Holocaust Survivor Finds Solace as Son Takes Up His Legacy in London
Paul Sved, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor who escaped persecution by hiding in a cellar as a six-year-old, has expressed profound comfort in knowing his son will continue to share his harrowing story. Now residing in London, Mr Sved has dedicated his later years to educating others about the Holocaust, and his son Richard has recently joined this vital mission.
A Childhood Shattered by Persecution
Born to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, in February 1938, Paul Sved lived a largely secular early life. He was unaware of his Jewish heritage until the Hungarian government's antisemitic policies began to directly impact him. "My first remembrance of troubles ahead was the fact that I was not allowed to go to nursery school," he recalled. "Because my mother always wanted to protect me from the troubles which she knew was coming, she did not say why I couldn't go."
From March 1944, when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary, Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star of David and faced severe discrimination. Mr Sved's apartment block was designated a "yellow star house," where only Jews could reside, leading him to share a bedroom with strangers.
Hiding in Darkness to Survive
His mother, Piroska Birnfeld, obtained false identity papers, allowing them to live as Roman Catholics in Budapest. "I had to learn new names, new birth dates, new names for my mother, and I had to learn prayers – Roman Catholic prayers, which my mother drilled into me," Mr Sved said. "I've lived in England now since 1957, but to this day, it was so drilled into me I could still rattle off all these prayers in Hungarian."
After briefly living outside the Jewish district, they were forced to return when Mr Sved inadvertently revealed their true identities. Deeming the "yellow star" block unsafe, his mother sought help from her brother Imre, who found them a hiding place in the cellar of a Budapest apartment block.
"There were 10 of us hidden by some do-gooding people who tried to hide us and save us," Mr Sved recounted. "It was very dark, pitch dark in there. Food was lowered once a day and the remains hauled up once a day on a pulley. Now this, at age six, I was not prepared to accept, and I howled. We couldn't make a noise, so I howled quietly. I remember saying that 'I can't stand this, I can't stand this'. It was so dark that I remember it made no difference whether my eyes were open or shut; it was pitch dark either way."
Post-War Struggles and a New Life in England
With his uncle's assistance, they moved to a Swiss-protected house before finding refuge with a non-Jewish family in a cottage outside Budapest. They returned to Budapest in late 1945, reuniting with his grandparents. After the war, Russia took control of Hungary, and they were labelled "class enemies" by the Communist regime. Following the regime's overthrow in 1956, Mr Sved escaped to England the next year.
In England, he built a life with three children and a career in the textiles industry. He now regularly speaks in schools, colleges, workplaces, and football clubs through his work with the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET). "One of the main rewards that I get visiting schools and colleges is the warm reaction, the questions, the clapping at the end, and kids crowding around me afterwards wanting to ask more questions," he shared. "I find that heartwarming and encouraging, and I get that in just about every school I go to."
A Legacy Passed to the Next Generation
The theme of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day is "bridging generations," emphasising the role younger people play in preserving Holocaust memories. Mr Sved's son, Richard, has recently begun working with HET to ensure his father's experiences are never forgotten.
"It is a relatively recent experience to talk with Richard, but it is encouraging for me to have him along," Mr Sved said. "It is so comforting for me to think that Richard will be there to continue this."
Richard initially found it difficult to discuss the Holocaust, but this changed as his father began sharing his stories more openly over the past 10 to 15 years. "I feel immense pride that he's doing that and I'm aware that he won't be able to do it forever, and that somebody else needs to tell the story," Richard explained. "The other feeling of pride stems from his mother, my grandmother, and how proud I am of her and what she did, because neither he, nor I, nor my brother and my sister would be here without what she did, so I would like to honour her memory, too."
He added, "I do feel it's a sense of duty for me. It's become a stronger feeling as I've got older, I'm now in my 50s, and, increasingly, it's become an actual, visceral feeling that the pain of what happened has gone to the next generation. I feel it in my bones, just thinking about it, and I would like to do all I can to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Richard recently visited the Auschwitz concentration camp site with a friend, which "brought home" the horrors of the Holocaust "in a very real sense." He reflected, "I think it's really important that it's preserved, and that it helps the stories to continue to be told. The first and the last thing that the guide said to my friend and me was, 'thank you for coming, because the fact that you've come means that the stories will continue to be told'."
