I just finished reading the compelling and true story of Ildiko Scott, a Hungarian immigrant who’s book, Love’s Orphan: My Journey of Hope and Faith is as hard to believe as it is to put down.
Ildiko Scott was born in 1947 to a family decimated by the Holocaust. Her father, a nationally renowned cellist, lost his arm in an escape attempt from a concentration camp and shortly after, married a much-younger woman who, it turns out, was not all that interested in being a mother. After her parents divorced, Ildiko was abandoned by her mother and spent most of her childhood in a Jewish orphanage in Budapest, where she witnessed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the brutal Soviet occupation that followed. At the age of nine, Ildiko and her father attempted to flee Hungary, only to be captured three miles from the Austrian border. Ildiko’s father did eventually escape, and after several failed attempts herself, Ildiko, at the age of 16, was finally able to immigrate to the U.S. to join her father and his new family in Southern California. Two days after arriving, Ildiko was enrolled as a junior in the local high school without knowing a word of English. She showed up that first day, wearing the only clothing she had, the drab school uniform she’d worn in Hungary. Before long, Ildiko quickly rose to the top of her class and after graduation, attended UC Santa Barbara. She has since enjoyed a wonderful career in fashion, a 46-year (and counting) marriage to attorney-turned-judge, Jud Scott, and her greatest pride, her two wonderful, accomplished children whom she obviously raised well, even without the benefit of proper mothering herself.
Ildiko speaks of the great love she has for this country as she continues her service as a Blue Star Mom and is as astonished as anyone to think she was raised in a Hungarian orphanage with no hope to speak of and is now visiting her son in Pensacola, Florida as he trains for his position as the newest member of the US Navy’s elite Blue Angels Team. I sat down with Ildiko to find out how it is a person can endure such hardship and still remain so positive and had to wipe tears a couple of times as she shared her unique gratitude for “the blessings this nation continues to be for millions of immigrants who come here in search of a better life.”
ALIVE Magazine: It took you a long time to write your story; what prompted you to finally do it?
Ildiko Scott: Ever since I came to America, people have asked me how I got here. Every time I would talk about my story, invariably they would say, “You need to write a book about this.” I never really took the idea very seriously but when my family, especially my children, sat me down and basically told me that it is my “obligation” to tell my story because it is their story too, I did promise that I would indeed write a book one day that they could pass on to their children. So finally about five years ago I started writing mostly during vacations because I was working full time and involved in a lot of community activities aimed at supporting our troops.
AM: What were the backgrounds of your mother and father?
IS: To make a long story short, they were a totally mismatched couple with a 16-year age difference between them. My father came from a very affluent orthodox Jewish family, where music and higher education were the primary focus. They were all very successful until the Holocaust. Dad was a well-known concert cellist before the persecution of the Jewish people began. By the time my parents met, my father’s family had perished in Auschwitz and he had lost his right arm while escaping from a Labor Camp.
My mother, on the other hand, came from a much more modest background and was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. She was the third of six children, and as far as I know, she never went beyond 8th grade. She was beautiful, innocent and intellectually always very curious. I think her beauty and innocence must have captured my father’s imagination after the horrors of the war.
AM: You had a very difficult childhood including growing up in an orphanage, yet both your parents were alive at the time. Tell us about these unusual circumstances.
IS: Well, the marriage was pretty much in trouble by the time I was two years old, and they divorced two years later. Everything that was left from my father’s family fortune was taken away by the communist regime and the inevitable divorce was just another loss. Mom was busy discovering her own independence and beauty and there were plenty of men around to feed her ego especially after the divorce. My father, who was still dealing with the shattered dream of never being able to play his beloved cello again, started teaching cello while going beck to school to earn his master’s degree in music. He worked long hours but he took me with himeverywhere when it was his turn to watch me. I was in kindergarten from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, and I spent many evenings in classrooms while dad was teaching often until 10 o’clock at night. Unfortunately, Mom often forgot to get me from my school, so I was on the street a lot waiting for her or looking for her.
My father knew that I needed stability, a safe place to stay and to get a solid education. That is when he made arrangements with the one and only Jewish orphanage in Budapest to take me in. I was six years old at the time. Little did I know that this place would be my home for nearly the next tenyears.
AM: You lived thru the Hungarian Revolution against the Soviets who occupied Hungary after World War II ended. What are your memories of that event as a nine-year-old girl?
IS: I could almost write another book just about this part of Hungary’s history. But as a nine-year-old girl, October 23, 1956 was just another ordinary school day. When we were walking back toward the orphanage after school around 3:00 in the afternoon we noticed several trucks with young people waving Hungarian flags yelling, “Russkie go home!” It was very confusing for many of us because we were told the Soviet Union “liberated” us and we were in debt to them.
When we got back to the orphanage all the supervisors were glued to the radio and by nightfall we heard shots being fired. They asked all of us if we had a place to go, as we were allowed to leave in case we had to go in to hiding. Anti-Semitism was alive and well in Hungary, and there was a great deal of fear that we were in danger again. I knew that my grandparents were living with my mother at the time to help her to recover from an illness, so I headed home to them because my dad lived a lot further, and all transportation had come to a complete halt.
By that evening the fighting began in earnest and I was pretty scared running all the way home often hiding inside of buildings when the shots sounded close by. It took me a couple of hours to get home.
AM: You and your father tried to escape Hungary during the revolution but were captured – please tell us about that experience.
IS: One day when the curfew was lifted, Dad came to get me so I could be with him and practice my cello. When we got to his place safely, he told me that we would go down to the countryside very early the next morning to bring back some meat and other food supplies. I was pretty excited because we didn’t have much to eat and we hadn’t had any meat in weeks. It’s kind of funny now to think back how I never questioned why we had to leave the next morning at 4:00 am with 30 other people on a truck; why were we sleeping in a country school class room the next day; why were we not allowed to turn any lights on; why were we always changing trucks and drivers as we went from one town to the next with no food in sight? Then one day we were walking through really rough terrain from 4:30 am until dusk and everyone was whispering.
Not until we were captured did I realize that my father and all these people were trying to escape from Hungary because they had enough of the Soviet occupation. They wanted to all come to America in search of freedom and a better life.I was pretty confused and I didn’t want to leave my mother behind and especially my grandparents or at least I wanted to be able to say good-bye.
But we were captured pretty close to the border and fortunately, by Hungarian soldiers so we were not killed or raped which is what happened to many people captured by the Soviets.It is an experience I will never forget.
AM:How did you learn your father tried again and had successfully escaped from Hungary?
IS: I received my first letter from my father on April 24th, 1957 exactly on my 10th birthday. He was in New Jersey with some distant cousins who were very happy to welcome him to America. My understanding is that he left a week after he dropped me off at my mother’s and went by himself. He did not want to put me in danger again. In his letter he promised to take care of me and eventually to bring me to America to be with him again. I believed him because my father always kept his promises to me.
AM: You were eventually able to join your father in America. How were you able to get permission?
IS: It took seven long years! I applied and it was refused. I appealed than had to wait six months and start the process all over again. In 1962 when President Jack Kennedy met with Nikita Khrushchev at the Austrian Summit, things began to change. You could almost feel it in the air. And one night I woke up around 2:00 in the morning and I just knew that I had to write a letter to our Premier, Janos Kadar and ask him to allow me to join my father in America. I hardly remember what I said but I knew it was good and I put my letter in the mail the very next morning. I did say a prayer and hoped for the best. I heard from the Ministry a couple of weeks later and the rest is history.
AM:What was it like for you to suddenly come to America at the age of 16 and enroll in high school without knowing a word of English?
IS: Talk about a culture shock! I landed in Los Angeles on Friday, September 13 and started my junior year in high school on Monday, September 16. It was probably one of the loneliest times in my life. It felt like I had this thick wall between me and everyone else and I had nothing in common with anyone here.
I had never worn any make up, tight clothes or pants. Everyone looked so much older than me. My father said I must learn the language so I could be at the university at age 18 along with everybody else. High school was just a stepping-stone to learn the language and according to my father, at the university I would meet the kind of people that I would have a lot in common with.
Academically, I was way ahead of my classmates. All I had to do was to master the English language. I am still working on that!
The sixties were a very tumultuous time in America: Vietnam War, the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, assassination of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted stay in America at the time. Thank God, I did!
AM: You went to college at UC Santa Barbara, and after graduating, married the big man on campus, had two beautiful children and enjoyed a successful career in fashion. Did you ever think that would be your life when you were a child in Hungary?
IS: Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that my life would turn out this way! I promised myself early on that some day I would be successful at something and I would NEVER depend on a man like my mother did! I was going to call the shots. Marriage was definitely not on my agenda. I did such a god job at it that I simply shut my feelings off when it came to men in general. I dated and had fun but felt nothing—that is until I met Jud!
It was the strangest thing. He was not my type. He was too young and he just looked like a typical California beach boy. Yet, what I felt for him soon after we were introduced was so powerful that I couldn’t shut it off. So I did the next best thing and broke up with him but after five years of on and off courtship, he wore me down!
Our children are truly the greatest testimony of our love and deep respect for each other. And when it came to my career,Jud was my biggest fan as I am of his.Actually, it was my husband who insisted that I join the Nordstrom company where I had a wonderful almost 30 year career and the time of my life.
AM: You survived and triumphed over a lot of adversity that might have tripped other people. What do you think you learned during your life that helped you to grow and succeed, and what has shaped your life to become who you are today?
IS: The most important person who truly shaped my character was definitely my father! I feel as if I spent my entire life trying to do things in a way so he’d be proud of me. His losses in life would have broken most people. Just imagine, growing up in a loving family and working so hard to become a great cellist and one day your entire family is gone and killed in the most horrible way; then losing a dream of becoming a great cellist when he lost his right arm; then losing his entire family fortune simply taken away by the communist regime; then losing his marriage while dealing with learning to do everything with one arm; then coming to America in his mid-forties and starting over! Wow! He never gave up! Eventually Dad met his second wife and had two wonderful boys, opened a music school and brought the joy of music into the lives of so many children and families! He also loved America with all his heart and was very grateful for the opportunities this country had given him. For him the cup was always half full!
I might add that my grandmother’s nurturing love helped me get through some difficult times. Also, the gift of having the love of my husband and our children helped me to feel completely vindicated and gave me the confidence to succeed in other areas in my life. And just like my father; I am grateful to be able to live in this very unique country—the United States of America.
Ildiko Scott currently resides in Northern California with her husband of over 45 years, Jud. When not writing, Ildiko loves to spend time with her children and grandchildren, going on long hikes with friends, volunteering with Blue Star Moms, serving our active military or watching every sunrise in her favorite place, Hawaii. Ildiko loves to read, especially historical novels, and is so grateful that through this book, her and her father’s story can finally be told. She hopes it will inspire others to overcome adversity and to not allow their past to determine their future.
Love’s Orphan, published by ALIVE Publishing, is available in both hard cover and paperback on BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com. For information about publishing your story, visit AliveBookPublishing.com, or call 925.837.7303.
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