"The Truth Shall Make You Free!" - John 8:32

 In memoriam János Pálházi

1922 - 1971

       I am a second generation Holocaust survivor!

It took more than five decades of my life to realize the importance of this determining, identifying fact.

Although i got reminders a lot, i didn't understand the meaning.

Can you imagine?

Imagine, that your heart keeps the strange, fearful emotions of a foreign human being?!

In your innards there twitch someone else's frightening memories... and you agonize, vulnerable.

This is your heritage...

Oh, how i wish to comfort my little child-self... when i was startled out of my sleep... in one of my childhood nightmares i saw myself standing on the Pest quay of Danube, i watched the long line of forsaken shoes, i heard the crying and the shots... and tried to jump, to go, before the deadly nazi bullet kills me... and i dived into the cold water successfully... i'm alive!... and i woke up scared, panting by the dread.

Oh, how i wish to comfort my 10 years old self... when i escaped scared to death watching the Auschwitz documentary film, by the occasion of a school commemoration.

Sometimes i woke with a start in the middle of the night, frozen by fear, tried to breathe very silently, hidden under my blanket... i was sure, that i'm searched by german soldiers, and must hide myself to stay alive.

I didn't get help from my parents. My miserable mother called me insane, hearing my fearful story.

My sad, suffering Daddy was deeply suppressed by his wife's oral violence. He was weak, and frightened by his own memories.

Couldn't listen to me.

Moreover, he needed - desperately needed - the help, but i was too young and helpless and my mother already taught me the fear, to be afraid of honest utterance... i am very sorry, Daddy!

I loved you more than my words ever can tell... wish i could go back in time and solve our hard common task together!

So, as time passed, i remained alone with my nightmares and daily fears.

I couldn't step forward, was tied up in time.

As someone stands paralyzed, face to face the fate.

Paralyzed in the past, in an unknown time, watching the most horrific event of a stranger's life.

I got a sudden recognition at this point of my writing.

This story is not just about me.

My Daddy stands far in the past, maimed by his life's most unbearable case.

It is the autumn of 1944 and the place is Mauthausen, in Austria. Since 1938 here functioned the nazi concentration lager where my Daddy was dragged away.

Physical violence, psychical humiliation, a freezing winter and much of sufferings waited for that 22 years boy, who became my father later. Cruel sufferings, but nor one of them, was not so dangerous like the starvation.

Dr.Mengele's hellish laboratory was the terminal point for those, who were strong enough to come through these tribulations... and the very last "sorting" - in may of 1945 - ended by all the captives' execution.

Hills of dead bodies - the liberator American soldiers found hills of dead bodies next day. And in one of this hills, underneath, there groaned that paralyzed young boy unconsciously. A survivor soul in his wounded body, 30 kg of bones... only bones.

The young boy, who became to my father 10 years later, was saved by the American Army. His young body healed quickly, but his soul remained there, in that unbearably dreadful minute.

After arriving home, he chose the worse way of memories' handing, he decided to suppress, to forget all, as if nothing would happened, and he got rid of the tattooed numbers first.

I don't know, just guess, that his future wife - the mother of mine - helped actively this suppression. My mother's loud, self-deceptive lies killed the opportunity of true utterance.

My Daddy - and later me too - had to learn the deep, speechless silence quickly.

The suffering young boy, lying underneath the hill of corpses, yet still cried in my beloved, dear Daddy's soul... and no one comforted him.

Sense of guilt and shame.

Deadly mix of destroyer emotions... and my Dad has got to know them early. The son of a maid, and her Jew employer had learnt soon that his existence is just and merely shame. His human surroundings taught him the nazi ideology, trained him to become to a victim... and the programme materialized.

The young boy, who believed his own sinfulness didn't defend himself... he doomed to death his own self.

My Daddy's body sent the s.o.s. signs, a variety of illnesses attacked uncountably, but his soul couldn't repair... there was not connection between of the existence's levels... too much fear and pain... and his soul escaped.

Left him, and left me, alone... at the age 49 he flew Home... and nothing more stayed behind, but my Jew task with his frightening memories in my mind.

And i carry forward the two thousand years old remorse, the sense of guilt was planted into my soul by the Via Dolorosa, by the cross of Jesus, on that shameful day of Golgotha.