Holocaust Survivor: Esther (Magdi) Unger (nee Fried)

Born 1928 in Sarret Udvari, Hungary. Effects of antisemitic policy on Jewish life from 1938. Extremist-antisemitic Nyilasok gangs attack Jews. Corresponds with cousin in Hungarian labor unit, May 1944. Nagyvarad ghetto. Auschwitz Birkenau, Ravensbrveik, Berlin- Scheinolz, Reinickendorf camp till April 1945. Death march to Sachsenhausen and Freienstadt till liberation. Attitude of Russians. To Budapest via Dresden and Prague. Father's fate. Bnai Akiva training camp in Hungary till move to Israel, June 1948.

Between trepidation and hope

Our family's daily life fluctuated between trepidation and hope. My parents read in the newspapers about the situation on the Russian front and about the Russian Army's rapid advance. They thought this might be our salvation. In fact, that wasn't far from the truth. We stayed in the house and spoke a great deal about the situation of the Jews. At long last I squeezed a promise out of my father that when the war was over we wouldn't go on living in Hungary we would go to Eretz Yisrael. I was 16. The previous winter, a close relationship had developed between me and my cousin Erno Berkovits. So it was only natural that we should write to each other when he was taken to the forced-labor camp. I managed to save one of his letters to me... Let's go back to Papa's fate and how our correspondence was found. My father was taken to a forced-labor camp four days before we were taken to the Nagyvarad ghetto. We got to say goodbye to each other at the railroad station. My father was released from the Hungarian forced-labor camp in September 1944 and died on Shevat 12, 5705-January 26, 1945 from a beating by the Russian "liberators." When the war ended, I went back to my native village. My heart pounded as I entered our house... I had no illusions... All I could hear was the voices of my dear ones echoing in that desolation... Papa had managed to fix up the house a bit for the surviving family members... Even my sewing-machine was among the items my father retrieved from the Gentile homes, and I managed to bring it along to Israel; I still have it. ...I roamed from room to room... In one room there was a solitary couch, on which my father, of blessed memory, had spent his nights... I remembered dear Papa, whom our whole family had loved so...and in the end had died alone, with no one at his bedside. Incidentally, he received the postcard I sent from Auschwitz care of neighbors. There were feathers all over my room. Hostile hands must have looked for valuables... I groped amid the feathers and found an envelope containing the letter of my cousin Erno and also the letter I had sent him. At that time I didn't fully appreciate the value of those letters. I have kept them as living mementoes of those times: "Dear Magda! In your letter you write that you never thought that this is what life would be like. I can say the same. Life has its disappointments. Life's disappointments or so we at least hope turn into pleasanter things. All we can do is believe and hope that everything will turn out all right. We mustn't lose `Hope' "Tikva" [the name of the Zionist hymn, today the Israeli national anthem]." And my letter: "Dear Erno! Your letter found us at home, thank God. I can't tell you how delighted we are when evening comes, giving us a chance to relax a bit. You probably also want to hear some good news, not just bad news, but I have no words of comfort at all to write you. `Let's have no illusions,' you write in your last letter. But that's all we have left. At such a time we at least forget a little. The thought of leaving for the ghetto is with us constantly. I can't decide which of my effects to take along. The thought that we'll have to leave everything behind is a painful one. You wrote that the torrent swept you along. Now it has swept us, too. The question is: will we stay afloat, or will we sink? God only knows. But we go on hoping the only thing keeping us alive is hope."

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