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layout: transcript |
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interviewee: agnes grossman aranyi |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0008 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0008_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504526 |
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gender: f |
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birth_date: 1936-05-02 |
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birth_year: 1936.0 |
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place_of_birth: budapest |
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country: hungary |
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experience_group: survivor |
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ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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ghetto: none |
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camp(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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camp: none |
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non_ss_camp: none |
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region: none |
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needs_research: none |
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data_entry: gg |
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accession: 1990.429.1 |
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revisit: none |
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tags: transcripts |
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--- |
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--- |
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layout: transcript |
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interviewee: agnes grossman aranyi |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0008 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0008_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504526 |
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gender: f |
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birth_date: 1936-05-02 |
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birth_year: 1936.0 |
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place_of_birth: budapest |
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country: hungary |
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experience_group: survivor |
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ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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ghetto: none |
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camp(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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camp: none |
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non_ss_camp: none |
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region: none |
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needs_research: none |
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data_entry: gg |
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accession: 1990.429.1 |
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revisit: none |
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tags: transcripts |
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--- |
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<body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">AGNES GROSSMAN ARANYI July 18, 1990</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Will you tell me your full name please?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: My name is Agnes Grossman Aranyi.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: Where and when were you born?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: I was born in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="47.497778" long="19.039722">Budapest</span>, <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>, May 2nd, 1936.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="11">Q: Will you tell us something about your family?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: I actually had a large extended family, but the nuclear family only con...consisted of my mother, my father and myself.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="15">Q: What did your father do?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="17">A: My father...I uh...he was in the <span class="BUILDING">textile business</span>.</sentence><sentence id="18">He was a merchant of sorts.</sentence><sentence id="19">He really didn't have a <span class="BUILDING">shop</span>.</sentence><sentence id="20">He worked out of the <span class="BUILDING">house</span>.</sentence><sentence id="21">I really never understood what he actually did, but he was selling uh cloth.</sentence><sentence id="22">He was...I guess in between a wholesaler and a <span class="BUILDING">retailer</span>...a middle man, and he worked out of the <span class="BUILDING">home</span> a lot.</sentence><sentence id="23">He was a salesman basically I think.</sentence><sentence id="24">And my mother, of course, those days she was a housewife when I was first born, but of course when my father uh was drafted in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">forced labor camp</span>, she had to take over my father's business and then after the war subsequently she had a <span class="BUILDING">jewelry store</span> and uh after the communists took over she went to work for the government.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="33">Q: What was your childhood, your early, very early childhood like before the Nazis?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="35">A: I have a very very few recollections of my early childhood.</sentence><sentence id="36">Actually I uh just remember flashbacks of my father who was...uh started to go away in 1939 and kept being drafted in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">forced labor camps</span> and uh he begin...he began to disappear for three to six months and then it became longer and longer.</sentence><sentence id="37">When they would draft him, it would take eight, nine months before he would return and then one time he was away for ten months, and finally in 1942, that was the last time he was drafted and he never came back.</sentence><sentence id="38">And uh remembering my mother who was a very bright woman and was able to take over and be the head of the family...I don't mean just the nuclear family but head of the extended family.</sentence><sentence id="39">In fact she was instrumental saving my grandmother and myself and a lot of my cousins during uh the war and the Nazi occupation.</sentence><sentence id="40">I remember that the whole family used to gather at my <span class="BUILDING">house</span> and we used to have Friday night and Saturday night dinners at my <span class="BUILDING">house</span> and uh maybe because my grandmother was living with us, that so...we were the gathering place for the whole family, and that's what happened.</sentence><sentence id="41">That's what I remember.</sentence><sentence id="42">I have pretty good memories of trips.</sentence><sentence id="43">We used to have a <span class="ENV_FEATURES">lake</span>, <span class="ENV_FEATURES">Lake</span> : We used to go there in the summers and it was just a very...what I remember was a very uncomplicated, very nice life before my father left in 1942.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="53">Q: What do you remember about uh <span class="BUILDING">school</span>, playmates, friends during that period?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="55">A: Actually I don't remember an awful lot.</sentence><sentence id="56">1 remember that about 1940 we used to have quite an elegant <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> in the middle of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> and I remember that the Nazi party decided to have their <span class="BUILDING">headquarters</span> there, and uh we were evicted from the <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> and we had a hard time finding another <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> being Jews and finally we found a less elegant but an OK <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> uh in a in another part of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> and I remember asking my mother to take the <span class="DLF">walls</span> with us because I really was very happy in that particular <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span>, but we were evicted and we moved into a much smaller <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> and uh we were there until uh the Nazis occupied <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="59">Q: OK.</sentence><sentence id="60">Tell us, if you would, you started talked about 1940.</sentence><sentence id="61">So let's go on.</sentence><sentence id="62">Let's...tell me, as the war broke out indeed, uh in addition to the move, what happened to you, to your family?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="67">A: Well, in uh...as I remember and the dates may escape me...as I remember 1944 when all our troubles...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="69">Q: Let's let's back up a bit.</sentence><sentence id="70">Let's stick with, if we could...I don't want to jump to 1944 just yet.</sentence><sentence id="71">Let's let's talk a little about 1940, "41, and "42...the the early years.</sentence><sentence id="72">What, what was your life like?</sentence><sentence id="73">What did you as a child do to ?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="79">A: I think the early years were comfortable years for me in spite of my father not being there.</sentence><sentence id="80">I uh remember uh good times with my extended family.</sentence><sentence id="81">I remember <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">vacations</span>.</sentence><sentence id="82">I remember having a German governess whom I couldn't stand, whom I had to go out uh walks with and the lady only spoke German to me and I had to answer her in German and I did not like her and I did not like the idea not being with my mother who had to work, but having some other people taking care of me.</sentence><sentence id="83">But I don't remember anything horrendous from these early years.</sentence><sentence id="84">I have to add that my mother had two brothers, and they were also taken to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">forced labor camps</span> and they never returned, but the early years when uh my father kept coming back and we had the extended family around, they were fairly happy times.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="91">Q: What did you for <span class="BUILDING">school</span>?</sentence><sentence id="92">Let's talk a little about.....?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="95">A: In uh...I was four years old in 1940.</sentence><sentence id="96">I remember going to <span class="BUILDING">nursery school</span> - "40, "41, and then I started first grade in the <span class="BUILDING">Jewish school</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> in 1942 when I was six years old, and uh that was uh...I remember that being a good year.</sentence><sentence id="97">However the following year I remember in the second grade we only went to <span class="BUILDING">school</span> for two, three months, and I thought that was terrific (laughter) because then the war broke out and we stopped going to <span class="BUILDING">school</span>.</sentence><sentence id="98">But uh actually the early years in <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> for the Hungarian Jews were fairly pleasant, uh if I remember correctly as a child.</sentence><sentence id="99">I was also thinking being an only child and my cousins being only children, the families really could not, did not feel comfortable having more children because they could see the handwriting on the <span class="DLF">wall</span>, and my mother herself decided to have an abortion.</sentence><sentence id="100">She told me that later, because she just couldn't bring another Jewish child to this world, our crazy mixed-up world as it was.</sentence><sentence id="101">But the early years as far as I was concerned were pleasant and they were alright.</sentence><sentence id="102">The difficulties started when we had to start wearing the yellow star.</sentence><sentence id="103">That really, my self- esteem just plummeted and that was a very difficult period when a big yellow star was on a young child with uh the inscription of Jude, which meant I guess in German, Jewish.</sentence><sentence id="104">And then that was already beginning of being marked as being different and less...oh what's the word I want to use...maybe not quite as competent as the other children were.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="115">Q: Go on and tell us about that.</sentence><sentence id="116">Tell us more about those years as things now began to be very difficult.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="119">A: Yeah.</sentence><sentence id="120">Things are begi...began to unfold at this point.</sentence><sentence id="121">We started to wear the Jewish star and we also had to be at the <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> at a certain time.</sentence><sentence id="122">There was a curfew, but we still were able to go out and go shopping and buy food with uh the Jewish star on.</sentence><sentence id="123">We had to wear the Jewish star all the time whenever we left the <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span>.</sentence><sentence id="124">It was sewn on our clothing, and we were marked as being different from the mainstream and psychologically I'm sure I really suffered from this distinction.</sentence><sentence id="125">And then afterwards uh we were told we had to leave our second <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> because we had to move to a <span class="BUILDING">house</span> which was designated for Jews, and of course we left all our <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">furniture</span> at the <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> and just took a few belongings and moved over to a <span class="BUILDING">house</span> which was designated to be a <span class="BUILDING">Jewish house</span> where Jews could live at that point.</sentence><sentence id="126">And uh we moved in with a sister of my father's, my paternal aunt.</sentence><sentence id="127">There was my grandfather, my aunt and her two children in one <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span>, and my grandmother and my mother and I in another <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span>.</sentence><sentence id="128">It was a <span class="INT_SPACE">two room apartment</span>, and we had to...we were there for a few months.</sentence><sentence id="129">I really can't remember how many months it was, but we were there for a few months and that's when things were starting to really get bad for us.</sentence><sentence id="130">First of all, we had very little food.</sentence><sentence id="131">When uh there were a lot of air raids we had to rush down to the <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span>.</sentence><sentence id="132">At times we just didn't even bother to go.</sentence><sentence id="133">My mother says if we have to go__, we'll just go, and that's when things really started to go downhill.</sentence><sentence id="134">I remember a couple of episodes which are quite painful while we were living there.</sentence><sentence id="135">Well, my mother several times was rounded up and she had to march to different <span class="BUILDING">factories</span> where the Jewish women were collected and were sent to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, and for one reason or another she was always able to come back, but as a child the fear was just tremendous.</sentence><sentence id="136">If she's not going to come back, who's going to take care of me.</sentence><sentence id="137">I felt very very very lonely at those days and very isolated, and I remember also the whole family once was rounded up uh downstairs and then we were...something happened.</sentence><sentence id="138">We were able to go back to the <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span>.</sentence><sentence id="139">Another painful episode was when my mother was rounded up and uh she decided that she's not going to go to the <span class="BUILDING">meeting place</span> and she was all dressed in heavy winter suits.</sentence><sentence id="140">In <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> the winters were quite severe, and heavy boots and heavy winter clothes.</sentence><sentence id="141">She was all dressed up and she decided just to go <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bed</span> with her clothing on, and uh uh she said whatever happens, happens.</sentence><sentence id="142">She's just not going to go and what happened, a German soldier came up to the <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> looking around, making sure that all the young women were downstairs and ready to go to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span>, and my mother was covered up in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bed</span> and I was with my mother and I lied to the soldier.</sentence><sentence id="143">I told the soldier that my mother was sick and she could not go anywhere and she couldn't move, and I told the soldier...as a child I learned survival skills very early on...I told the soldier I have a doctor's certificate.</sentence><sentence id="144">If you just wait a minute I will get the doctor's certificate for you.</sentence><sentence id="145">Six years old and uh...seven maybe.</sentence><sentence id="146">And uh what happened was that uh...there was no doctor's certificate of course...I kept looking and looking and opening <span class="INT_SPACE">drawers</span> and started to really search for the doctor's certificate and the German soldier who could have been sixteen years as I was told, just left.</sentence><sentence id="147">He could have shot us.</sentence><sentence id="148">He could have forced my mother to go, but by the stroke of luck he just left so I was told that I saved my mother's life at that point, which was probably true.</sentence><sentence id="149">But I also lived with that the rest of my life...that I am able to save people.</sentence><sentence id="150">And uh after that there were more roundups of Jews and the janitor one time who was a Christian woman my mother befriended...befriended and of course she also kept happy with various pieces of jewelry, came up to the <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> to tell us that now you just have to go.</sentence><sentence id="151">This is it.</sentence><sentence id="152">Everybody's going to be taken to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span>, and you just have to disappear.</sentence><sentence id="153">Well, we didn't know what to do at this point and somehow or other...this is where Wallenberg comes into the picture.</sentence><sentence id="154">Somehow or other we gota __ they called.</sentence><sentence id="155">Somehow that afternoon my mother paid somebody off or somebody was willing to help.</sentence><sentence id="156">We got a to be able to go to a <span class="BUILDING">Swedish house</span>, but of course by the time the arrived, mysteriously arrived, we couldn't go out anymore with our Jewish stars because it was after the curfew and we knew the next morning everybody's going to be taken, rounded up and taken to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span> from this particular <span class="BUILDING">Jewish house</span>, so somehow they got this Christian woman who after the war turned out to be Jewish herself, working at the <span class="INT_SPACE">underground</span>...somehow they got this Christian woman to come and take us to the <span class="BUILDING">Swedish house</span>.</sentence><sentence id="157">We had the but that of course didn't mean very much, but we were able to...this woman came and uh we took, we tore our yellow stars off and uh pretended we were Christians, and I remember to this day, I never forget that, that this young woman who came to get us and my mother who was also fairly young at the time, and myself, without the Jewish star started walking.</sentence><sentence id="158">It seemed to me that we walked four or five hours.</sentence><sentence id="159">We we probably only walked a half an hour to forty-five minutes, and I remember these two young women started, when the soldiers would come up, these two young women started flirting with the German soldiers and I also remember them speaking German, not Hungarian, during this journey.</sentence><sentence id="160">Of course we didn't have any belongings.</sentence><sentence id="161">My mother had a pocketbook.</sentence><sentence id="162">I had nothing, and the trio was just walked while this the young women were flirt...flirting with the soldiers and somehow we got to the <span class="BUILDING">Swedish house</span>.</sentence><sentence id="163">We had a hard time getting into the <span class="BUILDING">house</span>, because the janitor did not want to get...let us in, but uh the women were able to convince the janitor in the <span class="BUILDING">Swedish house</span> that we did have the documents and we belonged to the <span class="BUILDING">Swedish house</span> and we're going to be...we are entitled to go in.</sentence><sentence id="164">So what happened they finally let us in.</sentence><sentence id="165">We arrived at the <span class="BUILDING">Swedish house</span> and uh we went into an <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span>.</sentence><sentence id="166">It was full of people.</sentence><sentence id="167">I remember it was a <span class="INT_SPACE">two bedroom</span>, two room or two bedroom apartment...I can't remember that...but we...people on all on people...it was just a horribly busy <span class="NPIP">place</span>.</sentence><sentence id="168">I...if 1 remember correctly there were sixty people in this little <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> with and of course they weren't very happy that three additional persons ) arrived, but they did let us in and uh we made a little nitch in the corner somewhere and we went to sleep at that point.</sentence><sentence id="169">It was a very...it...l remem...I can't remember whether we were sleeping on <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">mattresses</span> or just on the <span class="INT_SPACE">floor</span> but we were so tired and emotionally exhausted that it didn't matter.</sentence><sentence id="170">We had a safe, quote safe unquote <span class="NPIP">place</span> to put our heads down.</sentence><sentence id="171">Somehow my mother...we stayed there for could be a month to six weeks in this <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span>, and it was pretty exciting because people were coming and going.</sentence><sentence id="172">We would listen to...play wegie (ph) boards of what's coming.</sentence><sentence id="173">We would listen to the the American broadcasts and uh somehow the rest of my family one by one found out that we were in the <span class="BUILDING">Swedish house</span>, my mother and I, and my cousins kept coming and since my mother told them since she had the it belonged to the whole family, so she managed to have all my cousins come and stay with us in the <span class="BUILDING">Swedish house</span> and I think she paid somebody off because my grandmother appeared on the scene who was at that time in her late seventies, and somehow somebody brought my grandmother over.</sentence><sentence id="174">Since we had this uh __ she could come with us as well and uh she had the prime place in the <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span>.</sentence><sentence id="175">She would sleep in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bathtub</span> because that was the only <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bed</span> in this whole <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span>, and since uh she was the oldest person, she was able to stay with us for a while.</sentence><sentence id="176">I need to take a glass of water now.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="236">Q: We'll pause for a minute.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="238">PAUSE - TECHNICAL CONVERSATION</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="240">Q: We're talking about your grandmother and the....</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="242">A: Right.</sentence><sentence id="243">Right.</sentence><sentence id="244">We were in this...I was one of the Wallenberg kids.</sentence><sentence id="245">Because of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Wallenberg</span>, I was able to stay in this <span class="BUILDING">Swedish house</span>.</sentence><sentence id="246">I was able to have the ___as we all know today didn't mean anything, but in those days in <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> it meant an awful lot because it did get uh a person into a protected environment, a seemingly protected environment where people could just stay for a while and I...really and truly I know more about Wallenberg since I've been in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="247">I had no idea who he was in <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>, and uh but our happiness in the <span class="BUILDING">Swedish house</span> did not last for an awful long time because uh finally the Germans decided that they're going to invade the <span class="BUILDING">Swedish houses</span>, so they came in after a while and rounded us up and marched us to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>.</sentence><sentence id="248">The march for me...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="256">Q: What was that...excuse me...what was it like?</sentence><sentence id="257">Can you tell us what that scene was like when the Nazis came?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="260">A: Very frightening, very...didn't understand what happened.</sentence><sentence id="261">Could not comprehend that we were in a protected <span class="BUILDING">house</span>...how can they round us up and invade us.</sentence><sentence id="262">It was a very very frightening experience, but of course none of the Jews had any repence or probably even if they did have any they couldn't have fought off the German army, so we had to be obedient and do whatever we were told and survival depended on our obedience we felt at that point.</sentence><sentence id="263">So when they rounded us up to take us to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>, they marched in and we had to leave again all our belongings.</sentence><sentence id="264">We had ten minutes to pack our stuff and leave.</sentence><sentence id="265">I was uh...my mother and my grandmother, myself were getting ready to go on this march which again as a child it seemed to me was endless.</sentence><sentence id="266">I was in charge of the photo albums, to carry them to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> and my mother carried of course whatever she could and my grandmother could never carry anything.</sentence><sentence id="267">She had heart problems and she hardly could walk.</sentence><sentence id="268">During this march they were shouting and shooting at Jews and we would just step over corpses like it was nothing.</sentence><sentence id="269">We just were psychologically numb and we were just walking around, walking along and did what we were supposed to do and I I dropped a photo albums and that's why I have very few photographs left before the war era and uh my mother yelled at me not to stop and bend over and pick them up.</sentence><sentence id="270">I can, in my mind's eye I can still see those pictures all over the <span class="DLF">street</span>, and uh I just had to leave them and march on.</sentence><sentence id="271">We were marching on for a little while, and then my grandmother said during the march...and this was really my most frightening experience in the war...my grandmother said she couldn't walk anymore, so the whole transport, the whole group had to stop.</sentence><sentence id="272">It was about two hundred people in this march, so everybody had to stop and the German soldiers came and told us that they're going to shoot my grandmother.</sentence><sentence id="273">She's too old.</sentence><sentence id="274">She can't can't march.</sentence><sentence id="275">They're just going to shoot her to death, and we should all go on, and my mother said she's not going to go.</sentence><sentence id="276">If they're going to shoot my grandmother, let her let them shoot us all and we're just not going to leave an old lady.</sentence></p><p><sentence id="277">But I remember the guns pointing at my grandmother and subsequently the guns pointing at me and my mother and they were ready to shoot us, but then my mother saw a child in a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">stroller</span> and we were so so...we we hardly have had any food at this point so we were all so thin that uh she picked up my grandmother and put her in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">stroller</span> and took the child out of the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">stroller</span>, put my grandmother in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">stroller</span> and we marched on.</sentence><sentence id="278">And we got away with it.</sentence><sentence id="279">So what happened, when we had to go to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> my grandmother was wheeled in a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">stroller</span> into the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>, and we all made it.</sentence><sentence id="280">But I I'll never forget that scene and I'm still very frightened of any kind of violence and any kinds of guns because of this experience.</sentence><sentence id="281">It's just... when a young child has a gun pointed at her...just something happens and one never gets over this experience.</sentence><sentence id="282">But anyway, we were able to march into the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> and everybody was able to...everybody survived at that point and uh we did march into the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>.</sentence><sentence id="283">Of course the circumstances were terrible.</sentence><sentence id="284">I had lice all over me, not just in my hair.</sentence><sentence id="285">Body lice.</sentence><sentence id="286">We couldn't bathe.</sentence><sentence id="287">We couldn't eat and we were in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> for about two weeks before the Russians came in, and what I had heard about uh...the ghetto days are very hazy as far as I'm concerned because I kept fainting from the lack of food and my mother told me that I didn't have food for three, four days before the Russians came to liberate, so my recollection of the ghetto days are very hazy.</sentence><sentence id="288">I remember being in downstairs in a <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span> sitting and not having any food and I remember other Jews eating chocolate while I was just starving and I had no food at all and nobody ever offered us some food, so it wasn't...it was survival of the fittest.</sentence><sentence id="289">It wasn't really let's all survive, at that point and again I think because of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Wallenberg</span>...the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> was undermined and we were going to be blown up at any minute, but I think because of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Wallenberg</span> we were saved and the Russians did...of course there were a lot of air raids and a lot of fighting, but we were so happy to hear the guns because we knew that liberation couldn't be too far off.</sentence><sentence id="290">And that's how I survived those years.</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="291">Q: Tell us, tell us what happened at liberation...what was it like and what did you and your family do?</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="292">A: What I remember of liberation...the Russian soldiers came into the <span class="INT_SPACE">bunker</span> and uh somehow a few hours later there was some muddied soup which they gave to all the survivors.</sentence><sentence id="293">We got some food at last and little by little we were able to...I mean after being really singled out as Jews, able to be free and take our yellow stars off was just a very exhilarating, exciting and frightening moment at the same time.</sentence><sentence id="294">But little by little life got back.</sentence><sentence id="295">Of course we still didn't have food, but it was easier to obtain some foods later on and we were able to get back to our <span class="INT_SPACE">apartments</span> and uh try to resume life, and life was very difficult after...between 1948..."45 and 1956.</sentence><sentence id="296">I lived under the Russian oppression for about ten years and again food was very scarce.</sentence><sentence id="297">It wasn't very fashionable to be Jews again and in fact I had to change...in order to obtain a job...<span class="BUILDING">college</span> was out of the question for me because I came from a capitalistic society and uh it was really out of the question for me.</sentence><sentence id="298">I had to change my name.</sentence><sentence id="299">I did attend a <span class="BUILDING">Jewish high school</span>, <span class="BUILDING">Jewish school</span> and <span class="BUILDING">Jewish high school</span> and uh I was singled out again as a Jew.</sentence><sentence id="300">I had to change my name from Grossman to , which was a Hungarian name so I wouldn't be singled out as a Jew and I remember having very little food in those years as well.</sentence><sentence id="301">Food was always a problem. (</sentence><sentence id="302">Laughter) And the survival...we really didn't have the...what we really needed.</sentence><sentence id="303">We had a very...we had an <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span>.</sentence><sentence id="304">Sometimes we didn't have fuel.</sentence><sentence id="305">We didn't have food.</sentence><sentence id="306">I remember it was sin to have any napoleons (ph), uh gold coins, so we were so afraid of deportation that my mother flushed a couple gold coins down on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">toilet</span> because we were so afraid that if they, if we're going to be found out we're going to have to go outside of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> and...uh I'm struggling for the wor...word...I don't know what happened with capitalists during the communist uh regime.</sentence><sentence id="307">They were forced to leave their <span class="INT_SPACE">apartments</span> and they got a sub-standard <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> in the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span> and they had to survive the best they could there.</sentence><sentence id="308">So we didn't want that to happen to us and that's why we flushed those gold coins down the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">toilet</span>.</sentence><sentence id="309">I'll never forget that.</sentence><sentence id="310">And uh again life was very difficult, being singled out as Jews, so when the revolution came about in 1956, we were very happy to be able to leave <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>.</sentence><sentence id="311">PAUSE - TECHNICAL CONVERSATION</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="332">Q: Tell us about that escape.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="334">A: Since I uh lived with the idea that my father would have been alive if my mother did not want to stay with her family but left for <span class="COUNTRY">America</span> in 1938, I subconsciously knew that when the opportunity rises, I'd best leave <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>.</sentence><sentence id="335">So in 1956 during the revolution, I was then twenty years old and I had a Hungarian fiance who was also a survivor.</sentence><sentence id="336">He was hidden during uh the war years.</sentence><sentence id="337">I uh...it was really my decision to leave the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span> and escape.</sentence><sentence id="338">Of course 1956...I experienced another war during the revolution and again we were sitting in the <span class="INT_SPACE">bunker</span>.</sentence><sentence id="339">We were sitting in the <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span> and uh the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">Russian tanks</span> came in and there were a lot of shooting, a lot of killing.</sentence><sentence id="340">Again we would step over <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">corpses</span>.</sentence><sentence id="341">I mean it was psychologically numbing again.</sentence><sentence id="342">Survival was the main thing during those revolutionary years.</sentence><sentence id="343">My husband then was a college student in <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> so he partook in some of the demonstrations and uh we decided after, when the Russians came back, we were best to escape <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>.</sentence><sentence id="344">Of course by then we both were survivors.</sentence><sentence id="345">We knew how to survive, so we took a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> to as close to the <span class="DLF">border</span> as possible when we decided to leave and uh we stayed with some peasants near the <span class="DLF">border</span> until we found a guide who could led us over the <span class="DLF">border</span>.</sentence><sentence id="346">The <span class="DLF">borders</span> were watched by Hungarian and Russian soldiers and uh it was very difficult to escape.</sentence><sentence id="347">Again we had to...oh we found this...I'm getting a little fuzzy here.</sentence><sentence id="348">The memories are just rushing back into my head.</sentence><sentence id="349">We escaped with my cousin and her husband and two small children ages three and five.</sentence><sentence id="350">And uh what happened was that the kids were scared and crying, so before when we paid off the guards in order to get across the <span class="DLF">border</span>, we had to get some rum and had to give it to the kids so the kids were drunk and fell asleep and my husband carried uh one kid and uh the kid's father carried another kid.</sentence><sentence id="351">We had to walk in the snow.</sentence><sentence id="352">The winter's are very difficult and heavy in <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> and we dark winter clothing on and we had to walk in this dark clothing in the snow at night to be inconspicuous.</sentence><sentence id="353">When the Russian or the Hungarian soldiers were shooting at us, we had to lie down in the snow with our dark winter clothing in order not to be seen.</sentence><sentence id="354">We walked across...we had to walk a good twenty miles until we got to the <span class="DLF">border</span> and the walk again was very very frightening.</sentence><sentence id="355">It was like deja vue.</sentence><sentence id="356">What happened as we were marching uh to escape...to go to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>, because they were shooting us at us from <span class="BUILDING">watch towers</span> and we had to know where to walk, where the <span class="DLF">border</span> wasn't undermined.</sentence><sentence id="357">Finally we got to a <span class="ENV_FEATURES">creek</span> which led us to <span class="COUNTRY">Austria</span> and this is where I just knew I'll never make it.</sentence><sentence id="358">I was just ready to give up and die.</sentence><sentence id="359">I was so tired after...and scared...after walking for several hours at night in the snow that I was just ready to give up.</sentence><sentence id="360">There was a log between uh <span class="COUNTRY">Austria</span> and <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> and people walked across the log but I wasn't coordinated enough and I wasn't...I was so tired I knew I'll never make it.</sentence><sentence id="361">So finally people told me to sit on that log and I was able to just crawl over to <span class="COUNTRY">Austria</span> on that log, and I was very fortunate because we made it over.</sentence><sentence id="362">A lot of people were taken back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="47.497778" long="19.039722">Budapest</span>.</sentence><sentence id="363">They could not escape, but we were again very fortunate to be able to manage to get out.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="394">Q: Indeed.</sentence><sentence id="395">What did you do when you got to <span class="COUNTRY">Austria</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="398">A: Well, in <span class="COUNTRY">Austria</span> we stayed in uh...subsequently we went to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Salzburg</span> and a Jewish organization was very good.</sentence><sentence id="399">They put us in a <span class="BUILDING">hotel</span>, the Pathenon really, and we stayed in the <span class="BUILDING">Pathenon</span> for two, three weeks, trying to come to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="400">We were planning to go to <span class="COUNTRY">Australia</span>, but there was a real iron curtain in <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>.</sentence><sentence id="401">We had no news from the west at all, and we thought <span class="COUNTRY">Australia</span> would be wonderful because we would be as far from Europe as we could be, so we decided to go to <span class="COUNTRY">Australia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="402">But my husband had a relative who sent us a telegram from <span class="COUNTRY">France</span>...don't go to <span class="COUNTRY">Australia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="403">Go to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="404">Life is good there.</sentence><sentence id="405">So OK.</sentence><sentence id="406">We decided to go to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="407">This is how the decision was made.</sentence><sentence id="408">And uh however we were applying to come to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span> but the American Jews, the HIAS organization didn't want us because they didn't want to be responsible for us and they turned us down.</sentence><sentence id="409">Finally we were able to find an organization which brought over three thousand refugees regardless of religion, and this was the Tolstoy (ph), the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy had an organization bringing refugees over and uh by the Tolstoy organizations we were able to come to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="410">And again of course we felt very alienated and not belonging and it usually takes an immigrant five years to really get into the mainstream, to learn the language, to learn the culture, to learn the customs, so again we had to forget and relearn new ways of relating to people and new...uh how to live ina new <span class="REGION">land</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="424">Q: What was your adjustment to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span> like?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="426">A: [had a very difficult time.</sentence><sentence id="427">I didn't expect all this difficulty, but I...thinking back I think I was pretty depressed.</sentence><sentence id="428">I felt alienated.</sentence><sentence id="429">I didn't speak the language.</sentence><sentence id="430">I didn't have any skills then.</sentence><sentence id="431">I didn't have any education then.</sentence><sentence id="432">I used to...uh the early years were very difficult.</sentence><sentence id="433">I...after arriving...upon arriving to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span> we were sent to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Camp Kilmer</span> (ph), and at <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Camp Kilmer</span> they were sending uh people all over the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span> and we were told that we should go to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Norfolk</span>, <span class="REGION">Virginia</span> because they, the Jewish community wanted some refugees there and we spoke some English.</sentence><sentence id="434">It will be a good <span class="NPIP">place</span> for us.</sentence><sentence id="435">So we moved to No...so we said fine.</sentence><sentence id="436">We'll go anywhere.</sentence><sentence id="437">We didn't care.</sentence><sentence id="438">We didn't know anything about anything, so we went to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Norfolk</span> which is a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">southern town</span>, not really wonderful for an immigrant, but uh the reason we went there because they told my husband that he could finish his schooling.</sentence><sentence id="439">He was an architectural student.</sentence><sentence id="440">We moved to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Norfolk</span>.</sentence><sentence id="441">There were no <span class="BUILDING">school of architecture</span>.</sentence><sentence id="442">So we had to move on.</sentence><sentence id="443">We moved to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Raleigh</span>, <span class="REGION">North Carolina</span>, where he did finally finish his schooling and I was working at <span class="BUILDING">Woolworth's</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Raleigh</span>, <span class="REGION">North Carolina</span>, really not speaking English very well and not being able to...I really wasn't employable.</sentence><sentence id="444">And so the early years were very difficult for me, and uh learning a language, learning a culture...it takes a good five years for a person to really feel at <span class="BUILDING">home</span> in a new <span class="COUNTRY">country</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="464">Q: Thank you.</sentence><sentence id="465">Is there anything you want to add?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="468">A: I don't know.</sentence><sentence id="469">I think when I go <span class="BUILDING">home</span> I'll remember a thousand other things to add, but right now I think this is my story.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="472">Q: What do you think the effect of the Holocaust has been?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="474">A: This is a difficult question to answer.</sentence><sentence id="475">I've been struggling with it for fifty years.(Laughter) My self-esteem was non-existent.</sentence><sentence id="476">I had to really work on developing some sense of worth.</sentence><sentence id="477">I think that sense of worth...I think that's what's the...I felt less than equal for years because of the Holocaust, because of escaping of <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>.</sentence><sentence id="478">I had a very very...I think the biggest problem is that you just don't feel quite as good as the other guy.</sentence><sentence id="479">I think that was one of the major problems.</sentence><sentence id="480">Until you really feel good about yourself and who you are and you can accept who you are, it's just very difficult.</sentence><sentence id="481">Self-esteem is the name of the game I think.</sentence><sentence id="482">And that was really just can't and it just negated who I was, what I was all about.</sentence><sentence id="483">I was very ashamed of who I was.</sentence><sentence id="484">I didn't feel good about myself...for a long time.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="499">Q: Tell us what you're doing now.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="501">A: Well, I became...in order to help myself to feel worthwhile I became a psycho-therapist and working with other people, helping them to realize who they are, what they are all about and help them to develop a healthier self-esteem.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="503">Q: OK.</sentence><sentence id="504">Thank you very much.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="507">END OF INTERVIEW</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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