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Fazekas, Judith

Judit Fulop was born in the small city of Debrecen, Hungary on September 23, 1928. She grew up an only child in a comfortable middle class environment, attending a Jewish school and then her local high school until the war broke out in 1944, when Jewish students were prohibited from attending public schools. Despite these restrictions, Judit managed to enter into a Jewish boys school where she was able to finish her senior year. It is here, in the early months of 1944, where she met Leslie Fazekas. In spring of 1944, she and her family were taken to the Debrecen Ghetto and deported to a Brick Factory in Austria. From the brick factory, she was taken to Strasshof from which she was then transferred to Vienna to work in the reconstruction of the city that had been bombed. Miraculously, Leslie and Judit were able to keep in contact throughout the remainder of the war with the help of the Red Cross, and reunited in Hungary in 1945. Leslie and Judit fled the country following the 1956 revolution, and settled in Toronto. They have recently celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary together. Judit and Leslie were Zoom-interviewed in the summer of 2020 by Arielle Meyer and Scott Masters.

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