A Seven Year Old Child Walking in the Snow
I write quickly, from memory. I just now returned from Kibbutz Mishmarot. There Zigi told his story. A story that begins with a seven year old child walking in the snow to his death. Budapest. 1945. The child's father had been taken to forced labor and froze to death. His mother was caught and sent to Auschwitz. She will not return. He does not as yet know that. He stays very close to his big brother. Nine years old. Listens intently to every word of his brother. They are walking with all the children of the orphanage. Leading them is a group of young members of the "Arrow Cross" armed with rifles. They are on their way to a bridge over the Danube. There the young "Arrow Cross" will fire on them and they'll fall into the river.
Suddenly an Allies plane appears in the sky and drops an illuminating bomb. It hits the electricity wires of the Tram and a large fire breaks out. Many people flee. Among them some of the orphanage children and most of the "Arrow Cross" youths. Seventy little children remain as well as a red-headed "Arrow Cross" adolescent. It turns out that he is a Jew. He takes the children back to the orphanage.
The legs of the two brothers are frozen. They cannot walk. One day a Russian soldier appears in the orphanage with a loaf of bread. The war is over. Liberation. The children are taken to a hospital. Two toes are cut off of Zigi's foot. There is no food in the hospital and the feet do not heal. An aunt who survived comes daily and brings a little food. That saved the lives of the two brothers. They return to the orphanage.
The year is 1948. A shaliach from Israel convinces the brothers that there is no point in waiting for their mother any longer. They join a group that will go to Israel via France. They reach an immigrants camp near Haifa. One day Sasha Ariel (the father of Meir Ariel) from Mishmarot comes there. He gives the children an arithmetic test. Zigi knows the multiplication tables by heart. He is accepted. Aged twelve he begins a new life in Mishmarot.
