Jeno Struhl in Brasov

This photo was taken in around 1938 in Brasso. It shows my brother, Jeno Struhl, in the park before the Hotel ARO, not with his own car, but with the requisite of the photographer. Jeno attended a school of commerce. My brother Andor attended the gymnasium in Gyergyoszentmiklos. He lived in lodgings at Aunt Kati's; she was a simple Hungarian woman, who always let out rooms to students. First my elder brother, Jeno, lived there, and then Andor. In 1940, when the Hungarian authorities came in, they took over public administration here in Transylvania, it was then when they started to pursue my brothers. We suffered insults, because the population was instigated by the authorities. They broke our windows, these kind of things occurred. And we suffered personal mistreatment, not me, but my sister. Then the gendarmes took away the boys from Gyergyoszarhegy, because they were pronounced to be unreliable for sympathizing with communism. My brothers didn't enroll in any political organization, but once my younger brother, Andor, had written on a box in the shop: 'Long live communism!' Well, he was a child, he was fourteen. And if he wrote that, then certainly the other boy must be a sympathizer too, right? After the gendarmes had taken them away to Gyergyoszentmiklos, my sister Dorika went there and tried to arrange for them not be taken to a forced domicile. The notary public was from Hungary, the judge was from Hungary - all these posts in Transylvania were taken by people from Hungary. Dorika went there and took steps to see what would become of them: would they be imprisoned, would they be killed? Dorika was such a diplomat, one rarely sees. She was both beautiful and clever. She couldn't get along with one of them so well, but the other was nice, he listened to her. Dorika could ask, beg them so nicely not to do any harm to these boys, and at the end he said, 'I will take care that the boys will be taken to a convenient place.' That's how they got to Tolnatamasi, to Transdanubia. There was a Jewish family, the Revai family, and they had a daughter, Zsuzsi. They were forbidden to go elsewhere, but they could move within that place, and they became friends with this family, and they were accepted into it. Not as to live there, of course, because it was settled for them where to stay. I don't remember precisely where they had accommodation. However, this Revai family supported them a lot. Later they got their call-ups to the labor battalion, but only Andor was taken, first to Ukraine, then further on to Russia. In the meantime Jeno was in hospital in Budapest. When he was released from the hospital, he was assigned to another work battalion in Hajmasker. When they wanted to bring them from Hajmasker to Germany, he escaped, assumed a false name, and hid in Hungary. He spent a longer period in Gyor under the name Bitai; he took up that name, and he said he was a Hungarian deserter, that he had escaped from Romania. And the truth never came to light; people didn't have suspicions.