WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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-I was born in Czechoslovakia,
in a small town,

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Nové Zámky,

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which became Hungary in 1939.

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I was ten years old in 1939.

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I lived in this little town

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with my whole family living
on the same street practically,

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my grandparents,
my uncles, aunts, cousins.

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Then came to Passover dinner,

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we were 25, 30 of us around
my grandparents' Passover table.

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This started to come
to an end after '39.

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My father's business license
was taken away.

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He was a small businessman
with a couple of horses

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and flatbed wagon.

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He was the moving man of this town.

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He was forced to move out of town

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and took the family
outskirts of Budapest.

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I stayed behind with my grandparents
to finish my elementary education.

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In 1943,

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I said goodbye
to my family in Nové Zámky.

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I didn't know that was
the last time I ever saw them,

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because they all perished
in the Holocaust.

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I went up to Budapest
and joined my family,

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my two sisters, my mother and father.

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My father got a job over
there in a paper mill

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and I went up to Budapest
when I was 14 years old.

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By the time I was 14 years old,

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my father took me to a machine shop
because he said

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Jewish children were not allowed
higher education.

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He took me to a machine shop,
I became an apprentice machinist

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and with that I started learning
the trade because my father said,

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''You have to learn something
to be able to support yourself.''

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I became
an apprentice machinist.

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Things rapidly started deteriorating
for Jews especially.

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My father was taken
into the forced labor camp

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and my mother

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and my two sisters
were ordered to go into the ghetto,

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which was established

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by the biggest manufacturing plant
outskirts of Hungary,

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outskirts of Budapest.

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I was living
in the ghetto very shortly

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after they took
my sister to a factory,

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where she was--

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They put up barrack-like situation
for Jewish workers,

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so my mother
and my little eight-year-old sister

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lived in the ghetto.

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We were there maybe
less than a month

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when a militia man
with an arrow cross on his arm,

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which was similar
to the Swastika in Hungarian style,

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ordered us to pack
because we were going

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to be taken away
some place to work.

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They didn't know
when we will be coming back.

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We packed.

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What do you pack
when they say

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you might never come back?

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We packed some
of our belongings,

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what we can carry.

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I remember my eight-year-old sister
grabbed her little doll;

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that was very important for her.

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Two days later,
just in front of the ghetto,

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we were taken to the railroad station

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and we were taken
to an abandoned brick factory,

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where we spread out under the dryers

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and everywhere that we can find space.

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Then 4,000 people were
assembled in this brick factory.

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They were put in cattle cars

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and we were ordered up
on these cattle cars

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with our little belongings,

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a half-barrel for necessities
in the middle of the cattle car.

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The doors were shut

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and we were on our way,

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we didn't know what destination.

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I don't know if you want me
to go ahead with the story.

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We were locked into this cattle car.

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It was July 1944.

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It was hot in this cattle car;
we were changing space by the four,

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a little barbed wire
window for fresh air.

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At night,
half of us were able to squat down,

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the rest of us standing
and we changed.

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This is the condition
we arrived to Auschwitz.

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We were ordered out
of the cattle car.

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Some of the older people
never made it.

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They started selecting
able-bodied men, women,

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children with their mothers
and old people separately.

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Between the railroad
cars of Auschwitz,

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between the railroad tracks
of Auschwitz,

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I saw my mother

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and my little sister the last time.

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I was pushed
between the able-bodied man

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and as I looked back,

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my mother turned her head away
and my little sister gave me

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a faint wave.

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That the last time that I saw them.

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I stayed in Auschwitz
because in one occasion

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a guard came in
and asked for workers.

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I don't know why
my hand went up

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and, boy, I thought I lucked out.

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For the next three months
I was working in a kitchen

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cutting potatoes
into squares

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and shredding cabbage for sauerkraut.

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I was able to snitch some
of the raw stuff that I can muster down.

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It helped me survive.

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April 29, the Seventh Army
liberated Dachau.

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It was my most glorious day
of my life.

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We laughed
and cried at the same time.

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Liberation was beautiful
and almost unbelievable.

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We got plenty of food.

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I remember getting
a small can of corn beef,

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eating sparingly, a spoon at a time
and a couple of spoons at meal times,

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and that was my luck.

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It's not because
I was smarter or better;

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I just wasn't sure
if I'd get another one.

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Some people who ate too much
of the rich food never made it.

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By this time the medics wised up
and we were taken to Field Hospital,

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this time a real hospital.

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I went back to Budapest,

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I went to the factory
where my sister was encamped.

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One of the fellows told me,

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''Your sister was taken
to the railroad station from here,''

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and later when I was reunited
with my sister,

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she told me her story.

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When they were taken by groups,
walking towards the railroad station,

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a street car came by
and she jolted out of the line

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and jumped up on
the moving street car.

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The conductor opened the door for her

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and saw the yellow star.

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He tore off her yellow star
and pulled her up.

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My sister went into Budapest

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and put herself up
as a bombed out country girl

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with no papers

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in served for a gentile family
as a maid,

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'til the end of the war; so she survived.

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My father survived
on the Russian front.

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When the Nazis were pushed back,
he hid and came back

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behind the line.

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He was back in Budapest
by the end of January 1945,

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I was still laboring
in Landsberg on a big project.

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We three of us survived.

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Besides them,
only two cousins of mine lived.

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Reuniting with part
of my family was incredibly beautiful.

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In 1956 I met my wife
and after a long courtship,

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exactly 59 days, we were married.

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That's when we decided that
we want to raise our family in freedom.

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When the revolution
was going on in 1956,

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Christmas Eve,

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we crossed over to Austria
in the deep snow with my father

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and my stepmother.

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My father remarried by then.

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We crossed over to Austria.

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They were shooting flares up,

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the Russian border guards.

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We covered ourselves with sheets.

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This is how we arrived to Austria.

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From then on,

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we were able to get
into the American consulate.

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Because my stepmother's son
came out of the camps in 1946

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and settled in Portland,

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we were able to come
on his acceptance visa

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to the United States
and settled in Portland.

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We have to live
and accept each other,

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no matter what
is our ethnicity or color.

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All our blood is red

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and we have to accept each other.