The Star
Toward the end of World War II in Budapest, Hungary, a child and her family lived with many others in a Swedish safe house. Anna wasn’t Swedish at all. She was Jewish. But since, at the end of the war, the largest intact group of Jews were in Hungary, in his attempt to kill all Jews Hitler focused on Hungary. That made Anna a person at risk. Therefore, her family had moved to this protective house where they were safe. Sometimes Anna wondered how safe they really were. She could still hear bombs falling in the distance and gunfire closer by. And she could never understand why she was forbidden to look out the windows. Sometimes Anna peeked out the window anyway; for she was only seven and she was often curious and always very bored.
In Hungary, by the summer of 1944 the Nazi purge of the Jews was accelerated by the arrival of Adolph Eichmann, Hitler’s henchman who was out to make the elimination of the Jews more speedy and more complete. The danger to Anna and her family had increased.
Eichmann’s arch enemy was a young Swede, Raoul Wallenberg, who was a part of the famous banking family in Sweden but who had already learned that saying “No” to people in a bank was not to be his future calling. A graduate of a college in the United States, he had studied architecture; and as a young man he had traveled between Sweden and Hungary encouraging trade between the two countries. Then the war, as its presence was heightened in Budapest, had changed all that; and Raoul Wallenberg had volunteered to take on diplomatic status in order to save as many Jews as possible. The request for this help came from President Roosevelt to the King of Sweden, since Sweden was a neutral country and as such could still function in Hungary.
In addition to issuing passes which guaranteed protection to those who owned them, the Swedes set up safe houses where protected Jews could live. These were often apartment houses along the Danube. Many families lived together in these houses. The Swedish Legation brought them food and other essentials on a regular basis. Anna heard of names like Raoul Wallenberg and Per Anger, and these people whom she had never met became her heroes.
In the safe house where she lived Anna looked forward to the kind people who came and dropped off food. But they couldn’t stay and so the days dragged on. She talked to her doll and to a friendly mouse whom she named Thomas. But Thomas always ran back to his hole.
Anna’s mother did a lot of needlework and her father talked with the other men. They talked long into the night while Anna tried to stay awake and listen. But Anna always fell asleep too soon to learn much about what was happening. Also, Anna was old enough to understand that they were in danger but not old enough to understand the full implication of that danger.
Summer went into Fall and Fall into Winter. The Nazis kept moving Jews out of Budapest to a camp named Auschwitz where they were systematically killed. But Anna and her family stayed in the safe house. Anna dreamed about going to school and living in her own house again. But Mama told her she should be grateful just to be alive and safe.
One day Anna heard the older people talking about the war ending soon. Later that same afternoon Anna heard a noise from outside her upstairs window. Trembling, she peeked out of one side of the window and saw a sight which remained with her for life. Several Nazi soldiers were forcing people to lie down in the snow in the formation of the Jewish Star of David. They were ordered to lie still with their faces down in the snow. Then Anna watched in horror as the soldiers shot each person until all that remained were dead bodies, still forming a star but a star which by this time slowly added a red color to the white snow around it.
Anna sat back down and shook. She couldn’t even move for a while. Outside the soldiers left and the sky slowly darkened overhead. One more time Anna looked out the window, down at the blood stained snow beneath. Then she gave a faint gasp as she saw one tiny corner of the star move. Someone was still alive. Anna ran downstairs to her father, who had been a well respected physician before the Nazis came.
“Papa, Papa,” she called quietly: “Come quickly!”
Within minutes three men had slipped out the back door and carried a badly wounded young woman back into the safe house. A runner was sent to get some added medical supplies, at great risk to all of their lives. And in the end the woman survived.
Years after the war Anna, now a wife and mother, reflected back. During those days of hiding, it was against the law to look out the window. It was dangerous to leave a safe house for any reason. But on that night in the winter of 1944 nothing seemed more important than the saving of one life. In some strange way saving that one life had been worth risking the lives of many. So much for the current viewpoint of rationing according to age or so-called worth to the state. So much for “Life unworthy of life.” History has shown us where that goes.
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“This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:12-13 (KJV)