Hungarian Jews

I opened The Washington Post today to see an article in Style section dedicated to the saving of most likely 30,000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. It was a weird occurrence and you'll just have to read the article or see the new documentary "Glass House". It is how a Salvadoran diplomat gives out 9,000-10,000 nationality papers at the Glass House (Üvegház) that freed Hungarian Jews before the Nazis were able to destroy them.

So why does this resonate with me? My father was born to a Protestant family and grew up in Budapest in the 1940s-1950s. In 2001 my husband and I had the privilege to travel to Hungary, with my parents as our tour guides. It was an incredible journey for me. It not only opened my eyes to my heritage, but also helped me connect the pieces of a puzzle of my past. My father, Zoltan Bagdy, was never like the other dads, just a little off-beat, is one way to describe him. So my trip to his homeland suddenly solidified a lot of his quirks/idiosyncrasies. Finally it all made sense (I did say that the entire trip).

My father and his parents, Laszlo and Elizabeth, and his sister, Hedy, escaped Hungary on foot when the Iron Curtain fell in 1956. That in itself is such an incredible story, one that my father needs to put in writing. The fact that my grandfather decided that the family should leave their homeland and a lucrative construction business in order to live freely says a lot about their beliefs. This is where the Hungarian Jews come into play.

Early in his life my father lived with his family in a comfortable house on the Pest side of the city. The home was located on a tree lined street in a pretty neighborhood layed out in city blocks. When we visited his first home, it must have looked much like it did when my father was a boy, except for the height of the trees. This was the house, I assume, that my grandparents made the risky decision to hide a family of Jews in their attic during WWII. My father, even though a young boy, has memories of the time period. I am not sure how long they lived in my grandparents home in hiding, but I know it happened. I can only hope and assume that the family were able to escape the horrors of the Holocaust due to my grandparents generosity. Generosity, is that even the correct word to use in the case of saving another's life?

I am not writing this because I am trying to turn my grandparents in martyrs, even though I too believe in their cause of freedom for all regardless of religious beliefs. I am putting this in writing because I think it is a story that needs to told and remembered. I am not the best person for it, that would be my father, but at least this is a start.