“RAVENSBRÜCK IS OUR FAMILY’S TRAGEDY AND THE CONSCIENCE OF GERMANY AND HUNGARY AT THAT TIME.”

On 23 October 1944, my mother had to go to the “Kisok” sportsground in Budapest. From there she was transferred to Szigetmonostor to dig trenches. In November she was moved to the brick factory in Óbuda and then to Hegyeshalom. In Hegyeshalom, her “protective passport” arrived which meant she could return to Budapest. There she was deported by train to Ravensbrück.

From my family, my mother, my aunt and my grandmother were included on the lists for transportation to Ravensbrück. They were transported in livestock wagons without toilets and therefore among human excrement. The journey took three days. Rózsa Fehérvári, my grandmother, born in 1896, was killed three days after her arrival in Ravensbrück. The biggest tragedy was that my grandmother was 48 years old, and only people up to the age of 45 were supposed to be taken. But she already knew that her two daughters, Rózsa and Marianna, were to be taken to Ravensbrück to die, so she went with them and died as a martyr. Marianna died in Mauthausen the day before the liberation.

Only my mother, Rózsa, survived. She was liberated on 5 May 1945 in Mauthausen. She weighed just 28 kilograms. She arrived in Budapest on 8 June. Even then, she was still in very poor health.

All these tragedies were caused by murderous anti-Semitism.

 

Péter Kunsági
Hungary
Dezsőné Szilágyi’s son.