PAL ZOLTAN (ZVI) SCHEFFER

Holocaust Project Katzenelson High-School, ISRAEL.
mail: shiraboaz111@walla.com , relationet2014@gmail.com .
First name: Zvi
last name: Scheffer. 
Previous name: Pal Zoltan.
Father: Wilmos.
Mother: Froma (Elzsebet).
Year of Birth: 1931.
City of Birth: Miskolc. 
City of Residence: Budapest
Country of Birth: Hungary.
A map of Zvi's journey: 

MISKOLC 

Miskolc is a city in northeastern Hungary and today is the third largest city in Hungary with a population of 170,000.

The city Miskolc was named by the Misko'c clan that lived there until the late 9th century, when the Hungarians occupied the area.

Zvi Sheffer was born there and when he was 2 years old, his family moved to the capital of Hungary - Budapest.

BUDAPEST:

In 1873, Budapest was consolidated to one big city made of 3 tiny cities named Buda, Pest and Óbuda.

The Danube River that flows from north to south Budapest, divides the city to 2 main areas. Most of the commercial and economic activists occur in the eastern part, Pest. It is an area of planes, much more than the west side, Buda, which is a mountainous region.

Budapest is divided into 23 districts, as a result of many activities that happened in the late 19th century, six of which are in Buda, 16 in Pest and 1 in Csepel Island between them.

Since the beginning of the war (1939) to the occupation of Hungary by the German in 1944, Hungarian Jews numbered about 700 thousand people that is 5 percent of the population, the second largest community in Europe after Poland.

Interwar the Jew’s situation was good. Before the beginning of the Second World War, the Anti-Semitic actions by the Hungarian Christians against their Jewish neighbors worsened. In 1938, there were discriminatory laws against the Jews - setting a quota of Jews who can study higher education, limiting the sources of labor, prohibiting mixed marriages and many others.

As long as the Hungarians collaborated with the Germans, the situation of the Jewish people in the state was better than the European Jews who lived under German conquest. Jews were not directly in a life risk. All the men were taken and forced to work under difficult conditions, they suffered from a shortage of food and sleep, but they still had a chance to live.

The War:

The Holocaust in Hungary began towards the end of the World War II.

In May 1938, Hungary passed a series of anti-Jewish measures under the

Influence  of Germany's Nürnberg Laws.

In the 19th march 1944, the German troops occupied Hungary.  With their entry the situation of the Jews worsened. They were marked with yellow badges, their property was confiscated, and measures were taken in order to separate them from the general population for destruction.

On May 15, Jews started being sent to Auschwitz by trains.

As the Red Army advanced toward Hungary, the German accelerated the process of extermination of the Jews in all the territories that were under their control. Within a few weeks, 450 thousand Jews all from Budapest were deported to extermination.

In the end of the war, between November 1944 and February 1945, the Nyilas shot Jews on the banks of the Danube.
Hungary was conquered in April 1945 by the Red Army.

After The War:

After the World War II, the size of the Jewish population continued to shrink.

Between1945-1948 , 70,000 Jews left Hungary in two huge waves of emigration. 

The social status of the Jewish people who survived the Holocaust changed after the war, those who remained in Budapest got new opportunities to change their life style.

ZVI'S LIFE: 

Zvi's Childhood:

Zvi Scheffer was born in 03/02/1931 in Miskolc, Hungary. He had a younger sister named Rozsa. When he was 2 years old, his family moved to Budapest and lived there until he was 17.

In the picture- Rozsa, Elzsebet, Wilmos and Zvi

Zvi was raised according to religious values like his parents – Elzsebet(Froma) and Wilmos. The family kept religious customs from daily prayer through Jewish ceremonies and holidays. 

He went to a religious school and learned there the core and religious subjects. The kids from the Hungarian school across the street used to harass them about their beliefs.
As part of his religious life, he joined "Bney - Akiva" and enjoyed activities every Saturday, Zionist chorus and lectures.    

In 1939, when Zvi was 8 year old, his father died and the family faced financial problems. As a result, his grand-parents moved to their house to help them and because of the difficult situation at home, his mother even sold a gold pocket watch that his father had left behind.

Zvi and elzsebet

Zvi, Elzsebet and Rozsa

The War:

In the beginning of World War II, the condition in which the Jews lived was good in comparison with their condition later. As the war progressed, their lives had deteriorated.
The time they were allowed to be in the streets was limited and kids had to leave their schools and study only in Jewish schools.

Zvi during the war

Towards 1941, the Nazis took the Jewish men to force camps under the observation of the Hungarian army. The working conditions were tough and some of the men were sent to fight in the front.

This process had not affected Zvi's family, because his father and grandfather had already died.  Zvi used to be the only man in the house.
Zvi celebrated his bar-mitzvah on February, 1944, a month before the Germans conquered Budapest and moved all the Jews to the ghetto.

Zvi's family lived in the same apartment which had only 3 rooms for 18 people. They lived there from the middle of 1944 till 1945.

 Elzsebet (Froma) - Zvi's mother

His mother risked herself several times in order to feed her family. Froma, looked like an Arian woman. She used her looks to get out of the ghetto. Froma escaped from the ghetto by telling the guards that she was visiting her colleague who worked with her before the war. Froma told the guards that her colleague was dying and needed her help.

Another situation that risked his mother was in one of the Germans' searches in their house. Before they entered, Froma took all of their valuable things, put them in a handkerchief in her pocket. Then she took another handkerchief that looked the same and put raisins in it.
When the Germans asked for all their precious things she took out her handkerchief with the raisins and showed them to the Germans. Then she took out her second handkerchief, the Germans thought it was another bag of raisins so they didn’t take it.

In the end of 1944, the Russians bombed Budapest to attack the Germans and occupied the area. They announced to the population, before every bomb. This bomb was called "Flatten Bomb" because it flatted the area. It was difficult not only for the Germans, the Jews suffered from it too. Zvi's family and many other people were afraid to get out of the house.

Nobody knew what's going on behind the ghetto walls. All the communication ways had stopped and important information didn't get to them anymore. There were rumors running inside especially about the Nazis acts, but they couldn't believe people would actually do it.

On 18 January, 1945 the Russians occupied Pest and released the ghetto and Zvi's family returned to their old apartment. On their way out, they saw for the first time a pile of bodies that proved that the rumors were true.  

They had 3 rooms and they were supposed to give the soldiers one of them. His mother got food and cooked for them, the leftovers were for Zvi and his sisters.
Those soldiers used to strip-off people, take their clothes and sell them. They had done that until the police caught them and his mother who they thought collaborated with them.
After these soldiers had left their apartment, his mother rented their room to soldiers who returned from labor camps.

Zvi's Life After The War:

After the ghetto was liberated, Zvi joined "Bney-Akiva". Every Saturday they met and had done different activities, they also had chorus and once in a while they participated in competitions.

Zvi's grandmother had a major influence on him; she raised and educated him according to the Zionist values.  When he was 17 years old, he was supposed to go to a pilot course, but he didn’t have a passport, so he missed his chance and stayed in Budapest.

Zvi Scheffer

In 1948, he immigrated to Israel with "Mahal" (volunteers from different countries). As part of his immigration process, he swore that he would be loyal to his country and to the IDF in the fields near Budapest.
From Budapest he took a train to Yugoslavia and then sailed aboard to Israel in a crowded cargo ship. The passengers were unable to go on deck in order to avoid the British from finding them.

There were fire breaks in Israel when Zvi finally arrived, so it was necessary that all the civilians would join to the IDF.

Because of the war, Zvi didn’t finish school and when he came to Israel he didn’t know how to read or write. He taught himself  his own way.Every day, he took the newspaper and read what he could from the news. Then he started copying  articles even with the words that he didn’t understand. 

Zvi served in the army for 2 years. At first, he was in a school for tank crews and worked at the weapons storehouse. Then he went to a driving course and got a military driving license which he used even after the army in various jobs.

Zvi's frist wedding 

When he was released, his mother and her second husband came to Israel with his sister and Zvi helped them rehabilitate. Because of that Zvi didn’t have the chance to finish school, every time something else came up.

At first, he worked as a driver in the Israeli police and then for 25 years he worked in a communication office including Bezeq and the post office.

In 1956, Zvi met his first wife, Miriam, and one year later they got married. Zvi has a daughter named Lia from that marriage. After 30 years of a happy life together, his wife passed away.

Zvi scheffer today

One year later, he met his second wife, Esther. Her husband died one day before Zvi's wife at the same hospital.  She had a son from her previous marriage named Doron.
Zvi and Esther got married in 1987 and lived together for 15 years, until she died.

Nowadays, Zvi lives in Ramat-Ef'al, to his relief his family lives in Israel. He loves his life and is satisfied from it.
A quote from the interview with Zvi, "My life wasn’t easy and we didn’t celebrate every day, but we stayed alive. I still believe that Israel is the place for all of us"