Presentation by Kitty Williams, Holocaust Survivor

I am not a professional speaker, so don't expect perfection from me. I will just tell you what my life was during the Holocaust, a little bit before for you to let me know... so for you to know me a little bit. And you probably wonder, why at my age? I am, by the way, 94 years old. And the last 10 years, I've been speaking to groups, mostly children or anybody who actually asked me, to tell them about my experiences during the Holocaust. And so if you wonder why I'm doing it, I feel that I need to do it for so many reasons. Mainly because there were 11 million people killed who were completely innocent. They were killed for no reason except being different in religion, different skin color, and they suffered so much. They can't tell you what they went through, so I feel I have to speak for them. And there were at least 6 million Jews and 5 million others which I know and we all know that it's not an exact figure. There were a lot more. They are still finding mass graves in the Ukraine with all these bones; thousands and thousands of innocent victims. And so, we really don't have a figure. But also, because I happen to be one of the few eyewitnesses and lived to tell, I am speaking for the for so many other reasons. One is because history has a tendency to repeat itself, and if we don't watch it, it will happen again. And that, and the fact that there are so many denials. In fact that's what started me to speak because I read an article about somebody denying the Holocaust and it made me really, really mad and I decided I have to do my part to tell people that it really did happen. And you know, to quote Churchill, I remember reading this quote from him: "Evil beyond evil was done and can be done again unless the living remembers." And so, with that, I will tell you a little bit about my background, my childhood. I was born in a small village in Eastern Hungary. We were very, very Hungarian. Hungarian Jews were assimilated and I felt Hungarian first, we all did. And our religion was Jewish. Even today, when I hear Hungarian music or Hungarian language, I tear up. That was my country and my mother tongue; so even though we were always aware of anti-Semitism, because even though I didn't feel like we were different, but I think people made us feel different. When I was in grade school, I remember little boys running by me and calling me "dirty Jew" and I would go home crying to my, in my fit, my dad what happened and he would say, "But, honey, those are just words. We really have it pretty good in Hungary and just think of what our ancestors, through centuries, what they went through. How they were always persecuted. There were programs, and we don't have it so bad." You know? "Just ignore it." And because I had, I was the youngest or next to the youngest of eight children, you know, I had a very, very happy home. Lots of, you know, siblings to play with and also some friends after I started school or even before on my street, there were some kids my age. And you know, it was a very happy childhood until tragedy struck in 1932 when my mother and my little five-year-old sister died of typhoid fever. At the time, I was 7 years old. So that really, you know, changed our lives. My dad got us together and said, "I will not bring a stepmother to the house and somehow we will make it." But they were very, very, you know, sad times. I attended a local grade school and went to high school in the nearest town, 30 kilometer away by train. It was a Jewish high school. And as time went on, we were hearing things about Germany, what they were doing to Jewish people. But my dad, who served in World War I [for] four years actually, and was also shot at a lot... you know, he suffered a lot of health problems, and a lot of, he was wounded several times. And so, even though all this happened, and as I said before, very Hungarian. But he also, when the news hit us about Germany, he would say, "Those are just vicious rumors. The Germans are not like that. I served with them. I know them, they are very cultured people. They just couldn't do the things that all these rumors are about." And so we lived in this illusion that everything is fine and we knew, you know, we knew about Germany taking over different countries. But because Hungary was always allied with the Germans, you know, we didn't think we had anything to worry about. So by the time that it actually, you know, affected us, changed our lives, it happened in March of 1944. The German army invaded Hungary. And that's when my idyllic life became a nightmare. By then, actually, my siblings left home. As I said, I became the youngest after I lost my little sister. And some of my sisters, they were 12 years younger (older) that I am. Some were already married. My brothers were in service, which later they had to be transferred to a slave labor camp for the Hungarian army and also combined with the German Army. So by then, I was alone with my dad. I enjoyed just having him all to myself. Like I said, before they occupied Hungary, my whole life was about my dad.

Just the fact that he was now all to myself. I didn't have to share him with my siblings. We would walk... my highlight of my, actually of my... (that's fine) of my life was, by that time I was going to school and just then sort of the household for the two of us. On Saturdays, I would go to synagogue with him, which was in the nearest town, three kilometers away. We would walk, and sometimes we wouldn't even speak. I just would hold his hand, and that was everything to me. But then, after the Germans came in, as I said, our lives dramatically changed. The first thing they did, to begin with, this ruler ordered all kinds of new laws came into effect. And the first one was, we had to wear, every Jewish person had to wear the star, the yellow star - the star of David - on all our clothing. We were also, we had a curfew: two hours from three in the afternoon to five. It's the only time we could leave our homes. Of course, all Jewish businesses were taken and no compensation, they just had to be turned over to the Aryan people. And we had to turn in our valuables. We only got half a ration. By then we were (unintelliglble) And of course, it just seemed like we were in a prison. And I will just mention a couple things that happened while we were under the German occupation. One is, one night, we heard just all kinds of noise, like glass breaking. And when my dad went to the door, there were a bunch of Hungarian hoodlums. They were all drunk, probably kids-but by that time, I was 17 or 18 years old. They were probably kids I went to grade school with, and among them, there were a few German soldiers. And they said to my dad, these German soldiers, they want Kitty to come out. They want to meet her. And my dad said, well, they don't even... "Actually {that} she's not home." And meanwhile, I went under the bed and shaking, of course. And my dad, who fortunately spoke seven languages, one was German, and he said to them, in German, "Well, she's not home, she's visiting her sister in Budapest. You're even welcome to come in." But they seemed to understand it, and they left peacefully. Except in the morning, we found that all our windows were broken, and my dad, of course, boarded them up. And from then on, we lived, actually, in total darkness. And at this point, I think I should emphasize that not everybody was evil. There were some really good people. Amongst them was an old man, I say that he was probably 20 years younger than I am now. And he always came over to our house every night because we got the newspaper from Budapest. He wanted me to read him the editorials. And he came over and my dad told him what happened the day before. He said, "She can't sleep at home. What if it happens again? You might not be so lucky." And he said, "How about if she came to my house and sleep at my house every night?" And we thought about it and sounded like a solution. So from then on, I never slept at my house. It became dark [and] I ran over right across the street. He had a really small home with chickens, hatching eggs around the walls. There was absolutely no room for me to even lie down. But I took a blanket and a pillow and I slept under his bed. Somehow, I must have gone to sleep. But that's how I spent every night. And at this point, I would jump ahead because in 1982, for the first time, I went back with my daughter to my hometown, to Europe and to my hometown, and some of my neighbors were still there and I asked them, "Well what happened?" We called him Uncle Mike. "When did he die?" And they said, "Well he died the summer you left and, before he died, he told us, 'I don't I don't want to die.' He fought death because I want to see my neighbors again. But he said, 'If I should die before, I want to be wrapped in Kitty's blanket with the pillow under my head in the coffin.' And that's how he was buried." And you know, this is always tears me up because when you think about it, the chances he took, that was a sure death if they found out that he was hiding a Jewish girl every night. There would not have been any questions asked. He would have been shot. But he took a chance. So I want to emphasize that not everyone is evil. So, another thing that happened also that I think is worth mentioning, that one morning police came to our door, and when my dad asked what they wanted, "We came to arrest Kitty." And he said, "Well, what did she do?" And it seemed that somebody reported me that when I was out the day before, on a Sunday afternoon, I met some of my girlfriends in a park. And, you know, it was a magic couple of hours being with young people again. And I know that of course I wore my yellow star.

But you know somebody reported it and, of course, his word would be against mine and they just... they just accused me that, "No, she did not wear her star." And of of course, there was also reward for anything that you accused the Jew. I was taken for reward, and they, you know, so I'm sure that whoever reported me got a reward. So they handcuffed me. If you can imagine, an 18-year-old who never did anything in my life. And they put me on a wagon, a horse-drawn wagon, took me eight miles to Anita's town. And meanwhile, I just sobbed all the time. And my dad begged them not to take me, but they didn't... you know, they ignored it. And I was kept for, I believe it was three days and three nights that I was in jail. I don't remember ever eating. And finally, this lady, who's I think being shown now in 1982, she was a young girl, and she used to work for us actually, and she came and she bailed me out. We never discussed what my dad had, how much money it took to bail me out, but they made us walk home the eight miles. But I was so happy to see my dad again and so he never discussed it with me because it was better that I didn't know what it took to get me out of jail. So it got to the point where even though like I said there were people who really took chances of giving us food. In my street, all the houses were, usually in Europe, all the houses were fenced off, and in the morning sometimes we would find a plate of milk or some eggs or some vegetables that people dropped in over the fence so we wouldn't starve to death. So like I said, just always remember and look for the good in people. But it got to the point where it was almost hearing... it was a relief to hear that the Germans need workers in Germany. And eventually, they will take all the Jews from Hungary because they needed workers. That they were losing a lot of manpower. And it was just really a relief to know that this is coming, we heard, for different sections of the country, Jews were already taken and we were actually looking forward to it. So in about April, we were ordered to pack our belongings. 40 kilograms and clothes. Some clothes and some food because we wouldn't be getting any food. So [we] take our own food and we will be picked up and taken out of our home. And I remember locking the house and leaving a lot of everything that we had. Because once the war is over, we'll be back and everything will be... we'll pick up where we left off. Well, it didn't happen quite that way. I remember it was like a caravan that came through our little town horse-drawn wagons. They were picking up different Jewish families in our county. We were the only Jewish family in my hometown. There was one family who was a Jewish man who married a Christian lady who converted and they had two kids and they had a girl who was my age. The boy was already in labor camp and so actually... so we joined them, that family, and the girl and and I became very good friends. She was my age and we were like sisters. So they let us put our suitcases on the wagon, but the rest of us, the Jewish people, had to walk behind the wagons. And if you can imagine, my family who could trace back our ancestors to the 1700s, and we were sort of chased out of our little town like if we had committed murder or some horrible crime. And people lined up the street and some of them cheered, and some I saw sadness or even tears in their eyes and that's how we were taken out of our home of hundreds of years of our ancestors living there. It was so [dehumanizing], you can imagine. my 65-year-old dad with white hair walking behind, walking along the wagons. We went from town to town, pick up other Jewish people. We wound up in a larger, what they called a "ghetto." And from there, we were there several weeks, practically starving, and guarded, you know, with vicious dogs and vicious soldiers, Hungarian soldiers. Because, to my experience, I would say the Hungarians were worse than the Germans when it came to... to, you know, cruelty. Our own countrymen. And eventually, I remember it was, by then, June, and they told us we will be taken out of the country and, "Get ready, because in the morning, you will go to the railroad station and leave the country." We still had hope, we still thought it's going to be, you know... we will be useful citizens again. We will be working for the Germans, nevertheless, we will be, you know, again, treated well because we will be working. And so they herded us into this cattle cars, and you're familiar with what they look like.

They'd hold maybe five or six horses or cows. They made us get in, under horrible circumstances, just rushed into these wagons to the point where I didn't think there was any more they could put in. But at the end, 80 to 90 people in those cattle wagons, they weren't even clean, [unintelligible] there were no windows. They gave us, at that time, two buckets. By then, you know, we were not even able to, nobody could sit down or lie down. It was out of the question. We were just like sardines in a can. And the two buckets, one was empty, one had water in it, and they said, "Well, the empty is your bathroom." And you can imagine what it was like. After a while, you know, the train started moving and we had no idea where we were going. We sort of laid on top of each other back in the... At first, we held up a towel or something because, you know, we had to go to the bathroom. But after a while, you even lost all your modesty. It didn't matter. The smell, you can imagine, was horrible. People crying. There were, every age, babies, mothers with babies, pregnant women, very few young people because they were... young boys were already taken to forced labor and of course a lot of old people. It was a journey that I will never forget. And it was several days that we were traveled, occasionally at each border, because we passed different little countries like Czechoslovakia, and they would open the door at different nationality, different language. Soldiers speaking different language told us to one of the Jewish men, "Pick up that bucket, empty it." Sometimes, they even gave us another bucket of water. But we still had hope. And I will tell you that I was always... just if anybody ever read Anne Frank, I had the same mentality. I could not believe... even I saw it with my own eyes what was happening. I still believed in the goodness of people. I still had hopes that everything eventually, you know, will be good. And somehow, some of us made it. I have no idea how many people died. We just were lucky we were. My dad and I and my friend, her name was Itza, and her family, we were close to the door. So, I didn't know really what was happening in the corners of the how many people died. I did just so much crying and wailing, you know, it was just a nightmare. But eventually, one morning, the train stopped and we were so relieved. Which... we arrived. Must be our destination. And I remember looking out finally when the door opened and there were strange looking but pretty well fed young men in striped uniforms with rubber bats in their hands telling us, "Get out, fast." Never fast enough, you know. Just always, you're moving too slow and you'll be hit by... and they would tell us, "Leave your baggage. Leave everything on the platform." Or in the... "Just get out, get out." And then it was so well organized. Later we found out they were actually Polish Jewish young men who were... well we didn't know actually right away where we were. What was we finally saw the name, Auschwitz, which was the Polish name of German Auschwitz. And also saw this gate in front of us that I know you heard of. It's a very famous huge iron gate with the words on it in German meaning: "Work sets you free." And again, you know we started hoping that we came to work. And we were told to form different lanes. My dad was somehow taken from me or was told to go to the family of my friend's parents. They were shown to go to the left. My friend and I stayed in the right, and then I realized that, or I looked next to me, [there] were a line of young men. And to the left, all the older people, mothers with babies or pregnant women. And I find myself in this line where young women, sort of my age or older because I was 19 by then. And up in front of us, there was a platform up high with a young German officer sitting in a chair, immaculately dressed in white uniform with two German Sheperd dogs on his side. And with his index finger, he was showing people which line to go to. And when I walked with the other Hungarian Jewish young woman, he showed us to go straight. And I don't even remember what I said to my dad.

Probably said, "I'll see you later," because we were told by these young men in the prison suit occasionally that, when we asked, "So when will we see our parents?" because some of the people spoke, you know, Yiddish, spoke German. And so we communicated somewhat with them and they said, "Oh, you will see them on the weekend. Just don't worry, you will see them." And so, of course, I believed it. But at the same time, I remember noticing that they were whispering to some of the young woman with babies, before all this, you know, in the beginning. It was like chaos, you know, with thousands of people on the platform. But I remember them whispering, and now I can tell from the motioning, they had a baby in their arm, a young woman. They said, "Give that baby to some older woman." And none of it made sense at the time. Or sometimes the woman refused and held onto the baby and was sent to the left. Everything was a mystery, but again, I still believed it. So eventually, which I need to mention, that later we found out the German officer on the platform was Dr. Joseph Mengele. The famous Mengele. He did all the selection. So my group went and was made to walk miles and miles. I know now that we arrived in Auschwitz, but the death camp actually was in Birkenau. It's just huge. Just amazing. It had to hold millions of people, and that's where we had to walk, and it's a distance. It's probably 10 miles. I know when I visited, we had a cab, and it was about, you know... a long journey to our camp, and we were let into a huge, huge building... like a huge auditorium where we had to take off our clothes. Then we were shaved and we were told that "now you are going to take a shower." Because by that time we were dying of thirst and hunger. So we were ready there by these tables of barbers with the shears and our hair, everything was shameful, and so we were entering a shower. By that time, some older woman around me, they said, "So I heard about gas chambers. I bet it's going to be gas instead of water." I was still not believing in anything. I was still in complete denial, but at that time, actually, I was right. We did get in this auditorium, the ceiling had several shower heads, and water did come, not a whole lot. It was cold, but it tasted so good, we were able to get a few sips, and then we were let out. But they were so clever that before we entered the shower, they told us, "Be sure and remember where you... you'll have to hang up your clothes." And they were numbered. Their hooks were numbered. "You remember where you put your clothes? Tie your shoes so you can find them when you come out of the shower." And you know, it was deceit. We were deceived all the time. When we came out of the shower, there was no clothes, no shoes, with a heap of rags and some wooden shoes. They threw us rags, "cover yourself," and sort of exchanged clothes between us and covered our bodies. Of course, no underwear, wooden shoes that I'm sure that they stole from Holland, which we were not used to wearing. But, you know, we got our bodies covered and started again walking, and they took us to our finally... to our barracks that was newly created. And there were so many Hungarian people coming that they didn't have room to put them. So they built these temporary buildings, no windows, just huge enclosure. And by that time, it was night, and they told us, "Go and lie down." But on the way over, as we were walking along several miles, we saw all these camps around, and all fenced with electric wire, which we didn't know that was hot as well. And people walking around, women, they looked like people, but they also, they looked more like skeletons. And he kept yelling, where are you from? What country are you from? And here they spoke. I remember thinking, it can't be real... it'll never be like that, like them. And so that was the first sight that I remember seeing. So somehow we found a place to lie down, again like sardines. And so that was my introduction to Birkenau. Because right next to me that night, a woman died of some diabetic coma. And to witness it at my age, I never saw somebody die right next to me. And somehow, you know, we got used to it. Four o'clock, we woke up, our routine was that.

Also, we were counting, it was up every day twice. We had what they called in German, [unintelliglble]. And it was a form of punishment because the weather was either, you know, if it was raining, we still stood for hours on end, the sun was shining on us, heat, we were still standing. And by that time there were some, they used some of the old prisoners to guard us, but also we were under German, mostly women prisoners. You know, I tried to describe you Birkenau... I can say that it was the most desolate place on this Earth. With all the chimneys that I saw and all the smoke I smelled and the flames, and I still, if you believe it, that I was either very, very stupid or in denial, I don't know what... But I still thought that everything would be the same, you know, the same eventually, and I will see my family. I lived in this, I was in this illusion that... Around me, death everywhere, people were either dropping dead or touched the wire at night, and there'd be bodies all over. Since you're all grown-ups, I can be really frank with you because you've probably even heard about it, but I won't give you any nightmares. And you live with it. You just still live, I lived in hope that I will see my family, and that made me, you know. So, I stayed with my friend, Itza and I just hung on to each other. But one time I was walking, because in the daytime there was lanes, you know, between the barracks and we were enclosed with electric wire, but we could walk from one barrack to another. We did not work, had very little food, which I don't even want to go into... I just... I think 300 calories that kept us alive. And at one day I remember somebody said to me, oh you are Kitty from whatever [unintelligible]. And I didn't even recognize her, but she recognized me. She said, "Your sister is here." And the one that was, well, they were all married by then, but she was pregnant when I last saw her. She lived very close to me where I was in the town that I went to high school. But she was shipped out of Hungary from a different ghetto. And I didn't see her. She was about eight months pregnant. And her husband was in the slave labor. And so I found her, and she looked terrible, and I said, "Well, what about the baby?" She said, "Oh, the baby died in the ghetto." "I couldn't even bury it, and I just wrote a tag on her, on him, when you find this baby, please... She named him after my brother who was killed in the service, and please bury this baby because we know that that didn't... probably didn't happen." And she was in both mentally and physically just horrible shape. And so I said, I'm like, oh my God, I was put here by God to take care of my sister. You know, I was 12 years younger. I became the adult and I fought for her. So I asked the reason I'm even telling you about what happened because my friend, I asked her, my hometown friend, to come with me and I need to take care of my sister. I have to move in with her and, you know, they couldn't possibly count the people alive or dead. I mean, it was just, it wasn't possible, so it didn't matter. So, like I said, I moved in with... to her barrack. And my friend would not come with me. She said, "Yeah, God put me here and..." I just, "this is my faith. I can't, I can't move my... I made some friends here. I just, I just can't. That was God's wish for me to be here." And so about... but I said, but we'll keep track of each other. I'll come and visit you and you come and visit me. And a couple of days later I went to her, my original barrack, and it was empty and I asked around other barracks or other people around and said, "Do you know what happened to these people?" And they said, "No, it's just, one night they just emptied the barracks. They needed the space for new arrivals." And of course I never heard from her. I... my son and my daughter, we both tried to find what happened to her through, you know, Internet. And they said that they do have her name in Auschwitz, that she perished, they don't know how. And you know, none of those people around my hometown: Jewish girls, that little family, the young girls, nobody ever came back. So the reason I'm telling you is that it just was just a chance that you lived or you died. And because I went moved in with my sister, I am alive. And if I had stayed in that barrack, I would not have been. So you know, in a way, my sister saved my life. By the way... so, and in a way, the baby saved her life because if she had the baby in her arm she would have gone to the gas chamber as well. So you know how your fortune is formed.

Everything is just, just what... what faith what how... But eventually then I stayed with her for, well I mean I stayed in Birkenau nine weeks and starved. We were just... hardly at any food, and our treatment was just horrible and our sanitation, you know... They had a huge... they dug a hole for a toilet, and with a piece of wood on top of it, and if we stayed on it too long, they would... we were hit all the time. And although we didn't work... but we were just in limbo, not knowing what our fate will be and still I did not believe that they are actually killing people. There are gas chambers, there was smoke. And one night I remember when we were even able to get out... the night that we heard a lot of yelling and after the night that the history shows that they killed all the gypsies and they knew where they were going because they were they worked at the gas chambers prior to that but they did not want to leave any witnesses. So because of the time element I will tell you that after nine weeks I was selected to go to... with a thousand other girls who I have a list of them as well. Maybe she's showing you. And we were transferred to West Germany. We worked in a munition factory. I was chiseling the poison out of bombs that did not explode and then refilled. It was a conveyor belt. We worked 12 hours, six days a week, and we were fed - I mean, we were always hungry - but they fed us because we worked. And those bombs were heavy, and we get around. Also, [we] inhaled the poison. We had no gloves or no masks at standing 12 hours a day. And, like I said, because of the time element, I will have to get to the – because I want to have some questions, I would like to have some questions - that we were there until March and then our commander called us into the yard and he said that the enemy is coming close. And, you know, by that time our hair was going on and it was purple, every which color. Our skin was yellow and we wouldn't have lasted very long by the way. And the food was getting scarce also, but he said, because of the enemies getting close, my staff and myself are going to leave the camp and go back into, more into, West Germany and you can come with us or you can scatter. And the 20 girls in my room that we became friends, we scattered, and most of us did. Some of us followed him, and we were – he warned us about even, about the German population and they were very... hate Jews, and be careful, and we existed for about a week on grass and something, whatever, we could pull out of the fields, we took for the forest and hid. And at night we would get out and eat in towns and rob chicken houses and take the eggs and ate them raw. And somehow we existed. And on April 1st, 1945, a group of American Air Force men, we saw them on the... in the distance, we wave to them, and they drove over to the field where we were hiding, and we were liberated by them. And I want to add to this that our commander, also history shows, that he had an order to to take us on a death march to Buchenwald, which was a hundred miles in the only working gas chamber. And to the gas chamber because they did not want to leave any witnesses. But that man, I owe, we all owe our lives to him, because 997 of us were liberated eventually. And only one died of natural causes and two of them were pregnant and they were sent back to the gas chambers to Auschwitz because you know this was a war camp. And of course I don't have to give you a lecture like I do to the kids about what happens when we discriminate, and how genocide happens, because we think that because somebody has a different color skin, or worship[s] differently, that we have a right to say this person should not be alive. And so... I don't have to speak to you like I do to the kids and because I think, I think you know, you know what happens when... when we... when we, you know... when we discriminate. It's happening now in a different form because the Holocaust was different because they built, actually, factories to kill people. But now it's a different method, but it's still going on. And I guess it's human nature because you read it in the Bible. Genocide is just a man's way of, evidently of, some evil peoples' way of living. So I also, usually for the kids, I quote something that I may have lost at this time. Yeah, I don't know if you have it, but if you, the quote from the Reverend, what is it on the? No, that one. Oh, the one other thing that she just served me reminding me that after liberation when I met one of my, when my sister found me, who was in Auschwitz at the same time. And she worked at the gas chambers, sorting clothes of the ones that they gassed. And the Germans needed all the clothes, you know, they were losing the war.

So she and this group of Hungarian Jewish women were put in this barrack where they were sorting clothes. And one night when she came home, one of her camp mates said, "I found this picture," which is on the screen now. And, "I think that's you in a man's overcoat. Today, so we know that was my dad's overcoat because that was my sister's wedding and my... it was in my dad's overcoat. So here I thought he was [unintelligible] death until she showed me this picture. I still believed and was saving sardines that I had so much of it because we worked at an air base, and we had a lot of... American air base... and we had a lot to eat. And we were getting care packages from this country. It was always for a lot of sardines, and I didn't like sardines, and my dad did. And it was such a delicacy and expensive at home. And so I was telling my sister when she found me, I said, "Look, what I saved for my dad." And she looked at me like I was crazy. And she said, "You were in Auschwitz, and you think you, our dad, is alive?" And then, you know, she showed me this picture. So with this, I think I'd better open for questions. I like, I hope you have some questions because I kind of skipped around because of the time so please don't be shy.

[Unintelligible]

Well, you know, I just got a new hearing aid and I still didn't... so I think I'll take it back because I still didn't hear you. What did she ask?

Who else in your family, if any, survived?

Who survived? Well, I was really, really fortunate because, of course, my dad. One brother who was killed in the fields. They put the Jewish laborers in front of the invading army of Germans and Hungarians who were trying to, excuse me, invade Russia. And their job was to find the field mines. And my one brother, and the brother-in- law, the husband of this sister, they both were killed that way. And of course, I had no cousins, aunts or uncles, or anybody, or classmates. I mean, we were just so fortunate that somehow or other we were a right age, evidently, because we all had to work. And that's how we survived. So like I said, that's very rare that that many of us, of course, now they're all gone, because I was... everything I missed. Anybody else?

How long was the train ride to Auschwitz?

Well, you know, I think it was about six, seven days... was long, very long. Maybe, if you have a few minutes yet, something that I guess I also want to mention, and not because, you know, that I want to give a lot of credit to the Germans, but Germany now is very different. And in 1991, I think, I got a letter from the mayor, I guess, of the town that we worked. And you did have a picture of the factory? And, and he was saying that they are organizing a reunion for us in in his town. And so, to make a long story short they... what happened is that this... that in 1991, those, that generation they were either children or grandchildren of the original people that were under Hitler. They were very curious because when they were kids, and usually in bed when our group walked through their cobblestone streets, made a lot of noise with our wooden shoes. And, you know, because there was split into two groups and the factory was open 24 hours. And there was, you know, several times that we walked through. In order to get to the factory, we had to walk through their town. And they remembered all the noise we made, and they were curious. They wanted to know from their parents, all their parents, who we were. These were people that were... by then the town has doubled, tripled, in size. And they were like, the principal of the high school, teachers and, you know, the leaders of town. And they got together and said, there was something going on because of all this noise when we were kids. And of course, the parents and grandparents were in complete denial. They didn't know anything about it. So they somehow, they went to Auschwitz, and they found this list that I do have with me. And I think she can show it probably. I don't know if it's in there or if it's belonging. But anyway, they found this list, and they raised money, and they decided to find us. And of course, by then, there were computers and internet and all that. And they didn't find all of us, but 333 of us. They offered us a plane fare and accommodations in their town. They wanted to have a reunion for us. Like I said, 333 of us went and we represented every continent. We scattered all over and you can imagine they rolled out the red carpet for us. How we were greeted, and it was like magic. They had a woman who served us food. They had tears in their eyes. They were They were asking us for forgiveness. So they even created, believe it or not, built a little museum in our honor. And there was a sculptress... sculptress between us who created this, and you can pass it around, this sculpture in front of the little building. And showing... it's like the boy stand that's sculptured, a boy holding up another boy. And even though this woman didn't know about that. But anyway, here's the picture of that. And with this little building attached to a townhouse or something to have some kind of official building. And the walls are, each of the four walls, with our names and things that they were able to collect because by then, the buildings were taken down where we lived. And so we toured the city and it was unbelievable. So again it proves that not everybody is evil. And, any questions?

Did you face discrimination when you came to the United States?

Very much so. In fact, so much so. To begin with, I met my husband who was from Council Bluffs. He was a pilot, a lieutenant. And because I worked in the officer's mess hall. Anyway, he asked me for a date and we fell in love and we wanted to get married. And because I was Jewish, they just put all kinds of roadblocks claiming that, you know, [for] whatever reason, I never passed, whatever... we would not get permission. In fact, they sent him home before his time was up. He was discharged. So he came home just before Christmas in December of 1946, and then his family, who were pretty influential in Council Bluffs, had tried everything through senators and congressmen to get me over here, and it took him six months. And by then, I think even German war brides were allowed to come. But there was definitely anti-Semitism in this country as well. And then, so he sent for me finally, when I got a visa in May of 1947, and I flew here and I met him. He met me in New York and then we got married and then came back to Council Bluffs, and on the train, he asked me to be a huge favor. He said, "Please don't tell anybody that you're Jewish. Don't tell you were in a concentration camp, because my family would not accept you. I want you to be treated well, and I don't want you to have to go through what you went through in Europe. And if we have any children, I don't want them to have to suffer like you did." And that was in 1947. And I, you know, I had no choice. You know, I know he meant well, and he wanted to protect me, and I didn't know anybody. I mean, where would I go? In the Midwest, I didn't know a soul. I had no choice, even though—so we had three children, and I did raise them. They went to church and baptized. And then when my kids, when they were teenagers—and also, by the way, it wasn't a story like in the, you know, because... not because of the religion, but we did... I did divorce him. We had other problems, lots of other problems. And then my kids were then, I think 12, 13, the oldest, and some of my, well, eventually, you know, I met another man after 15 years of being alone and raising my kids. And this man, he said, when he asked me to marry him, I said, "But I want to tell you that I am Jewish." And he said, "So?" And he was proud of the fact… what I went through, and of course he wasn't Jewish. And he was telling... you know, we got married eventually and he died a few years back, but he was a wonderful stepdad... and a wonderful husband and altogether different. He was proud of the fact who I was. And that's when I thought actually that I sort of came out and and I started speaking up and the World Herald picked up my story and had a front page and a long story in 19... '08 is when the World Herald found me or discovered me. But it's very different now. I will say that even to my... all my speaking Because I speak to children and adults, churches, and anybody who asks me. And I find that people are very different in this country and I hope things... and my faith is in the kids because they are really informed, they are so articulate. I'm just amazed of the high school kids; how knowledgeable they are, how eager they are to learn. The thank-you notes I get; how they will never forget the Holocaust or the discrimination. How they will live up to what I am about, what I am advising them to treat everybody alike. We are all God's children. And you know, we're all the same. Inside we're all the same. So I am very, very hopeful that our country will recover and that we will all treat each other like we would like to be treated. Anybody else? Thank you so much.