... read this urban legend story the other day, local version, a tale of an old lady that for decades could be seen on streets of Pécs walking around carrying her essential belongings in a bag. Story says that once upon a time, when she was a fourteen year old girl, her family had survived Hungarian Jewish Holocaust of 1944 by digging up a shelter that was not more than a hole in the ground in their vineyard.
They say that this experience forever made her insane, with one of the symptoms of her broken mind and craziness being the constant awareness and irrational fear of the second coming of that moment when the world collapses - a moment that she knew could happen again at any point in time in the life that she lived after the first time it had happened to her and she survived - that split second that lasts usually a couple of frantic minutes while one gathers one's essential belongings, stuffs them into a bag and runs into hiding in a hole in the ground. Or just runs for one's life.
All of the horror of experiencing such a moment is that it can pretty much be summed up and condensed into the conscious act of never letting go of such a holdall - a bag that holds all of your life in your life's worst moment.
For the old lady from Pécs that life container was a nameless ragged bag which at all times contained all of her life - those who knew her say inside it during her wanderings there were: a couple of warm items of clothes, a change of underwear, some solid food that could last, and a golden something that she probably would if needed be able to pawn in exchange for a safe passage.
Urban legends are not where you will find the more sinister aspects or the soul-wrenching truth behind "The Lady With A Bag From Pécs" story.
The cold and cruel numbers only game that tells how... according to the 1941. population census in Pécs there were
3,486 individuals identified to be of Jewish religion, and that in the wider county area there were
2,498 more. Total of
5,984 Jews in Pécs in 1941.
There were two freight transports from Pécsi picturesque train station in cattle wagons, one on July 6th 1944 that emptied the ghetto and one more two days after that of people from the county. Total of
5,623 souls on board shipped to their Auschwitz deaths from Pécs in 1944.
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A soul once buried in a hole in the ground never truly gets to get out of that hole whole again.
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( There is a small waterproof travel bag being kept in a pantry in the city I live in today. In it are essentials - original birth certificates and copies of other important documents, an envelope containing a few business cards with additional telephone numbers and home addresses written on the back, and a pair of golden earrings that can be easily swapped for just enough cash to get across a border or two. Someone checks if this bag is up-to-date once or twice a year and goes through life finding great comfort in knowing it is there always, and holds onto that notion just like the old lady from Pécs who went through her own rest of the days after experiencing the world that went away kept holding onto the comfort of never letting go of her holdall bag. )
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a pécsi szatyros hölgy legendája
death trains in 1944:
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