The Scent of Snowflowers: A Chronicle of Faith, Hope, and Survival in War-ravaged Budapest

The Scent of Snowflowers: A Chronicle of Faith, Hope, and Survival in War-ravaged Budapest
ISBN-10
0873064984
ISBN-13
9780873064989
Category
History
Pages
536
Language
English
Published
1989
Publisher
Feldheim Publishers
Author
Rivka Leah Klein

Description

Memoirs of an Orthodox Jew (née Einhorn) from Szombathely. In 1942 she married Yaakov Klein from Ujhely, and they settled in Budapest. Yaakov found work in a textile firm. Soon after the Nazi occupation in March 1944, one day Rivka met Károly Bitter, whose wife Magda worked in Yaakov's firm. The Bitters were Catholics who offered to help the Kleins. Károly himself went into the countryside and brought one of Rivka's sisters and later a brother of hers (who he smuggled out of a ghetto) to Budapest. Rivka gave birth to a daughter in May 1944. The Bitters also had a little daughter. When roundups and deportations of Jews began, the Bitters took the Kleins and ten of their relatives to hide in the their own apartment. Later, the Bitters got another place to live and gave their apartment to the Klein and Einhorn family. Rivka, her husband, and her sister and brother had false papers and could go out to do errands and shopping. The others had to remain silent and indoors all the time. Presents a detailed description of what life was like for hidden Jews, and specifically Orthodox Jews, during the German occupation. When the war ended, the Kleins and Einhorns discovered that almost all the residents of their apartment building were Jews in hiding (all of them had been pretending to be good fascists and Catholics), and that it was built by a wealthy Jewish architect in 1942 specifically for the purpose of hiding his family. All of the residents of this building survived. However, other members of the two families were deported to Auschwitz and murdered. The Kleins later emigrated to New York.

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