Watch subtitled clips from the Archive

• 

  Ágnes Kun on the Budapest Ghetto

  Language: Hungarian

  Ágnes describes ghettoization procedures in Budapest in 1944 and explains how she was able to stay with her mother during a selection conducted by Hungary’s Arrow Cross party members.
• 

  György Kármán

  Language: Hungarian

  
  

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Hungarian

  György Kármán recalls the antisemitic treatment he received from non-Jewish students in the high school he attended in Szeged, Hungary, during the war, and explains how his teacher reacted to the students’ derogatory remarks.

  Bio

  György Kármán was born in 1933 in Szeged, Hungary. He was 11 years old when all the Jews of Szeged were forced into a local ghetto. Several months later, György was deported to the Weitra concentration camp in Austria, and then transferred to concentration camps in Strasshof and Schützenberg.  After the war, he became a well-known musician: an organist and pianist.
• 

  Jaime Vandor

  Language: Spanish

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Spanish

  Jaime Vandor remembers March 19, 1944, the day the Germans invaded Hungary. He states he was taking a walk with his mother, Anna Vandor, on one of the main streets of Budapest when they ran into his father’s cousin who was then living in the smaller town of Mágocs. This cousin invited Jaime and his brother Enrique to come live with her family in Mágocs, which she considered safer for the Jews than Budapest at the time. Instead, Jaime Vandor explains that the very opposite took place. Most of his extended family members living in Mágocs were rounded up and deported to concentration camps, where they perished.

  Bio

  Jaime Vandor was born on February 26, 1933, in Vienna, Austria. Along with his brother and parents, he fled to Budapest, Hungary, in 1939. During the Holocaust, he lived in one of the Yellow Star Houses and later in a Protected House after his mother was able to obtain Protection Papers from the Spanish Legation in Budapest. The Protection Papers were issued with the help of rescuer Angel Sanz-Briz, the chargé d’affaires (government official) at the Spanish Embassy in Budapest. The process was facilitated by the fact that Jaime’s father was living in Spain at the time. Jaime Vandor was liberated when the Soviet armed forces entered Budapest in January 1945.
• 

  Chana Rosenberg

  Language: French

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: French

  Incarcerated in the forced labor camp of Wolanów, Poland, Chana worked in the kitchen of the men’s camp. It’s from this place that she witnessed a German killing the companion of a woman she knew. She reflects on the initial images of horror witnessed in the camp, and remembers them as those that shook her the most.

  Bio

  Chana Rosenberg was born in 1930 in Szydlowiec, Poland. Soon after the German invasion of Poland in 1939, she was deported to a forced labor camp in Wolanów and then transferred to a concentration camp in Blizyn. When the camp population was evacuated in July 1944, Chana and her mother were transferred to Auschwitz and then to concentration camps in Germany, Ravensbrück and Malchow. They were freed by the Soviet armed forces while being transferred from Malchow on a forced march in spring 1945. After the war, the two women were reunited with Chana’s father and one of Chana’s brothers. The family settled in Lyon, France. After working in a family-owned clothing store, Chana became a therapist.
• 

  Alina Margolis Edelman

  Language: Polish

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Polish

  Alina Margolis and her friend were hidden under false identity in a Polish family. The family was nationalistic and when the father of this family discovered that his neighbors’ nanny was hiding two little Jewish boys under the terrace he decided to hand them over to the Germans.

  Bio

  Alina Margolis-Edelman was born on April 18, 1922, in Łódź, Poland, in a prominent intellectual family. Shortly after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Alina's father, political activist, was arrested by the Gestapo and executed two months later. Alina's mother sent Alina to extended family in Warsaw where she was soon confined—along with the other Jews—to the Warsaw ghetto. While in the ghetto, Alina attended the Nursing School of the Jewish Hospital. She was able to periodically leave the ghetto and hid in non-Jewish homes. In hiding, Alina befriended several Jewish resistance fighters and took part in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. During the 1944 Warsaw Polish Uprising, she worked as a nurse. After the liberation, Alina completed her medical education and married fellow survivor, commander in the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ZOB) Marek Edelman. The couple had two children, Aleksander and Anna. In the wake of antisemitic actions by the Communist Polish authorities in 1968, Alina and her two children emigrated from Poland to France. After the war, Alina was active in philanthropic work; she was one of the founders of the Doctors without Borders Foundation and the Doctors of the World Foundation, helping children—victims of war and hunger all over the world. She died in Paris in 2008.
• 

  Stella Madej

  Language: Polish

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Polish

  Stella's father was responsible for collecting dead bodies from the streets in the Cracow ghetto during WWII. When Stella’s grandfather died a natural death in the ghetto, he buried his father, then came home, and shared his feelings about it with the family.

  Bio

  Stella Madej (née Miller) was born in 1930 in Cracow, Poland, in a family that had a business in real estate. Her father was a Polish patriot, member of Pilsudski battalions. When the war started in Poland and all Jews of Cracow were forced into a ghetto, Stella's father became a ghetto policeman. He tried to help people as much as he could and was very much respected. Following liquidation of the Crakow ghetto, Stella and her family were deported to the Krakau-Plaszow labor camp. While in the camp, Stella worked in a factory owned by Oscar Schindler. When the family was transferred to the Auschwitz II-Birkenau death camp in fall 1944, Schindler was able to have them released and transferred to the Brünnlitz labor camp in Czechoslovakia. Stella was liberated in Brünnlitz by the Soviet armed forces in May 1945. Stella and her family survived the Holocaust and returned to Cracow after the liberation.
• 

  Gábor Verő

  Language: Hungarian

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Hungarian

  Gábor Verő recalls the brutal treatment his brother endured from a Ukrainian kapo (prisoner who worked inside of camps) at the Ebensee concentration camp in Austria.  He describes his brother’s death shortly before liberation.

  Bio

  Gábor Verő was born in 1925 in Békéscsaba, Hungary, to an Orthodox Jewish family. In 1944, he was deported to the Auschwitz II-Birkenau death camp in Poland and subsequently transferred to concentration camps in Falkenberg, Germany, and Ebensee, Austria. Gábor was liberated by the U.S. armed forces in Ebensee in 1945. After the war, he worked as a historian, lecturer, and director of Hungary’s National Archives; and was appointed Vice President of the Holocaust Documentation Center Public Foundation in 2004.
• 

  Simon Drucker

  Language: French

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: French

  Interned in the camp of Beaune-la-Rolande (France) after the Vélodrome d’Hiver roundup, Simon witnessed the deportation of his mother at the beginning of August 1942. He describes the difficulty that his mother experiences in being separated from her children. Some days later, Simon’s brother was deported. His mother and brother were gassed upon arrival in Auschwitz.

  Bio

  Simon Drucker was born in 1924 in Paris, France, in a Jewish family of Polish origin. Engaged in the French Foreign Legion during the outbreak of the war, Simon’s father was arrested in June 1942 and deported to Auschwitz, where he died. On July 16, 1942, Simon, his mother, and his young brother were arrested during the Vélodrome d’Hiver roundup. Interned in the camp of Beaune-la-Rolande, he witnessed the deportation of his mother and his brother. He was also deported and incarcerated in eleven concentration and extermination camps. Simon lost all of his family members during the Holocaust. In 1948, he left France to fight in Israel’s War of Independence. He returned to France in 1949.
• 

  Elena Boguslavsky

  Language: Spanish

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Spanish

  In 1941, Elena Boguslavsky was placed in the home of a Catholic Polish family, with whom she lived under false identity during the war. Prior to his death, Elena’s father would periodically come to visit the family, but was careful not expose her Jewish identity by treating Elena the same way he did the other children. Her biological parents, Michal and Raja Blacher, went into hiding nearby Vilna, but both perished during the war. Elena once asked the Polish family about her father and was told not to cry, but that he had died. She did not, would not cry then and, as a result, cannot do so to this day.

  Bio

  Elena Boguslavsky was born on June 4, 1934, in Vilna, Poland, to Michal and Raja Blacher. During the Holocaust, she lived under false identity with a Catholic Polish family, until the end of the war in Vilna and later in Lida, then Poland.  She stayed with her adoptive family until 1947 in Zoppot, Poland. She was then retrieved by her paternal aunt with whom she lived in Lódz, Poland, until her immigration to Israel in 1949. She later made her way to Mexico, where she joined a maternal uncle.
• 

  Mirgazim Sabirov

  Language: Russian

  Rescuer, WW2

  Interview language: Russian

  Born June 29, 1928, in Kyiv, in what was then the Soviet Union, Mirgazim Sabirov was a teenager when he and his family rescued a Jewish family during the mass executions at Babi Yar. His family was not a part of an underground resistance or rescue group but acted alone. The atrocity at Babi Yar claimed the lives of 100,000 men, women, and children.
• 

  Edward Heuberger

  Language: Portuguese

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Portuguese

  Edward Heuberger, was transferred to the Brünnlitz Concentration Camp, Czechoslovakia, in 1944. He recalls his arrival at the camp and describes the improved living conditions as well as the favorable working environment provided to the Jewish prisoners at Oskar Schindler’s factory. There, he was in charge of about 30 Jewish prisoners whose job was to assemble the machinery brought in from Schindler’s munitions factory in Cracow, Poland.  He remembers Emilie Schindler, the wife of Oskar Schindler, and speaks of her efforts to obtain medication for the small hospital she set up within the camp in Brünnlitz.

  Bio

  Edward Heuberger was born on January 4, 1914, in Cracow, Austria-Hungary, now Poland. During the Holocaust, he was ghettoized in late 1941 and lived in the Cracow Ghetto until 1942. He was then deported to the Krakau-Plaszow Concentration Camp, Poland, where he performed forced labor in metal works under difficult living conditions. In 1944, Edward Heuberger was transferred, by way of the Gross Rosen Concentration camp, Germany, to the Brünnlitz Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia. There, under improved living conditions, he worked in Oskar Schindler’s factory installing the machines brought in from Schindler’s factory in Cracow. Edward Heuberger was liberated by the Soviet armed forces in May 1945.
• 

  Augusta Glaz

  Language: Portuguese

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Portuguese

  In 1944, Augusta Glaz was interrogated for 5 days by the Gestapo in Brussels, Belgium, where she was brutally treated. She was then taken to the Mechelen Concentration Camp, also known as Malines, where she was placed in an underground bunker built especially for female political prisoners. There, she remained for 30 days. Once, Augusta was interrogated again and was severely beaten on the side of her head, on the ears, but she still did not divulge any information about her fellow partisans. She would think of well-known writers and of books she had read in order to remain awake and retain her memory as well as her sanity from day to day.

  Bio

  Augusta Glaz was born on January 3, 1924, in Antwerp, Belgium. She was a member of the Belgian resistance and was involved with, Le Drapeau Rouge (The Red Flag), an underground publication, and the White Brigade, a resistance group based in Antwerp, Belgium. Following her release from incarceration from the Mechelen Concentration Camp in 1943, she resumed her anti-Nazi political activities until her arrest by the Gestapo in Brussels, Belgium, in 1944. She was taken back to the Mechelen Concentration Camp, where she was placed in an underground bunker as a Jewish political prisoner. There, she was brutally beaten. After spending 30 days in the camp, she was liberated by the British armed forces in September 1944.
• 

  Piero Terracina

  Language: Italian

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Italian

  Piero Terracina recalls January 1945 in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where he witnessed SS guards leaving the camp. Upon their return, he was forced to participate in a death march where he managed to escape his wardens and seek refuge in Auschwitz I. On January 27, 1945, he recalls the first arrival of the Soviet armed forces in the camp and describes the first inmates' reaction to the liberators.

  Bio

  Piero Terracina was born in Rome on November 13, 1928, the fourth child of Giovanni Terracina and Lidia Anticoli. His observant Jewish family lived in Rome for generations. The family's life changed following the Racial Laws of 1938, Italy’s entrance into the war in 1940, the Armistice on September 8, 1943, and the Nazi occupation of Northern Italy and Rome. After escaping the raid of the Rome Ghetto on October 16, 1943 and the subsequent round-ups, Piero’s family was identified by an informer and captured. All the members of the family were transferred first to the Fossoli internment camp near Modena, and then deported to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Piero’s parents and grandparents were sent to the gas chambers upon arrival. His siblings, Cesare, Leo, and Anna, were transferred to other camps, where they perished. Piero was liberated in Auschwitz in 1945. He was the only member of his family that survived the Holocaust.
• 

  Ana Benkel de Vinocur

  Language: Spanish

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Spanish

  Ana Benkel de Vinocur describes her first impressions of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp upon arrival from the Lódz Ghetto in May 1944. She remembers her reaction when the heavy doors of the deportation train opened and she saw prisoners, in striped uniforms, bald, looking like skeletons. She speaks of the seizure of all her belongings and of a selection process in which she remained with her mother, but was separated from her father and brother.

  Bio

  Ana Benkel de Vinocur was born on September 25, 1926, in Lódz, Poland. Ana and her family members moved to the Lódz Ghetto in 1940, where they lived under very difficult conditions until their deportation to the Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1944. She was later transferred to the Stutthoff Concentration Camp in Danzig (FC), where she remained until her transfer by ship, on the Baltic Sea, toward Germany. She was liberated in Kiel, Germany, in early May 1945.
• 

  György Kis

  Language: Hungarian

  Rescuer, WW2

  Interview language: Hungarian

  György Kis, a Catholic priest, rescuer of Jews during the Holocaust, speaks about the power and influence of propaganda.

  Bio

  György Kis was born in 1914 in Adony, Hungary. His family was of Jewish origin, but his grandparents had converted to Catholicism well before the turn of the twentieth century. György was raised in a religious Catholic spirit and became a Catholic priest. During the Holocaust, he participated in rescue and aid giving activities to Jewish people. After the war, he was subject to persecution by the Hungarian communist authorities.
• 

  Miriam Nekrycz

  Language: Portuguese

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Portuguese

  Miriam Nekrycz describes the first few days upon arrival with her family at the Luck Ghetto, Poland, in 1941. She remembers the inadequate housing accommodations and the overcrowded conditions in which her family lived. She also recalls the extreme cold weather and the pervasive hunger in the ghetto due to lack of food. As a result, her mother had to barter the family possessions in exchange for some food brought in by the local populace who came to pray at the Catholic Church located inside the ghetto.

  Bio

  Miriam Nekrycz was born on July 1, 1932, in Luck, Poland. In 1941, she was taken to the Luck Ghetto, where she lived under difficult conditions with her mother and her younger brothers. Miriam was able to make her way to the surrounding forest following her escape from the Luck Ghetto in 1942. She was then sheltered by a Polish aid giver in nearby Rokinie Nowe, Poland. While in the forest in Luck, Miriam Nekrycz witnessed a mass execution of Jews, in which her mother and brothers perished. Her father also perished in the Holocaust. Miriam lived under false identity until her liberation by the Soviet armed forces in 1944.
• 

  Éva Székely

  Language: Hungarian

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Hungarian

  Éva explains how she survived a roundup of Jews by Hungary’s Arrow Cross party members in Budapest in winter 1944. A young Hungarian Nazi came to take Eva, but spared her at the last minute due to Eva's father's quick thinking. Years after the war, she encountered the man again, this time as a high-ranking political police officer in then-Communist Hungary.

  Bio

  Éva Székely was born in 1927 in Budapest, Hungary. During the Holocaust, she served in Hungarian forced labor battalions and lived in protected houses in Budapest. Already in the 1940s she was a very talented swimmer, winner of many championships. After the war, she won the gold medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, and the silver medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.
• 

  Věra Saudková

  Language: Czech

  Jewish Holocaust Survivor

  Interview language: Czech

  Věra's mother was Otylie, Franz Kafka's sister. But the family never knew what a famous writer Franz would become many years after his death.

  Bio

  Věra Saudková was born in 1921 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, into a family of intellectuals, a "mixed marriage" according to the Nazi laws. Věra survived the war while watching the entire Jewish part of the family disappear: first into the Terezin ghetto, and then into the unknown. She still feels much affected by the Holocaust.