Ilona Milhofer

Wrtten By Ilona Bournemouth, 7 January 1957

In full awareness that any statement given falsely or negligently as affidavit etc. ... description of my descent ... and further details of my past history, descent etc.

[crossed out] For the purpose of obtaining a payment from the German compensation authorities I state the following facts about my experiences in Budapest at the time of the German occupation.

After the invasion of Budapest by the German Wehrmacht in March 1944 we, of Jewish descent, were ordered to wear the yellow star badge. We were also ordered to hand in our valuables; so I too deposited my jewellery worth about 350 pounds sterling in the First Hung. Credit Bank. After the end of the war we were told there that these valuables had been confiscated at the time by the Germans. - Later about June further orders came, the few houses in which we were allowed to live were marked with stars, including the house at 18 Bulyowsky Street, which belonged to me and my sisters. A mass relocation started and 1 was obliged to take in 20 other residents in my 2-room apartment. We were only allowed to leave these houses for a very limited number of hours. In the event of air raids we were only allowed to shelter in those houses marked with stars, if there was no such house nearby we had to stay in the open street. If we wanted to use the tram we were only allowed into the trailer. I obeyed these and all other orders, but nevertheless was in danger of suffering the same fate as many of my friends, who were stopped in the street and taken away. We never heard of any of them again. In October of the same year an order came for all these houses to be cleared and for their residents to move to the ghetto allocated to them. My sisters and I thought this concentration too dangerous, we feared that a mass deportation would follow as had happened in the provinces. So we took the only option left to us and having. been brought birth certificates by Christian friends went to live with strange famillies. l myself was collected in the dark by my friend's son, the Roman Catholic priest Gabriel Ervin, and from then on stayed in his apartment at 6 Varosmajor Street. But

as everybody in this house knew me and was aware of my Jewish descent, I had to make myself invisible and stay in rooms without windows, hiding when a stranger called. Only a friend living in the same house, another Catholic priest, knew that I was there. A little later I received news of a suicide attempt by my sister, the only way she was able to avoid being taken away by the Nazis. Her documents had been taken away and she had been left behind unconscious and gravely ill. Her hostess asked for my documents in order to get my sister, who was in a critical condition, into hospital, naturally I gave them to her without hesitation and thought that I was 'safe' even without them. - But it turned out very differently and on 6 December at 2 o'clock in the night we were woken by the Nazis; as already agreed in anticipation of this danger, I slipped out on the balcony facing the garden and, wearing only a nightshirt, I lay down in the snow on the floor. Thanks to the lowered blind I could not be seen from the apartment, but to my horror I heard every word as my friends were accused of being of Jewish descent, handcuffed and taken away. I don't know how long I lay on the balcony. But meanwhile the priest who lived in the same house, and who knew about the hiding place that had been designated to me for an emergency, had heard about what had happened. He caught my attention by throwing stones at the balcony and told me to slip out of the apartment, which had been sealed on all sides, as quickly as possible, because the Nazis, before leaving, had told the caretaker that they would be back soon to search the apartment. The caretaker, who was well-disposed towards me, helped me climb to the staircase through an opening that was known to her alone and hid me in the attic till dawn. In spite of all inquiries I was never able to find out about my friends' fate, some people claimed that they had seen, their bodies., lying in the street. - When it became light next morning, the priest accompanied me, scantily dressed and without any documents, to my Christian relative, Mrs Ladislaus Richter, (5) EskU Square. But I could only stay there for 24 hours, because I could well understand her fear of putting me up and endangering her O\vn and her children's lives by so doing. But she managed to obtain for me the keys to a bombed-out empty apartment and advised me to hide there and she also promised to send me a blanket and some food as soon as possible. When these were brought to me by my former maid Mrs Anna Fabian I was also told that the Nazis, having searched my vacant apartment in Varosmajor, had found my traces and were looking for me; I must on no account stay in the empty apartment. - Now the only option left to me was the ghetto, but late in the evening in my despair I half-unconsciously went back to my house in

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Bulyowsky Streel. When the caretaker, called out by my maid who had accompanied me, heard about the events of the last few days and my intention to go to the ghetto, he asked me to stay with him and when I refused to accept this sacrifice, his wife and children came crying, and wouldn’t let me go. It would lake loo long to go into detail about the time I spent in their apartment, they were all good and concerned about me, but the house in which everybody knew me was full of Nazis and it was imperative that nobody saw me. I was not afraid of the continuous air raids, because I wanted to die and was only held back from suicide by the fear that my body would be found and bring disaster to my hosts. I was always in the dark, spent days under the bed, between the bedclothes or in the tub in the laundry-room, and a human need became the greatest problem for me - nevertheless I was once recognised by a young girl, she promised not to betray mc, but l left all the same and went to the people with whom my sister had been before, but there too I was again in danger and so on Christmas Eve I returned to Bulyowsky Street. Meanwhile the Russians had broken through beyond the Danube, although they were soon repulsed, there was great panic among the Nazis, everybody wanted to save his own skin, which made my situation easier and when in January everybody was ordered to go to the cellar, I could go down with the others, albeit covered up to my ears. From then on the whole house was occupied by German soldiers in the garden guns were stationed, a battle between German and Russian soldiers began in one apartment after the other. This continued for some days we knew almost nothing about the outcome of the fighting and were almost paralysed when in the night of I 2-13 January 1945 the doors were wrenched open and we were surrounded by Russian soldiers. In the first hours they behaved quite acceptably, only taking all our watches away and searching for weapons and German soldiers. The terrible thing only came the next morning when the younger women and girls were dragged away from their husbands and parents who Were trying to protect them., They came back 1-2 hours later and there was a terrible panic that I could no longer bear. Of course I was free from then on and could leave the house unimpeded. Under continuous air battles, between frozen bodies, horses from which the starving population had cut slices of meat were lying around me, but 5 hours later I had reached the neighbouring town of Megyer and my destination, the convent of the, Salvator Sisters. I was received there with loving care. But as far as food was concerned a time of the most terrible deprivation came. As a result of the flooding of the nearby Danube all the houses were under water up to their roofs we in the convent

were able to escape to the higher floors but all food supplies had become unusable there came a time of starvation but although the sisters asked us all to leave the convent I found it hard to bring myself to return to my bombed-out house. For a long time we had no water in the house no light for months no windows whatsoever and it was only February but slowly a more and more normal life returned and I was one of the lucky ones who were given ample food by friends in the US Army. I left Budapest on 22nd October 1946 without a penny and have lived in England since, with my son and son-in-Taw supporting me entirely. Since 1952 I have been a naturalised British subject.

Yours f'aithf'ully Mrs liona Milshofer (Widowed) nee Ilona Stadler

My birth certificate dated 25 Oct. 1884 Marriage certificate dated 8 Dec. 1904 My husband's death certificate dated 16 August 1929 are in my possession as evidence.

1 affirm that 1 have never broken the law never belonged to any political association or been active in that sense nor have I received any payments far my sufferings or losses even from any charitable organisations

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