Susan F. Darvas - Resist, Endure, Escape: Growing Up in Nazi and Communist Hungary

RESIST

ENDURE

ESCAPE

Growing Up in Nazi and

Communist Hungary

by

Susan F. Darvas

First Person History Series

Summit Crossroads Press

Columbia, Maryland

Copyright 2019 by Susan Darvas.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a tretrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, without permission from the publisher.

Publisher: Summit Crossroads Press, Columbia, MD

Contact:

Library of Congress Control Number:2019909205

ISBN: 978-0-9991565-4-4

Cover Design: SelfPubBookCovers.com/JohnBellArt

Ebook formatting by ebooklaunch.com

With thanks and appreciation to the United States Holocaust Museum for tpermission to use photos from its archives.

This book is dedicated to my children,

Andrea Darvas Heller and Peter Darvas,

and to my grandchildren,

Lizzie, Tom, Ella, Rachel, and Josef.

Reviewers praise
RESIST, ENDURE, ESCAPE

Dr. Brad Sachs, Ph.D., Psychologist and Best-Selling Author:

Susan Darvass memoir, Resist, Endure, Escape, is a brave and compelling narrative that captures with eloquent prose and bracing, unerring precision a childhood that was circumscribed by the Holocaust. Ms. Darvass capacity to tell her story reminds us that we are always more than individual particles caught up in historical processes that are at times violent and inhumane, but human beings who ceaselessly seek meaning, relentlessly offer and receive love, and defiantly insist on finding our rightful place in the world. The author has allowed time to knead the tale of what happened to her and transformed her experience into a unique and insightful testament that reminds us that fear and pain, no matter how profound, can never erode the inherent and essential truth that lies at the core of our being.

From BIll Benson, Host of theFirst Personprogram at the U.S. Holocoaust Memorial Museum:

Resist, Endure, Escape isintensely personal, revealing, and candid. I closed her memoir not only feeling that I know a great deal more about what Susan went through during the war and the Holocaust, and during the post-war years in Hungary, as it struggled to regain its place in the western world only to be strangled under the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union, but that I know a whole lot more about Susan.

The memoir is intimate. Darvas shares herself throughout, from her fears, hardships, frustrations and pain, to her hopes, dreams, joys, small and large, and her loves, familial and romantic. And while it is intimate and personal, it feels subtle and even understated. But what isnt understated, not because of what Darvas says directly, but infused throughout her journey, is her strength and resilience, traits that have propelled her beyond the bounds of this memoir that ends as she leaves England, and goes on to create and live to this day a remarkable life in the United States.

Of particular significance is the powerful and timely message that Darvas conveys about being an immigrant in a foreign land, reminding us, no, forcing us to understand, that the immigrant experience is universal and so very human, regardless of where the immigrant started their journey.

At its heart, despite the pain, the suffering, the intense sadness in World War II Hungary, Communist Hungary, and struggling to build a life in new foreign lands, it is a story of love. As the memoir opens, I learned early that being well loved is the most extraordinary gift life can offer. May we all give that gift to another.

Contents

Dear Lizzie, Tom, Rachel, Ella, Josef, and Talia,

You often asked me about the past, about growing up during the Holocaust, and afterwards, during the Communist dictatorship. You wanted to know how your grandfather and I escaped from Hungary and how we eventually made it to the United States. You wanted to know how we built a new life out of nothing, what it was like being a refugee. I promised that one day I would tell you all about it.

I am sorry it has taken such a long time to do so. Writing this book turned out to be a major struggle. While I wanted, even needed, to share with you my feelings, thoughts, insights, and experiences magically hidden behind the facade of the everyday and the commonplace, unfortunately there was, and still is, an equally powerful inner drive to avoid writing about my difficult, often traumatic past. Not that it was all dismal, far from it. I was surrounded with much love and joy often enough.

I learned early that being well loved is the most extraordinary gift life can offer. It inoculates against the forces of hate, madness and chaos; it provides a lifeline to survival and wholeness. Love, like a magic wand, illuminates everything in your world. The soul is able to delight in all creation whether it is flooded by the life-giving brilliance of the sun, or by the brooding moon barely illuminating the surrounding darkness. Well, not always. But most of the time anyway

My parents love and personal sacrifices provided a protective shield blunting the impact of tragedy and trauma engulfing us during the Holocaust and later the Stalinist regime. Your grandfathers love sustained me during the trials and tribulations of my stormy late teens and early twenties. Our love for each other sustained us in much of our adulthood. Gave us strength to escape the police state of our native land, reinvent ourselves in a different culture on a remote continent, and rebuild our lives laboriously as free citizens in the United States.

Your love and my childrens love sustain me in my old age as they have ever since you appeared on this earth. Friendships have sustained me throughout my life. They are a different form of love, equally precious, equally important, perhaps the most selfless in many ways. Love works best when it is reciprocal. When you let it fade, it might fade away completely. Keep that in mind. The only love that never seems to go away is between parents and children. It changes shape perhaps from time to time, but never goes away. And siblings perhaps. I wouldnt know. I am an only child.

You must know that you are well loved by many, including myself, your ancient grandmother. This book is a labor of love first and foremost. It is also a somewhat belated attempt to sort out a lifetime of experiences and challenges and an attempt to pass on lessons learned before I too pass on to parts unknown

Love,

Your Grandmother Zsuzsi

It was almost midnight and I was feeling restless. More than restlessout of sorts, exhausted, sluggish, weak, light-headed, sick to my heart. I was in remission from cancer, but that night I began to wonder about the many other ways one can die. Like having a heart attack. There was no reason to believe that I was having a heart attack. Yet something weird was happening.

It all started late in the afternoon after an early dinner with a friend. I was getting ready for a walk in the glowing twilight, but instead I took a nap with the cat on my lap. Unheard of at 7:30 in the evening, after a not particularly taxing day. I slept for almost two hours. Also unheard of. I only woke because Lizzie called. We chatted while she was riding the bus home. Odd, but touching. I still could have walked, I often do around 9:30 or so. I puttered along instead, feeling worse and worse. Nothing hurt, though. I decided to take my blood sugarmaybe that was it? It wasnt, although the first reading was an impossible 64, God knows why. The second try came up with a more convincing 130. Pretty normal for me.

Now it was almost midnight. I had listened to the 11 oclock news but had no patience with the TV and turned it off after the usual absurdly detailed weather report. Tropical storm/hurricane Bonnie was about to land in North Carolina and most likely bring rain yet again by tomorrow afternoon. Better get some swimming done in the morning before the rain comes. I tried breathing exercises, but for once, this did not make me feel any better. In fact, I was feeling worse. Perhaps a cup of chamomile tea to help settle my insides? I opened the pantry to get the tea. There is a calendar on the pantry door and it said that today was the 27th of May. I knew it was the 27th, but it did not fully register until the date was staring me in the face at close range. May 27th is the date my Mother, Anyu, died, in 1968. Of cancer. That was fifty years ago. The day was almost over and I had not lit her memorial candle. I had not thought of her all day.