Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Olga Adler - July 26, 1982

So, he's a Jew.

He was a Jew. His mother's sister was married to a Gentile, a Swiss Gentile by the name of Hugo Geiger, was his name. He was the director of one of the orphanages in Budapest. And they lived in the city in a beautiful apartment and one Sunday... And he loved his wife dearly. It was just unbelievable. They never had children. And one Sunday, he went up to the uh, sixth floor on a balc... balcony, telling his wife that he's going to go down to get some rolls for breakfast. And he jumped off the sixth floor, leaving a letter to his wife that trouble, that things are terrible, terrible troubles are starting. I will not be able to save your life and I won't be able to live without you. I'd rather kill myself. And so he killed himself and he left this, this poor lady alone. That time I think she was sixty years old. A lovely blonde woman. And ??? the woman was alone, had no children, had nobody. So, this Kamil told me, "Listen Olga, you don't have nowhere to live, you haven't got a job, you have nothing. My aunt has nobody, she needs somebody to be with. I take you over there. She interviewed a couple of uh, women and girls, she doesn't want anybody. I'll take you over there, she'll meet you and maybe this will be a wonderful arrangement for both of you." So, he took me over there and the lady met me. And he said, I won't let you go anymore back to your apartment, you'll stay here with me. But I said, I have to go back for my things. And we went back for my things and I remember we came back through a park and that times there were some troublemakers and they beat this boy up, this Kamil who took my suitcase, because I was wearing a yellow star already, you see. He wasn't wearing a yellow star yet because he was a half a Jew.

They didn't find out that he was Jewish yet.

I don't know, maybe half a Jews didn't have to that time, I don't know. He didn't have a star on. I just remember that clearly. It's in my mind because otherwise if I wouldn't have had a, a Jewish star we wouldn't have any trouble.

Yeah.

But first of all they were going on the street with a pencil like that to watch, to put the, to put in the stitches on the yellow star. The yellow star was stitched on your clothes.

Uh-huh.

And if you could put a pen between the stitches, it was enough for them to take you to a concentration camp already. It had to be sewed in so tight.

Oh, I see.

You see. And uh, it was very dangerous to go on the street already. They pulled you into, under the uh, anyplace, a Jewish girl. Not a Jewish girl, but in Budapest a Jewish girl goes, anybody could do anything, nobody would...

Sure.

say anything. So, it was, I hardly went out on the street, it was that dangerous already. So, they beat him up, but I took my suitcase and I walked slowly away waiting for him because he was a big fellow, I knew they won't kill him. He got a beating, but he was fine after and he took me up there. And I was staying... I stayed with this lady for a very, for a, quite a long time maybe for a year or so. By that time, you were restricted already to go out just from eleven o'clock to, 'til one o'clock to do shopping.