We’ve all read tragic Holocaust stories. Memoirs of aristocratic Jewish families stripped of wealth, publicly humiliated, tortured and murdered because they were Jews. The Piano Player of Budapest however is a different Holocaust tale. Granted, the story is centered around a privileged, naïve Hungarian Jew, an entertainer “blissfully blinkered” to impending danger. But the survival of Stephen de Bastion’s heirloom Blüthner, his baby grand piano, is almost as miraculous as the story of its gullible owner.
Based on cassette tapes and photographs, singer and now author, Roxanne de Bastion recounts the true story about her grandfather, a musician, hired to play piano in cocktail bars, restaurants and hotels in Budapest, Switzerland, and Italy. Born Istvan Basyal von Holtzer, the flamboyant pianist changed his name to simplify life. Stephen never allowed anything complicated to tie him down—not his religion, nor scores of women who sought attention from the handsome musician. He aspired to a life without attachments—the sole exception, his Blüthner.
For Stephen, the baby grand was sacrosanct. An engagement gift from his parents, the piano settled nicely into their elegant 17 room family apartment, in central Budapest. A proud patriot, anchored to a naïve belief, “their country would never betray them,” Stephen denied the political climate in Hungary, 1939. Feeling quite secure and in addition, urged by a paramour for more privacy, Stephen moved into his own apartment taking the Blüthner with him.
In 1942 upon his return from a “gig” in Italy, Stephen was called up for “military training”. Physically fit from years of tennis, swimming and hiking he had no difficulty laying railway tracks to help his homeland. Nor did it trouble him to wear a yellow arm band designating him a Jew. Self-deluding in the face of impending catastrophe nevertheless Stephen’s concern for his Blüthner escalated when he was summoned to forced labor,—this time advised, “to take warm clothes”. Stephen and 1070, elite Jewish Hungarians, headed to the Russian front. Loading and unloading munitions in subzero temperatures; Stephen determined he would not survive. He escaped walking 20 kilometers a day on a 1,500 kilometer trek in the Russian winter. He reached Kyiv and collapsed. “But the worst was still to come.”
In 1944 Germany invaded Hungary. Deportations began. With connections to Raul Wallenberg, the Swedish envoy to Hungary, Stephen’s family sheltered in safe-houses. But Stephen’s luck ran out. He was thrown into prison by the unimaginably cruel fascist Arrow Cross government. Miraculously Stephen survived but now with the communist takeover, the survival of his Blüthner was uncertain.
Point of interest... I learned to play on my Blüthner in Bergen Belsen DP camp, after the war. I continue to play it to this day. See photo below.
