Kitty Sandy

Title: Stormy Weather: a life's journey from Budapest to Melbourne
Author: Kitty Sandy
Publisher: Makor Jewish Community Library
Place of publication: Caulfield South, VIC
Year of Publication: 2006
Location of Book: Lamm Jewish Library, Sydney Jewish Library, State Library of Victoria, Monash University and other public libraries
Cities/town/camps: Hungary: Budapest; Romania: Arad; Slovakia: Bratislava; Austria: Vienna; Italy: Genoa; Australia: Melbourne
Note: those cities/towns/camps underlined are those which are most central to the narrative
Genre: Memoir
Key events/experiences: survival in hiding; false identity; adolescent survivor

Stormy Weather is the short, 131-page memoir of Hungarian survivor, Kitty Sandy, who survived the war in hiding in Budapest before fleeing communist Hungary for Australia in 1950. Kitty’s story begins on 19 March 1944 – as “Stormy Weather” plays in her favourite jazz café, the Nazis march into Budapest, shattering fourteen-year-old Kitty’s happy life.

The memoir is divided into three “parts”. Part One, pages 1-75, recount the author’s childhood and wartime experiences in Budapest before describing her emigration to Australia with her husband, Laszlo (Leslie). Part Two, pages 79-112, entitled “memories”, presents various instances in the author’s life in Melbourne, detailing both the challenges and joys of a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant. Part Three, pages 113-131, is devoted to the author’s family, friends, and Jewish community in Melbourne as well as offering reflections on the war for humanity. Family photographs and scanned historical documents feature throughout.

Kitty Sandy was born to Emeric Racz, an opera singer from Romania, and an unnamed Hungarian mother. She was born approximately 1930. Her birthdate is not provided. She was raised in a highly assimilated, well-to-do family and did not receive a Jewish education. Her identity was  Hungarian. Her parents divorced when she was two-years-old. When Kitty was six, her mother remarried.

On 19 March 1944, when Kitty was approximately fourteen, Hungary was occupied by the Nazis. By 5 April 1944, Kitty’s family was forced to don the yellow star and part with their non-Jewish nanny, Margit. In June, the Jewish population was forced into designated buildings and all women aged between eighteen and sixty were ordered to report for labour. As her mother’s cousin, Geza, was married to an Aryan and worked for the Resistance, he was able to provide false identity papers for Kitty, her parents and grandparents. Early in the morning, they left their apartment, moving from place to place throughout Budapest. During this time, Kitty befriended a young German soldier, Franz, who fell in love with her and gave her life-saving food. With the impending liberation of the city, Franz was forced to flee, leaving his photograph and details; but fearing retribution by Russian soldiers, Kitty tore up his photograph. As the siege of Budapest worsened, the city was heavily bombed and food became increasingly scarce, Kitty endured starvation, and freezing conditions, hiding for weeks in the cellar of her grandparent’s hiding place.

Finally, on 13 February 1945, Budapest was liberated. In March, fearing violence by occupying Russian soldiers, Kitty travelled alone to the small town of Arad in Romania where she stayed with her father and his family until the end of June. Upon her return to Budapest, Kitty learnt that her step-father had been murdered in the concentration camps at forty-two years of age. Soon, Kitty met her future husband, Laszlo, who had also survived the war in hiding.

In 1947, Kitty and Laszlo married. The same year, her father died unexpectedly. As life in Hungary under communist rule became increasingly difficult, and after trying unsuccessfully to obtain visas to Romania, the couple made plans to flee Hungary. On 27 September 1949, Kitty and Laszlo left Hungary late in the night and were smuggled across the Czech border, walking forty miles through a forest before reaching Bratislava. From there, they journeyed by foot through farmland across the Austrian border, traveling by tractor to Vienna. There, they lived in a DP camp for three months before eventually securing landing permits from Laszlo’s uncle who emigrated to Australia in 1938. They travelled to Genoa where they boarded a ship Australia; their first-class fare was financed by the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) and other unnamed Jewish aid organisations. The couple arrived in Melbourne in March 1950 and Kitty’s mother joined them six months later.

Life in Melbourne was difficult – Kitty suffered from claustrophobia and the couple struggled financially, culturally and linguistically. Eventually, Kitty became a naturalised citizen, and became secretary of the Musica Viva Younger Group promoting classical music in Melbourne. In 1991, she became a Saturday morning radio host for 3MBS FM.

Stormy Weather is a candid account that paints a rich portrait of the life of a Jewish survivor and immigrant to Australia. It does not follow a strict chronological order, with the author often jumping between various periods of her life. It also does not discuss the war period preceding 1944 in detail. The memoir was written and published through the Makor Jewish Community Library’s “Write Your Story Program”.