Katherine (Kitty) Williams

Date: August 13, 1944
Creator(s): Fahidi, Éva | Szapor, Judith
Format: book

The second youngest of eight children, Katherine (Kitty) Ehrenfeld was born in 1924 in Sáránd, Hungary. Kitty lost her mother as a young child, but her father did not remarry. Among the few Jewish families in the vicinity, they were only able to stave off antisemitic sentiment for so long. Kitty hid under the bed of her neighbor prior to confinement in the Sáránd and Nagyvárad ghettos. As was the fate of most Hungarian Jews in 1944, she was transported to Auschwitz with her father, who was immediately murdered. Four months later, Kitty was moved to Allendorf concentration camp, where she was forced to work with toxic chemicals and chisel powder out of undetonated bombs until her liberation on April 1, 1945. Six of her siblings survived the war. Kitty married a United States serviceman and emigrated to Council Bluffs, lowa, in 1947. She raised three children and worked for US Bank, where she became a Vice President. "The U.S. not only liberated me from the camps but gave me and other survivors the opportunity for a new life. We worked hard not to be a burden in this country, and we left Europe with nothing." Hear Kitty's testimony in her own words.