New York (VINNEWS/Rabbi Yair Hoffman) And with that line — spoken through a shut door to a German soldier, with the Shabbos candles burning behind her — Frieda Neuwirth saved herself and her children from being discovered by the Nazis. But the account is best told from the beginning – particularly, because this is the first time this information is being published.  [CLICK HERE FOR PREVIOUS ARTICLE]

Frieda Neuwirth and her husband Yehudah owned a jewelry shop in a fashionable district of Budapest, Hungary. They lived with their two children in District VI, at Nagymező utca 21.

Following the German occupation of Hungary on March 19, 1944, they were forced to leave their apartment at Nagymező utca 21 under the restrictive decrees and regulations of the Nazis. The Nazis worked in three stages: first isolation, then ghetto concentration, and finally deportation and murder.

After the Neuwirths were isolated and no longer permitted to own and operate their jewelry store, they were forced to move to District VII, at Király utca 27, into a building designated a “Yellow Star House.” They moved in with their parents.

The “Yellow Star Houses” were modeled on the Judenhaus system instituted in Germany in 1939, and were, in essence, a network of mini-ghettos. Nearly two thousand buildings across Budapest were marked with the Yellow Star, and the city’s Jews were ordered to crowd into them, so that the population could be held and watched in readiness for deportation. While the majority of Hungarian Jews outside Budapest were deported and mostly murdered by early summer, the deportations of Jews from the Yellow Star Houses were planned to begin in early July.

 Following international protests, Admiral Horthy, the Hungarian head of state, moved to suspend the deportations from Hungary. He announced the decision to his ministers on June 26, 1944, formally vetoed further expulsions on July 7, and the mass deportations actually ended on July 9 — the very day the Kasztner Train reached Bergen-Belsen. The reprieve came too late for the provincial Jews, but in time to postpone the destruction of the Jews of Budapest.[1]

The situation of the Jews in the Yellow Star Houses grew more and more precarious under the intensified, almost daily raids, searches, seizures, and acts of terror. By this time Frieda’s husband had been permanently called up for labor service and sent on a death march toward Austria. Frieda was left alone with two young children and expecting her third.

The Demand for Two Kilograms of Gold — June 1944

 From the earliest meetings with the Eichmann-Kommando, Kasztner and his committee had been granted official SS protection: they were the only Jews in Hungary exempt from wearing the Yellow Star, and were permitted to keep their automobiles and telephones. Within a month of the occupation, Kasztner had become the only Jew in Hungary with official permission to travel freely from the capital to the provinces.[3]  A man so privileged could walk into a marked Jewish house that others could not leave.

Aware of Frieda’s former ownership of the jewelry store, Kasztner entered her apartment and told her that a train of people who would be permitted to leave Hungary was in the planning. She begged him to place her two older children on the train. He answered that the train was filled to absolute capacity and that it was impossible — but that he and the others involved in the negotiations had to supply the Nazis with gold immediately. She was to bring him two kilograms of gold at once.

This demand fits exactly what is known of how the transport was financed. The ransom for the train had been fixed at $1,000 per head, a figure personally stipulated by Himmler.[4]  To raise that sum, 150 places on the train were sold to the wealthy, and by the end the rescue committee handed over $1,684,000 in money and valuables to the SS for its 1,684 passengers.[5]  Kasztner’s appearance at the home of a former jeweler, in the last days before a June 30 departure, demanding gold “immediately,” was one small transaction within that larger scramble to meet the SS price before the train could leave.

Frieda answered that her husband had not been around, that the jewelry store had suffered during the war, and that she could not assemble any gold at all, much less the impossible two kilograms he demanded.

Kasztner responded angrily: if she did not bring the two kilograms of gold, he would report her at once to the Black Hand, and she would be deported immediately.

Into Hiding

Frieda Neuwirth had to disappear, and to do so immediately. She moved her family to a different residence.

Hitler was not pleased. He orchestrated a coup on October 15, 1944, through the German-backed Arrow Cross movement, led by Ferenc Szálasi.[6]

Then, in late November — just days before the decision was made to consolidate a single, entirely enclosed central ghetto — she was able to obtain false documentation stating that the family were Transylvanian refugees fleeing the rapidly advancing Red Army.[7] With these papers they were able to move to Rákosszentmihály, one of the outlying eastern suburbs of Pest, from which by this time all the Jews had already been deported.

Frieda approached the mayor of Rákosszentmihály — in that place and time the office was held by the chief notary, Dibusz Sándor, who had led the village’s administration for more than a decade[8] — and explained that there were empty homes formerly occupied by Jews, and that as a refugee she wished to occupy one of them. The mayor agreed.

Toward the end of December, shortly after they had settled, they were forced to move once more. One Friday afternoon they noticed a Wehrmacht lorry with soldiers and artillery in tow pass by, then return and stop in front of their lodging. The soldiers had chosen the open space before the house as a suitable emplacement for their field gun, and the house itself as a place to warm up. From time to time through the night they sent a salvo of artillery toward the advancing Russians. Everyone was frightened by the loud blasts — and the mother and the other women were more frightened still that their Jewish identity might be discovered by the German soldiers.

Soon a Wehrmacht contingent took over the house altogether, relegating Frieda and her children to the maidservant’s quarters. Frieda was made to serve tea to the German soldiers. On a Friday near sundown, behind the shut door of that small room, she lit her Shabbos candles. A German soldier knocked — most likely wishing her to bring more tea. Afraid that he would discover the Shabbos licht, the quick-witted Frieda called out through the door, “Gentlemen soldiers of the Wehrmacht do not wake up sleeping children.” The soldier withdrew at once. With that single response, Frieda saved her entire family.

The next morning, using the excuse that they had been terrified by the bursts of artillery, Frieda and the aunt who was staying with her went to search for another place, and fortunately found one with an acquaintance of the aunt — the local pharmacist. Despite his fear of the consequences of sheltering Jews, he agreed to let all four of them stay in one of the rooms of his house; the family there kept themselves prepared each night to take their own lives should they be raided by an Arrow Cross gang. There the family remained until the arrival of the Russians in early January 1945. They stayed in Rákosszentmihály until the spring, when it became possible to return to Budapest.

The Neuwirths immigrated to North America shortly after the Hungarian Revolition in the 1950’s.  Mr. Neuwirth was a first cousin of the famed author of the Shmiras Shabbos K’hilchasa, and BJJ halacha instructor Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth zt”l.  For the rest of their lives, the Neuwirths considered Rudolf Kasztner as the embodiment of evil, who threatened her and her family with death.  Boruch Hashem, Frieda’s family survived and they are blessed with children, eineklech, and urr-eineklich who are remarkable Bnei Torah.

The author and interviewer can be reached at [email protected]

[1]Bogdanor, Kasztner’s Crime. Horthy officially vetoed further expulsions from Hungary on July 7, 1944; the mass deportations actually ended on July 9. He had announced the decision to his ministers on June 26, but it was not enforced until July 7-9 – too late to save the provincial Jews, but in time to postpone the destruction of the Jews of Budapest.

[2]Paul Bogdanor, Kasztner’s Crime (London: Routledge, 2016). The Kasztner Train departed Budapest on June 30, 1944, and reached Bergen-Belsen on July 9, 1944.

[3]Bogdanor, Kasztner’s Crime. From the second meeting with the Eichmann-Kommando, Kasztner and his committee were granted official SS protection. They became the only Jews in Hungary exempt from the Yellow Star and permitted to retain their cars and telephones; within a month of the occupation, Kasztner was the only Jew in Hungary with official permission to travel from the capital to the provinces.

[4]Bogdanor, Kasztner’s Crime. The ransom for the transport was fixed at $1,000 per head, a figure personally stipulated by Himmler, resolving a dispute between Eichmann (who had demanded first $200, then $500 per head) and Becher (who would accept no less than $2,000 per passenger).

[5]Bogdanor, Kasztner’s Crime. To meet the $1,000-per-person departure fee, 150 places on the train were sold to the wealthy. The final passenger count was 1,684, and the rescue committee ultimately handed over $1,684,000 in money and valuables to the SS.

[6]Bogdanor, Kasztner’s Crime. The Arrow Cross, the Hungarian fascist party led by Ferenc Szalasi, seized power on October 15, 1944, initiating a new reign of terror against the Jews.

[7]Bogdanor, Kasztner’s Crime. Among the first decrees of the Arrow Cross was the establishment of a ghetto around the Dohany Street synagogue; by December 2, 1944, some seventy thousand Jews had been packed into it, more than a dozen to a room. The Red Army began its siege of the city on December 26, 1944, overran Pest on January 18, 1945, and took Buda on February 13, 1945.

[8]Rakosszentmihaly was not a city with a mayor but an independent large village (nagykozseg), incorporated into Budapest only on January 1, 1950; its senior official was the chief notary (fojegyzo). Magyarorszag tiszti cim- es nevtara (Budapest: Central Statistical Office), the official state directory, lists Dibusz Sandor as the chief notary of Rakosszentmihaly continuously through the volumes of the 1930s and into the 1940s, up to the final edition of 1944. He is in all likelihood the official the family remembers as “the mayor.”