András Székely

* 1929

  • I had an apprentice who later became interesting, his name was Imre Kertész. It was very fun to talk to Imre Kertész – you would think different by reading his books. We did not meet after years in the printing house anywhere else than in Szigliget in the creative house. And once upon a time, I was at a conference in Halle, Germany. Where he had a reading night. And I sat down on the evening reading, and I listened and stood in the queue for a signature and he looked up: "How come you are here?" And that was about our last meeting, and then he became a very famous person and we didn't meet in Szigliget anymore, because it was completely random when we met in Szigliget.

  • We had very serious financial difficulties, because we had no job. My mother and my grandmother immediately figured out that we would have to make a yellow star for sale. And how can it be painted? There was a so-called Victoria yellow floor paint that could be used to paint used sheets. The star had to be cut out of cardboard and the yellow fabric glued to it with a little glue. But the fact that it had to be worn remained somehow. There is a very memorable picture. I said we went to church every Sunday and we wore the yellow star and went to service the following Sunday, people were pointing their fingers to us.. Well, I stayed out of Catholicism.

  • I remember the moves to the yellow-star houses came very quickly and then we had to take action without Dad being at home. And my father’s uncle helped us, who was different from us in that he was a rich man. He helped us, for some reason he helped. We weren’t particularly in good relationship with them at all. Anyway, going far, the kids were fine, but the parents weren’t. I think he got us a flat in today's Ditrói Mór street, which was then Báró Aczél street. It’s actually just a house, one side is the Comedy Theater, the other side is a house. Ditrói Street three. There a lawyer named Székely - no matter how funny it sounds - lived in large three-room apartment and we got a room there. 1 room for the four of us, my mother, my grandmother, my sister and me. Another family moved into the same apartment. A bookseller with his wife and little daughter and all the books that had been piled up in the maid's room. But so. On top of which we sat and read from below, and there was a youth life in the yellow-star house.

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    Budapest, 27.06.2021

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th century
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The attitude was: this couldn’t have happened

András Székely was born in Hungary in 1929 in a non-religious jewish family. His father was the director of the Klein soap factory until the 1st World War. In the 1930‘s his father became a commercial officer. Because of the jewish laws his father had to go to a forced labour work. After the german occupation of Budapest the family had to move to the yellow star houses and later they were able to find shelter in one of the safe houses at the 13th district of Budapest where they were liberated by the Russian Red Army. After the war András became a printer and a they worked together with Imre Kertész.