Tag #133997 - Interview #78503 (Katalin Andai)

[In 1944 when Jews were moved to yellow-star houses] Rozsa Street 48 became a Jewish house (I lived with my parents in Rozsa Street 50). We had to move into a terrible flat overlooking the courtyard, and from there I had to go out to the KISOSZ-ground, and from there to the brick factory. Wallenberg came there, and we got a Swedish free pass [so I could get out]. We founded the Swedish protected houses in St. Istvan Park in November 1944. I ran home to get my parents to come there. We even managed to get my husband out of the forced labor service in November 1944. He was in terrible condition, and I told him, “Now you lie down, and don’t move even if the walls fall in, because you are very sick.” One of our relatives enticed my mother away to the next street telling her that that protected house would be better. My husband and I remained in St. Istvan Park until the end. Of course Arrow-Cross men came into the house, but we got our own Arrow-cCoss man, and he protected us. The janitor was a very clever old man, he said he had an acquaintance, a barber, who had joined the Hungarian Nazis. If everybody gave 20 pengos each day (there were six hundred of us) and we put it all together, then he would move here and wouldn’t let us be taken. And that’s how it was. Gyorgy moved there. Every evening the 20 pengos were gathered and he drank it away immediately in the midst of great singing. The morning after we could hardly bring him to life to stand outside (and send away the other Arrow-Cross men). Then when the Russians came in the janitor from the house opposite told them that there was an Arrow-Cross man here. Thereupon we surrounded the Arrow-Cross man and said that he was a false Arrow-Cross man, that we were indebted to him for our lives, and that we wouldn’t let anybody touch him. The Arrow-Cross man remained.