Personal stories

László Kiss: Auschwitz Diary

I lived in a village called Seregélyes near Székesfehérvár with my parents, my twin brother Endre (Bandi) and my sister Ági until 1944. My father, Mihály Kis had a tailor shop with his twin brother, Nándor (uncle Nándi). It was founded in 1852 by their grandfather - that is my great-grandfather. There were three children in uncle Nándor's family too: István, Zsuzsa and Hugó (Pubi). »

Magda H. László : Keepsake Album from the 20th Century

„In Paris, behind the Notre-Dame, in the middle of the Monument to the Deportations there is a flame with an inscription around it: They left and never returned. While on the exit it is written: Forgive but do not forget! Let it be so. ”»

Imre Rábai : Fractions - Confessions of a Maths Teacher

„... I am quite willing to tell what happened, because our generation is dying out. I myself am 80 years old. There are very few left who remember anything..” »

Lajos Erdélyi: Survival - Memories of a photographer

„... I think anyone who withholds or discards these experiences is really embittering the future. I know there will be no other Auschwitzes; there can't be. But inhumanity, indifference, impassiveness - these can recur. They do. Let us talk about my memories!" »

REMEMBER AND INTERNALIZE

by Mendel Waldman (survivor of Auschwitz, Saufenwasser, Dornhau and Shotterwerk - concentration camps)

"Many of my concentration camp memories were temporarily removed from my conscious thought, in part because of the wishful rejection and denial that such occurrences could have happened. It is also because of the God given gift of getting involved with the future, and not to be constantly dwelling upon the horrible past, which can sometimes hinder the important progress and accomplishments of life. However, after reading the book of camp-mate Erdeyil Lajos - "Survival", and seeing the sketches of Dr. Imre Hollo titled "Bottle-Mail For Posterity" (text by Erdeyil Lajos), flowed back like a tsunami. »

Ágnes Bartha: The Two of Us - Memories from Dunaföldvár, Budapest and Ravensbrück

„I always told Edit that we needed to survive so someone would speak about what had happened. And yet, when I came back, I couldn’t talk about these things. (…) It was Helmuth, who persuaded me that my memories had to be preserved. And now I know that he was right.” »

Péter Kutas: When Clouds Wept Blood... - Memories of a little boy from the Budapest ghetto

" Why do we need such writings...? We need these writing because authentic historical works focus on the extermination of the people and they never mention that eighty-year-old uncle Keller was taken by the beard and pulled all along between the benches of the Nagyfuvaros Street Synagogue."»

Zsuzsanna Ozsvath

From Country to Country:  My Search for Home

„And then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, I started to recognize that I was homeless and would  remain homeless for the rest of my life. While there were people who were kind and good to us, I  began to understand that I could never be free of my past…”