One of the International Red Cross offices that \u201chosted\u201d the underground Zionist Youth Resistance Movement (ZYRM) was on Baross St., in Budapest. Toward the end of December, 1944, the staff received a harrowing telephone call: the children\u2019s house on Nagyfuvaros St. was being evacuated by the Arrow Cross.<\/p>\n
The ZYRM operatives were at a loss. What could they possibly do? L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Kepes (who later became Eliezer Kadmon) was the first to recover from the shock of this horrifying news, and came up with a plan. He asked David Gr\u00fcnwald (\u201cCoca\u201d) to lend him his leather coat, so that L\u00e1szl\u00f3 would look like a genuine non-Jew, and hurriedly left the office. His friends anxiously waited for his return. They did not believe he would come back alive.<\/p>\n
L\u00e1szl\u00f3 went straight to the children\u2019s house on Nagyfuvaros St. An Arrow Cross sentry was standing at the gate, armed with a Sten gun. The bewildered children, led by Dr. Salg\u00f3 L\u00e1szl\u00f3, stood in the courtyard. Kepes, who knew German, started yelling in outrage at the Nazi guards: \u201cHow dare you step foot in territory protected by the International Red Cross!\u201d David\u2019s leather coat and the gold-rimmed glasses he was wearing impressed the Nazis. The sentry called to his commanding officer, who also received an earful from Kepes. \u201cWe are only following orders,\u201d said the scared officer. \u201cShow me the orders,\u201d Kepes demanded. There was no written order, but the officer mentioned the name of a Pole. Kepes continued yelling, threatening to phone Hungarian Interior Minister Kem\u00e9ny, who would have the men arrested. That threat terrified them, and the entire group of Nazis turned and marched quickly out of the compound, pleading with \u201cSir\u201d to forgive them, because all they were doing was following orders, and they had no bad intentions\u2026 That is how a 20-year-old Halutz saved the children of Nagyfuvaros St. from a bitter fate in the Danube River.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the International Red Cross offices that \u201chosted\u201d the underground Zionist Youth Resistance Movement (ZYRM) was on Baross St., in Budapest. Toward the end of December, 1944, the staff received a harrowing telephone call: the children\u2019s house on Nagyfuvaros St. was being evacuated by the Arrow Cross. The ZYRM operatives were at a loss. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":3023,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3030","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n