The World is a Jungleby Gabriel Timar |
Table of Contents |
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Book Two: The Violent Jungle
The Price of Compassion |
Gabriel Timar recounts stories and anecdotes from his family history and his adventures around the world. Some of the names, dates and places may have been changed, but the essence is a true memoir.
Being only twelve years old at the time, I did not get into combat; but as a cadet I served as messenger for a variety of military units, carrying mundane dispatches in Budapest, shortly after the Nazi takeover.
Finishing my day, I could not take the shortest route to our apartment because German SS units were blocking the way, and even my young age and written orders from headquarters was not enough for them to let me through. I had to walk around the Castle Hill.
When I got out onto the main drag, I saw black-uniformed soldiers and military policemen wearing the Arrow Cross armbands herding Jews with the yellow Star of David on their chests toward the Southern railway station. Men, women, and children made up the sorry procession.
People stopped on the sidewalk and watched the Jews marching off to almost certain death. An elderly woman remarked, “I’m sorry to see them treated this way, after all they are human beings...”
The military policeman standing next to the elderly matron stepped up to her and grabbed the woman by the throat. “If you are sorry for this scum, your place is with them,” he growled. He pushed the woman into the column.
If I had had a weapon, I am sure I would have put a bullet into the brutish policeman. The Arrow Cross goons would have killed me on the spot, and I would not have accomplished anything.
Copyright © 2009 by Gabriel Timar
