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my name is Ella Friedman
Mizne.
i was born
in Berehova which is part of czechoslovakia
okay, the date is may twenty seventh
nineteen twenty nine
we were six children
two boys
and four girls
and and the uh... the eldest, Bumi,
was eighteen when my baby brother was born
My father was William
William Newman
my mother was Helen Newman
and the uh, children, the kids of course my brother was Adolf Newman
He changed it later.
and uh...
Dorah (Duzi)
and then me, Ellie.
and there was another, Lillian
and honey (Hannah)
and Jonah.
About twelve years old
and my mother took me to Budapest, Hungary.
because
the word came through
that they were picking up the young girls
for the german soldiers for the border.
so she took my sister
myself and my oldest brother and took us to budapest at that point
suddenly though
word came out that they're going to take the Jews out.
in nineteen forty three
my brother was like couple years old and he went with my.... they all went together.
and they took them to poland
kept them there for a week
they didn't know what to do with them so finally they let them go back home
this is in forty three
and then they came... they opened a uh... there was a ummm...
where they made wood (a lumber yard)
they open that up
for it to make a regular DP camps
and they put all the people in there
and we were not there, we were away, we were in
Hungary the whole time
and uh...
so uh... my brother
got a job working in Budapest
and he became of age when they came and took took him into the
they called it the jewish army.
In Hungarian and you know
that they took these people to the borders
to pick up the dead and everything to think clean the borders
'cause Bumi at that point they took him into the military
and uh... that's where he when he saw the dead man then near Budapest
he exchanged their dog tags
and we didn't know we didn't hear from and we thought he was dead
Lily was supposed to come home
she was going to go to the railroad
to get tickets to go home for Pesach (Passover holiday) because this was in March.
we thought we would maybe go home for Pesach
so she went, we never saw her
that was the last time I saw her.
she came to Budapest and went to get the tickets
that we should go for Pesach home, Bumi and Duzi, myself and she
and they caught her near the railroad station someplace we never heard
i never saw anything of her
then they found out that my father was very active
in the Poladati
which was a uh,
a Hebrew organization like Zionism
only that the Poladati were the older people, the older
generation
and he and there were two other people from the
from (place in Czechoslovakia) that were very active in the Jewish people
so they would always call. So they would call on him.
He was involved in everything.
Then one day
he got a.... he was told
that uh...
the Germans were coming that they're going to take them to Auschwitz.
and he said
so the three of them, these three partners got together
and they were going to going to go to Israel, try to get to Israel somehow.
they had some connections.
.....
My mother came down with the suitcase and ready to let him go
and he dropped the suit case and he said
"I'm staying with my family whatever will happen to them will happen to me too and
never left.
So he went to Auschwitz.
My mother got very involved she was very involved in the children
and to use to go, she did not look Jewish.
So she used to go to the border
to the high board it was over the mountain
and they used to collect the jewish children
from Poland.
and they would bring the children, five, ten children
and she would take these children because she did not look Jewish and nobody
bothered her you know she looked like real scrubly, you know, but she
was a beautiful woman
and she used to take these children to the high (border)
to Hungary
they didn't bother or they didn't know she was jewish
so this went on for a long while.
and she brought a lot of children out from (place in Poland.)
and then towards the end, when things started that they were taking the Jewish
children... girls
to the fronts.
She says, 'uh oh'
this is the end
so she that's when she took
my sister Duzi, myself and Bumi
and uh
we've got to get out i have to get you out of here
so the last time she took children to
Hungary
she took us
and left us in Hungary and made arrangements for us to stay in different places she
spoke very nicely in Hungarian and
that was the end so and then she went home back home because she had the rest
of the family
and that's when they came
and took them to auschwitz
that was the last i had the last letter because it's so happens it was my
birthday
so she wrote me a letter the day before they left
i didn't hear from them since then
and that was the end
but in the camp when they divided the people
and they give my little brother
he went back and was screaming so my mother picked him up and the other two (children)
went after them and they all went together
In March, when the germans marched into
Budapest which was sometimes in March
the next day they came back some young kids came along
and it was a regular apartment house (not just Jews) i would say about
thirty five forty apartments
and they hung like a yellow star
on the front of the house, in front of the...
and we were told that we can no longer leave the house at all
so it was there and they gave us one hour a day
to go out to get some necessary
milk and bread, things, food
and that was it, we were not allowed
at all after that.