Holocaust Survivor: Hanna Shimoni (nee Gottdiener)

Born 1936 in Debrecen, Hungary. (Named Judith at birth and so called till coming to Eretz Yisrael, when sister registered her as Hanna, which is the name in all her documents.) In Debrecen till German entry. In ghetto, then to brick factory. Train journey to Slovakia, June 1944, and return to Strasshof, Austria. Her family and another one at farm near Heidenreichstein, Austria, July-September 1944. Father dies of illness. Back to Strasshof, then month's work in children's clothing factory, autumn 1944. In Bergen-Belsen, till evacuation in April 1945. At Hilersleben after liberation. Family splits up: children go to Eretz Yisrael and elder members go to Hungary to seek kin. Shimoni with mother in displaced-persons' camp in Belgium, then in uncle's home in France. To Eretz Yisrael as "legal" immigrant, September 1945.

"We shall never separate"

At the end of Passover we were transferred to the Debrecen ghetto. The problems of supporting ourselves had begun before. From the Debrecen period, I especially remember the son of the concierge of the building in which we lived. The building had once been a hotel. Below was a large compound. The concierge's son always scared me. Whenever I wanted to go in, I made sure to do so together with some adult.

When things got bad, our family made up that whenever one of us came home, we would whistle a special signal. We lived in an atmosphere of constant suspicion and fear. When the Germans entered Debrecen, they set up their command post in the building opposite, and we hung blankets over the windows, so they shouldn't see what we were doing.

The ghetto was in a strictly Jewish neighborhood. There was a Jewish school. My married sister lived in the the area included in the ghetto. We moved only a few pieces of our furniture. All of us my parents, my brothers and my sisters crowded into that tiny apartment and we slept two to a bed.

I remember a heavy air raid when we went down to the shelters. When the bombing was over the people went out to clear the rubble and attend to the wounded. My brothers also went out. When they came back, they said the balcony of our building had collapsed. Later we learned that the whole building had been destroyed.

We had taken along to the ghetto all the flour and oil in our pantry. Mama and my sisters constantly baked cookies and other things. I remember them putting jewelry into the cookies, and coloring Papa's gold cufflinks to camouflage them. We were in the ghetto a few weeks.

In June 1944 they rounded us up, piled us into trucks and moved us to the brick factory. The place was packed; they seem to have brought all the Jews of the region there. We were moved from place to place with our bundles, and around us marched gendarmes bearing whips. My big sister was very pretty. She seems to have attracted the attention of one of the gendarmes a young fellow of about 18. He hit her across the back with his whip. My sister picked up a wooden tub and was about to throw it at his head, but my two brothers grabbed her and stopped her. If she had done what she intended, she would have been killed on the spot.

I also had a difficult experience at this time. I had long braids and didn't want my hair cut. One day I heard my named being called. There was a big crowd there and I was frightened. Mama said: "Go! Go!" She apparently knew why I was being called. I went, and they shaved my skull clean. Mama was unhappy. She had been worried about our hygiene, but she hadn't expected such an outcome. For me it was a trauma, the first trauma of my life. I was eight at the time.

I remember how the big families were separated from the small ones. Papa and Mama held a consultation with my big brothers about whether it might not be a good idea to split up the family. Small families might have a better chance of survival. It was decided that come what may, we will never split up! So we joined the group of large families.

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