Budapest, Hungary
Dear Mother and Father Mendel,
We followed the Swedish diplomat’s car from the freight yard to a “safe house” in Budapest. There are more than thirty of these houses, all flying a blue and yellow Swedish flag in front. They have been declared a safe zone from the Nazis, protected by International Law. Thousands of Jews already lived in this protected district, but when I arrived with the other refugees from the evacuation trains, they quickly made space for more of us, sharing their food and giving milk to Fredeleh and baby –Yankel. He cries and cries for his mother – and when I am alone, I cry for mine.
I’ve learned that the man who saved us is a young Swedish diplomat named Raoul Wallenberg. He came to Hungary for the sole purpose of saving as many Jews as he possibly could. At first he set aside a special section for Jews in the Swedish embassy, but after more than seven hundred people fled there for protection, he began renting safe houses and claiming them as Swedish property. He also buys food and medicine for us with money from America. He said that Jewish people in America are raising money to help us, and that the United States sends this aid to us through neutral nations, such as his.
Mr. Wallenberg knows that the Nazis respect official documents and identity cards, so he designed the Swedish identity papers that his men passed to us on the train. He bluffs the Nazis with seals and stamps and signatures, claiming that those of us who hold these papers are Swedish nationals. He has saved countless lives this way. His staff works around the clock to print the documents and distribute them to us. Meanwhile, I’m told that Mr. Wallenberg never sleeps. He surfaces everywhere in Budapest – the way he did at the freight yard – doing everything he can to rescue more Jews. He somehow finds food and medicine in a city plagued with shortages. He operates soup kitchens and clinics, since Jews are banned from all of the hospitals, working with the Swiss embassy and the Swedish Red Cross. When the wife of one of Wallenberg’s Jewish workers was about to give birth, he took her to his own apartment and brought a doctor there to deliver her baby.
No one knows how much longer our Swedish friends will be able to bluff the Nazis this way, and so I knew it was time to hide Fredeleh in the Christian orphanage where she will be safe. My mother said good-bye to me so that I could go free, and Dina Weisner said good-bye to little Yankel. Now I had to say good-bye to my daughter so she will live.
Before I had time to change my mind, I asked one of the men from the Swedish embassy to help me take Fredeleh and baby Yankel to the Catholic convent. The Swedish man agreed to go with me, pretending to be my husband, showing his identification papers to any soldiers who stopped us. It was the longest journey of my life.
An elderly Christian woman who runs the orphanage met us at the door. I told her about the evacuation train. “My husband said that you would hide my daughter here. Please, can you take Fredeleh? And this little boy, as well? The Nazis took his mother away.”
I gave Fredeleh’s papers and your address in America to the Christians. I told them Yankel’s name and his mother’s name. Then I hugged Fredeleh and kissed her good-bye. She clung to my neck crying, “Mama! Mama!” She didn’t want to let go of me, but I pried her away against both of our wills. I knew how she felt, not wanting to leave her mother. I also knew how my own mother felt, wanting her daughter to be safe. And so I pushed Fredeleh away and turned my back on her, just as my own mother had turned away from me.
I don’t know why I have survived this long when so many, many others have not. Here at the Swedish safe house we ask each other that question every day, wondering how it can be that we are here when all of the others were taken away on the trains.
Today we learned that the deportations have stopped for now. The Nazis need the trains to transport soldiers as the Soviet army marches closer and closer to us.
I live day by day, trying not to think about the past or the future. I have no idea what has become of Avraham or if I will ever see him again.
But if Hashem is willing, Fredeleh will survive. And for that I am grateful.
Love,
Sarah Rivkah