Family reunites woman with treasured object, her final wish
She escaped from Hungary with only a rustic crucifix
In the last months of her life, Rose Helen Safran was bedridden and dementia had robbed her of the ability to tell richly detailed stories of her beloved homeland of Hungary and a hairraising escape from communist forces in the 1950s.
But the memories of sacrifice, her deep-rooted faith and devotion to her heritage remain vivid in the hearts and minds of the many she touched over the years.
Her niece, Agnes Rozsa, a senior specialist paralegal with Citibank, retired after 24 years to help tend to her beloved aunt, who had fled Hungary with her husband, Stephen, in 1956 when the Soviet military crushed an uprising against the communist regime.
After the couple settled in San Antonio, they helped start the San Antonio Hungarian Association, promoting awareness of Hungarian immigrants’ contribution to Texas, their heritage and culture.
Reminders of the couple’s flight to freedom dotted their home, purchased after years of rebuilding new lives in San Antonio.
Rozsa, 69, noted some of her aunt’s stories recently as she sifted through copies of “Paprika,” a newsletter Safran created for the local Hungarian community. Poring over stacks of the bulletins that ringed her aunt’s bed, she read passages that brought tears.
Not a person easily moved, Rozsa was deeply touched by Safran’s heartfelt prose that painted scenes of her early life, climbing mountains in Transylvania with her first husband, who died in World War II.
“I was choked up by the depths of her soul,” Rozsa said. “It was beautiful.”
There was another document Safran had written in careful detail — a plan for her funeral. She wanted to be buried with her mother's robe. She explained how she should be dressed. She listed the readings and music to be played at the service.
One item Safran dearly desired to be buried with her, a family crucifix, was not in her possession. She had loaned it to the University of Texas at San Antonio's Institute of Texan Cultures for the Hungarian culture exhibit years ago, one of more than 70 objects on display that emigres carried from the land of their birth to the United States.
When the time came, Safran told her family, she wanted to be buried with the symbol of her faith, the only family heirloom she was able to keep during her escape from the Soviet invasion.
Safran died Oct. 19, 2020. She was 100 years old.
With Safran's death, Rozsa and neighbor Michelle Newman set out to honor her wish. There wasn't much time; Safran would be buried within a week. An urgent email was sent to the Institute, asking for the return of the crucifix.
While preparing for the funeral, Rozsa reflected on her family's storied history. Old documents and photographs recalled stories of her aunt and uncle, her aunt's second husband, fleeing communism in 1956 and the imprisonment of her mother's best friend, who was Jewish, when the Nazis invaded Budapest during World War II.
The tales were woven with scenes of selflessness, starvation and bombs that shattered buildings and lives. Rozsa said Safran had a fear of enclosed spaces, a result of once being trapped beneath a bomb-struck building.
Safran's husband shared a glimpse of their harrowing escape to the United States in a City Public Service magazine from the early 1960s.
Then an engineer with the utility company, Stephen Safran said serving as secretary of the revolutionary council of his firm in Hungary made him a marked man — to stay in Budapest would have meant death. He and Rose joined a couple who had a 2-year-old daughter, and they all struck out with a guide for the Western border on Nov. 20, 1956. They traveled light; the only memento Safran carried was the family's rustic crucifix in her purse.
They boarded a packed train from Budapest, headed toward the Austrian border, but the Hungarians weren't allowed to cross. On foot, the larger group evaded gunfire as they ventured at night to villages where strangers offered refuge.
The last three miles became the most dangerous leg of their journey. More than once, Rose Safran, a devout Catholic, threaded rosary beads through her fingers and clutched her cross as she prayed for safety and guidance.
One night, half of the group chose a road to a distant campfire, Stephen Safran recalled. But Rose directed her husband and friends in the opposite direction. Hunched over in single file, they stole across the field, falling flat on the ground as spotlights swept across the darkness. Across the pasture, a Russian soldier yelled “stop!” to the other people that had split off. The original Safran group continued away from the soldiers, who captured the others.
They took turns carrying the baby they had given one-and-a-half sleeping pills in hope of keeping her quiet. Beyond towering turrets at the border, they saw the red and white flag of Austria.
The group's shouts of joy after they crossed into safe territory awakened the baby, Stephen Safran recounted in the magazine article. Now, with fear of capture behind them, they happily shouted, “Let her cry!”
The Safrans arrived in America on Jan. 1, 1957, among 200,000 Hungarians who fled the communist regime. After spending 10 days in Camp Kilmer, N.J., they made it to San Antonio, welcomed by Rose Safran's uncle and members of the Hungarian community.
In later years, the Safrans' home became the meeting place for young Hungarian refugees. In 1972, Rose Safran helped her sister Klara — Rozsa's mother — as well as a teen Rozsa and her sister emigrate to Texas. And in 1978, Rose Safran created a Hungarian dance group, the same year the association joined the Institute of Texan Cultures' Folklife Festival, which spotlights the cultural diversity of Texas.
In 1984, Rose Safran served as the third president of the Hungarian association that raised funds during the folklife festival for charities and cultural events. The group donated money to buy incubators for premature babies in Hungary and contributed to the building of the Holocaust Museum in Budapest.
Rozsa tells friends how her mother, aunt and grandfather risked their lives to aid her mother's Jewish friend during World War II.
The 18-year-old girl and her family were among 200,000 Jewish people the Nazis forced inside of a ghetto, a stone wall surrounding apartment buildings marked with the Star of David. Survivors recall people crammed into small apartments and streets lined with trash.
Rozsa's mother, aunt and grandfather alternated taking food to their friends behind the ghetto's checkpoint gate. The trio hoped to help the family escape, but it was not to be. Within weeks, they learned the Nazis had deported their friends to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Rozsa's mother never forgot her friend — she named her daughter Agnes after the Jewish girl who never returned from Auschwitz. Among the family keepsakes, Rozsa discovered a sepia-toned photograph of her mother and a girl believed to be her namesake in front of an ivy-covered building.
“As a Jewish person, I'm so touched to hear this story,” said Newman, Rozsa's neighbor who helped the family obtain Safran's crucifix. “She put her life on the line. She had the guts to do something, this young girl and her family. They did the ultimate mitzvah (good deed). This was my way of thanking her family.”
On the day before Rose Safran's funeral, the Institute of Texan Cultures advised the family they could pick up the crucifix.
“We were able to honor my aunt's request to be buried with it,” Rozsa said.
Safran's funeral was held at St. Matthew's Catholic Church. The Hungarian flag was draped over the coffin, and the Hungarian anthem played at the service.
Three weeks later, Stephen Safran died, and the family conducted the same service for him.
“They were true patriots from Hungary,” Rozsa said. “They had the deepest love and devotion to Hungarian culture and a way of life no longer present. They took it to heart to teach us the true history of the Hungarian nation. We did not receive that in communism. They were successful to light an interest in the younger generation. This is their legacy.”