Holocaust Mystery in Hungary: A Shabbat Tablecloth from Budapest to a Kibbutz |
Image:A Shabbat tablecloth that made its way from pre-Holocaust Budapest to a kibbutz in Israel. The initials AB, for Arenka Binetter, are embroidered on the cloth and visible in the photograph. The number 77, embroidered in red, was assigned to my parents by the communal laundry when the kibbutz was first established — a simple mark of the new life built after loss. From my family archive
A family heirloom carries a story of love, loss, and unanswered questions from wartime Hungary.
This year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked against the backdrop of political change in Hungary, where a struggle over the character of democracy is underway. Amid debates about the present, the memory of the past — especially the fate of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews murdered in the Holocaust — can feel increasingly distant.
Within this tension, I return to a personal story — the journey of a tablecloth.
About ten years ago, during a visit to relatives at a kibbutz in Israel, I noticed a familiar tablecloth placed near the entrance of the house.
I immediately looked at the corner — and there they were: the embroidered initials “AB” — Arenka Binetter, my grandmother.
The tablecloth is more than 110 years old. My grandmother, Arenka Glick (née Binetter), received it as a wedding gift. The initials were carefully stitched by hand — a quiet fusion of identity and memory preserved across generations.
But what makes this tablecloth remarkable is not only its age — it is the journey it made during the Holocaust.
A fragment of a lost world:
During World War II, my father’s brother, János (Jeno) Glick, took this tablecloth with him when he was sent to Hungarian forced labor units.
In late 1944, after escaping from one of these units near the town of Ózd in northern Hungary, he sought refuge with a young woman he loved.
According to records from Yad Vashem, he was captured in Ózd — a town of about 35,000 residents at the time, including only around 700 Jews — and from there handed over to the Gestapo.
He was deported to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, where he died of typhus in 1944 — just weeks before the camp was liberated.
Before his capture, he left a small package with that woman.
The package:
In 1946, after surviving the war and returning from Soviet captivity, my father tried to piece together fragments of the past.
Among survivors he met, he received a message from that same woman, asking him to come and collect a package left by his brother.
He arranged a meeting and made the difficult and risky journey to her home.
But when he arrived — she was not there.
A note on the door read:
“The package is with the neighbor across the street.”
Inside the package were three items:
-The embroidered tablecloth.
-A prayer book given to his brother for his bar mitzvah, with a dedication from their mother.
-A Leica camera.
The unanswered questions:
My father never pursued the story further.
-Why did the woman insist on returning the items — yet avoid meeting him?
-Was she afraid?
-Was she protecting a secret?
-Did she perhaps have a child — my uncle’s child — and did not want it known?
-Was she Jewish — or not?
-Did she fear questions about how he had been captured and handed over?
These questions remained unanswered.
A wider echo:
In 2012, the story of Csanád Szegedi, a Hungarian far-right politician who discovered that he himself was Jewish and descended from Holocaust survivors, drew international attention. His life changed completely after that revelation.
That story led me to wonder:
How many similar stories — of hidden identities, broken connections, and unspoken truths — still lie buried across Hungary and Europe?
Memory stitched in cloth:
As children in the kibbutz, we treated this tablecloth with reverence. It was used only on special occasions.
It is more than a family object.
It is a survivor.
It carries with it not only memory — but also mystery.
And perhaps, somewhere in Hungary, someone still holds the missing piece of the story.