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Objects of the Holocaust explores personal testimonies across generations through single objects, uncovering lesser-known histories of the Holocaust and telling incredible stories of family, loss, and survival. Hosted by Professor Tim Cole from the University of Bristol and actress and member of the second generation Louisa Clein, the series features a new guest each week who joins to offer a deeply human perspective on one of history’s darkest chapters.
Objects of the Holocaust is brought to you by the Holocaust Educational Trust, a charity that works across the UK to ensure that the horrors of the past are never forgotten. Find out more and support them at www.het.org.uk.
Judy Russell: I was actually very protected from the whole Holocaust story. And I think it was Ernest that actually changed that because he was the one that was so much more open and telling what happened to him. And I suppose that's how this all started.
Louisa Clein: Judy Russell is our guest today. Born in Budapest, she and her family moved to Scotland when she was young. Her stepfather, Ernest Levy, was the owner of an object that was for him, a reminder of an unforgettable episode. It's rectangular, made of metal, and it's designed to evoke something that happened to him in 1945.
Judy Russell: After the war and when he started speaking, it obviously had been a part of his Holocaust journey that meant something to him.
Tim Cole: I'm Tim Cole.
Louisa Clein: And I'm Louisa Clein. From the Holocaust Educational Trust, this is Objects of the Holocaust.
Tim Cole: A podcast which explores the Holocaust through a single object to tell wider stories of family loss and survival.
Louisa Clein: Judy, thank you so much for joining us today. We're really, really grateful that you've come down from Scotland to come and talk to us. So, I'm holding a sardine tin with the lid rolled back. There's a hook that's been half twisted back and it's quite heavy. It's tarnished. It's not shiny. There's a piece of string inside which you can see would have absorbed the oil collected inside it, and would have been lit. You can see just where the wick, the edge of the string, there is a blackness on the rolled-up lid. That's obviously had the flame there.
Tim Cole: I know the sardine tin you've bought for us isn't the original one from 1945, because your dad uses that and then he either can't carry it with him, or it doesn't survive the war. Do you know when he actually starts using the sardine tin again? This sardine tin.
Judy Russell: I think probably as early as the late 60s, early 70s .
Tim Cole: And he just goes and finds a sardine tin that reminds him of that one and then starts using it in his talks, lights a candle again.
Judy Russell: I have seen Dad use a sardine tin twice. Once was when he was speaking to a large group of adults, and because my father was a musician and had a beautiful voice, and he was a singer, he used the tin because when he lit the single light, the sardine tin, it was to help them remember the festival of light — Chanukah. And of course, there's a lovely piece of music that is associated with Chanukah — Maoz Tzur. And that's what he used to sing. And I think it was probably a way for him to try and connect with the audience.
Louisa Clein: We know that you were born in Budapest and moved over to Scotland when you were very young.
Judy Russell: Well, I moved over — I was three and a half — and we came over from Budapest legally — which was very unusual at the time — with my then father, my mother, my grandparents and my great grandmother.
And we came out because my father had MS and there was a sanatorium in Lanarkshire in Scotland that specialised in the treatment. But unfortunately, my father died a year after we got to Scotland. But of course, as a family we settled there and in Glasgow there was a small Hungarian community and obviously we were part of that. My mother learned English pretty quickly, and as did I.
But my grandparents really struggled, so they were really keen to keep in contact with Hungarians that lived in Glasgow. And there was other families. And as it so happened, Ernest, my stepfather, who became my father — his sister was one of the Hungarian group. And mum, she got very friendly. The two families got very friendly and dad came over from Budapest in 1963. My mother and he met the relationship blossomed and they got married in 1965 and we became a family.
Louisa Clein: And so you were about what, 11 or 12 years old when he became part of your family, became your father, so to speak. And did you have any idea of his background, his Holocaust story? I know that your mother was also a survivor, but were you aware of Ernest's story at all?
Judy Russell: No, not at that stage and to be quite honest, I think when I was — in my early teens, even, I was actually very protected from the whole Holocaust story. They, I think, if anything came up in the family, it was always hidden from me. And I think it was Ernest that actually changed that, because he was the one that was so much more open and telling what happened to him. And I suppose that's how this all started.
Tim Cole: Can I take you back even earlier? Because I know the family weren't from Budapest. So, Ernest himself wasn't born in Budapest. They were Hungarian speaking, German speaking, but they were actually born in, I think. Is it Bratislava? So, Bratislava in Slovakia. Could you take us back to that moment, just in the 1930s? And Ernest, as one of seven children, is that right? In a family in Bratislava?
Judy Russell: Gosh, I'm trying to think. One has to count who they all were. There was 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. He was the youngest of eight.
Yes, his father and the family, they set up home in Bratislava. His father had a business. They were doing fine. They were living very happily there — you remember his brothers, sisters, always a very happy household. But in 1938 — because they were Hungarian, because Ernest's father was Hungarian, and the way Czechs try to get rid of as many Jews as possible to avoid having to deal with them themselves, they forced them to go back to their country of origin.
It was a Friday night. That knock came on the door and they were given, I think, 15 minutes to collect belongings and they had to vacate their home. And they were put on buses, and they were taken to the Czech-Hungarian border.
Tim Cole: It's interesting because I think there's this really extraordinary moment in November 1938 where several thousand Jews are taken, and they're literally just dumped, aren't they? At short notice.
So, I mean, it's amazing, isn't it? They're having Shabbat meal, 15 minutes to pack a few belongings together, and then this is happening across homes in Slovakia. And they're all dumped into this no man's land between Slovakia and Hungary. And then the flats are sealed up. The homes are sealed up, and I think stolen by the state in a sense.
And it follows this thing called the Polenaktion just a month before, where the Germans have done the same to Polish Jews. So, Jews with Polish citizenship are just dumped into no man's land. Kind of kicked out of Germany. And then a month later, it happens to these Hungarian Jews in Slovakia, and I think a few Slovakian Jews.
Just and I think the context, a lot of the context is Hungary has just occupied part of Slovakia. They've been given some of the land, and so Jews are seen as this kind of enemy within. So, it's very much the anti-Semitism of the Slovakian regime who sees — especially Hungarian Jews — as this kind of enemy. And so, they're starting just to expel them and kick them out into no man's land, just with a few belongings.
And I guess one question is like, how? What? What do they do? I mean, because you've had 15 minutes to leave your home. You've been expelled from your country, and you end up in no man's land. You're just wandering in the middle of a border. Do you know what happens what Ernest does?
Judy Russell: Well, the once they're in, once they're put off the buses, there are some lights that they can see in the distance. And it's a small village in Hungary, and they trek across the fields and that's where they head because… I suppose my grandfather, Ernest's father, was Hungarian. He knew that he did have family in Hungary. His father lived in a town called Pápa. And Ernest’s father knew that there would be somewhere for them to go. So, they went towards these lights, towards this village. There was actually Jewish people in the village. And not just the Jewish people, but the villagers themselves gave them shelter. They fed them. And at least helped them.
Louisa Clein: And was Ernest singing at this point? Was his musical talents were known and nurtured, weren't they?
Judy Russell: His grandfather taught him lots of beautiful, cantorial music at the time. They went back to Budapest, but they often went to visit the grandfather, the grandparents. And on one of these visits, it was a story dad often told:
They went to bed one evening and there was a terrible crash. And they were absolutely terrified, because some young man had passed the house and had thrown a big brick through the window. And as it so happened, it was the bedroom where my father and Munki were sleeping. And they were terrified because they could hear the glass breaking. It was pitch black, and they didn't have a nice phone to switch on to light up the room.
And it wasn't until the morning, when their grandmother or I think the grandparents had a servant, and it was a servant that came into the room, and of course discovered all the glass on the floor. But they were terrified to get up. There were terrified to stay where they were, and it was not, of course, uncommon for that to happen.
Tim Cole: I mean, it's interesting, I think, isn't it? That story of — they're in Budapest, but they're also moving between Budapest and Pápa. They're learning songs. Like there's an, there's experiences around antisemitism. But actually they're living a relatively normal life. Or there's certainly a little bit of freedom of movement. Which is very different, say, from Jews living just across the border in other countries, say especially Poland at the same time.
Or Slovakian Jews, because Slovakian Jews have been deported to Auschwitz in 1942. Whereas they've left Slovakia. In Budapest, they're living a relatively normal life until 1944. And I think that's because the Hungarian government is independent and it's supporting Nazi Germany. So, it's part of the Axis powers and it has an idea of — we’ll handle the Jewish question our way. The Hungarian State definitely thinks there is a Jewish problem, but they have their own kind of solution to it. And so, their solution is economic — an economic attack on Jews.
So, most Jews in Hungary lose their businesses or are kicked out of the professions. And the one thing I think that connects to your dad’s story, Judy, is that they are being mobilised for the military.
So, I think this is one of the questions that the Hungarian state have is: we're fighting on the side of Nazi Germany. What do we do about young Jewish men? Like, should they be doing their thing for the war effort or not? And so, what they decide in the end is anyone who's above 18 — so this isn't your dad because he's a teenage boy at this time — anyone who's above 18 and is Jewish — and I think that probably would include some of his older brothers — are sent off to these labour battalions.
And so, they're put alongside the Hungarian army, not carrying weapons but just carrying a big old spade. And they go out and dig trenches for the Hungarian military. And many of them die. So those so many Jewish men who die in these unarmed labour battalions on the Russian front, in particular in 1942-43. But you also get these young kids like your dad, who are being mobilised to do labour for the war. So, I think it's again the sense that all the Jewish boys shouldn't be spared from the war effort.
Judy Russell: I don't know when it started, but at one point the young men had to go and do a sort of military service one day a week. And it always happened to be a Saturday, so that was a Shabbat. And, I think, apparently because it was a Shabbat, and partly because dad had a little bit of a mischievous side to him, and he obviously — and the same with his brother — missed some of these days. And a letter was sent to their father to say that, because they had missed these, they were going to have to serve a short term in prison. So Ernest was taken by his father to a local prison. And the magistrate was there, and he was to serve three days, I think. I think it was something like that: three days, a few days. But unfortunately, that was 1944. And he never went home again.
Tim Cole: I mean, it's an extraordinary story of really bad luck, in a sense, isn't it? The timing? Because I think the Germans occupy Hungary really late in the war in March 1944. Your dad goes to report to the prison just at that moment, I think in April 1944. And that's the moment when there's this rapid change, where Hungarian Jews have suddenly been placed into ghettos. They're forced to wear yellow star. And then the deportations start, and he gets caught up in that first wave of deportations because he's in the prison system and then ends up being taken to Auschwitz.
Judy Russell: Dad, I think he must have, he must have had a lovely upbringing in many ways, because he was always immaculate. And I think that must have come from his childhood. And he really, he was one of those people that you know, he was always very smart and very clean and — you know — going to the toilet was very much a private thing, and so on.
And so, you're in one of these box cars. I don't know how many people would have been in them. And I know one of the things that he always detested the most, right through all his experience — and it's he's written about it a couple of times in his book — was of course having to go to the toilet. And he would have hated that.
You know, there was a bucket in the corner of the box car. And those were the things that he absolutely hated. And he actually did suffer quite a lot with his stomach and with various bowel problems and so on. And I'm sure it was as a result of these kind of horrid experiences at the very beginning. And I think it was the same when he was in Auschwitz. They were obviously in a large barracks and the latrines were disgusting. He was not able to wash. He was not able to relieve himself properly. All these things, and that was what he hated the most.
Tim Cole: He spends a week in Auschwitz. What was that week like for him?
Judy Russell: He didn't say an awful lot about the week that he was there. His comments were, ‘really hell on Earth’. Meaning absolutely… he said it was the most awful thing you'd ever experienced.
Louisa Clein: Well, tell me. How aware do you think, how aware was the Jewish community in Hungary to what was going on in the rest of Europe? Were they aware of, of Auschwitz? Of the concentration camps?
Tim Cole: I think, I think the Hungarian Jews are aware to some extent of what's happening. But they don't know the details of what's happening in 1942-43, even into 1944. And so that's where I think ‘44 comes as this total shock to the system. Hungary tries to get out of the war in ’44, and it's occupied by the Germans, March 1944.
And it's then, really rapidly, so 56 days after the occupation, the first deportations take place to Auschwitz. So just within less than two months, Hungarian Jews go from living a relatively normal life to being on the trains like your dad’s to Auschwitz. And then within 56 days, 430,000 Hungarian Jews are deported to Auschwitz.
So you've got this crazy short period. People talk about it as the last chapter of the Holocaust, and I think it's really striking because it's not just so late in the war, you know, because this is the same time as the D-Day landings. You know, we kind of, everyone knows what's happening with the war. But right at that last stage of the war, Hungarian Jews are deported, including your dad, Judy.
You know, Ernest is on one of these trains that's being sent to Auschwitz. And he's part of these 430,000 Hungarian Jews who are sent to Auschwitz, where most of them are murdered on arrival in 1944.
But I think there is one other thing that happens. Because it's so late, I think there is a moment in 1944 where the Germans are starting to think about the fact that the war is going really badly. And so they want more labour. They want increasingly Jewish labour.
Ernest is typical, I think, of young men of his kind of age. So teenage boys, maybe men in their teens, upper teens, like 19-year-olds, 20s, young women at the same age. And the German state decides, actually, rather than sending them to the gas chambers, we’ll put them into the war industries.
And so, what you find is, Auschwitz at this point, it’s operating almost as part just an extermination camp of older Jews from Hungary and younger Jews, but also a kind of transit camp for people like Ernest. And so, it's quite typical to end up in Auschwitz for literally just a week and then to be on a train and sent somewhere else. And he’s sent, isn't he to a labour camp. I guess we describe it as where he's, I think, mending, probably military vehicles.
Judy Russell: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's a factory that he goes to. And the camp was called Wüstegiersdorf, but they actually left the camp and they went into the nearest town where there was a factory. And it was it was metal work of some sort. And dad always qualified that by saying that the charge hand that was in charge of that factory was actually very good to all the workers. I mean, there would have been hundreds of them daily going there working in this factory and he would insist that they were fed.
Tim Cole: And I think, you know, in some ways he's typical. I think of — he survives because he has: one, someone decent in charge, and two, because he's inside. You know, people talk a lot about this — I think, if you think of the slave labour system — I guess the Nazis think about slave labour as, you've got this unending supply of slave labour. And so most people only managed to survive three months in the slave labour system. You kind of work people to death.
I think the exception is, if you're working inside rather than outside, which your dad was. And if you have someone decent in charge, which your dad did. So someone who provided enough food, just enough food for him to survive several months — it's almost a year, I think, isn't it — within this and the slave labour system?
Judy Russell: Mm-hmm. Yes, several months. Yeah, yeah.
Tim Cole: Am I right in thinking this is in January 1945 that they're on this death march?
Judy Russell: As the war was coming to an end, the whole camp where he was, they were on one of the many forced marches.
Tim Cole: It's almost like they pack up an entire concentration camp and kind of put it on the road. So, march the prisoners in rows of five. So rows of five are how they always count people in the concentration camp system. And so they kind of get a row of five. So, your dad would be with four other men walking along the road. So those would be the four men he’d share food rations with. So probably people that are really, you know, he becomes incredibly dependent upon and feels like he has a lot of loyalty to.
Judy Russell: Dad especially told me a few stories then about various instances, and one of them was a story from that march. You're right. There was a group of them that were young men who tried to keep together. And one of the young men, his father was still with them. And the father was really pretty poorly already by the time they left the work camp. And the young men tried very hard to support their friend and his father so they would be walking. And they would be helping the old gentleman, or the older gentleman — I don't think this man would have been old. But he was not well, and the man got to the point where he could walk no further.
And the young friends — Ernest and his young friends who were trying to help — just found it impossible to carry him. And as you see, it was very hard as well because there was guards, and the man just dropped. And of course, he was immediately taken by a guard to the side of the road. And his son wouldn't leave him.
And I can remember, dad, you know, describing this son who wouldn't leave him. And they just shot both of them. They shot the old man, who was... but they shot the son as well. And that was how he lost many of his — used to say friends.
You asked earlier about whether he met anybody. One of the things dad often said to me was that his greatest regret was that he never asked for anybody's surname. They all knew each other by Ernest, Joe, Leopold. That's how they knew one another. And after the war, after he got to the point where he could look back and actually start processing what really happened. And processing the fact that these people helped him, but he could not find them again because he didn't know anybody surnames and he could never find them and look them up again.
It was during the death march that he encountered the sardine tin. And it was winter. Probably the end of January, the beginning of February, and they had to stop the march because it was — the weather was too inclement, and they ended up staying in a farm. There was about 400 men in his group, and they were put in a barn and the farmer was a lovely man because he actually fed the prisoners. He insisted that the prisoners were fed every day. They were given a soup, but they were also given a potato, which for them was a lifesaver. Food was, and starvation was their number one enemy.
And they remained in the barn, and they were allowed out for short periods during the day. And at one point, when dad went out of the barn, he went round the side and there was a German soldier there eating a tin of sardines. And when he'd finished, the fish sardine tin was thrown on the ground and dad went over and when he picked it up. He realised that there was some oil in it.
Now, for somebody who's always starving, that oil could have given him a bit of sustenance. But he actually sacrificed the oil because he realised that they had never celebrated Chanukah the previous December. And he also knew that he had a small bit of string in his pocket, and some matches that had been given to him by somebody. So instead of drinking or eating the oil, he took it into the barn.
And that night he managed to light the oil that was in the sardine tin. He'd put the string into the tin, lit the string, and they celebrated Chanukah. And everybody in the barn sang Maoz Tzur.
It was uplifting. And they sang this lovely little tune. And of course, with dad's beautiful voice, I'm sure it sounded incredible.
Tim Cole: I mean, that's extraordinary to me that he does that in the midst of what — often for many people was the worst moment of the Holocaust. Like people talk about the death marches as just the most traumatic, you know, cause it's physically demanding to be death marched across slippery, snowy roads in winter after you've been starved to death in forced labour for 10 months. Like it's amazing to me that he decides to light a candle in the darkness.
Louisa Clein: I can imagine it would have given off a rather beautiful light. You know, there's a symbol, obviously, in Judaism, that the idea of lighting candles is about memorial, remembering both positive and negative things in in the history and the culture of Judaism. And I think that it evokes such a vivid image, doesn't it? Of a group of hopeless men — and I mean that in the truest sense of the word — no hope, sitting around a candle, and bringing each other a sense of hope around this light.
Judy Russell: Well, it's, I suppose, the fact that memorial candles are lit to remember the dead and — I'm saying this — but perhaps in a way, maybe he lit that piece of string to remember that friend and the father?
Tim Cole: So, your dad is on this death march, they're in the barn because the weather's so bad. There's so much snow they can't get moving, and I think a lot of that's probably… the German guards don't want to carry on, you know. Because they're also fleeing for their lives, and they're not so concerned about the prisoners. They're more concerned about themselves.
They get to Belsen, and then I think your dad, he's he sort of shuttled around. There's a kind of chaotic few months. He's in a number of different work camps near Hanover and Hildesheim. He's like, fixing the broken railway or whatever. And then he's back in Bergen-Belsen. So, he's in Bergen-Belsen when the British liberate the camp. Do you know what happens next? Does he end up in a hospital or something after his liberation?
Judy Russell: By the time the camps liberated, he's very sick. He's got typhus. I think probably waking up in a beautiful fresh hospital bed with clean sheets was actually, well, I think you would consider that a miracle. But he was always very positive because it was one nurse in particular that nursed him back to health. And I think, like many, he probably was given a choice as whether he wanted to go back to Hungary or whether he wanted to move on. Whether it was the UK or to US. But he wanted to go back to his family. He wanted to see who else had survived.
Louisa Clein: Did he have any idea if any of his family had survived?
Judy Russell: No, no. He knew he knew of nothing.
Tim Cole: And I think that's a really typical response, because no one's planned like no one knows, knows what's going to happen. He, I mean, he's taken to a jail, isn't he, to serve a few days and then he disappears before he knows that he's in Auschwitz and he has no clue where anyone else is. And so the thing I think so many Jews do at this point in 1945, is they just go back home. Because they assume that that's where everyone else will go. Like if they're going to find out if people are alive or dead, then home is the best place to start. And so, I guess he goes back to Budapest and what does he find when he goes back to Budapest?
Judy Russell: Well, he obviously he finds his mother. He finds his sisters. He discovers that his closest brother, Munki, did not survive. One of his brothers by then has gone to Israel, and his brother Fritz and his wife they go on one of the first ships that sailed over to Palestine before Israel was there. And so, he knew that he had two other brothers that survived. So, part of the family comes together, and he decides to settle.
Louisa Clein: So out of eight children, six survived!
Judy Russell: I'm trying to work it out. Yes.
Tim Cole: What you have found in Hungary is so, there's this massive deportation of Hungarian Jews. You know, 437,000 sent to Auschwitz in 56 days between May and July ‘44. But then Budapest Jews remain living in the ghetto and Budapest because Admiral Horthy halts the deportations, I think largely under pressure from the neutral powers, and also, I think because by this point in the war, July ‘44, it's quite clear how the war is going to end.
And so, surprisingly, Budapest Jews largely remained intact. There's about 70,000 Jews living in Budapest in the summer of 1945, which includes Ernest’s family. It's the largest Jewish community. So in some ways the Hungarian Jewish community is destroyed in the summer of ‘44 in Auschwitz.
But the Budapest Jewish community continue living in the ghetto or rescued by Raul Wallenberg. And so, you do get this Jewish community reformed in Budapest. And I guess is he — does he become a part of this reformed Jewish community in in his 20s? As a man in his 20s?
Judy Russell: He does. Probably that was when he would say himself that he went through a period where, you know, ‘where was G-d when I needed him?’ He would have dearly have loved to become an opera singer. I mean, his voice was strong obviously, he had a strong enough voice for that. But the effect that the year in the camps had on his body physically meant that he just did not have the stamina.
He had a singing teacher, that she ran one of the best music schools in Hungary. He was taken on by her because she obviously recognised what beautiful voice he had, but he just was never able to quite make it to the top. And he always said that that was because physically his body wasn't strong enough.
Tim Cole: What does he do in the late 1940s and early 1950s? What work does he do?
Judy Russell: It's some light engineering. He works in a light engineering firm. He actually bought a plot of land and started building a house in Szentendre, which is a small town just outside Budapest.
Tim Cole: And why does he decide to leave in the end in the 1960s? Is that because of the Hungarian Revolution? Is it the kind of rise of Soviet power?
Judy Russell: Yes, I suppose it was the the oppressive state, with Russians being there. I mean the, the politics just did not suit him. And of course, by then he had a brother in London, he had a sister in Glasgow and his mother went to Glasgow with his sister. So, I think that's probably why he ended up there. He left his home, and he came out on a tourist visa. He was building this house. It belonged to him. I suppose originally, he just wanted to see what it would be like in Scotland, and he loved it right from the word go.
He just felt that that, that he could be himself. He didn't need to be anybody else. He didn't need to hide his identity. Because I think in Hungary, for those years between the war, in the 60s, people still had to hide their identity. They was still perhaps antisemitism, and so on. And he felt in Scotland he could be himself.
Louisa Clein: And he became quite a known figure in the Scottish Jewish community, didn't he? As one of the most incredible, chazans and cantors?
Tim Cole: What do you want to happen to this sardine tin? How do you imagine its future?
Judy Russell: Well, fortunately in Glasgow, there is the Glasgow Scottish Archive and Heritage Centre. And I still have a number of things that I've kept that belong to both my mother and to Ernest. And I think probably when I go, I think I would happily offer them.
I've got a lovely picture of my father, a painting in the house. And the sardine tin. And because I volunteer there, I think they know the significance of the items that I’ve kept for me and for them.
Louisa Clein: It feels like this little tin tells such a story.
Tim Cole: And it's also interesting isn’t it, because it's a German tin in a sense? I mean it's a Nazi guard who may have shot one of the boys on the roadside, you know. A guard who is doing that. And this is his food that then is repurposed, literally recycled, isn't it, by your dad into almost a Jewish ritual object. And there's something really kind of meaningful I think about that sense of that interchange. The tin is the exchange between the Jew and the Nazi — in some ways both hold it and use it, but for different reasons and different purposes.
Judy Russell: I think for me, it's so positive talking to you because you're seeing things that maybe I felt, but I haven't actually been able to verbalise. And you're seeing them. And for me, it's lovely to hear that.
Louisa Clein: Objects of the Holocaust is presented by me, Louisa Clein and Tim Cole, and produced by Sarah Peters at Tuning Fork Productions.
Original music is by Iain Chambers, and sound design is by Peregrine Andrews.
With thanks to Beth Lloyd, Annabel Pattle, Kirsty Young and Karen Pollock from the Holocaust Educational Trust.
The Holocaust Educational Trust is a charity that works across the UK to ensure that the horrors of the past are never forgotten.
Details of the charity can be found in the show notes.