Day 8

8th day: 24 October 2005

We awoke the next morning to a new day. We went downstairs to have breakfast at the hotel dining room and then checked-out. The food was very good. We were short on time and were not sure if we had enough time to see all that we had planned to see in the northern part of Hungary. We would probably need another night and only then be able to head south to Budapest. The view from the hotel to the main boulevard and the city square was beautiful and well kept. The impressive Hungarian history of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (also known as the Dual Monarchy), was visible in the buildings around us in the city, and we would notice it even more in Budapest.

A long day was ahead of us and we left first for Nyírbátor. Driving there we passed small towns that have a similar name, or at least the beginning (Nyír). After over an hour driving, we arrived at Nyírbátor. We hit the town center first, then city hall, where we were hoping to find documents of Sarah and her family, who had lived there all their lives. The town hall was an impressive building and was much more impressive than I had imagined from Sarah's stories. The town was lovely.

Inside the town hall, the people who worked there were very pleasant and helpful. They tried to help us locate the documents, and also forwarded us to an archive room where the head of the archives was situated. We went there and saw that she was in a meeting with someone. We decided to wait. Meanwhile, I looked at the town map I had received from the information booth at the entrance.

When the meeting was over, we signaled the woman and she nod in our direction, we entered the archive room and the woman was kind enough to listen to our story. She spoke with Sarah, who explained what we were searching for, and then started to go through old index books that were located in various old cabinets from decades ago. 

It turned out that the marriage certificate of Sarah's parents was not in the archive. They were unable to locate it. They had not been registered in the town hall as a couple that got married in Nyírbátor, so it might be they got married somewhere else and then moved to Nyírbátor. Mom's Hungarian birth certificate was there, however, but Sarah had a copy already, which she received after requesting it previously. What about registration for elementary school? Sarah was in school until she was 14, when WWII began. She studied in a Jewish elementary school, but it no longer existed, and we were also unable to locate it.

Anyway, school registration in Hungary is done directly by the schools, and not by the town hall. Later on we would come to the understanding that even the public school where Sarah studied for one year before being taken to Auschwitz also no longer existed. We refused to give up.

What we could find there was the birth certificate of Sarah in original Hungarian form: Sharlotta Zauber, as well as her twin sister's birth certificate: Malca-Morgit Zauber. They were both born on 28 February 1928. In the deceased book in the archive we found the same name of Malca-Morgit Zauber, her twin sister who passed away from nephritis, inflammation of the kidney in 1935 when she was only 7 years old.

The nice lady in the archive allowed Avi and me to take pictures and document the relevant pages from the books. In those archives, we also found documentation for the birth of Sarah's older sister, Esther-Edith Zauber, in Hungarian form. She also passed away from a disease, pneumonia, in 1939 when she was 18 years old. We would later visit her grave in the Jewish cemetery.

In the archive books, we also found the birth date of Sarah's older brother Bentzi (Bernard) who had been born in Nyírbátor. He died in the camps during the Holocaust. Before we left the town hall, one of the workers there signaled and took us to the second floor where there was a small conference center. There he proudly showed us the town flag.

Two people tried to explain to Sarah with the map how to get to the Jewish cemetery. We thanked them and drove to visit Esther's grave. We got back to the car, where Tomash was waiting while we were inside the town hall. Before we head to the Jewish cemetery, we decided to search for the house of one of Sarah's childhood friends, Ishtvan (István in Hungarian) and his brother Shandor. They grew up with Sarah and knew her and her family well. We thought they might still live in town.

Mom couldn't remember the exact location of their house, and it seemed as if many buildings had been built over the past few years making the town's appearance less recognizable for Sarah. Mom visited Hungary and her hometown six years earlier, in 1999; this was her third visit to Nyírbátor. It was the first visit for Avi and me. According to the information I found via the internet, Nyírbátor is currently a town of 14,000 residents.

After we received some assistance from the locals, who were generous and warm, we finally found the house of Ishtvan. We knocked on the door, but there was no answer. After a few minutes of waiting outside, debating what to do next, his wife opens the door and comes out to us. She recognized Sarah and there was a lot of excitement, lots of hugs and kisses. The atmosphere was very positive and welcoming. The nice lady led us to Shandor's house, where he and Ishtvan were sitting.

The woman showed us to the door and then left us to return to her own house. We stood outside the brothers' house, not knowing what to expect. Suddenly, a very old man opened the door and walked toward us. He wore an old casket cap and a green sweater. He opened the entrance gate of the house and greeted us in Hungarian. He looked at Sarah curiously. Mom tells him, in Hungarian, "Ishtvan, don't you recognize me? It's Shari Zauber." The old man suddenly replies in Hungarian "Surika! Surika!" and falls into Sarah's arms. They hugged and had a warm reunion. We were all very excited and emotional. 

The wife returned with a big smile. The old couple invited us to come in. We entered the yard where there were many flowers and fruit baskets, and from there entered the house. The pleasant Hungarians were very happy to see Sarah, and the conversation was flowing in Hungarian. Tomash, Avi and I barely understand a word. We drank with some brand with them and then had coffee and cheese cookies. 

Sarah told them in Hungarian about our trip to trace her tracks and review the journey she made until she came to Israel. She showed them the map and consulted them about the path we should take in order to get to the Tisza River, which is in the north of Hungary. Our hosts were simple people, it didn't seem likely that they had left Hungary to travel to other countries, and perhaps had never left their home town. They tried to explain as best they could by what they knew, which was limited to their surrounding area. As our visit came to an end, Ishtvan happily walked with us to our car and then showed us the way to the Jewish cemetery on the other side of the town. He decided to come with us there, to spend more time with us.

On our way to the Jewish cemetery, we stopped and entered the yard in Ishtvan's house. It was different than the one in Shendor's house. We saw that it was a full-scale zoo; he had chickens walking around with no fear, a dog that barked enthusiastically when he saw us, it also had many other animals. The dog saw Avi and tried to bite him. Avi was only trying to play with it, he loves dogs.

This place reminds me of mother's childhood stories. She spoke of goose walking freely in their back yard, chicken and farm life, the simple life. Sarah's family used to feed the goose and then stuff them; they also had thick branches piled up for cold winters. They were used for heating in house's fireplace.

The house where Sarah lived with her family no longer exists. We searched for it, obviously. The house was right across the road from Ishtvan's house. It was torn down probably after the war. Before living there, the Zauber family lived in another house in this town. They moved a few times before, as Sarah remembers. She said the last house, right across from Ishtvan's house, was rented and did not belong to the family. They did not have much money and lived a very modest life. We continued with our plan and headed towards the Jewish cemetery. Ishtvan joined us.

On our way, we stopped to take the key to enter the cemetery. It turned out there was a very old man, who was not in the best of health, acting as gate-keeper. Given his condition, the key was then kept by a woman in charge of site maintenance, who received payment from the town hall. We contacted her and picked her up so she would come with us to the Jewish cemetery.Z

According to what Sarah said, the cemetery looks cleaner and neater then it did six years ago, when she visited. Back then there were many weeds and wild thorns that grew in between the graves. Apparently our female gate-keeper was doing a better job than the old man. We entered the graveyard and searched for the grave of Sarah's older sister, Esther-Edith Zauber, since we knew she was buried here according to the records we obtained. We found the grave. From there we took out the can of black paint which we had brought, as well as a small brush that Sarah's husband Yehezkel prepared for us, and took the time to repaint the letters of Esther's name by going over the eroded places on the old gravestone.

Heading deeper into the cemetery, we discovered many more rows of graveyards that were hidden by many trees. The thick branches covered those parts and we had a hard time reading the names on the gravestones. I managed to move some of the branches aside and read some of the names and addresses on a few gravestones, hoping to find Malca's gravestone as well, Sarah's twin sister. But with the condition of the gravestones being what they were, and the amount of time we had along with the number of gravestones we had to go through, it became an impossible task that we would have to abandon without finding Malca's.

We said goodbye to the gatekeeper woman who came with us, gave her a bit of money and asked her to keep working on the maintenance of the graveyard. We also left her the black can and small brush to go over any other names that had faded. She promised to use it every year to keep it visible. Too bad she didn't speak Hebrew; then we would also ask her to go over the Jewish gravestones and try to discover the other names which were less visible. We left the cemetery and drove towards the center of the town to drop Ishtvan back home. We said goodbye and headed south towards the Tisza River to see where Sarah crossed on her way back to Hungary. After an hour's drive, we reached the border of Hungary and Ukraine. We were in a border town named Záhony. Road and railway border crossings into Ukraine are located there. The Ukrainian town across the border is Chop. We could see in the distance the border station that marks the border with Ukraine. There was a convoy of trucks waiting to enter from the Ukrainian side into Hungary.

We searched the area trying to locate the part of the Tisza River where Sarah crossed. We assumed it would be close by, but didn't know where exactly. Tomash was afraid that if we went too close to the border with the car they might stop us, so he parked the car at the end of the town. Sarah stayed with Tomash inside the car while Avi and I left the car to try and find the Tisza River. Evidently, it was not a smart move. We were two strangers there, did not speak the language and came with cameras to document right on the border. They might think that we were spies, it might have been seen as a suspicious act. Luckily no one noticed us or checked what we were doing.

Avi and I started walking towards the trees that were not far from the road, assuming that the Tisza River was nearby, as trees needed water. The soil was muddy and deep and the tree branches made it difficult to move and walk. After a fifteen minute walk, we decided this was not the right way to find the river. We turned back and started walking towards the dirt track near the trees, and then walked towards the border. We reached right up to the closed area of the border station and found out this was actually a bridge that goes over the river. On the bridge, the convoy of trucks was patiently waiting to cross the border into Hungary. Below the bridge you could go down to the riverbank. There was no sign there saying that it was dangerous, or forbidden, so we gladly hopped down to see what was there.

The river bank reminded us a lot of the Yarkon River that flows through Tel Aviv. The Tisza River was not very wide, maybe 1.5 meters wider than the Yarkon. The Tisza River seemed neglected and there were only a few small boats tied to its river bank. We took some pictures and went back up at a fast pace towards the car. When we returned to the car we saw Sarah worrying about where we went, she was afraid something bad had happened to us. We were lucky everything was okay, and could drive away. We updated mom and told her we found the river, estimating that it was the area where she had crossed in March 1944.

After a short discussion, we decided to continue driving directly to Budapest instead of spending the night in the north. The hotel we booked in advance was in Budapest. It was already late afternoon and we still had a 400 kilometer drive until we would reach our destination. Tomash was ready for the drive, so we set off for Budapest.

Most of the driving was through regular paved roads, until we reached the highway when we could drive faster with fewer interruptions. We finally arrive at the capitol around 10:00 p.m. After a few attempts to navigate, we ended up driving around for an hour until we managed to locate the 'Erzsébet Elizabeth' hotel where we'd stay for two nights.

The hotel was named after Elizabeth, the queen wife of Franz Joseph I, the Emperor of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire (1830-1916). We entered the hotel and took the elevator upstairs to our rooms to settle in. Tomash told us he was tired and was going to bed. It was understandable since he drove for many hours; over 700 kilometers around Hungary! Sarah stayed in her room to get ready for bed; she was also tired, being a long day and all.

As always, Avi and I showered and got ready to go out for our night stroll through the city.

We walked around and admired the beauty of the capitol; its extensive World Heritage and other historical sites, culture zones, and impressive buildings. Budapest is the largest city of Hungary.

We found a nice local coffee shop not far from the hotel and went for drinks. The coffee shop was large and neatly designed; it seemed old, but renovated in style. The menu was full of options. We ordered a light meal - as we were curious to try the local food - and soft drinks. We spent an hour there before heading back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

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