Behind Every Name a Story consists of essays describing survivors’ experiences during the Holocaust, written by survivors or their families. The essays, accompanying photographs, and other materials, including submissions that we are unable to feature on our website, will become a permanent part of the Museum’s records.
Rivka (née Kleinman) Grossman and Mordechai Gimpel Grossman were our parents. Our family lived in the bucolic village of Mad in northeastern Hungary, in the wine country near the Carpathian Mountains—about 100 kilometers north of Debrecen.
The man photographed us and after a few days he brought the picture … My mother said to us: “We will bury the picture.”
I had little confidence when I started. My hands were so shaky I could barely read my own writing. As I started writing, I was given confidence, support, and encouragement. If I can do this, then you can too.
My throat was parched, the wind blew my hair in my face and obstructed my vision. My knees buckled and the glacier never seemed to end.
The Gestapo visited us in the morning. They knew my father from his visits as Seelsorger (minister) to the Jews in the local prison.
My name is Agnes Gertrude Wohl (maiden name Mendelovits), born in Budapest, Hungary, on March 3, 1933.
In the morning of July 6, 1942, Anne Frank came to say good-bye to us. The Franks were about to go into hiding in their secret annex. It was a sad and difficult parting for everyone.
Marius was the only “humane” being I met during the terrible days of deportation. On a snowy November day in 1944 at Auschwitz ( I was 19 years old), they called us together and crammed us again into railcars, 80 girls in a railcar that was meant for eight horses and sent us away—we didn’t know where, of course.
I was born in 1925 in Satu Mare, which was in Romania at that time but in 1940 became part of Hungary. We were four in our family: my mother, father, and one sister, Olga, who also survived and is still living.
It was winter and the cold burned us; all the camp was flooded and muddy. They took our winter clothes and in exchange gave us light clothes that looked like striped pajamas.
Listen to or read Holocaust survivors’ experiences, told in their own words through oral histories, written testimony, and public programs.