Page 57 of The Righteous

THE WEISSBACH FAMILY was about to sit down and have a family brunch, this time in celebration of Becca’s twenty-sixth birthday.

Anya had prepared a lovely breakfast, even though some of the favorite dishes were missing.

For example, there were no chocolate tortes.

Shopping in the Jewish quarter of town had become more difficult.

Many of the shops were shuttered. Deliveries of goods and materials to Jewish stores had been curtailed.

Neither the Germans nor the Arrow Cross Party had begun Auschwitz deportation activities in central Budapest, but people realized that it could happen any day.

On the street, the fear on people’s faces was as palpable as the star on their jacket.

A large portion of the homeless refugees had found shelter in safe houses, thanks to Gertrud and Raoul, but there were still families living in the synagogue.

Benjamin had taken to operating his clinic almost every day, and the Jewish community knew it.

There were lines at the synagogue starting at eight thirty each morning. He was assisted by his nurse, Becca.

As the family sat at the breakfast table and prepared to recite the berakah, the blessing before a meal, each could think of a list of prayers they thought would be more appropriate.

“To me, it is more important to pray for the blessing of peace, of civility, of kindness, and an end to this horrific cruelty,” said Becca, “than it is to bless the bread. In light of what is going on, a simple berakah lacks substance and meaning for me.”

Benjamin shook his head. “We will continue to recite our berakah. It is important not to lose our faith and our Jewish identity. We thank the Lord for the food we are about to eat.”

Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door. Someone was rapping with their knuckles. “Dr. Weissbach! Dr. Weissbach! Please open the door!”

It was Paul, Carl’s assistant, and he was frantic. “A woman has been shot,” he said. “Carl rescued her and brought her to the embassy, but the poor woman is bleeding badly. He sent me to get you, Dr. Weissbach.”

Benjamin jumped to his feet and headed for the door. “Becca, go to the clinic, grab my bag and essential trauma supplies. I will meet you at the Swiss embassy.” With that, Benjamin, Theresa, and Julia dashed out the front door and headed down the street.

“She is in room 207,” said Martin. He was shaking.

“She’s lying on a couch. Carl is trying to help her with a compress on the wound.

” He led Dr. Weissbach to the room and opened the door.

Carl had his hand on her side over the wound.

He looked like he had just walked in from a rainstorm, soaking wet, head to foot, still dressed in his suit and tie.

“Okay, I’ll take it from here,” Benjamin said. In a moment, Becca joined him, and the others left the room.

Carl went to change his clothes as Martin explained what had happened.

“We were walking along the river near the base of Castle Hill, when the Arrow Cross gang led a group of women to the edge of the river. The women were all wearing those yellow stars. They lined them up on the bank of the Danube, and one by one, they started to shoot them. Carl shouted, ‘No! Stop that!’ and ran toward the women. Then one of the gunmen pointed his rifle to shoot Carl, but another one interfered. ‘Don’t shoot him; he’s a politician from the Swiss embassy.

We’ll get into trouble.’ So the man shrugged, turned to his left, and shot a woman standing right in front of Carl.

Then he pushed her into the river. Without a second thought, Carl jumped into the river to save her.

He dove under the water, grabbed the woman, and pulled her to the riverbank.

Then we carried her here to the office.”

As Julia stood in the hallway, Theresa’s father was trying to save the life of a woman maliciously shot, all because she wore a yellow star.

A single thought ran through Julia’s mind: The time has come to finish what we came here to do .

Seven months earlier, when she stood with Theresa in the Treasury Building, their goal was to come to Budapest and check on her parents.

If necessary, and if possible, they would help her mother, father, sister, and brother leave Hungary and escape to a safe land.

They were told by the WRB that the Jewish community in Hungary was still safe and unharmed.

They were assured by other individuals that the Germans had not taken any measures against them.

Notwithstanding, they took the opportunity to travel to Budapest so that Theresa could be reunited with her parents, even if only for a short while.

Now, half of Hungary’s Jewish population had been tyrannically murdered in the cruelest way imaginable.

There was no longer any deniability. The Vrba-Wetzler report provided solid proof of the murders, and the world had been informed.

The world’s leaders were outraged, but it didn’t seem to slow the killings down.

The remainder of the Jewish community was in immediate danger of being slaughtered in the same manner.

Julia knew that it had happened elsewhere; to the three million in Poland, to the quarter million in Romania, to the quarter million in Czechoslovakia, to the seventy-five thousand in France, and now, to at least a half million in Hungary.

How little Julia and Theresa knew back in January when they had made their plans in Washington.

They would come to Budapest with Carl Lutz, see her parents, and, if the time was right, they would help them leave.

Well, the time had been right months ago, but they were still there.

As far as Julia was concerned, the mission was now to save as many innocent people as she could, but how to go about it?

From what Julia had learned, it seemed as though an escape route existed going south through Romania, but they would need cooperation and support.

Julia decided to contact John Pehle and ask him and the WRB to put their heads together and devise a plan to take as many as she could out of the jaws of death, to safety and freedom, far from Hungary.

“She is going to live,” said Becca, coming out of the room. “Apa did an amazing job. The woman—her name is Sylvia Katz—is fortunate that Apa is such a fine surgeon. The bullet grazed her ribs, not far from a major artery. Apa was able to stitch her up.”

“Why did Arrow Cross choose those eight women and bring them to the river?” Julia said.

“They are members of the same synagogue,” Becca answered.

“When they came out of morning prayers, they were grabbed by those men, their hands were tied, and they were taken to the river to die. They didn’t do anything other than walk out the synagogue’s front door wearing their yellow stars.

I have heard that women wearing yellow stars were grabbed and beaten, but this is the first time that I know of that they were lined up and shot. ”

“No place is safe,” Julia said, “and no person is safe, especially not Apa. We need to leave Hungary.”

“Easier said than done,” Becca replied.