Eva Ackermann - December 6, 1982
Germans Invade Hungary
How did you find out about that?
Well uh, as, as a historian, I'm sure you know that uh, from Auschwitz, they were writing postcards and it wasn't Auschwitz, it was ??? why that stuck in my mind.
That's what you remember.
You know, that ??? because uh, that was my mom's uh, family. We got a card and which said that we're working and we're okay and uh, we didn't know uh, it's just a feeling that uh, family member probably had because that, every time my mother uh, cooked a meal, she cried uh, I'm sorry. She always said uh, that uh, she can't eat it, because she feels that they have uh, they probably have nothing to eat and uh, I looked on and probably didn't uh, comprehend a hundred percent why uh, I mean the card was there. It said they are all right, but, either it was a sixth sense or it may be uh, they knew better, because, they knew already what was happening, uh. They didn't know what was happening with the German people, but they knew that uh, uh, in, in Germany, it was uh, Juden verboten uh, things were that uh, you couldn't--it was not available for Jewish people. So uh, probably the conclusion and then on uh, March nineteenth, I believe it was, when uh, when Germany invaded uh, Hungary.
Had you ever seen any German Jews who had been deported from Germany?
No, I never...
They never come through Budapest?
Uh, if they did, I didn't...
That wouldn't have been how your mother knew that something was wrong.
Pardon me?
That wouldn't have been how your mother might have known something was wrong.
No, she would have known through friends who had, who, who uh, received letters uh, from Germany that was--that were uh, indirectly. They were referring to like uh, they had nothing to eat. And they would refer to something that they don't have uh, uh, probably uh, indirectly because of--afraid of censorship. But uh, deportation, I don't, I don't really believe that we knew. I really don't remember if I did. I was a little bit empty headed at the time and sort of uh, you see, well we live in a different world now. You turn on the television and you know everything whether you uh, comprehend or it still sticks to you. Over there the papers where the uh, the, the press, I don't believe was as free as over here and uh and there was--I remember uh, people were listening to uh, what is the radio, uh...
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