#Hungarian refugees

[newyorkthegoldenage]

A group of young Hungarian refugees on board the naval carrier General Walker, which transported almost two thousand people to New York, February 15, 1957. They came to the U.S. as part of one of the largest groups of refugees through a sea bridge set up by the government. Once docked, everyone was taken to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, for immigration processing.

Photo: Anthony Camerano for the AP via Maimanohaz

[fitzrove]

[shaking and biting] but what does it MEAN. what does it SAY what is the THEME

[theaskew]

Satantango, a novel by László Krasznahorkai, 1985.

[bea-lele-carmen]

[thedreadvampy]

of course my heart goes out to all those in fear and pain in the US right now. and we will offer them all the support and care we've also offered to marginalised people dealing with fascism in Italy, Hungary, Poland, Argentina, South Korea, India, Turkey, Russia, Iran, Canada, Saudi Arabia...we care equally about those folks, right?

people keep being like 'omg is everyone ok how's everyone feeling' it's not my fuckin country nor is it a massive surprise. sucks for Americans, of whom I am not one, and I'm sorry for that and sorry for you, this must be very scary, but I cannot IMAGINE why people are worried about OTHER BRITISH PEOPLE'S emotions on the topic.

btw the government of Germany basically fully collapsed today how are we all feeling about that? do we need a self care moment about that? since we're so emotionally invested in genocidal foreign governments?

[conqu3er]

the ticket inspectors are the cops of the trains

[bobemajses]

Rumbach Street Synagogue, Budapest, built in 1872.

The Moorish Revival synagogue in the historical old town of Pest has recently been restored with a grant from the Hungarian Government. The octagonal, balconied, domed building intricately patterned and painted in Islamic style was built as an homage to the design of the Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem. After its completion, the "Rumbach zsinagóga" became a symbol of welcome, where refugees arriving from the countryside and, between the wars, the annexed areas of Greater Hungary, found a safe home.

[girlactionfigure]

Worn and weary, balding, with sad eyes, Raoul Wallenberg looked much older than his 31 years of age when in 1944 he was assigned the responsibility of saving Jews in Hungary. The assignment came by way of the War Refugee Board, an American organization formed that same year with the goal of saving Jews from persecution by the Nazis.

Raoul, who had some Jewish lineage but was not considered Jewish, was born in Sweden to a prominent family of bankers, diplomats, and politicians. He was expected to follow in the footsteps of his family, but he decided to become an architect.

He went to study architecture in America, at the University of Michigan. During his time in college, Raoul worked odd jobs despite his family’s wealth, and hitchhiked across the US, Canada, and Mexico during holidays. He continued hitchhiking even after getting robbed and thrown into a ditch by four men who offered him a lift. In a letter to his grandfather, Raoul wrote of his love of hitchhiking, “When you travel like a hobo, everything’s different. You have to be on the alert the whole time. You’re in close contact with new people every day. Hitchhiking gives you training in diplomacy and tact.”

Raoul finished the University of Michigan with honors, even winning a medal for his scholastic achievements. Unable to find architecture work in Sweden after graduation, Raoul briefly lived in South Africa, soon moving to Palestine for a banking apprenticeship. It was in Palestine that Raoul first encountered Jewish refugees from Germany. The refugees made a strong impact on Raoul.

Upon returning to Sweden, Raoul went into the import/export business with a man of Hungarian Jewish decent. Once it became harder for his partner to travel to Hungary due to his being Jewish, Raoul started making the trips himself. He traveled frequently to Budapest, learned Hungarian in addition to his already knowing French, English, German, and Russian, and ultimately went on to head the international arm of the business, soon becoming a joint owner of the company.

In 1944 Germany occupied Hungary. At the time of the occupation, Hungary had close to 700,000 Jewish citizens. By the time Raoul arrived in Hungary on his mission of rescue, over 400,000 of them had been sent to Auschwitz.

Raoul wasted no time. He did everything he could think of to save Jewish people. He bribed, extorted, bluffed, and threatened to achieve his aims of saving as many people as possible.

With a fellow Swedish diplomat he created official looking protective passes to give out to Jews granting them Swedish citizenship and making them exempt from wearing the yellow badge that Nazis required them to wear. Sandor Ardai, one of Raoul’s drivers, recalled a time when Raoul came upon a train full of Jews about to depart to Auschwitz,

“He climbed up on the roof of the train and began handing in protective passes through the doors which were not yet sealed. He ignored orders from the Germans for him to get down, then the Arrow Cross [the Hungarian Nazi party] men began shooting and shouting at him to go away. He ignored them and calmly continued handing out passports to the hands that were reaching out for them. I believe the Arrow Cross men deliberately aimed over his head, as not one shot hit him, which would have been impossible otherwise. I think this is what they did because they were so impressed by his courage. After Wallenberg had handed over the last of the passports he ordered all those who had one to leave the train and walk to the caravan of cars parked nearby, all marked in Swedish colours. I don’t remember exactly how many, but he saved dozens off that train, and the Germans and Arrow Cross were so dumbfounded they let him get away with it!”

In total Raoul gave out tens of thousands of such protective passes, but the German government eventually caught on to the ruse and ruled the passes invalid. When Raoul heard of this, he called on Baroness Elisabeth Kemeny, the wife of the Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs in Budapest, for help,

‘’Raoul implored me to help. He was desperate. I talked to my husband and said he must do something. He told me ‘I can’t fight the whole cabinet.’ But after midnight word came that 9,000 passes would be honored. I can still remember Raoul’s elation, his happiness.’’ The baroness had finally persuaded her husband to help by threatening to leave him if he didn’t.

When the Germans abandoned the use of trains to transport Jewish prisoners, instead forming 125 mile death marches toward Auschwitz, Raoul began visiting stopping areas to save people.

“‘You there!’ The Swede pointed to an astonished man, waiting for his turn to be handed over to the executioner. ‘Give me your Swedish passport and get in that line,’ he barked. ‘And you, get behind him. I know I issued you a passport.’ Wallenberg continued, moving fast, talking loud, hoping the authority in his voice would somewhat rub off on these defeated people…The Jews finally caught on. They started groping in pockets for bits of identification. A driver’s license or birth certificate seemed to do the trick. The Swede was grabbing them so fast; the Nazis, who couldn’t read Hungarian anyway, didn’t seem to be checking. Faster, Wallenberg’s eyes urged them, faster, before the game is up. In minutes he had several hundred people in his convoy. International Red Cross trucks, there at Wallenberg’s behest, arrived and the Jews clambered on…”

In one of his final acts of rescue, Raoul intimidated the supreme commander of German forces in Hungary, Major-General Gerhard Schmidthuber, into not blowing up a Jewish ghetto housing 70,000 people. As the war was coming to an end and there was not enough time to send the remaining Jews to Auschwitz, Adolf Eichmann, a major organizer of the Holocaust, ordered the slaughter of all Hungarian Jews in one mass execution. When Raoul found out about this, he sent word to Schmidthuber that if he were to go through with the slaughter, Raoul would personally see that he was hanged for crimes against humanity after the war. Knowing that Hitler was close to defeat, Schmidthuber acquiesced and called off the massacre.

Raoul took such risks because his perspective on the work he was doing was simple, “I will never be able to go back to Sweden without knowing inside myself that I’d done all a man could do to save as many Jews as possible.”

In total Raoul saved close to 100,000 Jews. He himself was captured by the Soviets on suspicion of being a spy and is presumed to have died a Soviet prisoner.

Historical Snapshots

[rebeccabobecca]

Grandpa was drafted by the nazis (they literally kidnapped him bc he spoke German, Russian and ukrainian), and then when the Russians beat back the nazis, he was sent to a prison camp in Siberia, and then when the Russians were told in the 50s to let their pows go, they just, opened the doors, so he walked over 1000km back to Crimea.

The best part of my “humans are so cool my grandma’s heart healed itself my great grandma survived tetanus” post is the people in the tags telling me the remarkable things their relatives survived. They range from things like ‘great grandpa was shot in WW1 and then gassed while crawling away and then he stumbled blind into a farm house which was hit by a mortar shell but my French great grandmother found him and saved him and nursed him back to health’ to ‘my uncle got drunk and passed out in the snow in North Dakota in -10° weather while trying to take a piss and got frostbite on his dick but he was ok and I have cousins so I guess it wasn’t that bad’ we all have our crosses to bear.

[cazzyf1]

My favourite quotes from Niki Lauda's book: "Reden wir Über Geld'

I expected him to spontaneously give me the finger - p6

I hate it when I go through security at the airport and the coins clatter around again. For this reason alone, the comparison with Scrooge McDuck, who likes to swim in money, is completely nonsense - p9

My mother regularly drove me to a Dentist behind the Vienna city hall, where I was tormented for years with regulations. I was more of a wimp, or as they say in Vienna: a slob - p13

My grandfather lived more like a real millionaire. He was the country's model industrialist and lived in a palace on the Ringstrasse with liveried servants who wore black uniforms and white gloves. Hans Lauda was the general director of the Veitsch Magnesitwerke. The Nazis dismissed him in 1938, but he returned to his post after the war. As president of the Austrian Industrial Association, he was one of the pioneers of social partnership and the economic miracle. He was also president of the Red Cross until 1974 and was therefore personally acquainted with Princess Grace Patricia, who was the president of the Red Cross in Monaco. In 1956 he organized aid for thousands of Hungarian refugees. I was only seven at the time, but I know from stories. - p14

Still in my pajamas, I heated up a toy steam engine. Beforehand, I mixed the water in the boiler with iron filings. Which of course wasn't such a good idea. There was an explosion and the hot steam burned my right thigh. My parents were done. I mostly argued with my brother Florian. To this day, we have no common interests, just the fact that we are brothers. One time I was lying in bed when Florian climbed onto the bedside table and tried to jump on me. I tipped the table over with my foot and my brother hit the floor. Then my father came and gave me a slap. Sometimes we played fire brigade together. To make the whole thing a bit more authentic and challenging, one day I brought a canister over, poured the petrol out lit it and ordered Florian to put out the fire. Although the hoses were ready, the fire briefly got out of control. The garage almost burned down and a few fruit trees were singed. - p15-16

I never dreamed of flying, and I certainly didn't see flying as a worthwhile hobby. I wanted to be faster. I wanted to save time. Because I was already earning a decent amount of money at the time, I had brought a Cessna Golden Eagle, had my own pilot and learned the practical side of things by flying with others. I became a student pilot and my preferred route was Salzburg-Bolgona. That made double sense. That's how I got into flying, got one license after another and four years later I founded an airline as the first Formula 1 driver and professional pilot. - p28

I also wanted to coax a private Ferrari out of the Commendatore, but he only gave me a Fiat - p34

I usually carry around 300 to 400 euros with me, 500 at the most. If there are several notes, I hold them together with a money clip. I've never had a wallet. I avoid coins in everyday life. Not that I don't value small change, but it's too heavy in my pockets and I don't like the clatter - p36

Max and Mia also like to play 'police' they drive wildly through the house on their astic scooters and I have to say: "Stop! You were driving too fast. That will cost you thirty euros." They then count to thirty together, in English. - p37

Brigit once asked me to take the bus because the twins like doing it so much. "Sure!" I said, "I'll do it. How do you pay?" In the end I let it go. - p38

I loved spinach even as a small child, because of popeye the sailor - p39

In Spielberg I once asked him: "Lewis, do you see anything about me that needs to be improved?" He didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that moment. Then he explained to me: "You should throw away that brown sweater immediately! That is the worst color for a man. And you need different pants! Not always the same ones and besides, they just don't fit." I enjoyed listening to that and thinking about it. But then I came to the following conclusion: Why should I change anything if everything is fine for me? "Thanks for the input", I said to Lewis, "but even if my blue jeans are down to my knees hang down, I just feel so comfortable in them." - p39/40

It was also Forghieri who came up with the idea of suggesting a sponsor for my red cap. "Watch out," he said one day, "there is a salami company that now wants to get into milk production, which would be interested in advertising." - p43-4

I crossed the finish line in a first Grand Prix, with Clay Regazzoni behind me, so it was a double victory for Ferrari, a true triumph. That night, they played Blue Danube Waltz in the disco in my honour. - p45

When I sit in the cockpit, for example, I notice every speck of dust. As a farewell gift, employees of LaudaAir gave me a man size brush as a nod to my cleanliness obsession - p52

Willi Dungl wanted to find out whether I had suffered trauma from the inferno. He once lit a fire in the fireplace at my home in Salzburg and said, "look at that Niki!" I looked inside, but nothing was moving. I also couldn't care less about the fire in the accident photo - p57-8

I had waited my whole life for a guy like Attila Dogudan - p91

Is Attila Dogudan my friend? I don't want to say anything wrong now. My perception of friendship around this is that people meet in the evenings and spend their hours talking about their worries. The only person who sometimes notices my worries is Birgit - sometimes she whistles at me! -p95/6

I would describe Atilla as my long-term companion - p96

If he didn't answer I would send him an SMS: "I'll cancel the entire catering if you don't call in five minutes." Of course he calls back immediately - p97

My brother Florian, who is 18 months younger than me, is a Buddhist - p107

But the main issue was a heart operation for a three year old boy called Soumitra. That cost a few thousand euros, which we transferred straight away. We then received photos of the child before and after the operation. Since then, when I meet Claudia, I always ask her; "how is my heart?" I mean the heart of this little Indian boy, who has been able to live a normal life since the operation. P109

Fourfiveseconds by Rihanna is such an incredibly great song. Lewis Hamilton, who now makes music himself, sometimes goes with me to promotional events. He is always amazed at the songs I have saved, like an old idiot. 'Some nights' by fun, or George Ezra'a Budapest. I have hundreds of songs like that saved on my iphone and listen to them over and over again - p114

When Birigt wants something from me and I'm feeling defiant, I play her, 'Hero' by Family of the year - p115

When we have a little tangle I play her 'Blame it on me' - p115

Sometimes Birgit, who loves red wine, jokes; "drink another glass of wine, my kidney needs it!" I then sip the glass because I just don't like red wine - like alchol in general - p117

In 2000 I came up with the idea of flying into space. There are several programs running for such flights. I already tried it out in a simulator in Houston, Texas - p122

Later on I explained to my boys that there are also people with two ears. We laughed together. - p143

When Lukas was 15, I took him to a strip club. Sex education. I was shocked myself at how close women were to him. They danced around and took off one thing after another. Lukas watched it all. When it was over he stood up, took off his shirt, and put it around the dancers shoulders so that she wouldn't freeze. It was a really caring gesture. Then I knew: that guy not only has manners, but also heart. Lukas wanted to invite her out but I advised him against it. - p143/144

Sometimes Marlene went crazy when she found out about one of my escapades but she never said a bad word about me in front of the children - p144

In her boundless generosity, Marlene would have taken Christoph into our family, but his mother didn't want that - p145

[hero-israel]

How can you claim that Zionism was morally right, when what it was was European Jews coming to Palestine by the thousands and buying land, and when the Arabs realised what they were trying to do, i.e. steal land by making it sound reasonable to the British they should have the right to self determination, they rightfully tried to put a stop to it? If a lot of people come into a populated area and then ask for it to be given to them, since they’re so many, does it make it right for the people who were already there? And yeah, it’s true there was some Jewish presence there already but it wasn’t that much and it wasn’t them who started the Zionist movement. So how can you claim this was right?

You just said they were buying the land, and they were, so anyone thinking they were stealing it is already revealing major problems with racism, xenophobia, and conspiratorial thinking.

And by all means, let's talk about "immigrants" versus "people who were already there." From the 1850s to 1920s, the Ottoman Empire faced waves of refugee crises (the Crimean War, the Balkan Wars, the Russo-Turkish War, the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the beginning of World War 1) and decided to resettle OVER FIVE MILLION Muslim refugees all throughout its Mediterranean and Levant provinces. They sent hundreds of thousands of ex-Balkan and ex-Russian Muslims into southern Syria and what is now Jordan. These refugees founded the four largest cities in Jordan, including its capital Amman; of course, Jordan had been part of historic Palestine and the Palestine Mandate, and from the very first day they were able to govern themselves they passed laws banning any Jewish citizenship or inhabitation.

Am I supposed to see that as anything other than the most base, ladder-pulling racism? Do you really expect me to care that ex-Russian Muslims arriving in Jaffa in 1890 wanted to keep the ex-Polish Jews out in 1920? Between the Ottoman refugee resettlement and the large numbers of Arabs immigrating to benefit from new economic opportunities in a rapidly developing Palestine, the United Nations would later come to classify people as "refugees of the 1948 war" if they had been permanent inhabitants of Palestine any time before 1946. So many newcomers that just living there for two years made you a wizened, old-timer local, with a perfectly natural right to say nobody else can come in.

Where exactly are you starting history and whose immigration are you seeing as rightful, as just? In 1832, Egypt invaded Ottoman Palestine and established from nothing the new settler town of Abu Kabir; in 1948, Zionist militias depopulated it. Were the Arab settlers of Abu Kabir "indigenous" for the 116 years they were there? Because the major waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine started about 140 years ago....

There is no such thing as a legitimate history of the Levant that sees it as normal and morally / politically neutral for millions of Muslims to be resettled by various Muslim empires, but abnormal and dangerous for Jews to move in under their own initiative - usually out of desperation to save their lives - with no sponsoring empire at all.

Beyond that, if you took a few minutes to think of what your argument implies about the "Great Migration" of African-Americans to northern states in the early 20th century, or refugees crossing the Mexican border, and how white people responded to both, I think you would be less willing to make it, even anonymously.

[eretzyisrael]

Today is Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day. This week’s very special Thursday Hero was submitted by Edward Baral, a member of our Accidental Talmudist community.

Here is his story:

"In 1943, my grandmother Franka Baral escaped from Plazow concentration camp near Krakow, Poland. She made her way overland to Budapest with my father (aged 8), his brother and sister and three young cousins.

"In Budapest, they lived hand to mouth and were quickly running out of options. My father stood alone on a street corner and began to cry. A Hungarian woman named Ilona Nemes asked him what was wrong and he bawled (at considerable risk but he was just a kid) that he was hungry and homeless.

"Ilona took all seven desperate Jews to her apartment and hid them. As life in Budapest became more dangerous, Ilona transported the Jews in small groups to her parents’ farm near Nhiregyhaza. She passed them off as Catholic refugees from Poland (they did not speak any Hungarian).

"Franka and the six young children lived in relative safety until the Russians came a year later.

"Ten years ago, I found some letters between my grandmother and Ilona from 1965-66 but there appeared to be no later contact. After a decade of searching, I finally found Ilona’s granddaughter still living in Budapest last year.

"Ilona’s granddaughter and her family speak no English, but thanks to Google translate, Facebook, and the help of another caring Hungarian woman named Ilona, we were able to connect. When they sent me a photo of Ilona Nemes on the farm with my family in 1944, I got goosebumps.

"We arranged for Ilona’s granddaughter to receive her grandmother’s Righteous Among the Nations award [given by Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews.]

"We believe that Ilona saved other Jews as well, but the full story of her incredible bravery may never be known.”

For her huge heart and tremendous courage in saving seven Jews - including six children - we honor Ilona Nemes as this week’s Thursday Hero.

Thank you to Edward Baral for introducing us to this remarkable woman.

Source: facebook.com

[tearsofrefugees]

[womansfilm]

Ingrid Bergman is the guest of honor at the folk wedding of refugee Hungarian couples, 1957 x x

[bea-lele-carmen]