Andrew Laszlo - The War Years (1941-1947)

The War Years (1941-1947)

In June 1941, the Hungarian city of Kassa (today Košice in Slovakia) was bombed by air. Although several theories are still debated about the real perpetrators, the Hungarian government used the incident as the reason for declaring war on Russia. From then on, Hungary was irreversibly tied to the Axis powers and Germany/Hitler in particular. Anti-semitism that had been simmering for years now came to the fore in Hungary. In 1944, a part of Papa was turned into a Ghetto and all Jews were forced to move there, including the Laszlo family. In early June, Andrew was forced to join a Labor Camp and was taken there in a railroad cattle car. On June 29, his family (excepting his brother, Alex) was taken from Papa and sent to Auschwitz. Andrew was then taken to another labor camp in what is now Romania and put to work laying railroad track. After one more move to another camp, Andrew received a final postcard from his brother, Alex.

Following an air raid on the labor camp, Andrew deserted and found his way to Budapest. After a short stay in City Park (Hungarian: Varosliget) he and hundreds of others were herded onto boxcars and sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. This was the winter of 1944. Here, he survived for months in an atmosphere of cold, starvation, beatings, outright murder, lice infestation and constant reminders of death. Near his 19th birthday, he spotted his Aunt Alice in the camp. She perished there not much later.

In March 1945, with the pressure on the Germans in Norway increasing, Andrew was shipped to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt. Here, like thousands of others, he came down with typhoid fever. It was here that he was reunited with his father, someone he thought of as long dead. Finally, on May 8, 1945, Theresienstadt was liberated by the Russians. As part of returning to humanity, Andrew found a piano at the camp and asked his fellow Hungarian pianist, George Feyer to play for the liberators and the liberated.

On his return to Papa, he found the town to be a much different place, including it being run by the Russian Army. Being entrepreneurial, he restarted his photography business with the Russian soldiers being great customers. After taking the final exam, Andrew got his High School diploma and then moved to Budapest where a job at the Hungarian Film Bureau was waiting for him. Unfortunately, this job was not very exciting and paid little. Andrew realized that it would take years for the Hungarian movie business to return to its former self and did not want to wait that long. So, he went back to Papa and began to plan for his immigration to the United States at the urging of his uncle, George Laszlo, who was already living in New York and was willing to sponsor him. He found his way to New York by way of Ulm, Germany, where he survived by selling American cigarettes (sent to him by Uncle George) to the locals. After a brief but obligatory stop in Frankfurt, Andrew was given the right to enter the United States. He did so on January 17, 1947 by walking down the gangplank of the SS Ernie Pyle after it had docked on the west side of Manhattan. He had turned 21 just five days earlier.