Hanoar Haivri, our youth movement, considered personal fulfillment as a major goal, culminating in Aliya, immigration to Eretz Yisrael (the Holy Land), to join an existing kibbutz or to establish a new one. The kibbutz was a voluntary collective organization engaged mainly in agriculture. For youngsters who had mainly been active in academic pursuits, this basically demanded a reorientation toward a totally new way of life. They had to learn skills in many unfamiliar agricultural activities. Those who were serious about emigration formed small collectives and sought fieldwork. Trying to anticipate the kind of life that presumably awaited them in Eretz Yisrael, they tried to immerse themselves in kibbutz preparatory raining. In a small town like ours, it was impossible to establish such a Hakhshara (kibbutz training program); the authorities would have shut it down on its first day and arrested the whole group. Nevertheless, we made an arrangement with a wealthy farmer to work for him and he hired our entire group to harvest his maize and sugar crops. His supervisors weighed everyone's daily production, and when the job was done, each of us receiving 1/8 or 1/9 of his output. By the end of the season my sister Sara and I had earned an entire year's maize consumption of or stuffed geese (stuffing geese was still lawful then and there).

The sugar beet harvest was slightly more complicated. It had to be done soon after rain, while soil was wet and beets could be removed leaving the root intact, because the root contains more sugar than the body. We used a special two-pronged pitchfork for this job. The farmer could hardly believe that those "pampered Jewish youngsters" were able to master this back-breaking job so quickly. After a few days he was more than satisfied with our work. We greatly enjoyed this adventure and, at the same time, were happy to fulfill the major goal of our movement, namely, adapting our life styles to physical labor.

The leadership of Hanoar Haivri decided to concentrate all members who were past the elementary educational stage and were to be organized into a group called Sela (Rock, solid nucleus) in Budapest. The metropolis offered many more possibilities to establish independent cells for "personal development" that could remain hidden from the scrutiny of the nosey authorities.

As soon as I was sure that our local group was strong enough to survive without me, I decided to move to Budapest in the late fall of 1941, as the central leadership had demanded. My Uncle Shamu gave me a letter of recommendation to the firm that sold him the machinery for his soap factory and still performed its maintenance, suggesting that they hire me as mechanic.

After finishing her studies at the Beit Ya'acov Jewish Kindergartener school in Vienna, my sister Frida had moved to Budapest in the mid-summer of 1941, where she had become the teacher in a nursery school. She lived in a sublet room, where I could stay with her, but only a few days, because the boarding of our Sela group members needed communal housing to prepare for the kibbutz. The girls of our group lived in a dormitory-style villa on a hill of Buda, the western part of the city across the Danube, while the boys lived in small groups of three or four in sublet rooms called Heims (homes) in the eastern part of the city, Pest. Trying to live as a commune, we surrendered our wages and salaries to the cashier and each received a weekly "expense budget," since the villa had a laundry facility; some of the girls in Buda washed, ironed, and occasionally mended our clothes.

We were a bunch of idealists who believed that we could and would build a new and better society in our kibbutz. In practice, things did not go exactly as we had imagined, but were young and enthusiastic and readily overlooked minor problems. If we did not get a shirt ironed or if our breakfast budget distribution did not occur on time, we went to work in an unchanged shirt or without breakfast. Who cared? The main thing was that a cheerful mood and happy atmosphere prevailed at the evening gatherings, which took place sometimes at the girls' home in Buda, but mostly at the headquarters of Hanoar Haivri. The agenda consisted of mainly ideological discussions, but sometimes also included social or personal problems. We also learned new Zionist songs and did not neglect to dance a stormy Horah.

Rather tensely I went to the factory to which kind Uncle Shamu had sent my recommendation. It was not far from where I lived with three khaverim (co-members). The management welcomed me cordially and asked for my professional credentials. When I explained why I had none, they listened sympathetically and we agreed that I should return in a few days while they would try to make formal arrangements. When I returned, their response was disappointing; the Company's legal adviser said that I was not employable, because they had to abide by the restrictions of the Numerus Clausus; if they employed me with my lack of credentials then they would be in trouble with the law.

I tried many other factories, but the answer everywhere was similarly negative. In some places I even encountered jeering or hateful responses, like "We don't employ Jew boys, not even to sweep the floor."

For several days I was downcast and utterly depressed, causing Meira, my roommate's girlfriend, to ask me why I was so sad. When I told her of my unpleasant experiences, her eyes lit up and she exclaimed joyfully: "I know just the place for you, but it is not quite in your line of work!" She was employed by a charitable food service called Polgári Konyha (Civil Kitchen) operated by OMZSA, the Hungarian branch of an international Jewish charity organization (most likely affiliated with the American Joint Distribution Committee) that served subsidized meals to middle-class intellectuals who had lost their jobs because of the anti-Semitic Numerus Clausus law. This service organization was looking for a reliable young man to conduct their food purchases and also serve as ritual supervisor in the kitchen. Meira introduced me to the service manager, who accepted me under the condition that a rabbi certified me as qualified for the ritual job. I went to the designated rabbi, who tested me by asking sophisticated questions about the management of a kosher kitchen. I remembered all the issues of kashrut (ritual cleanliness) from my Yeshiva studies and soon noticed surprise and satisfaction in the rabbi's eyes during our talk. Finally he shook my hand saying, "You are a young scholar indeed!"

I was elated not only because I now had an excellent job, but also because it also included regular daily meals, which was a serious problem in those days of food shortages and wartime rationing of even basic food items, such as bread, sugar, eggs and meat. The kitchen chef was a very kind middle-aged lady whom I called Raab-Néni (Aunti Raab) and who had a son my age. She took liking to me from our first meeting and really pampered me, filling my plate with the best items and always worrying whether I got enough to eat. "I know exactly how much boys of your age need," she used to say with a motherly smile.

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