Although Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany, Hungarian Jews were largely exempted from mass extermination until the German invasion in March 1944. But when Hitler’s army occupied his country, Pastor Gábor Sztehlo was torn from his peaceful pastoral work and given a new mission. It was a mission that plunged a naïve and unprepared pastor into the heart of the greatest tragedy of the century. “Save the Jews,” was all the bishop told him that spring.
During a twelve-month “course” on the nature of human baseness and goodness, the free-spirited pastor desperately tried to find hiding places for the children the world wanted to destroy.
A year later Sztehlo emerged – literally – from beneath the rubble of a ruined Budapest, followed by 2,000 souls who – as Sztehlo put it – had been saved for life, and they founded a beautiful utopia, a republic of children called Gaudiopolis, the City of Joy.
The siege of Budapest, despite its enormous scale and brutality, remains one of the most overlooked events of the Second World War.
On 7 November 1944, after months of fierce fighting, the Soviets reached the outskirts of Budapest. They urgently needed respite and resupply, but Joseph Stalin had other plans. With the Allied Conference of the leaders of the anti-Nazi coalition at Yalta approaching, and the Soviet commander-in-chief keen to improve his already strong negotiating position by a swift and spectacular takeover of the Hungarian capital, he ordered the city to be captured as soon as possible.
The plan was to cut Budapest off from the rest of the German and Hungarian forces, which they succeeded in doing on 26 December, when Soviet troops seized the road linking Budapest to Vienna, which Stalin wanted to seize from the Western Allies.
The fight for Budapest
For Adolf Hitler, Budapest was vital. It was the capital of Germany’s last ally in Europe and the gateway to Vienna and southern Bavaria. It was also the only remaining crude oil refinery of the Axis countries in south-west Hungary.
At Stalingrad, Hitler pursued his disastrous strategy, which he called Festung (fortress), of not allowing his troops to withdraw even when defeat became certain. Even during the siege of Budapest, he refused to authorise the withdrawal of nearly 33,000 German and 37,000 Hungarian troops and declared the Hungarian capital a Festung to be defended to the last man. More than 800,000 civilians also remained trapped in besieged Budapest.
Unlike Pest, which was built on flat terrain, Buda lies on hills. This allowed the defenders to place artillery and fortifications above the invaders, greatly slowing the Soviet advance. The main fortress on Gellért Hill was defended by Waffen-SS units, who successfully repelled several Soviet attacks.
Until 9 January 1945, German troops were able to use some of the main avenues and the park next to Buda Castle as landing strips for motor and glider aircraft, although they were under constant Soviet artillery fire. Before the Danube froze, some supplies could be sent on barges, under cover of darkness and fog.
Food became increasingly scarce and soldiers had to rely on finding their own sources of survival, some even resorting to eating their own horses. German and Hungarian troops were also affected by the extreme temperatures.
On 11 February 1945, after six weeks of fighting, Gellért Hill finally fell when the Soviets launched a powerful attack from three directions simultaneously. Soviet artillery managed to dominate the entire town and shell the remaining Axis defenders, who were concentrated in less than two square kilometres and suffering from malnutrition and disease.
Despite the shortage of supplies, the Axis troops refused to surrender and defended every street and house.
On the night of 11 February, some 28,000 German and Hungarian soldiers began to withdraw from Castle Hill in three groups. Each group of fugitives included thousands of civilians. Whole families pushing prams were fighting their way through the snow and ice. Due to the heavy fog and their large numbers, many of the first group managed to escape, but the second and third groups of defectors were less fortunate, as they were killed, wounded or captured by Soviet soldiers.
The Soviets broke the strong resistance of the Hungarian and German troops only after 50 days, when the town surrendered unconditionally on 13 February 1945. Some 38,000 civilians died as a result of starvation, military actions and mass executions of Jews, still carried out by the far-right Hungarian nationalist Arrow Cross party during the siege.
Budapest lay in ruins, with more than 80% of the buildings destroyed or damaged, including historic buildings such as the Hungarian Parliament building and the Castle. All seven bridges over the Danube were also destroyed.
For Soviet troops, the siege of Budapest was the last exercise before the Battle of Berlin.
Days of fear
At the beginning of February 1945, an explosion destroyed the basement door of the house where Sztehlo had been hiding for several weeks with his family and a few helpers and 33 Jewish children from the Bogár Street children’s home, which had been destroyed in the bombing and which the pastor had offered shelter in his house.
When a Russian soldier appeared on the threshold of the cellar with a rifle pointed at him and saw the crowd of frightened children, he just breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.
He was joined in the cellar by several other soldiers, who also smiled kindly at the excited children and asked the adults for sheets and pillowcases so that they could make some camouflage snow coats. They said that their mission was to blow up the cellar because they were convinced that it must be an important place for the Germans, as the German soldiers were defending it with determination and persistence.
The Russian liberators decided that the upper part of the house would be a suitable shelter for their commander. More and more soldiers came to the pastor’s home, but this did not bother Sztehl and the others who took refuge with him, who thought that they would not stay long in the basement shelter. They were looking forward to being able to move around freely soon and not having to fear anything anymore. Whatever happened to them, freedom was no longer a hope but a certainty.
They did not know that the fighting was not over and that it would be some time before normal life would return. The bombing and renewed fighting in the streets forced them to stay in the basement.
Sztehlo recalls in his notes: ‘In the evening, after the little ones had gone to bed, we talked with the teachers and the big boys about the day’s events and the prospects for the future. The horror of that night, the surprising and unexpected help of the enemy and the generosity they witnessed left such a deep impression on the children’s souls that the very next day we began to feel that we had to stick together – even when we were no longer forced to live in the basement. We should create a community where hatred is unknown, but where joy and peace reign. The idea of Gaudiopolis, the City of Joy, was born.”
One evening, the soldiers ordered all the men to go to the ground floor. A few of the younger ones were sent back to the cellar, and the rest were escorted to a villa nearby, where a large cannon with huge iron wheels and a long barrel stood in the garden. The Soviets ordered the small group assembled to push the cannon into the street and then up the hill, and as they did not care that the cannon was too heavy, Sztehl and the assembled men had no choice but to start pushing.
When, with superhuman effort, they managed to reach the top, the soldiers herded them back down into the valley and brought them in front of the old, shabby villa where the headquarters of this section of the front was located. There were many soldiers around the house, and in the middle of the courtyard, about a hundred civilian prisoners of war were gathered, and one by one they were called in for interrogation.
Sztehl’s group was also questioned and asked what they had done during the war. They were then taken to the other side of the city to some sort of assembly centre and probably also to a higher headquarters. Sztehl was advised by some of the men in the prisoner group to send the two younger boys to the commander and ask him to release them because of their age. Perhaps they would return to Sztehl’s house and get help.
Sztehl’s request was granted and one of the boys returned an hour later with food and good news. The father of one of the boys, whom Sztehlo had offered shelter, was working in the building, and in the meantime Mrs Barree, the pastor’s secretary on the Good Shepherd Committee, had also made contact with the Soviet commander.
The Soviets were sympathetic to the pastors and were ordered to protect them, so the commander sent the pastor home and told him to “mind his own business”. Sztehlo wanted to take his group of minors and the old caretaker with him, but the commander only allowed two of the younger boys to go, and not the others. He assured the pastor that if they were really not involved in anything, they too would go home soon.
Mrs Barree first took the pastor to the District Council building, where the Hungarian administration in Buda had restarted after the siege.
The District Council looked like a swarming hive. Shivering bearded creatures with dishevelled hair and dressed in tattered clothes came and went. Long queues of people seeking help snaked outside the doors of the offices where the Hungarian Red Cross and various foreign aid agencies had set up offices in some of the rooms. Some were asking for food, others for any kind of shelter, others for medical assistance, and some wanted to find their relatives.
With his beard several months old, dirty and tired, Sztehlo felt quite uncomfortable, but Mrs Barree took him straight to the room of one of the aid agencies. All the pastor could think of was that he had to get his family and Jewish children out of the basement of his house, which was in a dangerous area, so he asked how he could find a safer place for his charges and where they could get support so that they could start helping people and children from other homes.
They took him straight to the housing office, where they promised to give him a house, and within ten minutes Sztehlo was given the authority to set up another Good Shepherd home. The head of the office also assigned him some women to help him set up the house.
The pastor couldn’t believe it – just a few hours earlier he had been released from the detention centre, and he had already found a new shelter for the children!
Overcrowded rooms and hungry mouths
The next day, they set off for their new home in the Pasarét neighbourhood. On the street, they were greeted by a horrifying sight: tanks, cars and dead bodies everywhere. The whole town was in ruins and there was hardly a house left intact. The snow partially covered the devastation, as if nature were ashamed of what man had done.
Several sledges were used for transport, with doors attached to make them bigger, and mattresses, carpets, blankets and some other equipment were loaded onto them. The ragged and dirty children were dragging these strange trailers, laughing, screaming and going crazy in the snow. It was a funny and heart-breaking sight at the same time. They were happy to finally be out in the open and that the time of hiding was over.
Under the snow, there were frozen corpses, which the children looked at with great curiosity. One boy said that he liked the boots of one of the dead and wanted to take them off. But the frozen feet had broken off, so he left the boots where they were. The children saw people sawing the dead horse into pieces and hoped that they too would get a piece of meat.
The overloaded sledges sometimes got stuck in deep snow, so it was only after a good hour and a half that they reached the big house. While the children told their stories, the women furnished the home. As soon as they were settled, the women started to cook hot soup for the children. Turnip soup was all they had to eat, as there was nothing to be had.
With the liberation of Budapest, the rescue of the Jewish children was complete, but Gábor Sztehlo and his colleagues had to face a question that had been discussed during the long days of hiding in the cellar: what would happen to those children who had no one to take them in because they had been orphaned during the horrors of the war? And what to do with the new children who are only now starting to come into the home, because they have also lost all their relatives?
The home on Pasarétova Street soon turned into a sort of assembly station. From there Sztehlo made contact with the remaining children’s homes that had already been crossed by the front and were in the liberated area. There were hardly any children left in these homes, because their relatives, who had been liberated from the Pest ghetto, had crossed the Danube and, despite all the dangers, had come for them. Some of the children were also taken by relatives from Buda.
Right from the beginning, several children from the surrounding area were brought to the Pasarét home. The pastor organised two groups of older boys and sent one of them to the children’s home on Ribáry Street and the other to the home on Tamás Street to bring the children and any food that was still there. They brought some girls from Ribáry Street, but they could not find any food because the home had run out and they had been starving for the last few days.
The expedition to the home on Tamás Street was more successful. There was so much food left that the boys had to go back again. Two nuns came with the boys with all the girls, as none of them had yet returned to their relatives.
Because of the shortage of food, children from the hospital that operated in the Baár-Madas girls’ school, where many Jewish children and adults had found refuge, were also sent to the Pasarét home. In addition, the district council also retained the right to send foundlings to Sztehl – after all, they had given the pastor a building.
In the end, the Pasaret home was so full that people could hardly move. They needed a bigger and, above all, safer house, because there was no lock on the front door, so the men had to drag the piano to the door every night to prevent anyone breaking in.
One night they had to go to bed hungry, because their pantry was completely empty, but they believed in God’s help. Sztehlo went out in the morning to look for food, and sure enough, he soon returned with a sack of flour. Soon after, the Russian soldiers arrived with a cart full of food.
A doctor from the Russian army also came to Pasaréto’s home because she had heard that there were quite young children living in the house. When she saw the weakened children, she provided them with baby food and vitamins. What a blessing it was to see smiling faces! Above all, it was beautiful to see that both Germans and Russians knew how to treat the little ones humanely.
There were many hungry children wandering around the town, asking the soldiers with cold hands, “Finish your bread!” Give me bread! This was the first Russian phrase the little orphans learned. Many of the stray children formed gangs which raided the neighbourhood and caused a lot of trouble for the authorities.
The Black Hand gang was one such gang. These small-time bandits learned their methods from detective stories and war. Those who were caught were sent to the pastor’s care, because liberated Buda had only six or seven official orphanages, all of which were very full.
None of their headmasters wanted to deal with such children, for fear that they would have a bad influence on the behaviour of the rest. “The ‘gangster’ life had become attractive to the bigger boys, so they started to run away from home and sell stolen goods on the black market. They lived on the proceeds for a few days and then went back to breaking and entering and stealing.
The authorities were helpless and did not know what to do with these juvenile criminals. Unfortunately, in the circumstances, even Pastor Sztehlo could not help much, although he tried his best.
The lives of the many persecuted, orphaned and desperate youths who roamed, stole and looted in gangs in the misery of wartime became immortalised in the Hungarian film Valahol Európában (Somewhere in Europe). The film was shot in Budapest in 1948 and starred Sztehlo’s children as extras.
The painful experiences and images of war that were etched in the children’s memories had a delayed and devastating effect. The war also made children’s souls wild, and all their games were connected to the war in one way or another.
The last days of the war
Pasáret’s home was unbearably cramped, so Sztehlo decided to look for a bigger house. He was aware that these children had been wandering around a lot and had to move around a lot, so he wanted to find them a real home where they could relax and settle down. The pastor and his assistants were convinced that they had to continue their activities, as the number of abandoned and emotionally wounded children was increasing and the other children’s homes in Budapest could not accommodate them all.
Sztehl’s friends found a beautifully preserved villa with a garden, the residence of Count Szechenyi, who had retreated with his family to the safety of the castle district. The spacious two-storey house accommodated more than a hundred children over the age of six, leaving the younger ones in the Pasáret home. But new children kept arriving.
Sztehlo wrote about those days: “I remember the brother and sister who were brought to us when we moved to Volgy Street. The girl was thirteen years old, the boy a little younger. Before that, they lived in the basement of the big Regent’s house, where the Germans had set up an ammunition depot. When the German soldiers were withdrawing from the area, they ignored the 300 people huddled in the basement and blew up the ammunition depot. Most of the people died.
The mother of the two children died, the father was badly wounded and they had no one to look after them, especially as they were in Budapest as refugees from Transylvania. So the two children came to our home in a very bad state, both mentally and physically. We have had many similar clients whose parents have died or were unable to care for them. These children were particularly depressed. The long siege, the suffering, the hunger, the illness and the fear had weakened them very much.”
A doctor was sent from the District Council every week, as well as health inspectors, who gave valuable advice to the staff in the Good Shepherd homes, and were very pleased with the cleanliness of the homes, despite the poor facilities. They were also amazed at how they kept the children occupied through play and learning.
The nurses, the educators and Sztehl’s wife spent all their time with the children and managed to keep them in good spirits. Because the children sent to the Good Shepherd homes needed care and security, the staff tried to make the homes look like a real family home, not like an orphanage.
They had slightly different rules than the state orphanages, as they did not want their clients to live under strict restrictions. They felt that their nannies were a substitute for a real mother with a family around her. They were free to discuss all their problems with their “aunties”, as they called them, and in most cases they were free to act as they saw fit. This method required more responsibility and patience on the part of the nurses and educators, but it was worth it.
Mrs Koren, the wife of Sztehl’s friend, Pastor Emil Koren, took charge of education in the home. She made good use of her experience in the old undivided one-room village schools: she divided the hundred children into groups of about thirty and, while she taught one group, the rest were busy with other work. Teaching aids were almost non-existent and textbooks were lacking, but this was no obstacle to teaching. With the help of books brought from the Sztehl home and those found in Count Szechenyi’s villa, they were able to teach literature, history and geography. They also kept up the “basement” habit of playing quizzes of various kinds. This playful learning and spontaneous activity later became the methodological basis of the Sztehl School.
The children also had to be occupied, so that they did not think only about food, and were therefore involved in everyday tasks. The older boys, and later also the girls, would go to the houses where the Soviet soldiers were staying and ask for some food. This in itself was not bad if there was an adult with them. They became friends with the soldiers, who often came to visit the Good Shepherd’s homes, and regularly got some extra food, especially rye bread. The bread of the Russian soldiers tasted unbelievably like the dry rusks and soya biscuits they had been getting for many months in the Good Shepherd homes.
Problems began to arise when the young soldiers became interested in the girls and asked Sztehl to allow them to flirt a little. Although the pastor did not allow them to approach the girls, they obeyed him with heavy hearts and continued to visit Sztehl’s protégés in a friendly manner, bringing food.
Manfred Weiss‘s “Empire”
At the end of February 1945, the fighting in Budapest was generally over and Count Viktor Szechenyi and his wife returned from the former besieged castle district. The old man invited Gábor Sztehl, his assistants and children to stay as long as they needed a house. He asked only that the caretaker’s flat on the ground floor be left vacant for him.
More and more parents and relatives were now coming to collect their children, while on the other hand many parents brought their children to be provided for while they themselves were trying to create a home and a new life. Again, there were about 200 children in each of the two homes, the Count’s Residence and Pasáret Street. The overcrowding made it necessary to reconsider the possibility of expansion.
Sztehlo met a member of the Weiss family, managers of 45 hectares of land and seven buildings owned by Manfred Weiss, a wealthy Jewish industrialist who had moved to Switzerland. When he learned of the pastor’s work, he was ready to give him the whole estate, as the houses were empty after the Soviet soldiers left.
Sztehlo hurried to Weiss’s land in Budakeszi Street and there his eyes watered. He had found the perfect place for a children’s home! The Weiss estate was a huge park with a large villa and six holiday homes.
The houses were not all next to each other, but not too far apart either. In one of them lived a painter and his wife, who looked after a huge garden full of fruit trees.
On 17 March, accompanied by his wife, a few volunteers and an army of children, Pastor Sztehlo set off on another “conquest” march. The boys walked in front, followed by the women, who offered to help with the new premises. At the end of the procession were two carts full of beds, planks and mattresses, pushed by a dozen children, making sure nothing fell down. It was a joy to see this joyfulness and liveliness.
The first thing to do was to check the roofs to make sure they wouldn’t leak in the spring rains. The taps were tested and a miracle happened: there was water in the pipes. While the boys were inspecting and redecorating the villa, the women made sure that the two neighbouring holiday houses were tidy and comfortable.
It was a sunny and warm March day. After lunch, the members of the “cleaning brigade” lay down on the grass and rested in the sun. They had only turnips for lunch, which they swallowed bitterly, but they were weak and had to eat to work. Most of the boys had dysentery and it was a sad sight to see them covered with sores and other wounds. Nevertheless, it was a happy picture, a picture of children lying peacefully in the grass under the sun, children who no longer had to be afraid.
That day, the first eighty children were moved into three comfortable family houses, which later became the centre of the settlement. Manfred Weiss’s family may have been the richest in the country, but they spent their money not on personal luxury but on hospitals and other social institutions. Their way of life did not exceed that of the wealthy middle class, and this was reflected in the standards of their holiday homes. The garden was the most magnificent: an eight-hectare area with rare trees and unusual plants. There was plenty of space for the children to play ball games, and they found a bowling green, which was later converted into a workshop.
“In this garden and in the complex of houses we had everything we needed to create a joyful home for children with poor health and wounded souls. Spring brought life to the garden. The children had cleanliness, beauty and hope in front of them, and the chance to rebuild their lives. What more could we hope for after the misery we experienced during the war?” later recalled Gábor Sztehlo.
The huge orchard promised to be immensely valuable in summer with its fruits. There was also a beautiful oak forest and even a swimming pool, next to which the boys built a sports field where they could play football and hold competitions. At first, the teachers found it difficult to summon the children, who were so engrossed in playing in this paradise that they even forgot about mealtimes.
Part of the estate was a wooded area with an open field, which, with Weiss’s permission, was eventually built over with new houses to accommodate the orphans.
By the end of the summer, 200 children were living in Manfred Weiss’s “empire” under the care of the pastor.
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The beginnings of the community
At the end of the siege and the time of the move to the Weiss estate, most of the nurses and educators from the old Good Shepherd team had left, having found their loved ones, and were able to start establishing a new life. These women carried out their duty with self-sacrificing love, even though they received no pay for their work. All they got was the chance to save their own lives, just as they had saved the lives of their charges. Many of them had lost their homes and possessions, and all of them were worried about their loved ones. But they were still able to give love, care and serenity to these children.
New people had to be recruited for the Budakeszi Street complex of houses, and only those who knew how to create a family atmosphere around them were suitable for the job. Of course, many were inexperienced in the practical aspects of organising the life of an institution and did not know what was involved in running a large community. Maintenance, inventories, warehouse management and other tasks were new concepts to them.
But even if they sometimes lacked training and skills, they had the most important thing they needed in a children’s home: a mother’s heart. Several deaconesses also came from the Fébé Evangelical Women’s Association, and the pastor was particularly pleased to see that, in addition to the dedicated and sensitive educators, teachers and nurses, the support staff also included some people who had the heart of a mother or father and who followed the pastor’s vision.
His wife Ilona was always by his side to take care of the children. Their children, Gábor and Ildiko, also lived with them in the main building of the home.
Already in the spring, the innovative pedagogues at the Weiss estate started teaching using completely new methods, as Gábor Sztehlo had been interested in different approaches to teaching since his studies. Although the school supplies were still few and basic, a classroom was set up in the reception area where the children had group lessons in the early days.
In fine weather, they had lessons in the garden, learning according to the principles of Aristotle‘s peripatetic school, which encourages lively discussion as they walk. For the older pupils, Sztehlo also drew on Rousseau and his approach of free discussion, as he wanted the children to overcome social boundaries and grow into independent and critical citizens.
The older boys and girls soon went to secondary schools in Buda, and only received additional training at the home. A primary school for younger children was organised within the children’s home, independent of the public school system, and taught by carefully selected teachers who knew and understood the internal situation.
The pastor gave his children a free hand in religious matters and did not force them to attend evangelical services, but most of them did. In the summer, the service was held in the park, and in the winter in the large dining room, where the children crowded to hear the pastor’s picturesque and encouraging sermons. Although he always blessed the food, prayer before the meal was not obligatory. Everyone was allowed to keep his or her own creed.
In addition to Jewish orphans, several children of “war criminals” were admitted to the children’s home, as well as some descendants of landlords who had been persecuted as enemies of the state by the Communist government, and quite a number of little vagabonds found among the rubble of the bombed-out city. This heterogeneity became a source of many problems and quarrels, because now even children whose parents were hostile to each other had to live together.
Conflicts were resolved by talking. Each one could say what was bothering him, and the other children had to listen. In this way, they were enriched by new insights and freed from resentment. Jancsó Béla, one of Sztehl’s rescued children, recalls: “When we had all said our piece, we shook hands, and Daddy Gábor added that from now on we were all brothers and sisters.”
Seventeen-year-old László Keveházi was attending military school when he was captured by the Allies and interned in the American prisoner-of-war camp in Cherbourg, Normandy. On his return to Hungary, he found that his father had been convicted as a war criminal and imprisoned. His desperate mother, unable to care for him, sent him to Pastor Gábor Sztehl.
When Keveházi knocked on the door of the children’s home in October 1945, his heart was pounding. He started to stutter, but the pastor would not let him finish his sentence. He hugged him and said, “You belong with us.” That was all.
So László, the son of the enemy, joined the oldest boys in the main villa. Since he had no other clothes, he had to wear a military uniform in the midst of the Jewish children, and his arrival raised a lot of dust.
The schedule of activities did not allow much time for boredom. The children had to be taught how to play all over again, as the war had driven all forms of play out of their minds, except for playing soldiers and battles. They did not know what to do with a peaceful toy.
In the days after the move, Sztehl’s sister and her two sons also came to the children’s home. Her husband was in captivity and their home lay in ruins. The boys brought with them their electric railway, which provided entertainment for forty children for two months. They built a long track in the garden and a small train taught them how to play again.
Gaudiopolis, City of Joy
Meanwhile, the bigger boys were planning the framework of their new life. Already when some of them were hiding in the cellar of Sztehl’s house, they were talking to the pastor about a “boys’ town”, inspired by the American film Boys’ Town. Could we create something like that ourselves? What would it take? Where could you get help?
The boys had many good ideas about the details and all agreed that mutual understanding, patience, selflessness and respect, whatever their religious and social roots, were the basis for the existence of such a community. Sztehlo encouraged them and the decision was taken to set up a children’s republic, which they called Gaudiopolis.
The republic, of course, had to have its own constitution and laws, ministers and secretaries, even its own currency and newspaper. Everyone agreed that wars were forbidden and that everyone should have the right to education. One boy even defended the right to steal in case of famine.
When the constitution was approved, László Kevehazi was unanimously elected Prime Minister, much to his surprise.
Who remembered the name for the Republic is unknown, but the name was like a baptism for a new life and a new home. Gaudio is the Latin word for joy and polis is the ancient Greek word for city. Gaudiopolis, City of Joy. Sounds wonderful – like a promise to a child, and Sztehlo knew how to keep his promises.
The children were placed in different houses according to their sex and age. The oldest boys lived in the “Wolf’s Den”, the middle and younger boys in the “Swallow’s Nest” and the “Squirrel House”. The girls were accommodated in the “Girls’ Castle” and in a house which the boys jokingly called “The Snake’s Nest”. They lived separately but attended school together. To distract the children from painful memories, regular activities were organised – dances, film and debate nights with writers, artists and doctors.
In addition to their studies, afternoon work was compulsory, but the children were free to choose from a variety of workshops, such as shoemaking, carpentry, tailoring and locksmithing. The workshops were run by refugees or people in need, who were happy to receive a decent meal in return. For an hour’s work, the children were paid one Gàpao dollar, the currency of Gaudiopolis, which was the price of a tram ticket.
They all also worked in the garden and played sports. They set up a football pitch on the Weiss estate and played for the Gaudiopolis Cup, but they also rented out the pitch to other clubs in Budapest, which brought extra money into their coffers.
Another source of income was the sale of newspapers, which they edited and published themselves. In particular, the poems, which were a form of therapy for these wounded young people, attracted the attention of artists and sparked debates in Budapest’s literary and educational circles.
In March 1946, 12- to 16-year-old boys and girls, who had no political influence as the Republic was run by boys only, staged an uprising because of their lack of representation and participation in the government. Prime Minister Keveházi resigned and the newly elected government represented children from all age groups.
Conflict and distance from the Church
The spring of 1946 brought major changes. For Gábor Sztehl, it was a serious spiritual shock, but it brought financial stability to the home.
The Good Shepherd Committee wanted to hand over Sztehl’s home to the Jewish community, which the pastor could not accept because of the great differences in principles and methods of education. Then the evangelical church wanted to take control of the organisation and create a home exclusively for evangelical children, which was no more acceptable to Sztehl. His children were the legacy of the International Red Cross, and the pastor’s community was known at home and abroad as a refuge for all children in need, regardless of religious, racial or national affiliation.
For Sztehl, it was totally unacceptable that anything other than the principle of need could influence the placement in a children’s home, and, being moved solely by true Christian love, he could not allow the home to serve only one religion.
In May 1946, differences of opinion led to a split and the children’s home was transferred to the PAX Social Foundation, set up for that purpose.
The deaconesses who had been sent the year before to work as nurses at Sztehl were immediately recalled because of the dispute, much to the chagrin of the pastor.
Andor Andrási, a Jewish orphan, has not forgotten the price paid for the pastor’s rebellion and desire for independence. They were free, but often hungry, as they were left without official state and church funding and dependent only on donations from private individuals.
“At first we had really poor living conditions. It was only after a few months that we started to receive aid and shipments from the American humanitarian organisation Jewish Relief Joint and from the Swiss and Danish Red Cross. They delivered all the food, furniture and bedding we needed. The invasion of fleas and bedbugs was over. We had a completely different diet from then on and I remember eating tinned sardines every night and drinking condensed milk every morning,” he said in one of his many interviews.
On 20 August 1949, the Hungarian People’s Republic was proclaimed. Nationalisations and the suppression of the Churches followed.
In early January 1950, representatives of the city came to take over the inventory and documents of Gaudiopolis, because Sztehl’s reformist educational approaches, which encouraged young people to think freely and act independently, did not suit the system. Sztehlo later wrote: “That day the dream died.”
He refused the post of director of the new official institution and became a hospice pastor until the October 1956 revolt and the repression that followed. He did his best to help the poor, the sick and the elderly, and organised several homes for children with special needs. He also cared for people who had been persecuted and displaced by the Communists, providing them with food and a word of encouragement.
The pastor’s wife wanted them to flee the country because of the desperate situation after the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution, but Sztehlo simply could not bring himself to leave. So his wife and children fled to Switzerland later that year, but he stayed and continued his work, driven by his faith and patriotism.
It was not until 1961 that Gábor Sztehlo was allowed to visit his wife and children in Switzerland. He suffered a heart attack due to the strong emotions he felt when reunited with his family, and his doctors advised him not to return to Hungary. As his travel permit had expired in the meantime, he could not return to his home country even as a visitor, as he was considered a dissident in Hungary and was liable to imprisonment.
He was assigned to a small parish in the Alpine town of Interlaken for pastoral care and began a lively correspondence with his former protégés. Sztehlo read these letters on a park bench.
Only the acquisition of Swiss citizenship would have allowed him to return to his homeland, but foreigners had to wait ten long years before they were eligible.
Two months separated him from the realisation of his dream to return to his beloved Hungary, but God had other plans for the pastor.
One morning Sztehlo went for a walk and met a postman who handed him his many letters. He sat down on a bench and began to read them. When the postman returned in the afternoon, he was surprised to find the Hungarian pastor still sitting there. He hurried over to him to ask if anything was wrong and saw that he was dead.
Gábor Sztehlo died at the age of sixty-five, on 28 May 1974, of a second heart attack while reading letters from the children he had saved. In the same year, he was nominated by the Swiss government for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The urn containing his remains was transferred to Hungary in 1984 and placed in a family grave in the Farkasréti cemetery in Budapest.
Legacy
The long row of iron shoes on display by the Danube River in Budapest will be a painful reminder of a dark time in the history of the Holocaust of Hungarian Jews during the Second World War. Known as the ‘Shoes on the Danube’, the memorial commemorates the victims of the murders carried out by the Arrow Cross Party during the German occupation.
Pastor Gábor Sztehlo, also known as the Lutheran Oskar Schindler, inspired very different memorials in the midst of all this darkness and atrocities. One such monument in Budapest today reads: Gábor Sztehlo (1909-1974), a Lutheran pastor, saved some 2000 children and adults with God’s help during the reign of the Arrow Cross Fascist Party, and later gave orphans a home, faith and dignity.
When rampant destruction, devastation and killing reigned outside the walls of the homes, Sztehlo built peace, friendship and tolerance inside them.
In 1972, Yad Vashem honoured him as a Righteous Among the Nations for his sacrifice and risk-taking rescue of Jews.
In his notes, published in 1984 under the title Isten kezében (In God’s Hands), Gábor Sztehlo recounts the events of the period between March 1944 and March 1945:
“I lived this period as if in a dream. I did what I had to do, almost unconsciously. I was faced with daily tasks that became more demanding day by day, not knowing what tomorrow would bring. With the constant scenes of human suffering and human meanness, it could have been a nightmare. At the same time, it was a wonderful dream, when we felt how God’s infinite love did not abandon us even in the most difficult moments, and I found the answers to the questions that tormented me and my suffering confreres. My life had meaning, although I could have done much more if I had not been so unprepared for the task in March 1944, so ignorant and without any perspective.”
Pastor Sztehlo wanted to show with his life that God really exists. He set an example of perseverance, service and courage. He radiated love in a time of growing hatred and offered safety in a world of danger and fear. He gave support and humanity to the humble and revealed that love is a strange thing which, when shared, does not diminish but expands.
Many of the children of Gaudiopolis have gone on to lead successful lives as scientists, doctors, lawyers and businessmen. Among them is the Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, George A. Olah. László Keveházi, the first Prime Minister of the Children’s Republic, became a pastor.
When they meet today, they are proud to say that they are the children of Gábor Sztehl, who saved them from the Nazis. They survived the war with him and then founded the beautiful utopia that emerged from the ruins of post-war Budapest, the Children’s Republic, called Gaudiopolis – the City of Joy.
The Gábor Sztehl Foundation for Children and Youth was founded in 1990 by his former protégés and colleagues to help young people in social institutions prepare for independent life.
Every year on 28 May, they gather at the Farkasréti Cemetery in Budapest to pay their respects and reminisce about the man they called Papa Gábor. Everyone’s eyes light up when they sing the lullaby that was sung almost every night in Gaudiopolis.
