CHAPTER 2

Paprika - More Than a Spice

Hungary - 1939 to 1948

The Past

Hungary suffered the loss of significant territory in the first world war, and continued to feel the loss like an amputee without limbs. It was Hungary’s Achilles heel and Hitler knew it. Trapping the country into becoming Germany’s Axis partner in World War II, he returned some of the lost land to its rightful owner, then demanded collaboration with threats of military intervention and economic pressure. Already catapulted by the fear of the Soviet Union taking away its independence, Hungary reluctantly joined Germany in 1940.

The Fuhrer insinuated himself into Hungary’s population, planting Nazi officials in high positions. He ridiculed the country’s military capabilities, stole its natural resources, and targeted the Jewish population with dehumanizing laws, some of which expropriated their homes and businesses, and prohibited marriage to Christians. By 1942, the Final Solution was delivering Hungarian Jews to concentration and extermination camps.

Jews weren’t the only targets. Hungarian intellectuals, political dissidents, civil servants, clergymen, gypsies, and homosexuals were calculatingly tortured, murdered, worked or starved to death in camps through a parallel reign of terror. Random people between the ages of twelve and seventy were pulled off the streets, or dragged from their homes at gunpoint and forced into hard labour building roads, bridges, and ditches. Others were shanghaied into military service without warning, leaving loved ones to agonize over their sudden disappearance.

Hitler pushed, but the plucky Hungarians finally reacted with anti-Germany demonstrations before turning desperately to the Allies for aid. Secret peace negotiations proved fruitless when Germany learned of the betrayal. To punish Hungary, Hitler decided to occupy the country in March of 1944.

Roll with the Punches

Anna Gonda refused to give up. As long as she was alive, she would carry on like every other resilient Hungarian. Her passion for writing mystery romances blossomed into a career that helped her meet many talented writers supporting each other during dangerous times. And it wasn’t long before she began to think big with a plan to start a publishing business after the war. Until then, she bided her time writing novels, newspaper and magazine articles, her current piece a tribute to her beloved hometown of Eger.

The best way to describe the place where she grew up was to compare it to an orchestra of lilting flutes, clashing cymbals, weeping violins, magical harps, and laughing trombones. And she still would not be doing it justice.

Located northeast of the cosmopolitan capital city of Budapest, slower-paced Eger was a historical magnificence. It was one of the most beautiful Baroque cities in Europe even now with so much destroyed by the war. Hungary’s pain and glory from centuries of battles and invasions could be felt by walking through Eger’s hilly cobblestoned alleys and streets, pounding feet re