Welcoming John Hajdu for Holocaust Memorial Week

On Monday the 20th of January, John Hajdu, a Holocaust survivor born in Budapest, visited Merchant Taylors’ to talk about his life. He was just four years old when Hungary allied itself with Nazi Germany in the early 1940s. His life changed forever.

John told us about how he and his family were immediately forced to live in the Jewish ghetto, an area of central Pest that was surrounded by armed guards, and from which escape would have been impossible.

John’s father was taken away to a forced labour camp for Jewish men in 1943, and John remembers going with his mother to trade family belongings for food from local people to give to him. John’s mother was left to raise him by herself.

One year later, an order was announced forcing all Jews to wear a yellow star as a mark of identification. By June, John and his mother were forced to move into a designated ‘yellow star’ house with his aunt Iby and Uncle Rezso. Only one member of the family was allowed out of the house for a maximum of two hours per day to buy food.

Throughout that year, the situation for Hungary’s Jews worsened, and hundreds of thousands of people were deported and killed. People in the Arrow Cross party (the Hungarian political group that supported the Nazi regime) began searching for Jews and organising deportations of men and women to forced labour and concentration camps.

In October 1944 John’s mother was taken away, made to work on fortifications in the village of Kophaza, and finally marched to Mauthausen concentration camp, in Austria.

Remarkably, as the rounding up of people began around his home, John’s aunt Iby grabbed John and rushed to hide in a non-Jewish neighbour’s flat, escaping deportation – an act that saved his life.

He did eventually see his parents again, as they were both eventually freed from the camps.

We are very grateful that John was able to share his story with the boys. They listened carefully to his story and asked John some very astute questions. It is vital to hear the stories of those who have lived through history.

 We look forward to seeing John again when he will tell his story to parents and staff.

 

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