Kitty Salsberg was born in Budapest, Hungary, on November 14, 1932. Orphaned after the war, Kitty and her younger sister, Ellen, immigrated to Canada in 1948 through the Canadian Jewish Congress’s War Orphans Project. Kitty and her younger sister, Ilonka, arrived in Canada with painful memories from the Holocaust, which took both of their parents. […]
George Scott was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. He had a relatively big and nice family. “Everything should be okay, but experience changes people, “ he said. The Holocaust turned him into a reflective, quiet boy, puzzled by many things. He recorded that in 1943, his life started to change. All Jews in Hungary […]
Andy Reti was born July 16, 1942 in Budapest, Hungary. He is a child survivor from the Shoah. Andy’s father did not survive those terrible years: he was taken to a forced labour battalion and later murdered in Auschwitz Birkenau. Andy, along with his mother and grandparents, survived the horrors of the war through good […]
Magda Hilf was born in Maly Kevesd, Czechoslovakia, in 1921. Her early years consist of many fond memories, with family and friends and books, all in a rural setting. After 1938’s Munich Accord, the situation changed: when the Hungarians took over her region, the restrictions began. Her father lost his business, and he and so […]
Mark Lane was born in 1929 in eastern Czechoslovakia, in the village of Olenovo. In 1939, with the division of the country, the area was ceded to Hungary. The family began to struggle, dealing with the rising anti-Semitism and the restrictions that began to be imposed on their daily lives. In the spring of 1944, […]
Joe Mandel is a Holocaust survivor from the central European region of Ruthenia. When Joe was born in 1924, Ruthenia was part of Czechoslovakia, but following Chamberlain’s failed “Peace in our time” bid and the following wartime border changes, Joe’s town was ceded to Hungary (it has also at various times been part of Germany, […]
Henry Friedman, a Holocaust survivor, was born on October 22, 1931. Henry was born in a small town in Hungary called Nyireghaza. He went to English and Hebrew school and spent his time with his friends and family. Henry was the youngest of two brothers and a sister. He lived as normal of a life […]
Sophie Vermes was born into a successful middle-class family in Mezocsat, Hungary. Although her father died in 1938, she describes her childhood as comfortable and filled with interactions with non-Jewish residents of her town. In March of 1944, her life was thrown into disarray by the Nazi-occupation of Hungary. In 2014, Sophie sat down with […]
Leslie Meisels was born in Nádudvar, Hungary in 1927. He lived with his parents, two brothers, and both sets of grandparents. He survived the ghetto in Debrecen, slave labour and eventual deportation to Bergen-Belsen. He was liberated in April 1945 by the US Army. His mother, father and both brothers also survived. Leslie immigrated to […]
Eva Meisels was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1939, an only child. After her father was taken to a forced labour camp in 1942, Eva and her mother were sent to the Budapest Ghetto and eventually, a safe house. They obtained false papers from Raoul Wallenberg and were liberated by the Soviet Army. After the […]
Lenka Weksberg was born in Tacovo, Czechoslovakia, in 1926. In 1944, the entire family was deported to the Mathesalka Ghetto in Hungary and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where her mother and brother were murdered. Lenka survived a slave labour camp in Geislingen, and Alach, as well as a death march. Lenka was liberated by the US […]
Edward Fisch grew up in wartime Hungary. Grandparent of Crestwood student Sidra Fisch, he learned to survive against the backdrop of Hungarian fascism and the 1944 occupation of Hungary by Nazi Germany, including time spent in the ghettoes and camps. Edward visited us for this interview in October 2013, where he was interviewed by Sidra […]
Judy Cohen is a Holocaust survivor from Hungary. She was born on September 17th, 1928 in the city of Debrecen. Judy was the youngest in a family of 7 children. Her early life was a good one, full of promise and possibility, until she and her family were caught up in the terrible events unfolding […]
Alex Eisen was born December 9, 1929 in Vienna, Austria. After the Anschluss in 1938, the Eisen family fled to Hungary. In 1939, Alex’s father was arrested and fled to Palestine, leaving his wife alone with their three children. Alex and the rest of the family endured the hardships of the Budapest Ghetto, but later […]
Arnold Friedman was born in the Carpathian region of the Ukraine. When the prewar border adjustment known as the Anschluss occurred, he and his family suddenly found themselves living in Hungary. As such, they were offered a temporary respite from the Holocaust. While Polish and Ukrainian Jews were confronted by the Nazi onslaught in 1939-40, […]
George Stern survived the Holocaust in Hungary. A teenage boy at the time, George lost most of his family, but he was fortunate to go into hiding in the countryside. He remembers that he lost his Barmitzvah to the war. When the conflict was over, he emigrated to Israel and later to Canada, where he […]
Rachel Weisz was living in Budapest when the war began. Both Rachel’s mother and father were originally from Poland. Her father and uncles owned a textile factory, though Rachel’s family was the only one with Hungarian citizenship. When Rachel was in grade 6 her family hit hard times. Her father and uncles were arrested because […]
Judy Lysy came to Crestwood with her husband George. Both are Hungarian Survivors of the Shoah, and they shared their stories with Chase Farbstein, Kyle Seigel, and Zack Martin in a dual interview. Judy grew up in wartime Hungary, and when many Jewish men were taken to the Russian front, she and other women fended […]
In 1944 when the Germans came into Hungary they slowly took away everything Malka Karpati’s family had and they made them wear a yellow star on their clothes. In 1944 they were sent to Auschwitz on an open train, where Doctor Mengele separated them – mom went to the left and Malka and her sisters […]
Born in Hungary in 1926, Ignatz Fulop lived on a 1000 acre ranch with his parents, his nine sisters and his brother. In 1940 most of the land was confiscated and the Fulop family was left only with their home. To Ignatz, it seemed like yesterday when he and his family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. […]
Max Eisen was born in Hungary, where he remembers his prewar life in positive terms. When the war reached Hungary in 1944, Max and his family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most of the family was murdered. Max survived the initial selection along with his father and uncle, but only Max was able to survive […]
Irene Csillag was born in 1925 in Satu Mare, Romania. Irene was living a good life, but when the Germans occupied Hungary in 1944, everything changed. In April 1944 Hungarian Jews were moved into ghettoes. The Hungarian authorities worked with the SS and began deporting Jews starting in the middle of May. 440,000 Jews were […]
Joseph Hertelendy served in the Hungarian army in World War Two. When Hungary found itself in an alliance with Nazi Germany, he was forced into action on the eastern front, where he saw action at Stanislaw and Stalingrad. He returned home after being wounded on the battlefield. After the war, Joseph was sent to a […]