“On arrival we were greeted in the main sanctuary and given an induction talk about the Holocaust featuring the 2015 video from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. The video summarised the stories of individuals who have survived the traumatic persecution and segregation that took place. The sobering video reminded everyone that persecution still exists in our world today and is a problem that could affect anyone.
Susan was born on 9th September 1930 in Felsögöd, Hungary. She had one brother, Laci, and lived with her mother and father. Susan experienced anti-Semitism in her hometown from a young age. She delivered her story passionately to us, recalling how even when she was in primary school she was segregated from all of the other non-Jewish children. Then she went on to explain how her father was brutally beaten in front of her eyes, after attending a meeting about the ‘proposed resettlement programme’, enforced by the Hungarian government. This was the last time she saw him. The candid manner in which she spoke of how she, her mother and brother were shipped off to a ghetto before being taken to Auschwitz concentration camp, was thought-provoking. On arrival at Auschwitz she described how they were separated into the fit and the weak, the weak members being murdered in the gas chambers and the fit being made slaves. At this point she recalled how a stranger whispered to her that anyone below the age of 15 was put to death, so she lied about her age to the guards in order to survive. Susan was experimented on as part of a large group of women the infamous by Dr Mengele and was deprived of food before being taken on a death march to Bergen-Belsen, where thankfully the allies liberated them. Susan and her brother were the only ones of her family to survive.