Susie Cymbalist
Author: Susie Cymbalist
Publisher: Makor Jewish Community Library
Place of publication: Caulfield South, VIC.
Year of Publication: 2011
Location of Book: Lamm Jewish Library, Sydney Jewish Museum, State Library of Victoria and other public libraries.
Cities/town/camps: Hungary: Budapest; Australia: Melbourne
Note: those cities/towns/camps underlined are those which are most central to the narrative
Genre: Memoir
Key events/experiences: false identity; survival in hiding; adolescent survivor.
Susie’s Story is a lucid account of the author’s pre-war childhood in Budapest, her survival in hiding and the life she rebuilt in Melbourne after the loss of her father and brother during the war. Accompanying the narrative, the memoir is interspersed with family documents and photographs. Pages 1-33 cover the author’s childhood in Budapest, pages 52-69, the onset of the war and Susie’s time in hiding. Pages 75-88 recount the liberation of Budapest by the Russian army and Susie’s life in post-war Hungary. Pages 88-119 chart her emigration to Australia with pages 119-148 detailing Susie’s new life in Melbourne. Family photographs and personal documents feature throughout.
Maria Kálnoki, nicknamed “Zsusi” (Susie) by her grandmother, was born in Budapest in 1923, the second child of well-to-do Jewish-Hungarian parents. As was common for wealthy Jewish families at the time, Susie was principally raised by her Christian nanny Anna, with whom she had a loving relationship. Still, Susie was given a Jewish education and being a “mischievous” but precocious child, performed well in school, becoming fluent in several European languages. In March 1944, when Susie was 21, she was given work as a typist by her neighbour Doctor Andor Bossanyi, the man who would ultimately save her and her mother’s life.
As Hungary was a member of the Axis powers and an ally of Nazi Germany, increasingly harsh antisemitic measures were instituted as of 1941. As part of these measures, Susie’s brother Pali conscripted into a labour battalion for work on the Russian front. Records indicate that in 1943 he was tasked with removing landmines and was missing, presumed dead. As a young vivacious woman, Susie tried to ignore the horrors of the war, maintaining a lively social life to distract herself. However, the situation dramatically deteriorated in early 1944 with the Nazi occupation of Hungary. Susie’s father was arrested by Hungarian forces and deported to Auschwitz where he was murdered. Susie and her mother were forced to relocate and surrender their precious belongings. Soon the order came for young Jewish women to be deported to the camps. With the aid of Dr Bossanyi, Susie and her mother were given fake papers and assumed a Christian identity. At first, they hid in the scarlet fever ward at Dr Bossanyi’s hospital, posing as Eastern Hungarian refugees. However, they were soon denounced by a staff member and forced to leave. Dr Bossanyi arranged to have them moved to a new address. The women, who feared denunciation by their neighbours, hid in the cellar of their apartment building, enduring illness and starvation amidst Russian bombs. In February 1945, the Soviet army liberated Budapest.
After the war, Susie and her mother returned to their home – which was in partial ruins and ransacked. Susie spent most of her time attempting to secure food. She soon obtained work as a secretary in the police force. After reading a newspaper article about Australia, Susie applied for admission to Australia but did not have a sponsor who could supply a landing permit. In early 1946, she applied for a job in London as a domestic servant to obtain a British Domestic Permit, hoping to receive citizenship that would enable her to migrate to Australia. After working in London for more than a year, Susie finally befriended an English woman whose daughter lived in Sydney and could sponsor her to travel to Australia. In 1948, her permit to emigrate to Australia finally arrived, on the proviso that she was unmarried and did not travel on a British ship. Susie travelled to Antwerp to board a ship to Melbourne. She arrived in Melbourne in May 1949, and, to her surprise, was greeted by a friend, Edith, from Hungary who had gotten word of her impending arrival in Melbourne. Though Susie was meant to travel to Sydney, she decided to stay in Melbourne where Edith let her stay in their home. Due to her fluency in English, Susie quickly found work as a waitress and felt immediately at home amidst the “friendly” and “helpful” Australian people. In December 1949, Susie married husband Heini whom she met shortly after arriving in Melbourne. The couple had two children and lived a happy life in Melbourne. In 1950, Susie’s mother emigrated to Melbourne.
Susie’s Story is imbued with the author’s vibrant spirit and an ever-present tone of optimism despite the suffering she endured. Her mastery of the English language lends itself to a clear and precise prose. The result is a condensed but thorough account of Susie’s life from early childhood in Budapest to her twilight years in Melbourne. It was published by the Makor Jewish Community Library’s “Write Your Story” Collection and edited by Adele Hulse.