Hallo! Hov arr yu? Yez zir!
” Then we would go back to the barrack and hear nothing from them again.
Except once. A relief organizer summoned us to say he had found my father a job as a handyman and janitor in Seattle, Washington. Our sponsor in America would be the judge whom my father would work for. We were overjoyed. We were going to America! The land of the free! Where the streets were paved with gold!
But no. The judge in Seattle changed his mind. He wrote a letter saying he had thought about it and wouldn’t feel right about employing a man as a janitor who was … a successful novelist, a former lawyer, and who had graduated with honors from the respected Pázmány Péter University in Budapest.
My parents were heartbroken.
I said, “
Vell, okay!
”
And then, in answer to my mother’s constant prayers, novenas, Rosaries—appeals to St. Jude, to St. Anthony of Padua, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sts. Elizabeth and Margaret of Hungary—a miracle!
We were informed we had another American sponsor. A man who had written that he would personally guarantee our livelihood in America. He was an American citizen but Hungarian-born, a Hungarian actor working in American films, playing mostly American Indians in John Wayne westerns.
His name was Jenö Máté. He lived in New York and Hollywood.
My father didn’t know him. He’d never heard of him. He was afraid it was some kind of mistake. Why would a complete stranger guarantee the livelihood of a forty-three-year-old man who couldn’t do physical labor? How could he guarantee the livelihood of a Hungarian writer who couldn’t speak English?
But there was no mistake. Jenö Máté had written to the authorities specifically about sponsoring István Eszterhás, his wife, and his son.
Plans were made. Dates scheduled. We would be transported by truck from Austria to Bremen, Germany. We would board the American refugee ship, formerly a troop carrier, the SS
Hentselman
, for an eleven-day journey to New York City. There we would be met by a representative of Caritas, a Roman Catholic relief organization. We were even given a five-dollar bill so that we would have some money when we arrived.
All three of us kept looking at and feeling the five-dollar bill. American money. From the land where the streets were paved with gold.
The date arrived. We had our one suitcase with the clothes in it we’d always had. I had my umbrella-rifle in my hands.
It was a rainy summer day. The military truck pulled up in front of the barrack. A GI called our name. We barely recognized it the way he pronounced it. We climbed into the back of the truck.
There were a few Hungarians watching us, my friend Jozsi Toth among them. I threw my umbrella-rifle out of the back of the truck and Jozsi caught it. He was jumping up and down, holding the rifle high.
The truck started to move. We sat down in the back as it rattled and shook our suitcase next to us. I looked out the back. Jozsi was still jumping up and down, his umbrella-rifle raised high.
The camp was smaller … and smaller … and smaller … and then it was gone.
I had never seen a ship before. It was bigger than the steep-cliff mountain I had once seen in Salzburg. My parents taught me another American phrase—“
Zank yu
.”
I spoke English all the time to the soldiers as we stood in the long lines.
Vell, okay, hov arr yu, zank yu
. Some of the soldiers gave me chewing gum and candy. I had never tasted chewing gum before. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to swallow it.
My stomach hurt. I threw up. I cried.
Children my age—I was five and a half in June of 1950—stayed with their mothers on board. The women slept on cots in the biggest room I had ever seen. Thousands of women and their children. The men were sleeping in another endless room.
I slept on a cot next to my mother. When the women went to bed, they took their clothes off. Thousands and thousands of naked women of different shapes and sizes. I studied
” Then we would go back to the barrack and hear nothing from them again.
Except once. A relief organizer summoned us to say he had found my father a job as a handyman and janitor in Seattle, Washington. Our sponsor in America would be the judge whom my father would work for. We were overjoyed. We were going to America! The land of the free! Where the streets were paved with gold!
But no. The judge in Seattle changed his mind. He wrote a letter saying he had thought about it and wouldn’t feel right about employing a man as a janitor who was … a successful novelist, a former lawyer, and who had graduated with honors from the respected Pázmány Péter University in Budapest.
My parents were heartbroken.
I said, “
Vell, okay!
”
And then, in answer to my mother’s constant prayers, novenas, Rosaries—appeals to St. Jude, to St. Anthony of Padua, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sts. Elizabeth and Margaret of Hungary—a miracle!
We were informed we had another American sponsor. A man who had written that he would personally guarantee our livelihood in America. He was an American citizen but Hungarian-born, a Hungarian actor working in American films, playing mostly American Indians in John Wayne westerns.
His name was Jenö Máté. He lived in New York and Hollywood.
My father didn’t know him. He’d never heard of him. He was afraid it was some kind of mistake. Why would a complete stranger guarantee the livelihood of a forty-three-year-old man who couldn’t do physical labor? How could he guarantee the livelihood of a Hungarian writer who couldn’t speak English?
But there was no mistake. Jenö Máté had written to the authorities specifically about sponsoring István Eszterhás, his wife, and his son.
Plans were made. Dates scheduled. We would be transported by truck from Austria to Bremen, Germany. We would board the American refugee ship, formerly a troop carrier, the SS
Hentselman
, for an eleven-day journey to New York City. There we would be met by a representative of Caritas, a Roman Catholic relief organization. We were even given a five-dollar bill so that we would have some money when we arrived.
All three of us kept looking at and feeling the five-dollar bill. American money. From the land where the streets were paved with gold.
The date arrived. We had our one suitcase with the clothes in it we’d always had. I had my umbrella-rifle in my hands.
It was a rainy summer day. The military truck pulled up in front of the barrack. A GI called our name. We barely recognized it the way he pronounced it. We climbed into the back of the truck.
There were a few Hungarians watching us, my friend Jozsi Toth among them. I threw my umbrella-rifle out of the back of the truck and Jozsi caught it. He was jumping up and down, holding the rifle high.
The truck started to move. We sat down in the back as it rattled and shook our suitcase next to us. I looked out the back. Jozsi was still jumping up and down, his umbrella-rifle raised high.
The camp was smaller … and smaller … and smaller … and then it was gone.
I had never seen a ship before. It was bigger than the steep-cliff mountain I had once seen in Salzburg. My parents taught me another American phrase—“
Zank yu
.”
I spoke English all the time to the soldiers as we stood in the long lines.
Vell, okay, hov arr yu, zank yu
. Some of the soldiers gave me chewing gum and candy. I had never tasted chewing gum before. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to swallow it.
My stomach hurt. I threw up. I cried.
Children my age—I was five and a half in June of 1950—stayed with their mothers on board. The women slept on cots in the biggest room I had ever seen. Thousands of women and their children. The men were sleeping in another endless room.
I slept on a cot next to my mother. When the women went to bed, they took their clothes off. Thousands and thousands of naked women of different shapes and sizes. I studied
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