Hashomer Hatzair was a vanguard movement that required its members to deepen their knowledge and broaden their horizons in as many disciplines as possible, so they would grow up into people of general awareness and, as Zionists, be well-versed in Jewish cultural values. This meant that much work lay ahead of us to catch up with whatever our peers in the Movement had absorbed since childhood, mainly in Jewish history, culminating in the efforts of Chalutzim (pioneers) from Achad Haam and Theodor Herzl to the Balfour Declaration, to cultivate the Promised Land and prepare the way for a return to Zion in deed and in spirit. We started to learn intensely, meeting on Saturdays and Sundays, outdoors as much as the weather allowed. Our reading included important chapters of Jewish history, ancient and recent, which influenced its course for centuries; we also did not neglect the enlightenment movement and the development of the Zionist movement. Our main goal was to awaken Jewish consciousness and an innermost yearning for Eretz Yisrael, in our members. Of course, we did not abandon our youthful zest either and learned a new Hebrew song at every meeting, finishing with a stormy Hora, a popular Israeli circle dance.

My sister Sara Weisz

For autumn and winter we needed a heated room for our meetings. This was problematic, because there were no places for rent in the town and people were reluctant to lease their homes to a bunch of peculiar youngsters. Many people disapproved of our activities, and we would not have been able to pay rent anyway, since we preferred to spend our few pennies on books.

Somehow a few opportunities popped up. Once it was a kind elderly shopkeeper who lent us a back room behind his grocery for awhile, mainly for studying Hebrew. Another time we were allowed to meet in the home of a lady who had to depart for several months. Thus time went by and our group gathered strength. Several younger members, who needed guidance and instruction in our new ideas and way of thinking, joined us, among them my younger sister Sara and Kurti’s sister Gerti. They were learning dressmaking in the sewing workshop of a certain Mrs. Vilma László. Like my former boss, the mechanic Maesiar, she also employed and trained only Jewish girls as an act of defiance against the regime.

My general ignorance of literature, particularly Hungarian literature, was a source of frustration. Although I always was attracted to good books, I rarely had access to volumes outside religious ones and still less time to read them. My first chance arrived when I entered a veritable temple of books, the amazing library of Elsa and Samuel (Samu) Vajda (Auntie and Uncle Vajda), parents of Elisabeth (Bözsi) and Joseph (Józsi), two of our Haverim. Mr. Vajda, a veteran WWI officer (with the rank of captain), was a retired municipal secretary who had been brutalized and fired from his post in a neighboring village right after the Hungarian takeover. The family had moved to Nagymegyer for protection among fellow Jews. The middle-aged couple sympathized with our movement and allowed us to hold our meetings at their home. At our first meeting I was invited into the library and almost drowned in this ocean of mainly classical works. Seeing my fascination, Uncle Vajda invited me to borrow whatever books I liked and thus opened a whole new world to me. I am most thankful to him and his library for many ours of enchanted reading pleasure, not to mention how much it enriched my spiritual outlook.

The local authorities initiated and managed a cooperative for buying, processing and selling milk and other dairy products in Nagymegyer. Because they persuaded the farmers to sell their milk only to them, this was a grave blow to our livelihood. The semi-official cooperative probably offered the farmers a higher price, and they ceased to sell us their milk, compelling us to find new sources outside of town. On a bicycle tour with my sister Sara (she was 14 or 15 then), we discovered farmers who agreed to deal with us in Lakszakállas, a village between 5 and 6 kilometers away. We had to ride there twice each day to fetch the milk (and supervise the milking, as I detailed earlier) and face the challenge of transporting nearly 100 kilogram of sloshing and foaming liquid.

At first we hired a coachman with a horse-drawn cart, but ran into difficulties: the road was uneven, and the cart shook on its wooden wheels with every hole, causing the milk to spill all along the way home. The coachman’s timing was also unreliable. While the farmers had to perform their milking punctually, he might arrive half an hour late. Our arrangement with the coachman was also expensive, and we could not pass our increased costs to our costumers. Ultimately we acquired two used bicycles, which I repaired and made serviceable by constructing and attaching wooden twin-boxes to them. Each of the two boxes could hold four cans of about ten liters capacity each. With our two bicycles we were able to carry about 80-90 liters of milk; however, we could ride only on a narrow, relatively smooth path on the edge of the road. On rainy days, we had no choice but to fall back on our coachman despite his shortcomings. Our clients were expecting their milk and we had to supply it regardless of weather.

One summer evening in 1941 on our way home with a full load, we encountered a group of workers performing maintenance on the railroad that crossed our path. Some hooligans blocked our way, and one of them seized Sara’s bicycle. Cursing and yelling unprintable obscenities, he threatened to overturn her bike and spill the milk. As she fought against his grip to keep the bike upright, I had no choice but to punch him. While steadying my own bicycle with my left hand, I drove a hard blow with my right fist into his jeering face. I was sure that the whole bunch would immediately tear me to pieces, but our assailant released Sara's bike to cover his aching face with his hands and, humiliated, ambled back to his place of work, while his colleagues teased him and cleared our way. We managed to bring our precious load safely home. I was extremely proud of my young sister for her brave behavior. We had no subsequent incidents on our “Milk Way.”

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