MATERNAL GRANDPARENTS

Thanks to my editor and best friend Karcsi, I made some minor changes that certainly improve the quality of my blog. Do not rush to re-read anything though.

And now, just to confuse everybody, I will change narration and continue writing my story in first person

                                                                             

Great-Grandfather Jakab Weiss

I was one of the lucky ones who knew all his grandparents. Not only knew them but I lived with my mother’s parents. We had a large apartment, in one of the best parts of the Buda hills. “The Cadre Slope”, as it was known in Budapest, was preferred by the rich before the Second World War and by the Communist Leaders after they grabbed power. The villas were overtaken by the new elite in the early 1950s or were divided into many apartments and the “proletariats” moved in. The previous owners either fled the country if they were lucky, or they were forced to take in new “tenants”. Or they were just simply made to move to the countryside where they lived under dismal conditions. My grandfather on my mother’s side had good connections with the communists and was spared from the forced relocation. It seems that he always had good connections.

Great-Grandmother Roza Weiss

He was born into a poor Jewish family in the South part of Hungary, in Pécs, with a typical Jewish name Weiss, which was changed to the Hungarian equivalent “Fehér” meaning white. His older brother thought the Hungarian name would not immediately reveal their Jewish origin, so the name was changed when my grandfather was a small child. He was a tall but thin, rather weakly built man with dashing black hair and blue eyes. He avoided the draft to World War I. by being young and too lightly built. After finishing the minimal amount of schooling he moved to the town of Békéscsaba in the East of the country. Not having a formal education did not matter too much at the time. What really mattered was his quick wit, his incredible ability to count in his head accurately, multiplying and calculating percentages without mistakes. He was a risk taker and a gambler. Unlike my other grandfather, he won most of the time. He quickly landed a job in the textile industry and married my grandmother. My grandmother was the first

girl who attended and finished high school in Békéscsaba. She spoke three foreign languages and loved to read. They had two children, my mother was born in 1924 and my uncle in 1928.

                                                                      

Grandfather Béla Fehér (1898-1975)

My grandfather continued to succeed in business. He kept on gambling, his preferred choice of vise was poker. He frequented casinos and when he entered the crowed whispered: “Here comes Mr. F. and the bank”, meaning that he would bet big. He also liked women, especially young actresses. His winnings were often spent on them.

In the early thirties they moved to Budapest. By then my grandfather was a director of a major textile company. They produced the popular beretütype hat called “Swiss Cap” in Hungary. He came up with this name at least I was told he did. He also, according to the same information, named the most commonly used men’s swimming trunk “Fecske” for it reminded him of a flying swallow (the Hungarian name of the bird). Whatever the truth is, they had plenty of money, vacations abroad and

chauffeur-driven cars. He never did learn to drive, his first attempt ended up with him parking inside an expensive shopwindow. His only request to any driver all his life was to go slowly.

                                                           

Money was important, actually it saved his life. Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat saved many lives, Jewish lives during the worst times of the Holocaust. And sometime, having money was a good incentive. My grandfather was already on the train to Auschwitz when Wallenberg showed up at the station and paid off the gendarme for letting him and some others go.

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Grandmather Erzsébet Schwarz (1903-1984)

Meanwhile my grandmother was just lying in bed in a Swiss Protected Jewish house, letting my mother take care of everything. My mother grew up rather fast under these circumstances, while my uncle remained a bit childish, not really grasping what was going on around him. He even went to a soccer game with one of the employees of my grandfather, ditching the compulsory yellow star. The game was played by “Fradi”, clearly the preferred team of the Hungarian Nazis.

Jews in Budapest had a better chance to survive, there was no time to finish the “Final Solution”. All of the siblings of my maternal grandparents ended up in concentration camps, few surviving. My dear Uncle J., my grandmother’s brother, lost his twin children to Mengele’s experiments. His other child, together with his wife, also perished in Auschwitz. Yet he managed to remarry to someone he met in one of the camps. His whole life was spent helping others.                                                                                 

My Uncle & my Mother
Tamás Fehér (Tommy Faber 1928-2011)
Veronika Fehér (1924-

The Nazis took almost everything from my grandfather but he quickly re-established himself after the war. And, as it happened to so many others, the Communists also took everything from him. But he managed to land on his feet, one of his old bridge partners who sympathized with the Communists, saved him from forced relocation and helped him to get a job in the textile industry. His remaining valuables ended up in the hands of his lovers from whom he could not part even at the age of sixty. Yet, strange as it may be, my grandfather and grandmother loved each other deeply and grew even closer for their old age.