Selected text
Sometime in the early 1980s we at Trefort, my school, became sisters with a Germany gymnasium in Giessen48 Their choir came to Budapest, and we went to Germany to reciprocate the visit – our choir, the two music teachers, and someone from the school administration. It didn’t even occur to me to go, even though I had very pleasant impressions of the German teachers. I thought that they were very pleasant people. When the question of who should go to Germany was raised, I was nominated, since I spoke German. I’m not going, I protested, because I have promised never to set foot in that country, and I am going to keep that promise. But they kept insisting, saying that I had to go because I speak German. Besides I’m not going of my own accord, it’s work, it’s my duty. And so I went, and the truth is that that’s when I experienced my first serious change of heart with regard to the Germans. When we arrived in Giessen, we were all put up with the families of the children. The two music teachers stayed with the families of the two German music teacher, and I stayed at the home of the principal. I walked into their drawing room, where one of the walls was full of books. While I was waiting for dinner, I browsed through the book shelves, and with only a slight exaggeration, my own library looked back at me – the classics, the German and world literature, those books was also among my own books, including the German literature from between the two world wars, Thomas Mann, for instance, and also the great post-war writers, Lenz, Böll, max von der Grün, Günter Grass, and so on.49 In short all those who wrote about the German conscience, who wrote novels about such things.
That’s when something began to give way inside me, the realization that here, among the Germans, there are many decent people, too. Meanwhile, we sat down to dinner. My host, who was perhaps one year older than me, opened a bottle of champagne. He drank a toast to me, I drank the champagne, and it went to my head. I’d been on the road all day, I drank the champagne on an empty stomach, and so it went to my head. If I had been sober I probably wouldn’t have said anything, but I said to him that I’m not unequivocally happy that I had to come here, because I had promised myself that I would never set foot on German soil, and until now, I have kept that promise. And then I told him why. The principal and his wife turned ashen white. It was a terrible situation. And then my host got up and left the room. Needless to say, I had no idea where he was going. In no time at all he was back. He came back holding a small wooden box – it was pieced together by hand – and handed it to me, telling me to open it. I took from it a letter written on birch-bark that had been rubbed smooth. It was dated October 5, 1944. This was my host’s seventeenth birthday. He had written that letter to his mother. It said, I am seventeen years old today, but I cannot be with you. It was a farewell letter. He wrote that he was going to die soon, and that he thinks of his parents with love. Then he told me that he and his two brothers were taken to Northern Poland to do logging because his father was a Social Democrat printer and he wouldn’t allow his sons to join the Hitler Jugend. He was otherwise a very religious Catholic. So basically to punish him, they took his three sons to a labour camp. His two older brothers died there and were buried there. He came home with tuberculosis and had to undergo surgery to remove one of his lungs. And I felt terribly ashamed that I had condemned prejudice against Jews, but at the same time I was guilty of the same thing, I was prejudiced against the Germans and boycotted Germany as such. At that moment I put this whole thing behind me once and for all.
That’s when something began to give way inside me, the realization that here, among the Germans, there are many decent people, too. Meanwhile, we sat down to dinner. My host, who was perhaps one year older than me, opened a bottle of champagne. He drank a toast to me, I drank the champagne, and it went to my head. I’d been on the road all day, I drank the champagne on an empty stomach, and so it went to my head. If I had been sober I probably wouldn’t have said anything, but I said to him that I’m not unequivocally happy that I had to come here, because I had promised myself that I would never set foot on German soil, and until now, I have kept that promise. And then I told him why. The principal and his wife turned ashen white. It was a terrible situation. And then my host got up and left the room. Needless to say, I had no idea where he was going. In no time at all he was back. He came back holding a small wooden box – it was pieced together by hand – and handed it to me, telling me to open it. I took from it a letter written on birch-bark that had been rubbed smooth. It was dated October 5, 1944. This was my host’s seventeenth birthday. He had written that letter to his mother. It said, I am seventeen years old today, but I cannot be with you. It was a farewell letter. He wrote that he was going to die soon, and that he thinks of his parents with love. Then he told me that he and his two brothers were taken to Northern Poland to do logging because his father was a Social Democrat printer and he wouldn’t allow his sons to join the Hitler Jugend. He was otherwise a very religious Catholic. So basically to punish him, they took his three sons to a labour camp. His two older brothers died there and were buried there. He came home with tuberculosis and had to undergo surgery to remove one of his lungs. And I felt terribly ashamed that I had condemned prejudice against Jews, but at the same time I was guilty of the same thing, I was prejudiced against the Germans and boycotted Germany as such. At that moment I put this whole thing behind me once and for all.
Period
Location
Germany
Interview
Mrs. Gábor Révész