If They Should Let Me Live – A Bicycle & Ice Skates In Oradea (Lost Lands #179)

On a cold December day six years ago, I crossed the Crisul Repede River in the city center of Oradea. Looking downriver. I noticed a large domed building. The Sion Neolog Synagogue had been the largest Jewish house of worship for one of Eastern Europe’s most prosperous Jewish communities. That first glance acted as a magnet pulling me along Strada Indepedentei towards the synagogue. In five minutes, I was standing outside a fence that made the entrance inaccessible. The synagogue was temporarily closed due to restoration work. It would not reopen until the following year. While disappointed, I made a mental note that one day I would return.?

Coming Of Age – The Joy of Youth

Several years passed before I returned to Oradea. The Sion Neolog Synagogue topped my list of places to visit in the city. Sure enough, when I crossed the Crisul Repede there was the synagogue still looming above the river. I figured the wait was worth it because I would now see Oradea’s most famous and largest synagogue in all its original splendor. I walked up to the entrance, only to be greeted by a locked door. How could this be? Judging by its exterior, the synagogue was ready for visitors. That did not matter because it was closed on Mondays. I left disappointed and vowed that I would return for a third try in the future. I will do so as part of my itinerary for the lost lands beyond Hungary’s borders. On my next trip to Oradea, I also have a second synagogue to visit. This one includes a history museum with two artifacts - a bicycle and a pair of ice skates – that I must see. The reason why is simple and complicated.

I first saw the artifacts In a photo. There was a red bicycle and a white pair of skates. They looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. My first thought was how did they get there? I was stunned. Other than their design, which betrayed the fact that they were from an earlier era, both artifacts were in excellent condition. I wondered how they had been so well preserved. Furthermore, the owner of the bicycle and ice skates was an adolescent who used them on numerous occasions. The artifacts were owned by Eva Heyman, a Jewish girl who wrote an incredible diary covering the final months of her life before being deported and murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She had just turned thirteen a few months before her life came to a tragic end. Like kids her age, Eva had enjoyed riding her red bicycle around the neighborhoods and parks of Nagyvarad (Oradea was under Hungarian control from 1940 -44). In the winter she would go ice skating. These were activities of a normal childhood at a highly abnormal time, one that would grow more so during World War II.

Stolen Lives – Confiscation & Consternation

Many of us can relate to Eva Heyman’s childhood experiences. That is what makes her artifacts in the Museum of Jewish History located inside the Aachivas Rein Synagogue so emotionally engaging. Eva Heyman was a normal girl, coming of age in a vibrant community with what should have been a bright future ahead of her. That bright future was darkened by storm clouds on the horizon which soon engulfed her and the entire Jewish community in Nagyvarad. The Aachives Rein?Synagogue is an appropriate home for the Museum of Jewish History, the only one of its kind in Romania. It was the last synagogue built in Oradea before the Holocaust extinguished Jewish life in the city.

The Jewish contributions to Nagyvarad were vast. That is not only seen in the synagogues, but also much of the delightful Secessionist and Art Nouveau buildings scattered throughout the city center. These are just the most noticeable of their many contributions. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries members of the Jewish community were responsible for Nagyvarad’s first telephone and water networks, modern printing house, shoe factory, and alcohol distilleries. They were educated, cosmopolitan, and full of civic pride. Nagyvarad received the title of Little Paris during this time. Eva Heyman’s family was solidly middle class. Her grandfather owned a pharmacy. Eva was an only child who dreamed of being a news photographer one day. After her parents divorced, Eva’s mother remarried a popular leftist writer and moved to Budapest. Eva stayed in Nagyvarad with her grandparents. On her 13th birthday Eva began to write her diary. That is how we know about the bicycle that is now on display at the museum. The German occupation of Hungary began on March 19, 1944. Six days later, Eva noted in her diary their arrival in Nagyvarad. Two weeks later, soldiers came to confiscate her red bicycle. Her diary entry for that day:

"April 7, 1944

Today they came for my bicycle. I almost caused a big drama. You know, dear diary, I was awfully afraid just by the fact that the policemen came into the house. I know that policemen bring only trouble with them, wherever they go [...] So, dear diary, I threw myself on the ground, held on to the back wheel of my bicycle, and shouted all sorts of things at the policemen: 'Shame on you for taking away a bicycle from a girl! That's robbery!' We had saved up for a year and a half to buy the bicycle [...] One of the policemen was very annoyed and said: 'All we need is for a Jewgirl to put on such a comedy when her bicycle is being taken away. No Jewkid is entitled to keep a bicycle anymore. The Jews aren't entitled to bread, either; they shouldn't guzzle everything, but leave the food for the soldiers.' You can imagine, dear diary, how I felt when they were saying this to my face.”

In the weeks after that Eva and her family were confined to the ghetto. As conditions worsened, she confides her worst fears in the diary. Her final entry prior to deportation:

May 30, 1944

dear diary, I don’t want to die; I want to live even if it means that I’ll be the only person here allowed to stay. I would wait for the end of the war in some cellar, or on the roof, or in some secret cranny. I would even let the cross-eyed gendarme, the one who took our flour away from us, kiss me, just as long as they didn’t kill me, only that they should let me live.”

If That – Legacy & Reality

Eva’s diary survived because of the family’s Hungarian cook, Mariska Szabo. Eva gave it to her when she brought her food in the ghetto. Eventually the diary found its way back to her mother who had escaped the death camps. She had it published in Hungary. A few years later, she was confined to a sanatorium and committed suicide. Her daughter’s death likely contributed to her mental decline. What she thought while reading the diary, we can only imagine. Eva’s words are heartbreaking and at the same time, life affirming. The diary is Eva’s legacy, the bicycle and ice skates her reality. Eva Heyman did not survive the Holocaust. Neither did one and a half million Jewish children. The majority of whom we will never know anything about other than a name, if that. We are fortunate to have anything left of Eva Heyman, including her bicycle and ice skates. These artifacts represent the joy of youth and the horror of the Holocaust. They express what it means to be human, and what it means to be free. Eva Heyman lost her bike and her life, but never her dreams.