Forgiving Hitler

'Forgiving Hitler' - the shocking title of a new book - tells the story of a young Hungarian Jewish woman, Kitty Kalafoni, who survived the Nazi persecution by hiding in Budapest, and subsequently came to Christ.

At the opening of the book, Kitty is in an Austrian boarding school at the time of the Anschluss - a bloodless coup when Hitler took over the country. Unbeknown to her, the school is run by Nazi sympathisers...

About the middle of the morning Polly, our teacher, began rushing around gathering up the girls.

'We're going to see Hitler!' she shouted. 'He's coming. His car will pass by very shortly. Come on, come on-I want you all out on the road to see him. And I'll find you flags that you can wave.'

The Jewish girls Kitty and Eva hung back, uncertain as to what they should do.
'You two Jews', said Polly sharply, 'you come too. It will do you good to see Hitler. We need the biggest crowd possible on the side of the road. Anyway', she added over her shoulder, 'I can't leave you alone in the house, so come on. Quickly now.'

Kitty and Eva followed her.

A straggling line of schoolgirls followed their young teacher to the side of the Linzerstrasse - the main road that ran past the front of the house. Flags were handed out, and they were told to line up and wait. Everyone from the village was there - even the old people and the babies. Purkersdorf was only a small town, but the entire population had gathered along both sides of the road. People were milling around and gathering in groups, lining up at the edge of the highway with their neighbours and friends, chatting excitedly, waiting for the passing cavalcade - waiting to see the face of the man who had tied the fate of Austria to that of Germany.

Electric atmosphere

The sense of anticipation was electric. Kitty could feel the excitement around about her, although she felt strangely detached from it. This, she knew, was not for her. It was not for Jews. But she too wanted to see the man who was coming, the man who could capture Austria without firing a shot, the man whose very presence meant that Jews had to be segregated away from non-Jews. What was he really like, Kitty wondered?

As the hour crept towards noon the sound of motor cycles could be heard in the distance. A few minutes later the escort of motor cycles, tanks and cars swept around the bend in the road, followed by a cavalcade of half a dozen cars. And there - in the midst of that fleet of large, black cars - was the open limousine carrying the Fuhrer.

As they approached the village the cavalcade slowed down, and Hitler stood up in the back of the limousine. He raised his right arm in the Nazi salute - responding to the wild shouts, cheers and salutes from the crowd along the roadside.

Adolf Hitler had been born in 1889 in the Austria to which he was now returning as triumphant conqueror. Twenty years before his army swept across the German-Austrian border he had been an art student in Vienna, beginning to form his ideas about 'racial purity' based on his steadily growing hatred for Jews, Slavs and other 'non-Germans'.

In the bitter, defeated Germany of the years after the First World War, Hitler had formed his Nazi Party and begun his march to power. He whipped huge crowds to a frenzy with his powerful, violent speeches - and ordered his brown-shirted, swastika-wearing followers to attack his political enemies. Since becoming dictator of Germany in 1933 he had turned that country into a powerful war machine. In 1936 he had broken the Treaty of Versailles by sending his troops to occupy the Rhineland. And now he was becoming impatient to see his Third Reich begin the conquest of Europe.

Six feet away ...

Kitty stood there glumly, frozen to the spot. In her hand was the flag Polly had given her to wave. She forgot to wave it - all she could do was to stare at the man in the uniform, standing in the back of the gleaming, black limousine.

He was less than six feet away from her. She remembered for the rest of her life the face she saw that day. He was wearing a military uniform with a peaked cap. Escaping from underneath the cap was a shock of unruly black hair. On the upper lip was the famous black, bristling moustache. As for the face itself, it was pale, so pale as to be startlingly white. And it had the soft, puffy appearance of a face that was used to self-indulgence.

None of the girls at the school discussed their reaction to Adolf Hitler - at least not with Kitty, not then, and not later.

They appeared to be stunned into silence. If they had any negative thoughts they would never have dared to utter them for fear of reaching Polly's ears.

Once the cavalcade had disappeared into the distance, they were marched back to the school. Kitty wondered as they went through the gates how she, a stunned, uncomprehending 18 year-old Jewish girl, had come to be living in a school run by Nazis.

Kitty escaped deportation to the death camps by hiding in the bomb-damaged flat of a friend. After the Russians 'liberated' Budapest, reprisals were taken against collaborators ...

Not long after hearing about the death of her father, Kitty opened the newspaper one morning to read that a group of men had been convicted in the Budapest court the day before of being collaborators with the Nazis. Many of those convicted had been organisers of the slave labour system. They had been sentenced to death, and were to be executed the following morning - shot by firing squads, in the courtyard of the prison.

After they had been shot, their dead bodies, said the newspaper, would be hung from lampposts in one of the main city squares in Budapest.

The following day Kitty walked down to see the bodies.

The square was filled with people, but it was a strangely quiet crowd. They moved in small groups of twos and threes around the square, looking up at the lifeless faces of the convicted men, hanging from the lampposts.

Unforgivable!

'Good', said Kitty to herself, 'good. At least some of them have paid.'
'I knew this one', said a stranger standing beside her - a young woman, about her own age. 'I knew him. He was a member of the Nyilas party. And before that he ran one of the slave labour gangs.'
'Death is too good for them', muttered Kitty.
'Yes', said the stranger in a quiet, flat voice, devoid of all emotion. 'They should have been put into slave labour gangs themselves - and driven, and driven, and driven ... until they died.'
Kitty said nothing, but nodded her head in agreement.
A long silence followed, and then the stranger said, 'Why did you come?'
Kitty shrugged her shoulders, and then said, 'I just had to see. I had to know that at least some of them were caught.'
It was good, she thought to herself, good to know that at least some of the men who had caused such suffering (including her own father's suffering) had paid with their lives. She saw their lifeless bodies suspended above the pavement with a grim satisfaction.
The stranger broke into Kitty's thoughts by asking, 'Did they admit their crimes? Did they ask for mercy?'
'Not according to the newspapers.'
'So they died still not knowing what they did to us.'
'Oh, they knew', Kitty insisted. 'They must have known. And they enjoyed what they did.'
The young stranger shook her head, whether sadly or in disbelief Kitty couldn't tell, as she muttered: 'Unforgivable'.
Kitty agreed.
'Unforgivable' was her judgement on everything that had happened, and on everyone who had been involved in those events, even in the smallest capacity.
She walked on to the next lamppost with its grim burden. Standing there alone, she reached out and touched the boots on the dangling body.
An old Jewish man, with wire-framed spectacles came to a halt beside her and looked up. He asked: 'Why did you do that?'
'Do what?'
'Touch his boots.'
'I wanted to be sure. If I touch I am sure.'

She wanted to be sure that people had really paid with their lives for the horror she and millions of others had lived through. Just for a moment she felt the pleasure of revenge, almost like a surge of electricity, but as she walked back towards the apartment the bitterness returned. It wasn't enough. A few men had paid, others had escaped, many had not been caught - it wasn't enough.

A second extract will be published in next month's EN.

'Forgiving Hitler' is published by The Good Book Company at £6.00. To order call 0845 225 0880 or go to www.thegoodbook.co.uk

The Kathy Diosy story - first part

Kitty and Eva followed her.

Electric atmosphere

Six feet away ...

Unforgivable!

Kel Richards

Main Articles

Other articles