Kitty Williams Survivor Testimony (Part II)

Katherine Williams. You were talking to me about the two boys that were found hiding. What did they do to those two boys?

I really don't know the outcome. They were kept with us in the ghetto. And a few days later, we were all transported to Auschwitz. So I have no, you know, I have no idea whether they lived.

Can you recall when they formed the ghetto initially?

Yes. I can go back to the day that the Germans came in because actually, I believe it was March 19 of 1944, because actually that's when everything started. It was, we knew we were in trouble. The Hungarians welcomed the German like like they were our savior. And the first sign one, I believe in less than 24 hours, we were required to wear yellow star. And everything went on almost every day. Gradually, our lives became more miserable. And eventually, we were allowed to be on the street in so many hours, only in the daytime. As time went on, all the Jews, Jewish stores had to be shut down. And I believe that, that it started they came in March. By April, we were pretty much confined to our home. And I remember that, as I said to you before, that not all Hungarians were bad. And I remember I had a friend who lived in in Debrecen in this larger town where I went to high school. And she came out to our house. You had to take the train to, you know, to travel across. They didn't have cars. Well, not very many. And she brought me her papers, her ID papers. And she wanted, she asked me if I wanted to use it. And I probably could have passed easily because, as a as a non-Jew, because I was blonde and blue-eyed and quote unquote, it, that is not how they they described the race. We were supposed to be dark, which is a myth. But I know that I was, a lot of times, I was taken for for for Christian, trains or various times in my youth. People would begin a conversation or something assuming that I was not Jewish. So I know that I probably could have, or at least I could have bought some time, but I would not leave my father. And I said, where he goes, I go. And this lady is still alive and visit her every time I go back.

She was non-Jewish?

She was non-Jewish. She was a Catholic, from a Catholic family. And she was wonderful. In fact, she's the one that kept some of the jewelry for my family and some of the pictures that I will later show you. And even though they were so poor, she was one of 12 children probably, and actually they lived in a Jewish section of town, very, very poor. But I am sure that will never occur to her to keep any one piece of the jewelry for herself. And so there were really, really good people.

There was somebody else that offered to hide me. And I did stay with somebody in the same town who was a friend of my sister's, and she was a married woman. And she got- And I tried it for a few days. I was in a dark room. All I did is read all day and slept, and she brought me food. But the bathroom was in the hall, and someone noticed me. And she was afraid that she would be reported, and hiding a Jew was as good as death. In fact, I will go back again to my little town to just sort of give you something that is mysterious to me to what happened to some people who helped us that I will probably never know. But I had-she asked me about after the Germans came, and we were confined to our homes. And for instance, we had people. Our yard was fenced with a, it was a wooden fence. And I remember, and I don't know how these people gave us signals because, you know, there were no telephones. I mean, you can't imagine the culture shock that you would have if you saw how we lived. And this was in this century. But anyway, I remember people handing us pails of milk or eggs through the fence. And I remember good people who, my father always had a ledger that he, people charge groceries all the time. And we had thousands of dollars out. And I remember people coming and pay us, while other people say, why should we pay a Jew? You know, we don't have to. But there were some that were just wonderful. And really, looking back on it risking their own lives.

We had an old man, for instance, lived across the street from us, who was probably in his 80s. In fact, I have had a picture of him. And he was a widower at the time. And and he didn't have much education, but he read the he knew the Bible. He could quote you anything from the Bible. That you ask for it. He just knew it. And and he was always able to refer to the Bible or to compare any life situation. He was really, really a wise man. He came to our house every night. And my duty was, after dinner, we would sit down next to the fireplace. And I would be reading him the editorial of the paper that was, that came, that was probably were the only ones that received a Budapest, a paper from Budapest. And that was our evening. And then he would go home and he would go to bed. And this, the same man, very, very simple Hungarian, after the Germans came. And one evening, one night, we heard a lot of commotion. And I may be getting ahead of my time, because to start out with, after they came in, and we were confined to our homes, for instance, all our windows were broken in, were broken. And I don't know if anybody's familiar with how Europe, our little town in Europe, how the houses are built, but they faced the street. There is really no sidewalk, except just a muddy plain where people walk. And our windows opened right on the street. And I remember the stones and you know people yelling, Hungarian young men, and broke all our windows. So then my father, the next day, went out and and um, uhm put lumber you know on it. So like it was it was it was dark. Not only not only our lives were dark and gloomy, but actually physically the same, you know, because our house was now in complete darkness. And I remember one evening, or late at night, when they were knocking on those windows and yelling at my dad that, we brought the German soldiers, and you bring Kati, which was my nickname, you bring her because they want her, the Germans want her. Of course, the Germans would not have known that I existed, you know, they had to be shown. And of course, they were willing, they were all drunk, and I hid under one bed. And my father, who fortunately spoke German, in fact, he spokes like seven languages, he talked the Germans out of it. And and it was just amazing that, you know, that he was able to do it, and he said that I wasn't there, you know, welcome to come in and look. But they just left. And after that, every night, I went over and slept in this man's house, the nice old man. And I had a blanket that I took with me.

And eventually, the reason I even sort of wanted to mention this, because even I did not go back to Hungary. I never wanted to see Hungary after after Auschwitz. But some of my sisters did. And this old man, by then, was pretty old and pretty sick. But he kept saying that I will not die until my dad comes back. I want to see I want to see him. I have to see him. And I refuse to die. But finally, because he did die. And but his wish was to be buried, wrapped in the blanket that I had taken to his house. So you see, there were some nice people.

And two other instances that will always bother me, as long as I live. There was a young girl who, amazingly, I wasn't that friendly with her before the Germans. She was maybe a year or two older than I am. But she was very kind to me, and her family. And, you know, a young girl, and she's confined to house. And she used to come over. And one day, she said to me, let's go to the movies. The movies consisted of mostly German propaganda films. But it was something to get out for, you know. I had on my yellow star, by then of course, we had to wear a yellow star. And we walked arm in arm. And I had, as I recall, some sort of a jacket or vest. And the yellow star was covered. And evidently, somebody reported us. And the next day, they came in and arrested me. And I begged and cried.

And, you know, and my father, who, everyone owed him a favor, actually, in the town, you know. But there was no mercy. And they took me to jail. And finally, we had a, I didn't remember. I have some memory loss, I'm sure, due to all the things that happened to us. But when I went back, we had an old lady who was our housekeeper and later on just came to clean. And she, so she didn't live with us. At that time, she was already, you know, married and had a family. And she asked me if I remembered when she came and got me out of jail. And she claims, and I'm sure it's true, that my father sent a message to her and said, do something, intervene, if you can, to get my daughter home. And she walked this town like eight miles away where I was put in jail. And I don't know what all she did to get me out. But but I know nothing stood in her way. And she said, don't you remember, we walked eight miles home and how happy your father was that you were home. And, but the the young girl who, I was caught with walking, you know, arm in arm. I mean, this was, it was unheard of.

And when I went back, the first time I went back in 1985 with my three sisters and my my beautiful daughter. And I asked about her. She lived on the same street as I did. And so did another girl, or now its a woman, who was my closest friend in town. But she sort of, I think she was scared. And like all of them, they dropped me. And, but this, I said, whatever happened to Julia, it was her name. And she says, you know, she died right after you left. I said, I said, what do you mean? What did she die of? And she says, oh, of natural causes. And that's all it was said. And nobody would ever comment on it anymore. So this was one mystery that really bugs me. And I seem like the two times that I was back in Hungary I was always in a hurry for one reason or another, I was working still and was on a short vacation. And I still want to go back and find somebody of her family, if they could give me some light on it, because it's hard for me to believe that a 20-year-old girl just, you know, up and die, for no reason at all. So that was one mystery that will always, you know, puzzle me.

And then there was a man, a teacher, who had a family, but he was so kind. He was a young man that he used to come over after we couldn't go out on the street. And he would talk to my dad. We would do crossword puzzle together, and we you know, and talk about- He would bring us news of the outside. And and he, you know, he gave us encouragement. He told us, the war will be over soon. You will be back and you will see. Everything will be just fine. And I just can't tell you how he was to us. And he would sometimes, when our gate was locked, because as I said, there was no telephone. And we didn't see him come. He would jump over the fence to come in. And just to keep us, you know, informed, he brought us money, you know, to have or to take with us. And when I went back, I said, and I knew where he lived, and I said, are they still here? Whatever happened to him. And the people in the townspeople said, well, don't you know, he committed suicide the week after you were taken. He went to the cemetery and one of the graves shot himself. And, you know, that just, again, is a mystery. Was he found out that maybe that he was sympathetic to Jews and he was threatened and that was his answer to, you know, I'll probably never know. But it certainly is enough to make you make you think.

You were mentioning that you were taken to jail. How long did you serve in jail?

I think it was just like overnight, I believe.

Were you arrested by the Germans or by the Hungarians?

No, by the Hungarians.

Did you see a lot of activity with the Hungarians cooperating with the Germans?

Oh, absolutely. As I said before, they treated the Germans like they were their savior. And this will solve everything. There will never be any poverty once the Jews are gone and the Germans will will help them get rid of all the Jews. That was that was the feeling. That was the newspapers, the radio. Everything was full of hatred.

From the time you were confined to your own home, which was its own little ghetto, where did you go from there? Were you deported to another ghetto?

Yes. I was, I believe that, again, the Hungarian police came and told us to pack just so much clothes and food and how many pounds. And we were taken by horse-drawn wagons, of course. And then I remember there were no room except for the suitcases of the wagons. And I remember begging and letting my father ride on, you know, next to the driver. Because he was sixty in his 60s. And, of course, he was considered older. He was older. And I can't remember the details, but I think part of the time they may have let him or some of the older people. But the rest of us just followed the wagon. And it had to be a lot of miles. As I look at the map now, probably as far as maybe 100 miles.

Were there many of you being deported at that time?

Yes. This was in a certain, like, would be a county. There were several hundred, but, you know, not really a large group in comparison to, you know, a larger town, but all the Jews from this certain county. And I can't tell you how large it would have been. But there were several hundreds of us.

How were you treated as you were being marched off by the people?

Not very kindly, but I don't recall a lot of brutality at that time. Nothing in comparison to what I saw later. I mean, not that this was the normal. But, you know, you compare. And that looked to me like it was it was fairly decent. We had to supply our own food.

Did you attract the attention of the Hungarian people?

Yes. There were a lot of shouting in the towns. And some was very, very brutal and and and horrible, you know, joy that we were leaving and name calling and so forth. And, but I think I saw some tears. And even after I was, that we were so they interned us in what's now called Oradea. I believe it's O-R-E-D-A, maybe, D-O. It's a it's a Russ-Romanian town, fairly large. And after First World War I, that was part of Romania. But then Hitler gave Hungary back because we were such sympathizers. He gave us back our old territory. And that was another reason why the Hungarians worshiped him because, you know, he gave us our old borders that were before World War I. And so at that time, it was under Hungarian rule. And we were, interned it seemed to me like it had to be an abandoned factory. This town had a lot of Jewish population, but they were already taken. We were we were from the outside. I'm trying to use the right word. We were considered, you know, a section of people who lived out in the country, I guess you would say. And the city people were already taken. And that's the ghetto that I went to get food from for ourselves, that whatever they left behind, you know, that we can exist on. Because they didn't provide, I don't recall them providing any food. We were supposed to take our own. And then-

Were there very many of you in this a warehouse?

Well, quite a few hundred. But we had, for some reason, they had, as I recall, I know we slept on the floor, they might have even had some mattresses or some of the blankets, probably, that we took with us. And each family cooked for themselves. And we were just waiting for our departure. But I do know that we had several people from my hometown, at least two or three I recall, that brought us food, including this lady that I just mentioned that saved me from the jail. And and again, that was pretty risky. But they did come to see us, because we were only there maybe a couple of weeks, because we were deported from there probably around the middle of June.

This was of 1944?

Of 1944

Who of your immediate family was still together, beside you and your father?

Just the two of us at that time. We didn't know what happened to any of our, the rest of the family. My sister, my oldest sister, who was, who was pregnant and gave birth in the ghetto, she lived about like 20 miles away from us in this, or 13 miles away. In this town where I went to school. She and her husband, and of course, her husband was already in forced labor. And she gave birth, this baby, without any any kind of medicine or anything. In fact, she was, there was one doctor, some Jewish doctor in the ghetto, and and who finally, I think, helped. But there was not even an aspirin available by then. And the baby died after a week, and she couldn't even bury it. She put a note on it that whoever finds this baby, please bury it. And this is this is his name. And she's the one who eventually then I met up with in Auschwitz.

Was she in a different ghetto than you were when you were with your father?

Yes, she was. She was. And we left, as I said, we were put in the wagons around the middle of June. I wonder, I hate to jump around, but because something that will connect, I want to tell you one more thing about while we were still at home, if it's of any interest, that, you know, you didn't know what to take with you or what will have of any value that might save your life. So my father and I, he decided that he will put some money in his, in his sole of his shoe. And we had a really good friend, a shoemaker, who came to our house, I remember, on a Sunday afternoon before we were taken. And he took the, you know, the outer part of the shoe, of the sole, and he placed in five thousand dollars in each paper money in each shoe. And which was, again, you know, that could have been death for him. And because that was also sort of against my father's, like, law-abiding citizen, you know, that, but he, but he said, who knows, maybe it will buy a loaf of bread and maybe it will save your life. He was always thinking about me. His life sort of didn't matter. And, and with it something else that, that we, we thought that when we come home, we will have something to come home to, even though, you know, we left a whole store full of merchandise and everything behind us. But some of, we had some valuables, and looking back on it, how naive we were, like, material for suits and things, you know, wool. And some valuables. Somehow we had a big wooden box, and he put it in, we placed the valuables in that, and in our back, in front of our house, in the back, where there may be a little, you know, flowers. He dug a hole and put this box in one night, and, and covered it up and replaced everything while I, while I stood watching. And it was pitch dark. We didn't see anyone. And then, a few days later, he had regrets, and, and he felt like he was breaking the law, and he said, let's dig it up. It's just not worth it for what I'm going through. And he did.