An honest book about Jewish existence in twentieth-century Central Europe; ‘Soldiers were, as always, hunting for people...’ It’s the story of little Joskele, son of a Jewish fruit peddler who wants to be a footballer after ‘the war and the persecution was gone by’ and ‘The Germans and the Arrowcross (Hungarian Nazis) men had been slaughtered’. Meanwhile we get an interestingly detailed picture of Budapest in the years 1943-4, particularly from the point of view of the Hungarian Jews — the last European Jews rounded up for mass murder by the Germans and their local helpers. Part of the unusual detail we get here is a kind of vox pop of the local anti-Semites, relishing the prospect of de-Jewing the land; ‘The country should have been cleansed of them all, long ago.’ The Hungarian Jews, like their German co-religionists, were, paradoxically, a group that had worked very hard to assimilate to the host nation, most abandoning Yiddish for Hungarian and some becoming important exponents of Hungarian culture. (Three novels originally written in Italian by the Hungarian-born brothers Giorgio and Nicola Pressburger Homage to the Eighth District, Law of White Spaces and The Green Elephant are also fascinating documents about Jewish life in Budapest before during and after World War Two and reviewed in The Babel Guide to Jewish Fiction.)

Little Joskele fantasises about upbraiding the hostile louts who persecute him and his family but, like many children before and since, he is merely mentally arranging a sweeter, easier world for himself than the one he really has to live in. The book acquaints us in a very graphic way with the horror of the Arrow Cross round-up of all his (Jewish) neighbours and the systematic looting of their property — just the first of a series of violations up to and including murder. With the round-up comes the forced march through the city. After all this horror the book seems to withdraw into Joskele’s fantasies during the long wait for the Russians to arrive and end the activities of the Fascist vampires. Mezei’s book makes a good stab at speaking about the unspeakable...

Joske remembers an episode of anti-Semitism at school then describes events on the deportation march of the Jews.

Joske went around the small round table several times. He stopped. He stroked the ebony statuettes of the mahogany book press then turned towards the crucifix;

‘It was you who crucified him, your kind!’ said Pernyei to him at school. Joske knelt up in the armchair and touched Christ with the tip of one finger. The crucified was not unlike his own father, his chest narrow, his ribs showing...

Joske slunk out of the room but the crucifix stayed on in his eyes. The window frames of houses formed crosses too, they reflected their images into the living room.

When the top of the column reached the wharf the marchers were halted.

‘Who wants to urinate?’ asked the man with the shining boots who had delivered the blow that killed the old woman.

Helen lifted her arms. Then the red faced Berger. Then a few more stepped out of the line.

‘Back to your places! You’ — he looked at Berger — ‘You will stay here.’ Then to the others; ‘So, you wanted to give the slip, did you? I’ll let you have it.’ Then he turned Berger to face the column; ‘Wet yourself!’

The grocer’s children clung to their mother. They could not understand why their dad had to wet himself. Mrs. Berger then covered their eyes but couldn’t quite do so, four little eyes looked at their father in great alarm.

‘Get on, do it’, said the Arrowcross. His finger on the trigger of the machine gun. He started the count ‘One...’ A patch on Mr. Berger’s trousers then a rivulet, wetting the material.

‘Don’t stop!’

‘Aye, aye, sir I’ve finished. I have no more in me,’ said Mr. Berger.

‘Who else wants to urinate?’ The guard looked at the group contented. He took out a green bottle of beer from his sack and took a swig. He bent backwards well so that the heavenly liquid could reach his throat in a continuous flow. Let it wash and gargle the gullet, sore with shouting, let it revive him to accomplish his task of saving the nation. 76-77