Twice Buried, Still Alive:
Yitzchok Donath’s miraculous story of faith and survival, as told to his granddaughter
By Rivky Weinstock

CHAPTER 5

I am seven years old and I am at my cousin’s Shabbos sheva berachos. I’ve been to this hall before and I know that it has a roof. I also know how to get onto that roof. I whisper to my cousin’s sister-in-law, a classmate of mine, “Let’s sneak up to the roof.” My little sister is standing right there and she begs to come along with us, so we agree and sneak over to the back steps. When we reach the last flight of stairs, we pull the door open easily and walk onto the roof. The cool air feels wonderful and we are having fun being somewhere without anybody knowing where we are.

After a while, we decide that it’s time to return to the hall. We walk to the door and try to open it, but it is firmly shut and won’t budge. Our hearts begin to beat fast as we realize that we are trapped. We feel imprisoned. We believe that we’ll be stuck up here forever. We don’t know what to do. Finally, we see people sitting on their porch, talking, not too far from where we are. We begin screaming to them, asking them to help us. One lady goes into the hall and tells our family that we’re on the roof. Before long, my older sister, followed by a troop of cousins, comes to open the door for us. We are free at last.

Imprisoned? What am I thinking? What do I know about prison? My Opa tells me that his brief imprisonment by the Hungarians was terrible-but in the months following his imprisonment he would wish for the treatment he’d received in that jail, in place of what he was going through.
. . .

AFTER A day in the Papa prison, the officers decided to transfer my Opa and his family. They took them by horse and carriage to the train station, with several officers guarding either side of the carriage on bikes. There was a big celebration taking place that day. Many people held white flags in a parade, declaring, “We’re finally cleaning out the last Jews from Papa.” All the newspapers announced, “The last family of six Jews was found. Now Papa is truly Jew-free.” My Opa smiled in his heart, knowing that a good friend of his was very well hidden in a cellar in Papa at that moment, so Papa was not actually “Jew-free.” That is just the kind of thing I would expect from my Opa: to find humor in a terrifying situation.

With six officers guarding them, my Opa and his family were taken by train to the city of Gyor and handed over to the police there. Once again they spent the night in jail, and once again they were frisked.My Opa had a small pocket knife hidden in the sole of his shoe. The officers took away the prisoners’ belts and went so far as removing their shoelaces, but miraculously they didn’t remove my Opa’s shoes, so the knife stayed hidden. And, miraculously, the officers again overlooked the mohel knife hidden in my Opa’s inner jacket pocket.

When my Opa saw this open miracle occur twice, he promised Hashem, “I don’t know what’s in store for me now - but if I survive, I will become a mohel!”

The jail in Gyor was terrible. It was deep in a cellar with various forms of centipedes and roaches roaming around. After an exhausting night trying to stay awake so they could try to avoid the crawling creatures, my Opa and his family were taken to Budapest by train. They arrived in Budapest during the morning rush hour, along with six officers: one officer per person. At that time, the police in Hungary did not have cars so they were forced to use public transportation. When they arrived in Budapest, my Opa’s father told the officers that he had money on him so they could travel by taxi from the station to wherever their next destination might be. The officers agreed, and decided that only two accompanying officers were necessary if they took a taxi. The family would split into two groups of three and each group would take a taxi with one guard each. The other officers would travel by train.

When they arrived at the taxi stand there were no taxis available so they decided to wait. The other four officers were to go by train, leaving just two officers to guard the family of six. They waited for a train to come into the station. When it arrived, it was so full that the guards decide to wait for the next train. Just as the train was leaving, my Opa, his brother, and his two sisters jumped onto the steps of the train. The officers looked on in horror as the train sped away, leaving them to guard only the parents.

The four children got off at the next stop, freed from all officers. My Opa suggested that they run to their uncle’s house right there in Budapest. This had been the family’s intention before their escape plans had gone awry. His younger siblings agreed - but his older sister, Judith, was adamant that they stay and wait for their parents. She looked at my Opa with stubborn determination in her eyes and said, “We will not move from here until Papa and Mama arrive. Who knows what they’ll do to them if they find that we really escaped?” My Opa tried hard to persuade her, but his sister would not relent. So they all sat down on a bench to await the next trolley’s arrival, which would hopefully bring their parents.

When the train did arrive the officers were astonished to see the four children patiently waiting for their parents. My Opa’s mother smiled a wide smile and said with a twinkle in her eye, “You see? I told you my children would stay with me and not run away.”

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