I was born as Eva Schlesinger on March 15, 1933, in Hajduszoboszlo, Hungary. When I arrived in Israel in 1949, I changed my name from Eva to Chava. My sisters also changed their names from Hungarian to Hebrew so we could start our new lives with our new names. My father, Jeno (Eugene) Schlesinger, was born in Hajduszoboszlo, Hungary. My father had two brothers and two sisters. My mother’s family moved from Russia to Slovakia. My mother was born in Komarom, Slovakia, as Rozsa Roth. My mother’s family had eight children.

      We were also a large family. There were six of us children; three boys and three girls. I had two older brothers, an older sister, a younger sister, and a younger brother.

      My father worked in the leather business with his brother and brother-in-law. My mother was a housewife. We lived in a nice house that we moved into not long before the war started. Life for us changed very rapidly from an everyday family life to a life under war. We lost the normalcy of our lives quickly.

      I don’t remember much of anything about what it was like before the war. Times were difficult and everyone was affected. The winter session at school was long and cold. There wasn’t enough coal to heat the classroom. Starting in 1939, men were sent away to labor camps. My father was among those taken away. He came back once or twice, but after that he never returned.

      I do remember once when he came back when I was very young. My uncle and aunt lived on the same street so I had to run in the dark to tell them that my father was home, and that they had to come over to our house if they wanted to see him. I remember another time when my father and other family members got together and talked about the war. They knew that they would be taken away very soon. It was a very sad occasion and it was hard to see men crying. They were taken away soon after.

      In our town, my street was chosen to be a ghetto. Many people were crammed into this area. We were not prepared to be squeezed in with so many strangers in such a small space. This was in 1943. We shared the kitchen area and the space outdoors. The children accepted the changes as they were. I knew the words “ghetto,” “Nazis,” and “Palestine.” I heard these words, but I didn’t understand their meaning. I did get the gist of it and kind of knew what was going on around us.

      We were not free to go anywhere. We were intimidated in order to keep us obedient, and at some point we had to start wearing the star. My younger brother Dezso would sneak out at night to get food. There were some nice people who were ready to help, but there were plenty of others who could not wait for us to leave so that they could come in and take our belongings.

      One day, they ordered anyone 15 and older to go to the market. They were lined up in front of a wall and asked questions. I was not one of them and I don’t know what they were asked. When my mother came back, she went to the attic and got all the jewelry we had. We had to hand over anything that was valuable and portable. If we did not, we would be punished. My poor mother had to take care of us all; we were all young, just 9, 11, 13, 15, and 19, and my baby brother was less than one.

      We had to leave in 1944. I know it was spring, but I’m not sure the exact date. The school was occupied by the Germans (or perhaps by Hungarian soldiers). We remained together most of the time. I had two aunts that lived on the same street as we did, so we all prepared for our departure. My mother had a package for each of us with clothing and some food for a couple of days. We started walking to the train station that was three kilometers from where we lived, and we were cold, tired, and hungry. Each of us children carried the package from my mother in addition to a dish or a pot. We didn’t know where we were going, but we hoped it would be someplace we would be able to set up a home again.

      We were taken by train to Debrecen.[1] All the Jews were gathered from towns and villages of the province. We found many of our relatives that were brought there and we were all in this camp together. Many of my parents’ brothers and sisters were there with their children. We survived together. My 15-year-old brother found work, and so did my 13-year-old sister. My mother was healthy, she was still nursing the baby. I don’t remember how long we stayed in Debrecen.

      We were then separated when we were placed on different trains, and we never saw any of our relatives again. We were on our way to Auschwitz, but the train had to return because of an air raid. Instead of Auschwitz, we were taken to different towns in Austria. This is how we survived.

      We were taken to at least two different towns in Austria. I cannot recall the names of the towns. While we were there, my mother, brother and sister went to work yet again. In one of the places my mother worked in a school, so she was able to bring home some paper and pencils. My sister Esther and I could read. I was the older sibling at home during the day and I had to take care of my younger sister and one-year-old baby brother. My sister and brother worked in a field picking potatoes. At night we would go to the field and gather potatoes that had been left behind to have something to eat. There were also fruit trees that still had fruit, so things were not as bad as they could have been. We wouldn’t be so lucky the next time they moved us.

      Food was rare, but we still managed. We were together. For entertainment we would watch trains filled with people pass by in cars not designed to carry people. We waved to the people on the trains and they waved back. We were not free to come and go. People were taken to work and back.

      We were finally taken to Bergen-Belsen, the worst place I know.[2] We went in cramped trains, squeezed in and standing shoulder to shoulder. There were already many people in the camp. We did have some luck when we were placed in a section with other mothers and children.

      We were able to move around a bit in the camp. Once we saw a man from our home town, Hajduszoboszlo. My mother talked to him; somehow she was able to convince the guards that he was her husband. After the war, we saw him and he had survived.

      It was winter and we had no clothing or shoes. Most were too small for us and not very warm. I don’t know how many slept in a room, but there were many. My mother and five children slept in two beds. The baby died of diphtheria in April 1943; his name was Lajos (Leslie). We were covered in lice. I don’t know how often we took showers in cold water without soap. The toilet was not hygienic. Sometimes we would sing and I did learn some Jewish songs.

      The guards had to count the living and take away the dead. We definitely got very little food, a piece of bread in the morning and later we would get soup (so called soup) with something swimming in it. We were happy to get this food. We were lucky to have some dishes. You can’t imagine how precious a dish was that held food or water. Things were very difficult. Mothers did not eat their bread, and instead they saved it for their children. At night, people walked around stealing this precious bread.

      We were able to go outside the barracks and stand by the fence. It was a fence made of chicken wire with electric wires on top so we could not get away. We would just stand and watch buggies or wagons taking dead bodies. People died from being shot, from hunger, disease, or old age.

      My mother was a wonderful, gentle, warm, loving, caring person. She would tell us stories and gave us a good base to start our lives. We did not cry. We kept busy. She was able to soothe us so that we did not feel miserable. She was a very educated person. She finished high school, which was unusual for a religious woman. She loved to read. She would work with one hand while holding a book with the other. She tried to keep some normalcy for us by telling stories about what she did and what she saw.

      My mother had learned German in school, which meant that she could communicate with the guards. In spite of this, she really could not help our situation. There was no way to try to do anything to save us. We met different people around us and there were Hungarian people we could talk to. There were many who spoke mostly Yiddish, but I did not speak to them or socialize with them. We would spend much of our time on our two beds and we went outside when possible.

      I can’t tell you the exact amount of time we were in Bergen-Belsen. I know that a winter passed. As the Liberators were getting closer, the Germans wanted to move. They were restless and wanted to move the Jews so they could keep control. The Americans, English, and Russians were putting a great deal of pressure on the Germans. Once again we were put on a train with some of the German soldiers, and as the train moved along there were two air attacks that changed things. The Americans saw the train and thought it was filled with German soldiers, but in reality it was only miserable Jews. There were many casualties. Later we had another air attack with many more casualties. My brother, who was 15, helped remove the wounded and the dead. The train car door had a very small opening, not big enough for one to get out, but some air could come in. I was standing by this small opening looking out at the trees and nature. I moved away and a little girl took my place. The poor girl got a bullet in her head. I saw brain matter scatter all around. She died instantly.

      They stopped the train at a high, elevated place, and we were told that we needed to get off and get away from the train as far as we could. Three of us sisters got away, but my brother was among the wounded. Two bullets hit him, one in each thigh. He was bleeding terribly. Miriam, my older sister, got a splinter near her spine. My mother was the last to try to get off the train, but she did not make it and was shot in the heart and killed. My brother also didn’t survive.

      They sent me and my two sisters to Theresienstadt.[3] In a sad irony, Bergen-Belsen was liberated April 15, 1945, while Theresienstadt was not liberated until early May. We were taken to a hospital because Ester and I had typhoid, and Miriam was sick because of her wound.

      We heard the Nazis had lost the war. When we got better and were liberated, we had no shoes or clothes; they were burned because they were full of lice. They gave us wooden shoes and clothing. Then they put us on a train with other people from our province. Unfortunately, they did not provide us with food, but we were fortunate to come upon a train with baked, almost burned potatoes. Being the healthiest one, I got as many as I could. It was not the best food, but it was the only thing to eat. It kept us alive until we got home.

      We were hoping that we would find our father and my older brother, who lived in Budapest. We got home and went to our street where we lived, but the house was occupied. They would not let us in. Luckily, there was a Jewish organization that provided us with a place to stay and gave us food. We learned that our 2 maternal uncles survived the war: Jeno, the older brother, who was born in 1923, and Lajos, who was born in 1925. Uncle Jeno took us into his home and we stayed there for the summer.

      We heard that there was a home for children in Debrecen, and when school started that is where we went. This school was started by a Zionist organization to help children who were returning from the war and had no family to return to. We were placed in a very good school. The home was excellent. There were lots of singing and sports activities for us to get involved in. Within three years we were ready to make the move toward Israel. We celebrated in 1948 when Israel became a state.

      We left Hungary pretending it was only for a summer vacation. Our first stop was Paris, where we continued our education. Later we moved to Leon and then to Marseille. In 1949, we finally got on a boat to go to Israel. We were not allowed into Israel right away. We stayed on the ship to be checked for health issues. Once we were let in, Manci went to a Kibbutz immediately. She was old enough.

      Ester and I went to school to finish our education. I was drafted into the army in November 1951. I was a nurse by that time and Esther was a teacher. I finished my service to the army in 1953. When I was working in a sanitarium for tuberculosis, I met my husband.

            In 1956 I was unsuccessful in obtaining a visa to Canada. On October 8, 1957, I sailed to Allentown, Pennsylvania. I stayed with a distant family member until my visa came through. I went to Montréal, Canada, on March 23, 1958. I obtained my teaching certificate and taught in day schools for about five years. I had two sons, and after they left home I went back to teaching and became a lecturer at McGill University for about 15 years.

[1] Debrecen is the second largest city in Hungary after Budapest.

[2] Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp located in northern Germany.

[3] Theresienstadt was a concentration camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia.