In July 1944 our labor company was moved to the Trans-Danubian town of Székesfehérvár to clear wreckage due to frequent Allied air force bombings from the railway station. This work was very hard and always urgent, since the place was an important railway junction. After each bombing we found additional wrecked rails. On these occasions the station was a surrealistic spectacle: wagons were scattered about the whole place in weird positions, some even standing upright on the smashed rails and spilling their content like bleeding wounds. We had to change broken and twisted rails as well as crushed and burned ties, after filling the gaps underneath.

We were lodged in empty cavalry barracks surrounded by a stone wall two meters high. Designed for regular troops, the hygienic facilities were more comfortable than those we had left behind. As in our former place, we managed to establish a connection with a local man from the station personnel who was willing to send and receive our mail. We could thus bypass military censorship and maintain regular contact with our central Zionist organization.

Tzipi arrived in mid-August and we managed to meet at our "go-betweens" house. She brought false ID documents for our whole group and told us to be ready for escape within a few days. In the night of August 22 a covered military lorry was going to park at a certain point outside the barracks wall. After an agreed-upon signal, we were to grab our few belongings, scale the wall, and disappear under the cover of the lorry. It was going to take us to the Romanian border, where rescue workers were going to help us across and get us to Bucharest. All this had been organized before and hundreds of people had already escaped this way from the Hungarian hell.

We remained awake and awaited the signal the whole night, in vain. In the morning we had to change back into our working overalls before reveille and work with the wreckage, as usual. We were worried; something had gone wrong with the plan at a certain level. A letter from Tzipi explained the situation. They were very sorry for having disappointed us, but they had received warning from the border people to stop all activities, because something unusual had transpired in Bucharest. It was no false alarm. On August 23 (the day after our planned desertion) the pro-German prime minister, Antonescu, had been deposed and arrested. The new Romanian government had severed its political and military ties with Nazi Germany and was now helping the Soviet Red Army to take control of the country. The letter ended with the repeated promise to liberate us as soon as possible.

In September we were moved again. We had to leave the relatively comfortable barracks and were lodged in freight cars with three tiers of sleeping berths, bare wooden fixtures without mattresses and upholstery. The first time our new quarters started to roll, the train stopped in Komárom, a big railway switchyard. Our work was going to be the same, except that the place was much larger and the junction much more important. Lines to and from all directions converged there: toward Austria and Germany in the West, toward Slovakia and Poland in the North, toward Russia in the East, and to the Hungarian capital and the mainland in the south. Naturally Komárom was a frequent target of Allied bombings. After each air raid the station was practically paralyzed for days. The RAF, the British Royal Air Force, apparently preferred to visit at night. Therefore our "Pullman train" usually pulled out of the station over night and brought us back to work in the morning.

During the second week of October our "Triumvirate Committee" discussed possibilities of escape. We decided that the two Josephs, Schaeffer and Meyer, should try to leave for Budapest as soon as possible to urge our organization there to rescue us from that slave work. My two friends very soon carried out their mission, and their desertion, the first in our company, aroused not only great astonishment but raised our hopes.

On October 15 we worked as usual, scattered all about the vast station, each crew dealing with its wreckage. The station was benumbed since the latest air attack days earlier, and no train had arrived at or departed from it. All the rails but one pair were wrecked. Nevertheless, a train arrived around noon, its passengers singing joyfully and waving from open windows. Many of them cried and called us to come closer. They broke amazing news that we were to go home; the Regent, Admiral Horthy, had abandoned the Germans and was going to join the Allies. "Peace, Peace! The war is over! Long live Horthy!" sounded from hoarse throats through the open windows. We could not even dream of better news, I am unable to describe the sense of elation that overtook us. The whole company was assembled, and our commander made a speech. He ordered us to stay with the company, for our security's sake, because many fanatic anti-Semitic gangs were roaming the country. Moreover, according to prevailing military law, any deserter from the forced-labor service was to be shot instantly. He maintained a matter-of-fact attitude without commenting on the recent political change, but did mention the desertion of our friends. He expressed his resentment saying, "I am very angry at those two drip-nosed chaps who could not wait a few more days and endangered themselves for nothing!" He also announced that he had distributed firearms to our guards to protect the company during those insecure days.

Another train arriving a few hours later brought devastating news: the Germans had arrested Admiral Horthy and replaced him with the most dangerous demagogue, Ferenc Szálassy, the anti-Semitic leader of the extreme right-wing Nyilas (Arrow-Cross) Party. The work resumed at the station, but with the trivial change that since that tragic day armed soldiers kept watch over our every step all day long. We had the feeling that it was not in order to protect us, but to prevent further desertion attempts.

On October 21 the company clerk was looking for me all over the switchyard. Pale and frightened, he told me that behind the last wagon a young man wearing the uniform of a Nyilas was waiting for me. The stranger would not tell him why he wanted to see me. He asked what I knew about this, still shaking with fear. I had no idea who the mysterious visitor could be. Nevertheless, I went to meet the man, who right away showed me a halved photo of Tzipi, asking whether I knew that girl and whose image had been cut off from the missing half. When I told him that I recognized her and that I was the missing half, he identified himself as a messenger from Budapest who would immediately help us escape from the forced-labor unit. It seemed that Tzipi and Efra were fulfilling their promise from the Buda Hills summer. We agreed to carry out our plan the very next night. The messenger would buy passenger tickets for all of us, and we would be ready for the journey, waiting for him behind the wagons idling on the extreme rail next to the bank of the Danube.

In the evening I assembled our group and told them of my meeting with the messenger and our plan. I told them to put on the "civil" fresh garments we had received for this purpose under our overalls in the morning, and gave everyone his forged identification pass as a gentile. The next day we were not going to retire to our sleeping-train quarters after work, but slip away, one by one, to our agreed hideout. There we would have to get rid of our overalls and of every document or photo that might reveal our true identities.

Our plan succeeded perfectly, except that when we met the next afternoon at the agreed site, I was surprised that three additional fellows must have gotten wind of our plans and joined our group. Destroying our telltale Jewish documents and throwing them straight into the flowing waters of the Danube was a traumatic event. To part with the last ties to my past, with long cherished letters, and the only family photo I had left might henceforth protect me from harm, but I felt as if I had thrown a major part of my soul into those indifferent black waves.

We watched our "Pullman-train" leaving the station and bid farewell to our comrades we might never see again. We also saw our captain entering the bar of the station, possibly for a nightcap. Suddenly, we saw a light swinging in our direction and were prepared for the worst, being discovered and caught. We debated how to get rid of this person lest he endanger all of us. To our relief, it turned out to be one of the station crew who sought someplace to relieve his bladder.

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