Madeline Deutsch
Nació: 1930, en Berehovo (Beregszasz), Checoslovaquia
Describe sus experiencias durante la posguerra [Entrevista: 1990]
I was 18, but I was, in fact, only 13 because those years were nothing. Those were erased from my life. So I was 13 year old in a 18-year old girl's body. And I didn't know anything. I was a frightened little girl. I could not communicate with anybody except the immediate family--my mother's sister and brother-in-law and their son, their only son. And then we went to New York, again, my mother's aunt and her cousins. I...I couldn't go out to the street. I was petrified. I was afraid that the Nazis are still out there. I was having nightmares for years and years. For many years, I was still reliving everything. The trip to Auschwitz, the...the beatings, the killings, the dead people that were taken off the train, the...the beatings and the...and the dogs that were, uh, released and ju... jump on the people and...and tear them apart. I lived with this. Years and years. I still live with it, but I don't have these horrible nightmares anymore except occasionally. After a day like, for example, today I'm sure I'll have some of it. But this was for years. And it was a horrible, horrible thing.
I was 18, but I was, in fact, only 13 because those years were nothing. Those were erased from my life. So I was 13 year old in a 18-year old girl's body. And I didn't know anything. I was a frightened little girl. I could not communicate with anybody except the immediate family--my mother's sister and brother-in-law and their son, their only son. And then we went to New York, again, my mother's aunt and her cousins. I...I couldn't go out to the street. I was petrified. I was afraid that the Nazis are still out there. I was having nightmares for years and years. For many years, I was still reliving everything. The trip to Auschwitz, the...the beatings, the killings, the dead people that were taken off the train, the...the beatings and the...and the dogs that were, uh, released and ju... jump on the people and...and tear them apart. I lived with this. Years and years. I still live with it, but I don't have these horrible nightmares anymore except occasionally. After a day like, for example, today I'm sure I'll have some of it. But this was for years. And it was a horrible, horrible thing.
Madeline nació en una familia de clase media en un área de Checoslovaquia que Hungría se anexó en 1938-1939. Su padre trabajaba en su casa y su madre se ocupaba de las labores del hogar. Madeline asistió a la escuela secundaria. En abril de 1944, su familia fue obligada a mudarse a un ghetto húngaro. Vivieron en el ghetto dos semanas antes de ser trasladados a Auschwitz. Madeline y su madre fueron separadas de su padre y de su hermano mayor. Ni su padre ni su hermano sobrevivieron a la guerra. Una semana después de llegar a Auschwitz, Madeline y su madre fueron enviadas a trabajar a una fábrica de municiones en Breslau. Estuvieron un año en el subcampo Peterswalday de Gross-Rosen hasta que fueron liberadas por las fuerzas soviéticas en mayo de 1945. Madeline y su madre vivieron en un campo de refugiados en Munich hasta que obtuvieron visas para Estados Unidos. Llegaron a Nueva York en marzo de 1949.
— US Holocaust Memorial Museum - Collections
