Living Memory

By Andor Schwartz

They have no graves, no markers of ever having existed.

The millions of people murdered by the Nazis live on only in the memories of the survivors. In his seventy-ninth year, Andor Schwartz was driven to record the lives of his family and friends who perished.

Writing with the instincts of a born storyteller, Andor takes us back to the world of his childhood in rural Hungary in the years leading up to World War II. His love of nature and country life, his friendships, the harvests, the Jewish festivals, the age-old customs – now lost – are evoked with intense vitality, before dark clouds gathered to obliterate this Arcadian childhood.

We live with him through the horrors of the Holocaust, on the run in Budapest, evading death time and time again under the protection of his Malach (angel), whose name had been given to him by his father on their separation. Andor survived, but his entire family was killed. He takes us to Israel and then to Australia, where he prospered, his children had children, and the cycle of life returned to its natural order.

‘Possessing a memory of extraordinary fidelity and vividness, Andor Schwartz has succeeded, almost miraculously, in bringing back to life the fascinating world of his family and of pre-war Orthodox Hungarian Jewry. I could not put it down.’ —Robert Manne

Andor Schwartz was born in Hungary in 1924. He survived World War II in Budapest – although his whole family was killed – before marrying Margaret (Baba) Keimovits, one of the few survivors from their area. They fled to Israel when the communists came to power in 1949. After ten years of working the land, they migrated to Melbourne, where he became a dairy farmer and a successful property developer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Inc. Books
• Release date: Mar 31, 2010
• ISBN: 9781921866524

Andor Schwartz

Andor Schwartz was born in Hungary in 1924. He survived World War II in Budapest – although his whole family was killed – before marrying Margaret (Baba) Keimovits, one of the few survivors from their area. They fled to Israel when the communists came to power in 1949. After ten years of working the land, they migrated to Melbourne, where he became a dairy farmer and a successful property developer.

Book preview

2003

CHAPTER ONE

The Schwartz Family

1790

If you were to look down from the Bakony heights, you would see two young boys, one about fourteen and the other maybe eight years old, coming down from the high mountains that were covered with the ancient forests of Bakony. Those trees, standing there since creation, cover hundreds of square kilometres. It was dark, day and night. Those ancient trees didn’t let the light through. It was a very dangerous place with robbers and outlaws and full of hungry animals, mostly wolves. Of those two boys, the younger one was my great-great-grandfather. A terrible thing happened. The robbers came and killed both their father and mother. They had a good pub in the middle of the forest. The road passed through the middle of the forest. As it was too dangerous to travel during the night, all the travellers made sure that they reached the pub and its accommodation in the daytime. Even the gendarmes avoided travelling at night. It was probably a good business, that pub with the hotel and it also sold very necessary groceries and very basic clothing – leather boots and some mens’ clothing. They must have done very well there to live in such a dangerous place.

I heard from my Grandfather that they were religious people who kept the Jewish Laws and were knowledgeable in Talmud. My Grandfather told me they had lived there for generations. I was studying the map. It was above the very famous Balaton Lake, one of the most beautiful parts of Hungary. It is a natural lake where the tourists flock from the whole of Europe. I was puzzled, as the Jewish people lived mostly in the north east of Hungary (east of the Tisza River). Not many Jews lived in Hungary before the migration of the Polish and the Russian Jews, who came over the Carpathian Mountains and spread over to the eastern Hungarian part and Transylvania. On the western side of Hungary from the Tisza River to the mighty Danube River hardly any Jews were found except on the north-west side bordering Austria. These were cultured, elite Jews, around Presburg, where the Sofer family ruled Jewish life. They had nothing to do with the Chassidim. They kept the Shulchan Aruch¹ and Yoré Dea² to the last word, without adding or taking away from it. So I wondered how my ancestors ended up living in such a place, where no minorities, only pure Hungarians lived. I believe they had Spanish ancestors who ran away from Spain to France, then to Germany, and when the Jews were thrown out of there, they went to Austria. They were not very welcome there either and some of them swept over to Hungary and as the Austrian town of Graz was only 78 kilometres from Bakony, that’s possibly how my grandparents got there in about 1735.

A census was carried out in 1735 for tax purposes. It shows that Jews lived in 30 counties (vármegye), 11,625 souls of 2,531 families. Of the heads of these families, only 885 identified themselves as of Hungarian origin, which means that the rest, around 65 percent, were newly settled immigrants from other countries. This sizable immigration was at least partly triggered by the 1726 law of Emperor Charles VI, which aimed at limiting the number of Jews in Austria by permitting only one man in each Jewish family to marry. One of the consequences of this law was that young Jews, in order to be able to marry, migrated from the Austrian domain to Hungary.

That part of Hungary was the richest and the best. So my ancestors must have thought it was not a bad place to live, but their luck ran out. The robbers came from a different area as my great-grandparents were protected by the local robbers. They killed both of them. They didn’t touch the two boys. They robbed the whole place, stole everything of value and burned the pub down. They left some bread and food for the children. The boys knew there was a very wealthy and influential uncle living far away, about 450 kilometres to the eastern side of Hungary. So, with whatever belongings they had, probably not much, they started to walk down from the forest. When the younger one got tired, the older one carried him on his shoulders. To come out of the forest was a journey of about 50 kilometres. Their eyes widened seeing the big lake of Balaton for the first time. They walked in the daytime. It was summer so they didn’t suffer from the bitter cold in this part of the country. The Schwartzes with their pub were very well known as they had lived there for generations. At night time, there was always a peasant family to take them in and wash them, repair their shoes, feed them some bread and onion until their next journey.

It took them weeks to reach the Danube River. The river is very wide there as it is at the last stage of its journey. It could be a kilometre wide and has about 800 kilometres further to flow to reach the Black Sea. At that time, it was a part of the Austrian Monarchy. They reached the river and somehow managed to cross over to the eastern side. Then they reached the Great Hungarian Plains where for thousands of kilometres there was no change in the landscape. This is the bread-basket of Hungary. From there, they turned left sharply, going towards the Tisza River. Then it would have been weeks, probably even months, before they reached the Tisza River. It is not very wide, but treacherous and very fast, even for a boat to sail across. It wasn’t used for shipping like the Danube. It was used to carry the very valuable timber down from the Carpathians. They could navigate at least 40 kilometres per hour. I suppose the Tisza River had bridges by that time so it was not a big problem to walk across. As they reached the eastern side of the river, their suffering from all the walking became more bearable as from there on, to their utmost delight, they found Jews living everywhere. Congregations had already been organised with knowledgeable rabbis. They now had the sympathy of every village they went through. They told their heartbreaking story and help was there with clothing and food. After many months of walking, they reached their destination in Kacsavár where their uncle lived. Their eyes were opened. They had never seen such a place. The famous castle of Kacsavár, the owners of which were the Katz family. They built the castle over many long years.

The Katzes kept the Jewish Law. They had their own shochet living there. It wasn’t a big problem to get a shochet as they were arriving at that time from the Carpathians and spreading over the eastern part of Hungary, getting employment wherever they found a vacancy. The shochet also worked for the town of Piricse where probably another 15 Jewish families lived. My great-great-grandfather, Leopold’s mother, was a Katz girl, so that was the connection to the Katz family.

I am not so sure how welcome they were there. The Katz family, although orthodox, probably put on teffilin every day, but they also lived like the Hungarian aristocracy around them. They played cards with the gentry, so they probably weren’t so thrilled with those boys. The boys’ education was probably no more than reading and writing in Hebrew, and not in Hungarian. I am sure they were good-looking, with the Schwartz family features: well built, strong and resourceful, but they probably didn’t fit in with the lifestyle. Anyway, after one month, the older one left, leaving Leopold with the Katz family. Nobody ever knew where he went. We know we have many connections from that area. I was recently reading a book written by a gentleman living in the United States, a biography about his Schwartz ancestors. They were landowners – prosperous Jews. The book was written after the Holocaust and the title was When the World was Whole by Charles Fenyvesi. They were traditional orthodox Jews. Their lives were surrounded by rabbis and in the book it is mentioned that part of the Schwartz family lived in Piricse. The book was published in America and was reprinted many times. It is an eyeopener to see how Jews lived at that time.

So, somehow that could be a connection to the older brother and to many other Schwartzes whose connections I don’t know.

My grandfather from Piricse used to beg me, saying, please let me tell you the very interesting stories of our whole family. Unfortunately I didn’t want to listen to him. I thought I was quite well educated in Hebrew and also in Hungarian. What could he tell me that I didn’t know? If I had listened, I would know all the connections. All I know is that Leopold’s father was called Jozsef like my grandfather. He was killed by the robbers. I am familiar with all the stories of my father. I remember everything to the last detail, but I did not want to listen to the very distant past. I am very sorry about that now. I should have listened carefully. I try to talk about my past whenever the family is together, including to my grandchildren. I can see that their faces become blank, saying we are really not interested. So that’s the reason why I am writing my story down. Maybe later on when they are older, they will be interested. Maybe they will read this to find out what was before and from where they come. I don’t think they should be ashamed of Saba’s³ ancestors.

So I return to the story, when my great-great-grandfather was left with the Katz family. I heard that while living with the Katz family, he also got himself a Hungarian education.

He was married young and the Katz family moved him to Piricse. They helped him to establish a business and a pub, using their connections to obtain a wine and spirit licence. When he died, his son Josef took over the business. I was named after him. He was already well-to-do, with good connections. The pub was very popular. He had good wines from his own vineyards, also a grocery store and a kosher butchery, managed by the shochet. He died at the age of eighty-five years. He had many children. I know of at least five of them. The eldest was my grandfather, Jonathan Benjamin. The second son was Moshke. Our family had nothing to do with him. I only heard about him in my late teenage years. I heard that after my grandmother’s death he was not willing to adopt one of the orphaned children although his marriage was childless. And that caused a rift between the families, even to the point of them not recognising each other. Later, in 1943 the gendarmes came with the order of the mayor of Nyirbátor to arrest my dear Uncle Osher as he was accused of being a dangerous Bolshevik. He was driven on foot to Nyirbátor in front of the gendarmes’ horses. It was a great crime to be a Bolshevik, but he was never involved with any politics. Maybe they wanted to punish our family. My father had no choice but to run to his Uncle Moshke and beg him to intervene straight away. So he did, as blood never turns to water. Osher was released immediately. Moshke had great influence on the nobles and the aristocracy. He had a pub and a night club which only gentry could attend. It was closed to ordinary citizens. Night after night they filled his premises with their loose women and their gypsy orchestra. They gave him the nickname of Cica⁴ as he could mimic any animal, but he was best at the pussycat. At the end, even his good connections could not save his life.

The third child was a daughter whose name I don’t know. She married into the Lorinc family. Her son, Dr Miklos Lorinc, was a lawyer and the top judge in Nyiregyháza after the Second World War. I met him many times and liked him a lot. He never married, but when we met he liked to show up with his beautiful girlfriends. One of the favourites was a gypsy girl. I never heard of him again after I left Hungary. The year was 1948. He was helping me to change the title of Kacsavár from my father’s name into my name.

Then there was another brother of my grandfather living in Nyirgelse whose name I don’t know. His son, Miklos, was educated in Italy, as in Hungary it was very hard for a Jew to get a place in the medical faculty. He left for Milan, got his degree there and returned to Hungary. He used to visit us often in Kacsavár in the summer holidays. He was very easy-going and good-looking. When the anti-Jewish laws became harder, he decided to move to America as his Italian degree was accepted there, but not in Hungary. So we invited him for a summer holiday before he left for America. He liked horses like all the Schwartzes, except me. I didn’t have any feeling for them, but I was still happy to use their services. He found my younger brother had the same fondness for horses. He too was a very good horseman, very willing to be with him and they had a good time together roaming the countryside.

I was probably in the third year of my primary schooling. I had some problems with the multiplication tables. He told me he would teach them to me by heart in six hours, three one day and three the next day. So he took my hand and we walked together in our well-kept gardens in Kacsavár. The footpath that went around the castle was probably at least a kilometre and, with a good singing voice, he started; One by two is two; two by two is four, two by three is six, two by four is eight…. etc. We went over and over singing the numbers. After two days, I had learned the song and I have never, never forgotten it. The song became a part of me. Shortly after, he left for New York. Before he even bothered to begin to work, he was introduced to a forty year old lady. He was probably 28. She fell in love with him. She was a widow, very rich with ranches, which he liked very much, and the business she had inherited from her late husband. So they married, but not for long. She died of a sudden illness and he inherited the whole fortune. He then became the biggest butter producer in Argentina where the ranches were located and he was called the butter king. I didn’t personally hear further from him after the war. He lived like a prince with no money problems. I suppose he lived out his full life as Hitler’s hand didn’t reach him.

The fifth one was a girl, married to a Horovitz from Balkány. She was the mother of Böske Horovitz; you will meet her later in my story.

I am going back to my grandfather, Jonathan Benjamin. His asset was his tremendous good looks. He didn’t like to work too hard which is sometimes also an asset. He was easy-going and he inherited the family business from his father, which included the pub, the winery and the grocery.

He heard about the famous Klein girls in Olcsva. One of them was already married to my Uncle Brown who I will introduce later, but the second girl was still available. He went over to Olcsva where Mendele Klein, the rich and powerful mayor of the town, lived, asking for her hand. She was tall, strong and attractive like my Aunty Borka was. The answer was always the same. No, no, no, as my grandfather did not have much Talmudic education. So he returned home with a broken-heart and very irritated.

But God arranged for the mabul (flood) to come like in Noah’s time. Water was everywhere; from the Tisza to the Szamos River. From Matészalka to Olcsva, and further, and further: everything was under water. Olcsva was also surrounded with water. The flood didn’t subside. They were low in food. People started to panic. This was Jonathan Benjamin’s great day. He was always very daring, strong and a quick thinker. He knew this was his moment. He bought a boat from far away along the Tisza River. Put it on a horse and cart and brought it up to Matészalka where the edge of the water was. He filled it up like Noah did, with every type of food and delicacy, and alone started rowing towards Olcsva. It took him a couple of days to reach the town. He became a great hero. His luck turned. Mendele Klein was willing to talk to him about his daughter, Sarah-Rosalia. She was happy to have him and so he did get her hand after all. They got married after which my poor grandmother was pregnant nearly every year. She bore him thirteen children, of whom twelve survived, and a year after the birth of twin daughters, at the age of fifty, she died.

I would like to introduce you to my great-aunt, my grandmother Sarah’s older sister, and to her husband, my great-uncle Brown. I don’t know from where he came, or anything of his background. Someone recognised his learning capacities and took him to the big Sziget Rebbe, Chananja Jomtov Lipe. By the age of eighteen, he was already the Rosh Yeshivah⁵. When the Sziget Rebbe died, his son, Chaim Hersh, became the new rebbe. My great-uncle Brown was his mentor, his teacher, and later helped him write his famous sefer⁶ the Eitz Chayim⁷. Although it came out under the rebbe’s name, his contribution was acknowledged.

Let’s return to my great-grandfather, Reb Mendele Klein of Olcsva, by the side of the River Szamos. In Hungary, every town has its own mayor (judge), the head of the town with complete power. The gendarmes carried out his judgements. He was the biggest landowner in town; a rich man with liquor licences and a tobacco grower with a special generous allocation. Every year, army officers came down from Debrecen to buy young horses from him, a special breed of Lipicay. That was his most rewarding business. As I have already mentioned, my great-grandfather, Reb Mendele, had two daughters. One I called néni (aunty) and the other, my grandmother, was named Sarah. My little sister was named after her. Reb Mendele was a real Magyar. His looks, his wealth and his standing in the community and also, he was the head of the congregation. He kept the mitzvoth to the last dot, but was not a Talmudic scholar. The Chassidim from Poland and from the Carpathians came down like fire, spreading over to eastern Hungary, to both sides of the Tisza River and the side of the Szamos River. They arrived also in Olcsva. They first got the shochet positions. Later they made themselves rabbis. Their influence was enormous. Those little Hungarian towns had never seen that kind of religion. They slowly accepted them, changing from Ashkenazi nusach⁸ to Sepharadi. So under their influence, Reb Mendele decided he was going to get husbands for his daughters, the best that money could buy. He travelled to see the Szigete Rebbe and demanded the best scholar the rebbe had. He chose my great-uncle Brown. Mr Brown came down to Olcsva and married my great-aunty. Reb Mendele died, so his elder daughter took over the family business and the assets. As I have already written, the younger one married my grandfather, Jonathan Benjamin Schwartz. My great-uncle didn’t care much for the business. It was in the very good hands of my great-aunty. I was at their place four or five times in my whole life. They didn’t have any children. They adopted my father’s little sister, Bözsi after her mother’s death. I was there first when I was twelve years old. By that time, I was already very familiar with the Chassidim, but what I saw at Olcsva was an eye-opener. I thought I must meet him, but my aunty told me I would have to wait till the next day to arrange a time for him to have a few minutes for me. He was living in separate quarters to the rest of the family. He had his own mikveh. He was studying, but most of the time writing his theories. Mostly, explaining the Kabbalah; before he wrote down God’s name, he went to the mikveh⁹ – possibly ten or fifteen times a day. His knowledge of the Kabbalah was probably even greater than the Lugosh Rebbe’s, who was very well known. They were both introduced to the Kabbalah and Zohar by the legacy of the Sziget Rebbe Zalman Leib Teitelbaum who took over the rabbinate from his father, Moishe Teitelbaum. Rebbe Zalman was supposed to be a rabbi like his father, but for his whole life, he enclosed himself in his quarters studying the Kabbalah and working out all the mysteries of creation.

One day I was lucky to see and to meet my uncle. I went to see him with my aunty. A shiver went through my body when I met him. He was nearly six feet tall, with a long pointed beard, long legs and arms and unusually long hands. Very dark eyes, long hooked nose and Chassidic clothing, old and grey, well used for long years – but very clean. White socks and very old rebbishe shoes. I kissed his hand as I should, then he asked what I was doing and how my dear father was. I told him I was going to a secular high school and that I also had a personal rebbe to teach me Jewish studies. He asked me what I was learning. My father had told me how to behave and what to say and to speak only in Yiddish. My great-aunty and I asked would he maybe bless me. He refused. He looked in my eyes and drew me near to him. A small smile came over from him to me. He said that I didn’t need his blessings. Probably he saw my future and he was pleased. I think so, anyway. All the time he was standing. My great-aunty stood next to me. She would have been very pleased had I received a blessing, but I suppose he knew that I would reach old age. Then he sat down slowly, his glasses in the right position again. My great-aunty then told me we would have to go. He had no more time for me. The next time I was in Olcsva, my great-aunty couldn’t get any time from him to meet me: perhaps I met him one more time, but no more than that. What knowledge he must have accumulated over his 70 odd years, given his huge capacities.

Years back, but not lately, he used to come back to me. I concluded he was not fully of this world. He didn’t wash for bread from Shabbes to Shabbes, weighing only 50 kilograms, eating something only every second day. In Auschwitz, no flames could do anything to his holy body. Two angels were sent down to deliver what was left of him into heaven.

Going back to my family, my grandmother Sarah didn’t see her large family grow up. It was a devastating tragedy for the big family of 12 children to be left without a mother. My grandfather completely collapsed and he wasn’t much help. The older girls took over the housework and kept the family together. When they got married, the younger ones took over the task of managing the household.

I feel I have to introduce my family to you – all my uncles and aunties from the Schwartz side of the family.

Number one was my uncle who was born in 1893. His name was Kálmán Chaim. I will write their Hungarian names first and then their Jewish name which was seldom used. Like my father, he was a landowner, who also managed big tracts of land which he leased from the Hungarian gentry on long leases. He didn’t have much Jewish education. I suppose he wasn’t very interested. He lived a happy and easy life. Money wasn’t his priority. He had a hobby of beekeeping which he did quite well. My father was always there to solve his problems and help him when he was in trouble. He had four children, but only one of them, Béla, who was my age, survived the Holocaust. All the rest of the family perished in Auschwitz.

Number two is my father. His life story will be in another section.

Number three was an aunt. Her name was Ella. Very soon after my grandmother died, she married a man called Emil Gelberman. He was a good chazzan and an agent for firms, selling their wares and was also a life insurance salesman. Emil and Ella lived in Nyirbátor, but for Yom Kippur they came down to the family in Piricse. Usually, his part of the davening was Mincha which he did very well. After the war my Aunty Ella didn’t return but Emil and his daughter Panna and son Öcsi survived. Father and son were together the whole time in the camp. He can thank his son for his life. Emil gave up many times, not wanting to go on with the suffering as he was physically not very strong. But his son kept him alive. He was very tough with him to not give up. Öcsi is still alive in Israel and has a nice family.

When the Russian army arrived at their camps in the eastern part of Germany, Emil was already near death, so Öcsi went from house to house demanding medicine, food and warm clothing for his father, as it was then bitter winter. If the Germans were not very willing to help, he searched their houses and took the things he needed. He acquired a sled as the country was covered with heavy snow. It was February 1945. The Russian army had their own problems fighting the Germans, who didn’t give up easily. They didn’t care about the survivors of the camps, not like on the Western Front where the Americans took on their welfare, taking them to hospitals and feeding them. Here they were on their own. So Öcsi put his father on the sled – Emil wasn’t more than about 30 kilograms in weight – and started to pull him from the eastern Baltic Sea for hundreds and hundreds of kilometres towards Czechoslovakia. In every German town, on his way, he went from house to house asking for food for the long journey. On the way, Germans were more willing to give as they were already under Russian rule for two or three months. Months later, they arrived in Prague, where there was a small Jewish community. The American Joint Welfare was already supplying kosher food to the survivors. They stayed in their safe houses and with the American Joint Welfare’s help they found a Russian truck going towards Pest as the railways weren’t operating. They arrived in Pest around April and from there it was easy. They boarded a train and arrived in Nyirbátor where I was by that time, living quite comfortably in a large house that belonged to my family. I was quite well-off by then. I was dealing in many food items, also in American dollars with the Russian liberators. So Emil and Öcsi arrived to a comfortable home. Not long later, Panna also arrived from one of the German camps. She took over the housekeeping with some outside help. Everything was under control.

By that time, already about 25 people, mostly men, had come home, arriving from various death camps. We found one of them capable of becoming a shochet. He was happy to stay, so even our kitchen became kosher. Good food did wonders. In no time they became strong, then Öcsi decided this was not the place for him to stay. He moved to Budapest, joined Ha’shomer Hàtzair¹⁰ Socialist Zionist Movement and tried to reach Israel with the first aliya, but the British Navy turned the ship back, escorted them to Cyprus and kept them in detention camps. After the British left Palestine and the Jewish State was proclaimed, they all arrived in Israel. Öcsi became Yosi and joined the army. He also joined a Shomer Hatzair kibbutz. I met him in Israel three times. He was a happy man, there with his beautiful family. By now he had moved to the very right of politics, probably under his son’s influence.

Panna married a gentleman called Krausz who was once a Yeshivah student. They emigrated to Venezuela and became rich in the clothing trade. They now live in Florida in retirement.

Number four was Aunty Ibi. She decided that Piricse was not good enough for her. She was left-leaning and very Zionistic. She decided to go to Israel with her brother Dezső (Yoshua). It was the year of 1936. She lived in Israel and never married. We visited her many times in Tel Aviv where she lived, during our trips from Australia. She was a strong lady and a hard Zionist. She had a good life. Later when she grew older, we helped her every month to make her life easier. She lived late into her eighties. I got one good piece of advice from her. She said to me Bandi, as she called me, never say you’re going to do this and that, just do it. You don’t have to say it.

Number five was my Uncle Miklos. His Jewish name was Yomtov Lipe. The name Yomtov is not an ordinary Jewish name. It means Festival Day. It is possible that this name originated from a very important ancestor called by the same name. I have to write about him. When I was born he was twenty years old, so until I was twenty he was my much respected uncle. Then in 1944, when I was twenty and he was forty, he became like an older brother to me. We survived the Holocaust together, and until his death in 1996, we were always in contact. He lived in Israel. When we came for a visit from Melbourne; the first thing to do was to visit him.

Now I go back to the first twenty years. He was my father’s first lieutenant; they did a lot of business together. My father leased a very large station by the name of Jó-Tanya to him. It is on the old map of Hungary. Later he managed the station of Szennyes, with very large tobacco licences, for my father. My father had the largest tobacco licences in Szabolcs County. Hundreds and hundreds of hectares. These licences were as valuable as printed money. I will return to him in my stories. He married a Szrolovits girl from Nyirbátor and had three children. He lost all of his family in the Holocaust. After the war he remarried and moved to Israel. By this marriage he had two children, a boy and a girl. Miklos became very orthodox, learning a lot of Talmud, whenever he found time. He could navigate through the labyrinthine ways of the Talmud with no difficulty. Not like myself; when it comes to a difficult part of the Talmud, I need help to get through it and to see the clear picture.

In 1996, we were visiting him in Rechovot where he lived and by then he was ninety years old. A very old man, but his mind was still young and sharp. For him it was always a