Holocaust survivor remembers the Swiss diplomat in Hungary who saved her life
- Budapest-born literary agent Eva Koralnik recalls the 1944 Nazi invasion of Hungary that ended her happy childhood
- She pays tribute to Harald Feller, who risked his life to help her, her mother and her baby sister escape to Switzerland
Win some, lose some I was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1936. My mother was originally from Switzerland. As a young woman, she came to Budapest with her parents, who were setting up a branch of their textile business. She fell in love with the city and learned the language.
Her parents were Orthodox Jews, but very assimilated. Budapest then had about 220,000 Jewish inhabitants, many in the arts and liberal professions. She met my father, who was Hungarian, and they married. At the time, the legislation ruled that if a Swiss woman married a foreigner she had to give back her passport and lose her citizenship.
Hong Kong genocide educator on the dark side of human nature
Everything changes I had a happy childhood. We lived opposite the Opera House. I had a German-speaking nanny, a piano teacher and wonderful grandparents, aunts and uncles. The only thing that made me unhappy was that I was an only child. I was delighted when my mother got pregnant in 1944, but it was the worst moment. The Nazis entered Hungary in March 1944.
I remember my father coming home early that day, March 19, and saying in Hungarian, “They are here.” I was seven and had started school several months before, but immediately the school was closed. From that moment on my life changed completely.
Under oppression There was a Christian man who used to sell coal. He came to my parents and offered to take me and said he’d give me back to them if they survived and if they didn’t he’d raise me as his own child. I remember my parents discussing this. I was terrified they would give me away, but they said, “No thank you, our fate will be her fate.”