From Prince to Pauper

On October 30th of 1944 my grandmother celebrated her 40th birthday surrounded by close relatives. Although everyone would have preferred to stay together all evening, due to the citywide curfew, everyone had to leave before 5pm. The following day my grandfather was paid a visit by a sergeant friend who reported that the Gestapo had arrested Lt. General Janos Kiss and Major Vilmos Tartsay who were officers that my grandfather often met with. Due to the fact that he consorted with these men, it was a very plausible threat that my grandfather would also be persecuted by the Gestapo.

Immediately after the meeting with the sergeant, my father and his family once again started to pack up their belongings. While traveling by car was becoming more and more difficult for Hungarians due to the puppet government's denial to provide the populace with gasoline, my family was fortunate enough to have their chauffeur obtain 50 liters of gas from the black market. During the early morning hours of November 1, 1944 they were able to make their way out of Budapest to a remote country village called Nagybatony. The town was small, quiet, and did not have immediate access to a highway or a railroad which allowed it to stay under the radar of the Nazis and and away from military confrontation. My father and his family settled in this town and made an earnest attempt to feel safe once again.

One month later, the Soviet Red Army arrived in Budapest and on Christmas Eve the fighting began. Turmoil and destruction were to be found on every street and the Royal Palace was heavily damaged. This battle lasted until February 13th, and the knowledge that their home city was being destroyed lay heavily on my family's hearts. It was a gutwrenching holiday season for them. Luckily, they managed to stay in their small village until May 10th, 1945. At that point the family wanted to go to Pusztamonostor to survey the situation there. As they had lost their car in the interim, they had to travel by horse and buggy. When they arrived at their home in Pusztamonostor they found that it had been completely destroyed and ransacked. The retreating German Army had burned down their barns and silos and stolen all of their livestock, furniture and silverware. Beautiful portrait paintings of their ancestors were destroyed at the tip of bayonets, and antique Persian rugs had been pulled out and used underneath army vehicles by soldiers making oil changes and repairs. Anything else that the Germans had left behind was confiscated by the Soviets. They even so much as trampled and flattened out the lush botanical gardens on my family's property. Nothing was left unscathed.

As their home was no longer standing, my father and his family spent the night at their butler's house. The next morning they woke early to walk to the train station in order to return to Budapest. Once back in the city they discovered that their home there was being squatted in by a Communist apparatchik and they were unable to move back in. On their way to his aunt's house, my father remembers seeing his beautiful city broken and destroyed beyond recognition. All of the bridges across the Danube River had been blown up and the Royal Palace was just a ghost of its former glorious self.

Despite all of this, the schools in Budapest re-opened and my father completed the 5th grade and moved on to the 6th grade with high scores and grades. As the family had lost virtually everything, my grandfather started working as a truck driver and my aunt as a French and German teacher in order to make ends meet. The family went from generations of nobility to poverty in what seemed to be just the blink of an eye. The unimaginable had happened.