Tag #140691 - Interview #78783 (magdolna palmai)

Once a former opera singer called Erzsi started to sing the 'Yiddishe Mame.' The echo of that in the hall was something miraculous. Once the door opened and there stood the gendarme, a first lieutenant, and he was crying. He said, 'How can this be done to women? How?' And he asked us what we needed. And that night he had so much food brought with a truck, we hadn't seen that much food in our life before - bread, bacon, marmalade and margarine. The gendarmes gave everyone as much as one wanted. He asked how he could help each of us. I told him that I wanted to wash in warm water, because it was awful that one couldn't wash. So he told the guards that those who wanted could go and wash in turns. We could only wash in the presence of the guards, of course, but I can't tell you what that meant for us. Everyone got a demobilization paper from him, so that we would be allowed to go back to our apartments. This gendarme officer told us already in Alag, 'Look, I can't help you, I can only say that they are changing the cadre. Our men will take you from here to Budapest - I think the Petofi Bridge was still standing at that time, we crossed that - after the bridge the Arrow Cross men take over the company.' He told us to watch out, and that those who could should run away, and that we should be careful and use back roads because the Germans were still at the Royal. He told us not to take main roads, but walk on secondary roads.