Goodbye Apu, May 1944

Erika Jacoby is a survivor of Auschwitz. Soon after the Nazis occupied Hungary, her father was sent to a labor camp. She shares this memory on Father’s Day in his honor.

One morning, my father, whom we affectionately called “Apu,” received his call to report to the authorities, which meant to be taken to the labor camp. By now, most of the men had been taken away, most of them to the Eastern front, to serve in the labor units that were often attached to the Hungarian military, to do the most dangerous work. Just a few years prior, Jewish men were still drafted into military duty, but as the anti-Jewish laws took over, Jews were no longer accepted into the regular army. The harsh labor, the lack of proper clothing and food, the exposure to the elements and to the Soviet guns had taken the lives of many even before the German invasion.

Somehow I couldn’t believe that my father would be taken away. He was not a very physical type, no big muscles, never interested in the outdoors. He spent his days either working in our family’s restaurant or sitting at the table, reading the newspaper or some Hebrew books. He used to go to shul for the morning and evening prayers and then spend hours studying the Talmud. The only physical work my father did was shopping for the restaurant and carrying the large baskets of poultry or produce from the market. When my parents opened a satellite restaurant in a resort close to our hometown of Miskolc, my father learned to ride a bicycle to transport the supply. Kids made fun of him as he practiced this new skill in the yard of the synagogue when he was in his 40s, but he persevered.

My father was a mild-mannered man who spoke gently and never raised his voice. When he talked of strength he was referring to the spiritual kind. As the antisemitism grew in the early years of the war, there were many Jews who decided to convert to Christianity, hoping that would save them from persecution. One Friday evening at the Shabbat table, when I listened to the conversation of the adults, I heard my father say, “They that leave the religion have no faith in God; they are cowards.” I looked at my father and thought he was my hero.

My father was a mild-mannered man who spoke gently and never raised his voice. When he talked of strength he was referring to the spiritual kind.

But then some nights later, when some men were trying to break into our restaurant and were banging on the metal doors, it was my mother who took the big butcher knife from the kitchen to frighten the intruders away. In that moment, she was my hero.

On the morning my father received his summons, he read with a trembling voice where and when he needed to report. Then he took off his white shirt, hung it in the closet and put on some dark work clothes that he had borrowed from the building janitor. He got himself a backpack, loaded it with things he thought he would need, put in the cookies that my mother had hurriedly prepared for him, and was ready to go. He looked as if he was physically ready to meet the challenge. But I knew better; under the brown clothes, there was a snow-white body, untrained muscles, soft skin. I knew then that my hero may not make it.

Erika Jacoby, a survivor of Auschwitz, is an educator, therapist and writer.