On 30th April 1944, they took us away, and on 2nd May, we arrived in Birkenau [today Poland]. They told us they were taking us to work, and the old people would go to special treatment. They didn’t say where, just that it was in Germany.
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Lilly Lovenberg
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At the beginning of April 1944, the constables [7] came for us, stopped a wagon at our gate, and we had to get into it. The whole family went: first my father, then Mother, then me.
They took us to the Beregszasz ghetto. We were on the grounds of a brick factory.
They took us to the Beregszasz ghetto. We were on the grounds of a brick factory.
When the Germans entered Hungary [see German Invasion of Hungary] [6], it was put up that every Jew had to put five days of food together, and to be in readiness by a certain time. I already told you that Moric got a hernia from the hard work. I’d never seen anyone so tortured in my life, as my brother was then.
I was still in Hetyen in 1942, and was still teaching tailoring, but I had to stop because racism really started then.
Before the deportations, I started to work, in 1942. In Beregszasz, I learned to tailor and I taught tailoring, because Uncle Samu, the exceptionally big Zionist, said, ‘No diplomas, learn a trade, because in Israel that’s what is important.’ So I learned a trade and continued to do it. The Jewish laws affected everything, our whole lives. The educational ones meant I couldn’t continue my tailoring classes. I had been learning to sew for a year, and tailoring with a famous seamstress.
There were many Zionist organizations in Beregszasz, and I went to the Somer [see Hashomer Hatzair] [5]. It was so centrist.
We were playing on the road with a little boy, with black, broken stones which were to be used to fix the dirt roads, when these cars came by. They said, ‘Oh my, the border re-alignment is today.’ That was in 1921. They separated Tiszakerecseny. We were also on the borderline, on the Czech side.
Our house in Hetyen had three bedrooms, a big veranda and a big yard.
There were 150 residents in Hetyen. It was a small village, but pretty. There were only three Jewish families in Hetyen.
I was raised in a decent, religious family. My parents taught me every tradition. Our household was kosher. I went to cheder, and learned to pray. I liked Pesach the best because we had special dishes.
My father had only lived in Hetyen, before they took him to Auschwitz. He started working when he was fourteen, and got together enough money to buy 40 hold of land in Hetyen. My father, my brothers Moric and Gyula, as well as our coachman took part in World War I. While they were there, my mother had to look after her other four children and the farm.
My husband departed from us on 24th September 2002. We buried him in accordance with the Jewish traditions in the Jewish cemetery.
Since 1978, we’ve lived in Budapest. I found work immediately. First at the waterworks, I worked for half a year, then at the Gas Company, where I worked for sixteen years as an accountant.
He stayed there for ten years. Later, we appealed, but for nothing. When Stalin died [1953], they examined the documents and found it was a false suit; they overturned it and made restitution. After four years, he came home, and became employed as a buyer. I was in health work, for twelve years altogether.
Life went on, hard times came, my husband found a job. He got a position at the financial department, collecting taxes in the village. He was a very intelligent man, he became the notary. Then they reported on my husband. An attorney came out to investigate the report.
When I got married, Bela Tot, the self-proclaimed owner of my house, emptied the kitchen, so that we could use one room and a kitchen. My husband was on his way to Beregszasz, when a man he knew stopped him. He said he’d found a wallet in the grass, with documents in it that were Bela Tot’s. My husband took it, and brought it home. He looked into the documents.
Well, the fascist committee had given him the use of the house. We went to a lawyer, and he told us we had to sign over the papers from my father’s name to mine. It was an immensely great feeling, when I closed the door that night. That’s how I got my house back. Then we got children.
Well, the fascist committee had given him the use of the house. We went to a lawyer, and he told us we had to sign over the papers from my father’s name to mine. It was an immensely great feeling, when I closed the door that night. That’s how I got my house back. Then we got children.
On 19th March 1946, there was a chuppah in the courtyard of the Beregszasz synagogue. My wedding dress was partially made from a Red Cross package. I bought little pieces to go with it.
He finished eight years of elementary school, and graduated from the commerce school in Beregszasz. By the time we got married, my husband was taking me to school after work. ‘You always take me to school, why don’t you enroll?’ I told him. He did, and we graduated together.
I soon met my husband, a very handsome boy, but very poor. We met in Beregszasz. A family who had relatives of my relatives in Ungvar brought us together. They told me to go to him, and that he wasn’t a debauched man. He was 32, and wasn’t married.
Then I got married. After liberation, Hetyen became part of the Soviet Union, and we became Soviets, those laws were valid for us. At that time, they said, ‘The land belongs to the one who works for it.
As for those who we had given valuables and money, they returned everything: Gabor Suto was a respectable landowner. When they started taking the crops from the Jews, he even arranged for two wagons of wheat to be put at his place, to give back to them when this thing was over. That’s what happened. After the war, he brought back the full crop.
When I went home, a villager was living in our house. When they took the Jews away, they divided up their [the Jews’] homes. He’d been given ours. He said it was his house, they had given it to him, but he agreed to empty one of the rooms for me and give me lunch.
When we arrived in Budapest, we went to Sip Street [Budapest Jewish Community], and they gave us proof on the basis of our tattoos, which showed when we arrived there and what our numbers were. That was our first identification. My number is here on my left arm: A-6742. We went to the accommodation for the camp victims, and then went to visit my cousin who had returned home.
We showed him our identification cards, the proof we got in Malchow that we were in the camp. He collected them from all of us, then he said he’d give them back unless we paid for our tickets. We didn’t have any money. He took everybody’s identification, so we arrived home, and nobody had proof that they had been in the camp.
I went home alone, it was terrible. In July, I went back with the three Jickovics sisters. Around then, there were train robberies, and they knew that the Jews were all taking back something with them, and then they broke into the next car, and totally robbed the men there. A boy came with us, who was also from Hetyen, with his three female cousins, and escorted us home. He sat by the window, in case somebody tried to climb in there, he’d stop them. That’s how we didn’t get robbed.
She said, ‘Your sister would have died already, but she couldn’t. She was always calling for you, Lilly, and Moric, her brother. She waited so badly for you.’ When I went back the next day, she had died of typhus, and the water filled her up. She was full of water. The local Jewish community office buried her in Prague, in the new Jewish cemetery, in row 13.
There was only a little sugar left, I found a rag and put the sugar in it. Then an SS in a coat stepped in and said, ‘How dare you come in here?’ And pointed his gun to shoot me. But they weren’t allowed to shoot us by that time. Germany had already fallen. This was the beginning of May, in 1945. On 2nd May I was liberated.
They didn’t give us food. We were very hungry. Hunger was terribly strong. I went to the trash can, looking for horse bones, because there was a little meat here or there on them. Then an SS woman came and started to whip me. But I didn’t care about the whipping, I took that bone. That bone meant life. I washed it as well as I could, cut off what I could, that was food. I was reduced to 38-40 kilograms.
We got an order not to sleep two on a bed. But there was no heating, it was cold. My sister lay down next to me. We put the blankets together, and then an SS woman came in, and saw my older sister laying there. How did she know that it was her who had come over and not me? She pulled my sister down.
Grabbed the wide whip from her waist, and started thrashing her back. ‘You obey orders! You aren’t allowed to sleep there!’ She beat my sister’s back bloody. Everybody swooned, they couldn’t stand to look. The poor thing survived that too, and we survived it, but it’s impossible to forget. A week later, further transport arrived. Then they ordered us: two to one bed. A week earlier that was exactly what they had beaten her back bloody for.
We got an order not to sleep two on a bed. But there was no heating, it was cold. My sister lay down next to me. We put the blankets together, and then an SS woman came in, and saw my older sister laying there. How did she know that it was her who had come over and not me? She pulled my sister down.
Grabbed the wide whip from her waist, and started thrashing her back. ‘You obey orders! You aren’t allowed to sleep there!’ She beat my sister’s back bloody. Everybody swooned, they couldn’t stand to look. The poor thing survived that too, and we survived it, but it’s impossible to forget. A week later, further transport arrived. Then they ordered us: two to one bed. A week earlier that was exactly what they had beaten her back bloody for.
Then when one machine broke down, a worker came to fix it, who was French, and he always sang. And in his song, he let us know that we shouldn’t be scared, we would soon be free, because the front was coming. There was nobody there who could have told us that.
We worked everyday, we left and we came back. Twelve hours of work a day, but we had to keep the place tidy when the other shift came in. We worked two weeks day shift, and two weeks night shift. That went on for quite a while.
We worked everyday, we left and we came back. Twelve hours of work a day, but we had to keep the place tidy when the other shift came in. We worked two weeks day shift, and two weeks night shift. That went on for quite a while.
After that, they assigned us to work in a munitions factory. We had to go on foot a long way, eight to ten kilometers. In the morning, we got a cup of black coffee, and 20 dekagrams [7oz.] of bread. At the work place, where we were assigned, we went into a long, enormous, indiscernible forest, a terribly long way, but you couldn’t tell anywhere on the road, where we were. We went underground, below the forest. There was a huge munitions factory under the whole forest, 58 bunkers.