering up to forestall panic? Does anyone know? We all cower.

Slowly, the truth leaks out.

You see, aluminium foil was just not known in those days, in those lands. So, we were advised to keep away from the stuff, and report any concentration anywhere.

Today, there is not a kitchen without alfoil wrap.

We now know that the foil was dropped to fool Radar operators, as Radar recognises metal. In the showers of foil, in the confused signal, operators could not locate the planes, and if at night, the searchlights were just reflected back also. Therefore the anti-aircraft guns were useless. The whole shower was like night driving in a snow-storm now. Your lights pick up the snow flakes, but no objects beyond.

I believe that Hungary had only one Radar installation, a primitive one, for the entire country.

Not that it is any comfort; for at the time you do not have the faintest idea what Radar is, yet you are told that the shreds of foil are just dropped to fool the Radar defences. Again and again, what the heck is ‘Radar?’

Eventually we come to accept it. Radar is real, it’s here, and has been for some time, and used to find enemy aircraft. Just that nobody knew!

Mind you, kids of maybe 6 and under took great glee in getting themselves covered in the stuff, much to the horror of their poor worried parents.

And it was enough to keep millions of people in terror, for weeks on end.

WAR STARTS 1939

Earlier...

Going back in time, I saw the start of what I call the Second Great War as a child, initially. Then later as a teenager, so my impressions are still those of a child or adolescent, although tempered by the mind of an adult, at the time of these writings.

When the war started, as Hitler invaded Poland from the west on September 1, 1939, and then Russia (being at that point an ally of Germany) invaded Poland from the east on September 17, 1939, one of the first things you became aware of was the propaganda, initiated by Göring, from the radio. Note that Television was hardly even invented, let alone used at the time.

All sorts of stories denoting the probable enemy, the Allies, as horrible villains who will take pleasure in the most gruesome activities against us. Along with justification for the invasions.

Next, Brit Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain aided by Winston Churchill declared war on Germany, the very first nation to do so, thus catapulting Britain and the world into a war, on September 3, followed by France later that very day, this being the second nation to declare war. Collusion? You bet. Hitler at this time has not yet declared war on either Britain or France. So who truly started the official conflict?

All this the start of the Second World War. Who really started it? I know I am really stirring the sacred cows here.

The talk of war by adults at the time; I could sense emotions emanating from them, fear, excitement, worry, even panic. And often anger.

And I was five years-old.

I have started proper school about that time or a bit later.

In the German news, the Axis were portrayed as clean-living heroes, whom we must support against the aforementioned villains, or the enemy, the enemy then being the Allies; Brits (English etc.) and the Amies (Americans) and the Francia, (French) and soon the Ruszkies, (Russians). Ironically, at the time of commencing these chronicles, the recent (2004-07) President of France is Nicolas Sárközy, of Hungarian roots and name.

Soon, there was the physical presence of foreign troops, at first the Germans, much-much later the Russians. The Germans and Russians, having by treaty divided and occupied Poland, until they turned against each other in the 1940’s, with Hitler invading the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

The next thing was the countless Panzer (German Tank) divisions and truckloads of foot-soldiers heading East, towards Russia. Ironically, the next time we saw so many Panzers was about 4-5-6 years later, when the Germans, licking their wounds after being defeated by not so much the Russians, but really the unbearably cruel Russian winter, appeared returning from the Eastern Front.

So the Panzers instead of rolling west to east, then rolled east to west. But so many less.

In pursuit were the Russian T-34’s, horrific clanging iron monsters that could demolish seemingly anything in their paths. And they did.

Poor Hungary, you never knew whose army would appear from what direction, and when.

And often, why?

Hungary, being fairly close to the Centre-East of the Continent, and at the crossroads of West, East, North and South, always had such misfortune. Although at one time the Amber Road passed through the Hungarian city of Szombathely between Venice and the North Sea: In those days bringing some riches. (Just a note, I have an amber wristlet passed to me by my Sister-in-Law, Ilonka, and it is gem-quality. Amber is the petrified sap of ancient pine trees. The Hungarian word is Borostyánkő. It will go to one of my girls).

And the next thing I remember was the pursuance and persecution of the unfortunate Jews. It soon became law that they must wear a yellow six-pointed David’s Star, the Magen David, made of cloth and sewn on their breast, on their clothes, to be shown whenever they were outside their home.

This rule followed on from Hitler’s persecution of first German, then Polish, then Hungarian, then other Jews. I never knew there were so many of them; all of a sudden there were yellow stars everywhere, like a sea. In fact, Hungary had not the most, but the densest concentration of Jews in Europe, I believe about 5% of the general population, one in twenty, but in Budapest itself, 20% or one in five...!

I don’t want to repeat here the horrors those poor people were subjected to, there is enough other evidence of that, all well known to most people without me adding to it.

Let it be said though that most (sadly not all!) Hungarians were shocked by Hitler’s so-called solution to the ‘Jewish problem,’ and many Hungarians actively helped Jews, even hiding them, as did my own father and brother.

About the Magen David; recalling also the yellow crosses that so-called Christian heretics were made to wear during the Inquisitions loosely between 1252-1834. What emblems does humanity design for religions of minority, and other than their own?

Elsewhere, later, I record my Dad’s incarceration in the horror camp Bergen-Belsen. Earlier, he himself was in the ‘Páncélos’ or Armoured Corps. See photo much later.

But then, as already mentioned, came the bombings. More accurately, and most often, carpet bombings. Again, the name is because it was like laying a carpet of destruction over the city. Yet all the soldiers have vacated before, only civilians left.

Army service was then compulsory, if you please, and if you did not turn up at your Recruiting or Assembly Station when ordered, you could be shot on sight for treason. Not a lot of civilian men were left at home.

I am in danger of repeating myself, but, in reality, these bombings were no less than a plan to kill off as many of these defenceless people as possible, to spread terror in the population, and thus weaken the national resolution.

Mind you, Hitler did the same with the V-Bombs over London. I share the disgust of most people about Hitler, the monster. But that was too far for us to comprehend. Not to forget also that Britain was well prepared. For example, many months before the war, every man, woman and child in Britain was supplied with a gas mask.

I do mean EVERY person. Before the war! Every man, woman and child had access to Air Raid shelters. In the country, people were even supplied with prefabricated bomb shelters free of charge to put up on their farms and allotments. Many thousands of children from London were re-located in the country. All this well in advance before Britain declared war. Well planned.

Must have foreseen the future? Or pre-planned it all? And then did anyone except the hierarchy know?

Hungarians never had these luxuries, or foresight of the attacks pending on their homelands. And could Hungarians control what Hitler did?

Then again, Britain declaring war on Germany supposedly because the Brits had a treaty with Poland.

Soon, the Russians tore into Poland. Why did Cahmberlain and Churchill then not declare war on Russia for exactly the same reason as they did on the Germans? And Russia, in addition, murdered tens of thousands of Poles, including the famed Polish Officers, and rolled them into unmarked mass-graves.

Where were the Brit principles then?

Dear reader, there were wheels within wheels within wheels here; the dirt of it all was swiftly covered over, like the victims’ graves.

And of course, the British and American bomber pilots over Europe were heroes. Or so the allied media reported them.

I again recall Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Nuclear Bombs ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Boy.’

Note that the record of ‘Fat Boy’ has (all but) been wiped from history...even Encyclopaedia Britannica ceased to use the term (refer their edition of 2008 as against that of 2005) so as not to offend the British or throw well-deserved dirt on Winston Churchill, and his adviser Jennings, who, in cohorts with American President Harry Truman, and basic knowledge of Stalin’s Russians and de Gaulle’s French, then with the scientific support to the Americans of J. Robert Oppenheimer, agreed on the deployment of these inhuman weapons, killing and maiming many hundreds of thousands, truly.

No charge of mass destruction her, although many were made elsewhere, none could equal this horror.

It is a fact that on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Oahu Island in Hawaii, wiping out most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. But the truth is that this was a Naval Depot and anchorage, and therefore a possibly legitimate military target. Not that I am legitimizing this attack.

Up to 3400 US servicemen and maybe 200 civilian workers died here. But compare this to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki slaughters. Hundreds of thousands. Civilians.

I later in life stood on the walkway over the hull of the U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbour (Wai Momi in Hawaiian), and reflected on this. And the sadness for the around 1100 servicemen entombed in the hull. Drops of oil still come to the surface, regularly, 80 years later. From the engines, or the bodies?

Then although the Dresden massacre (fire bombings) was ordered by Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt, Truman bears the responsibility for the first actual Atomic Bombings, as Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945 (can he rest in his grave?), and Truman took over. He died on December 26, 1972. (Can HE rest in HIS grave?)

Truman’s justification? That these bombs would force the Japanese to give up the war, thereby (supposedly) saving possibly hundreds of thousands of lives.

Can you believe the insane reasoning of this? In Japan, maybe say 170,000 human beings killed some in one instant(!!), together of two occasions,125,000 injured (more maimed, some horribly) and uncounted hundreds of thousands crippled later and continuing for several generations by the genetic results of these inhumane weapons. Between Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden, much more than half-million innocent civilian people killed or maimed directly, and indirectly, even if not counting the fire-bombing of Tokyo, there over 100,000 killed. Supposedly to save lives??? Whose lives?

How many people on the U.S. Mainland were attacked and killed? NOT A ONE that I can find.

Can someone explain to me why one or two nuclear explosions over a more deserted or sparsely populated area in Japan would not have demonstrated these superior weapons sufficiently?

No, the Allies decided to wipe out a horrific number of human beings, all civilian families, in destroying these cities. They wanted to demonstrate their might. And do it on the world stage, they did. Naturally, watched by the Soviet Union. A score for America.

This wasn’t even deliberate collateral damage, as now pursued hotly by the World Court for other, more current atrocities. Collateral damage is really incidental, not deliberate.

The mind boggles. War crimes? Collective punishment? Ethnic Cleansing? (Many of the affected were of one race, Japanese, or German). Would the World Court (International Court of Justice) name these countries? Or the International Criminal Court; would Churchill, or Roosevelt, or Truman, or Jennings, or Oppenheimer,were they alive now, stand in the dock at the Hague? And Nuremberg; the show of indignation over the deplorable acts of Hitler’s henchmen. Could there have been a show over Churchill’s, Roosevelt’s, Truman’s, Stalin’s henchmen?

Don’t hold your breath, people. Maybe a Bosnian Serb Officer, of more recent times. But Roosevelt, Truman, Churchill? Mass-murderer Stalin as a collaborator? Perhaps the arrogant deGaulle of France as a conspirator? Lindeman and Oppenheimer as cohorts in mass murder? Think of Cambodia’s Pol Pot in more recent years, and compare the horrible yet miniscule in comparison, carnage there.

Even to name these above-mentioned posthumously would be a joke.

But just in WWII, repeating that in these places of mass destruction there were virtually no fighting men.

Those were already away at the fronts, in the Armed Forces.

Well, when you are the winner, I guess all is pardoned, all is forgiven, if not forgotten. Everyone shuts up and the history books just gloss over everything that is distasteful about the victors, who more often than not even write their own history.

The British and Americans did the same as elsewhere at Budapest, on various occasions. I will always remember the threatening drone of a thousand Bombers, the sirens, and the half-asleep rush down to the air-raid shelters. Nightly. Over 6 years.

From my age 5 on.

And then later the displaced people. Millions.These days there is much talk about the movement from Myanmar (Burma) to Bangladesh of the Rohingya Muslim minority. Compare the magnitudes.

WAR - MORE 1944

A further thing about living in a war. I mean living IN A WAR...right in the middle of it. You lose all sense of proportion. All sensitivity. Maybe you also lose pride, and a whole lot of other human emotions we take so much for granted that we don’t even think about them when we are NOT in a war.

I mean before the war, life in Hungary was certainly not easy. That was the World Depression, 1929-1930, before my birth time, but the consequences on-going.

Just like now, many people were at starvation level, and if not, certainly disadvantaged. Hungary itself was stripped bare from the First World War, then through the Great Depression to the Second World War, then the deplorable invasions and lootings and arson and rape by the French and the Romanians, and then thereafter the same again by the Russians, plus so-called War Reparation to the Soviets.

From 1914 for 50 years and beyond, several generations knew nothing but pain and poverty. Children were born, grew up, and died over these times.

On the other hand, just like now, many were fortunate, some were rich, more were able to have an education, which enabled them to reach higher ambitions. But, in spite of the circumstances, the privations, generally people lived in harmony, with dignity according to and commensurate with their status in life. Mostly people, though not all, were kind, generous and considerate of the needs and feelings of others.

To be sure, many were also greedy, some were cruel, there were then, as there are now, murders, robberies, profiteers and the like. But by and large, people were people. A goodly level above predatory animals.

But as the war wore on, something happened. Before, you may not have seen a dead body during your lifetime, except perhaps for say your Granny in her coffin, whom you may or may not have looked at, depending on your sensitivities.

Now, there were dead bodies everywhere. Not made up nice, like Granny. Not dressed up in special clothes. Not lying with a look of peace, repose upon their faces.

No. These people were maybe covered in blood. Perhaps they had limbs missing. Maybe they had a hole torn in their torso. Perhaps their faces mirrored horror, shock. Disbelief, maybe nothing.

And there were the children. Smaller editions of the same. Heartbreaking.

Then the smell. The characteristic faint smell of death, which you could sense a hundred metres from the body, if the wind was right. Or wrong. In summer, and in the daytime, the terrible odour set in within some hours.

But the amazing thing is that you got used to it.

You learned to walk around the bodies, maybe even step over one. You ignored the torn-off limbs. I clearly recall such a torn-off hand at age 7. The fingernails were intact, though the hand was grey. Outside our unit. I swear this is the truth. Then soon you no longer retched at the smell of the dead.

In actual fact, you started to sink towards primordial depths, where maybe nothing mattered much except your own survival, and even that was so much outside your control, that many simply sank into desperation, then into apathy.

Whatever comes, comes. Live not for the day, but for the moment.

And at this point, I instinctively stopped writing. Mqybe I am a bit too heavy in my heartfelt criticism of certain persons or nations. And then my heart said; You (me), my friend, are just expressing the old feelings from a time that cannot be re-lived, cannot be changed, cannot be erased; these feelings from your soul. Forged at your time as a child. Indelible. So, for the sake of veracity,and a search for atonement, they must remain.

RUDI 1943

Rudi was an acquaintance. I knew him, but not well. He worked at the tobacconist around the block near the corner of Légrády Károly-u. and Tátra-u., Budapest.

This was World War II, and the Anglo-American Air Forces ruled the air.

Hungary had no air-force.

Today, he got caught up in something unexpected.

Rudi was burning up. No, not like ‘burning up in anger’. Though he certainly had reason to be angry.

No. Rudi was burning up. Literally. In fact, he was a veritable torch.

To do the story justice, the reader should be aware that during bombing raids, it was a bad move to remain on the streets.

If away from home, and not in your own cellar, it was essential that you quickly found shelter of some sort.

So, on this particular day, when the sirens went - as they did frequently day and night- Rudi, having been caught some blocks away from home, ducked into the nearest apartment building with an open entry (mostly, buildings had the entry door or gate locked at all times, but there were always those not so well secured).

It would have been nice to say that he was fortunate to find an open one, except that there was nothing fortunate in store for Rudi that day.

As he charged into the building court yard, then the staircase lobby, he found the cellar door all right. And he hammered on it with his fist.

Although the cellar was by now full of the inhabitants of the building, nobody answered, so he gave it a couple of boots with his foot. And still nobody answered. It soon dawned on poor Rudi that nobody was going to let him in. To be sure, he did not actually blame anyone.

You see, it was a well-known trick for armed robbers to pretend to seek shelter in your cellar, only to attack and rob you when you opened the door.

As it was impossible for people inside to know what a stranger really wanted, they found it best to be discreet, so, the door was not ever opened. Keep in mind also that where they had time, people took their most portable valuables with them (whenever they had to rush to shelter) such as jewellery, gold items etc. and of course cash while it was still worth something, a rare and transient value.

To leave such things in your apartment was bad planning, not only because many buildings were reduced to rubble during air raids. No, not just for that reason. The other reason was that daring burglars, looters, also operated during air raids precisely because everyone, including the inhabitants, were down in the cellars. And the thieves stole everything portable, from the apartments above, although sometimes at the risk of their own lives.

Looters were really everywhere, even though what were left of civil law enforcement were ordered to shoot to kill any such criminals on sight.

So, sadly (for him), Rudi was caught by the result of people’s fear, or perhaps you could say people’s common sense. He then contemplated running out of the building to find another, but by then bombs were falling all over, and to be caught in the open was madness.

So, he did the next best thing, he cowered under the brick arch of the main courtyard entry. Such arches were common in old apartment buildings, many of them hundreds of years-old, and a lot of them had full-panel iron gates. Later in my story, you will see a photo of such an archway, at Miskolc, my birth-town. And others in every town.

Some of them also had a cobbled drive-way (for coaches) under the arch, leading to the central court, useful in the old horse-and-carriage days.

In any case, everyone knew that arches stood often intact even after a building might be virtually destroyed.

Witness the earthquakes in other parts of the world, and in ruins of antiquity: the arch was always seen as a haven. And it survived often many centuries, when nothing else was left. Hence Rudi’s automatic decision to cower there.

Just as a note, I have since those years travelled the world’s antiquities, archaeological sites, and almost always, in the midst of rubble, of destruction, you found some virtually intact archways. I witnessed this even at ancient Olympia, in Greek Peloponnese, amongst other sites.

However, this air raid was with incendiary bombs, thermite, and proving that this was indeed not Rudi’s lucky day, one hit the pavement in the street outside - not far from where he sheltered.

We can now relate to the opening sentence above: Rudi was burning up. The combustible, incendiary chemicals propelled by the blast covered him in an instant, and so he became the human torch we spoke about.

Rudi was instantly no more.

Mind you, he was only one of hundreds and thousands who were similarly destroyed during the uncountable air-raids executed by the Allies, being mainly the Anglos, then later the Americans and still later in the war in some cases the Russians.

Not to mention the Germans, although they did not use incendiaries, not over Budapest, anyway. Their attacks were confined to bombs and machine-gun strafings against Allied posts, but naturally any bombing could start fires.

And again, not like the Allies whose incendiaries were designed especially to burn up town areas. I might add that in the case of Rudi this was in the civilian quarters of the city..’Lipót-város’...not military targets. More of the innocents got killed than any fighting troops.

So the incendiaries fell.

And the dashing pilots and bombardiers, young men with pencilled Robert Taylor (do you remember hin?) moustaches, poppy-oil or Brylcreem plastered hair, pumped up by the propaganda of Churchill and Roosevelt to feel justified like heroes, happily discharged their ugly, inhuman cargoes over the Hungarian cities.

Killing, no, murdering, all, in their paths.

But to return to our story, Rudi was found soon after this particular raid, a crumbled block of charcoal, but recognisable by the metal contents of his burned-up pockets; a partly melted watch, a penknife with his initials, a necklace. However, no-one (well, no-one I can think of) cried for Rudi.

You see, he was a known informer to the secret police (at that time controlled by the Gestapo), and the cause of many a lamp-post hanging of patriots...so the sayings went. Some said Rudi got his just deserts. Maybe he did. But what about all the others similarly killed? The uncountable others? Especially the children. What were their desserts? What were their crimes?

I ask. And keep asking!

I really ask futilely, for who is going to answer me?

And here, I sense the deadly silence in response.

I should reveal here that much of the story of Rudi is reconstruction based on the multitude of stories I overheard from others.

GOD - WHERE ARE YOU? 1946.

The horrors of war. Later, at age 12, when much of it was behind me, although more suffering was still to follow, I thought to myself:

How could God allow all these terrible things to happen, man against man, and yet we are all his creation?

Later in life I became aware of the broadening scope of what really happened in the two World Wars. In the second one, the incredible sufferings, including of course the fate of the maybe 6 million European Jews, but up to 50-55 million other people or maybe more in total that lost their life...and then start counting the injuries, the maimed, the crippled... and their carers, their mothers, fathers, dependents, wives, siblings, children...

I looked up to the sky and asked: "God- where are you?"

And, as I already found at age 5 or 6, when I first asked for some clarification on this from my father, no answer came. None that I could decipher. From Dad, I did get a hug, along with a disturbed look.

And much later when I realised the sufferings, the starvations, the diseases in Africa, Asia, and in these places not because of the Great Wars, but their own internal wars, the inhumanities of their dictators, despots, religious lunatics, natural disasters, plagues, and then the terror of fanatical and militant Islam, which soon became a cancer on humanity.

Fundamental Islam incessantly massacres innocents supposedly in the name of Allah. I listened to a recorded exchange of phone conversations after the 2009 Mumbai slaughter, and the terrorist said to his leader; What shall I do with these (innocent) hostages? And the leader said, words to that effect; kill them. And make sure you die too...Allah is waiting for you, my martyr.

Explicit chilling lunacy.

Of course, the leader wanted the terrorist to die, not for Allah, but because if captured, he may have revealed the leader’s identity. So sickening.

I again asked: "God- where are you? And what is it all about?"

And still no answer.

My own first son Anthony asked the same question when he was about five. Hands open, palms up. And, again, I could not then give him a proper response, except a hug.

But I did later find some measure of a resolution, and I describe this below...

AND MAN CREATED GOD... IN HIS OWN IMAGE? 1946

The horrors of war I thought to myself:

How could God allow all these terrible things to happen? Now, I must establish here that I am not an atheist. I do believe in a Supreme Being. And his love. But who is he?

Later in life, I attempted to unravel the confusing tangle of the dozens of main-stream religions, then the hundreds of splinter-faiths emanating from these, then the thousands more of faiths other than main-streams and their splinter groups.

Then on to the tribal religions; Shamanism…animism...where does it all end?

I then looked at the Gods, ancient and contemporary, and to my consternation found hundreds upon thousands and more of these, too! And these are only those that have been codified or expressed in forms of art and philosophy! And along the way, I found that many if not all religions and their Gods are based on no more than superstition, fairy tales, vague mysticism, fear, obsessions, hear-say and anecdotes, but very little or no substance.

History including archaeology and signs from prehistory tell us that from the beginning of time, of man’s existence, humans have formed religions. Right through the path of the explosion in man’s conquest of the planet, he was always in the company of his perceived Gods, and observed his interpretation of the requirements of his Gods, the rituals and rules, the inclusions and exclusions.

This tells me that man always felt the need to be subject or allied to one or another form of the divine. Is man’s life predicated on the super-natural?

We can’t all be wrong? We can’t all be right?

Edward Burnett Tylor expressed the minimum definition of religion; the belief in Spiritual beings. For me, that’s too large a net. I myself would add; and observance of the codes of human conscience and decency.

But what a bewildering conundrum. I mean, then, who writes the codes? For example, Muhammad was illiterate.

His Bilal and companions wrote the Quor’an.

And herein lies the paradox. Here lies the root of most hate, war, conflict, antagonism. We each and all believe that our own religion is true, not only that, but our own religion is the only one that is true.

Everybody else’s is wrong!

And not only do we believe this, but we believe in our own individual wisdom in determining the ‘true’ religion to the extent that we will go to war over it, personally kill those not in compliance, sometimes even those we would normally be expected to love. Or, at least, we will feel bound to proselytize everyone else.

Witness the so-called honour killings in parts of the Muslim world where a father may, with his own hand, kill his very own daughter for a reason that to us Westerners seems abhorrent and incomprehensible.

Is this religion or fanaticism? Or are these two concepts the same except for degree?

And yet if we are all God’s creations, why would He use some of us to torture, rob, slaughter, rape others that He created? And if He is omnipotent, as many religions profess, if He feels the need to cull humanity, I wonder why He would not use His awesome powers to do this directly Himself, rather than getting ‘His’ people to do it?

Well, the Great Flood, the Deluge, was an attempt at this. Was it not? But so long ago. Recorded in the Bible, and many other religions and tales, even in the Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamia, refers to the library of Ashurbanipal, recorded in the 7th Century BC, and similar stories of other civilisations.

More recently, it has been found that sperm, of the human male, has been decreasing in potency and viability, and is at this time half what it was 50 years ago. Is this a subtle way to cull? And also to solve the world overpopulation, which is the direct and specific cause of global climate change, starvation, poverty and pollution?

And what of all the different Gods, could it be that they mirror our own aspiring selves? And do the religions then mirror our own societies?

After all, most religions believe in the afterlife, which in many simply reflect the believer’s earthly existence, on a more perfect, more beautiful plane.

In many earlier religions, the afterlife has been a mirror of earthly, temporal existence, but often in opposite form, same as a mirror shows us but with opposite reflection. Left seems right, right seems left. Any lesson here?

Is God, or our depiction of God subjective, depending on our individual cultures, upbringing, place in society, personal feelings?

The Old Testament, Genesis, 1:27, states that God created man in his own image.

Could it be that actually, metaphorically speaking,

MAN CREATED HIS GOD IN HIS OWN IMAGE?

May that explain all the different expressions for God?

I quote just one more example, Allah, who in the Qur’an and the Hadith can be portrayed as a Middle Eastern despot of antiquity, with his heavens having all the trappings of such a god. Golden throne and all. Gardens with flowing water. And honey. And virgins. By the way, why would Allah need Gold??? And virgins?

Then for himself and his faithful - only? If his faithful are amenable to him?

The delusions of a ‘prophet’?

Then fundamentalist, militant Islam slaughters humans in the belief that Allah wants them to. Many even say that they were born specifically for that very purpose. I pondered over the absurd insanity of this. Why would Allah put us on this earth only to kill us? And their murderous diaspora multiply daily.

After much research and agonising self-examination, and having read the Bible, the Qur’an, the Written Torah, the Book of Mormon, and some but obviously not nearly all Vedic, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Jainist, Confucian and Taoist, Shinto, Kono Tabi (Japan), Bon (Tibet) texts, writings.

Then in interviews with the descendants of Animistic Stone Age people, and other texts (where extant) and teachings, some of them several times over, and having lived in or passed through the lands where each of these faiths have flowered, and still do, and having come across other teachings, such as Ancestor Worship and Shamanism. Then the Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs, Olmecs, then Inuits and others, I have thus come to realise that yes indeed, I find no explanation other than (again metaphorically speaking);

Man did create God in his own image.

And as each man is different, so is each man’s God different.

Or maybe underneath the real God is the same, but we enshroud him in different clothing, appearance, qualities, substance to suit our own concept.

But nevertheless, we all must make our choice. Otherwise, we will for ever be confused and lost in the maze. Unless we choose the absence of faith and God (atheism), or maybe agnosticism, which would be like living in a void. Not in compliance with mainstream basic human nature.

At a certain time, I have made my choice, on religion and on God. Then life immediately became more simple, less puzzling, and kinder.

My choice is the faith I was baptised into, and the God of that faith. At least, he preaches love, not hate.

I am not saying that this is necessarily the only true religion. But it’s at least just as good as any. And for me, personally, I believe in this.