Olga Adler - July 26, 1982
Hungarian Soldiers and Nazis
You mentioned before that the Hungarians soldiers were sometimes human beings.
Very good.
But were the German Nazis ever human beings? Did you ever see Nazis who were human beings.
I don't know if they were Nazis, I saw German soldiers.
Oh.
You know, there is a difference between...
Sure.
the Nazis and the soldiers...
Sure.
because the soldiers already lived through and they were coming back from the front or something in huge trucks and they saw, as I say, all these people. And it happened that they threw down something from the, from the trucks and we picked them up and we ate them. I was never with a German Nazi who would be a Nazi. I never encountered that.
Yeah.
I was rather with the Hungarians, the Hungarian officers. And as I, as, as you see from my story that I always had for some reason, I don't know why, and this is a, a, a Jewish feeling, especially for people who went through this hell, why me and how come that I had a gorgeous sister and I had a, a, a lovely brother—I'm not talking about my gorgeous uh, mother and my lovely father—and they were all... And my cousins and, and my friends and everybody who was better and, and more deserving than I was, and I am here. It's just fate, it's just sheer fate.
But from your story it seems like part of the reason uh, why you were saved is because you were a beautiful girl.
Yes, but I wasn't the most beautiful girl in the world. I mean, there, I'm sure that there were thousands of beautiful girls who were killed.
Yeah.
It just happened that I was at the right time that one of the Nazis, I don't know how come, he could have raped me, he could have done anything to me, anything and he ne... As I said, he kissed me once and that was it. And if I tell my story nobody would believe it because maybe if I would hear it from somebody I wouldn't believe it either.
Yeah.
Because Jewish girls were taken as uh, prostitutes and they were uh, experimenting with them and doing anything and you couldn't do nothing, I mean nothing, because you just can't. You, you ask how come that you went and how come you didn't uh, do anything uh, against... You, you could not. Sometimes there are circumstances that you just can't do nothing about.
Yeah.
You just let yourself go. But, but certain days some, some sixth sense who told me I should go to that older officer there and ask him that I can't put my shoes on. I'm sure other girls were not able to put their shoes on their feet.
Yeah.
And I went and I... And as I tell you, I am not pushy and I never was pushy. I never could fend for myself. It just somebody... I was a shy person, I still am a shy person. How did I go to this young man and say, tell him that I saw your picture at Louisa's, at Aunt Louisa's house. It just somebody would tell me what to do. In my whole existence there, some... somebody was higher, something told me what to do. It never came from myself, I don't think so. It's just unbelievable, you know. So, I was a beautiful girl, as a young girl. Today I can say it because it didn't even happen to me for such a long time ago. But there were many of them and they didn't survive. In our city it was very famous for, for their girls, Hungarian girls, beautiful girls, well-dressed, intelligent beautiful girls. How many came back? Not too many. And those two girls were killed. A lovely one was a piano teacher. She was worth more maybe than I was. And that other young woman, who I had to tell her mother where her daughter uh, lies and she went after the war. Because everybody knew about this case, because, as I say, there were hundreds of girls there in that camp, so they knew, they saw me and I came back. And they knew about it.
Mhm.
that I came back. And how did that get that, that poor girl's mother to me and asked well, what happened to her daughter and, and, and where is her daughter. I went and I showed her where her daughter is buried. I don't, I don't reme... yeah, I think her husband was killed too. The other one didn't have a husband. So, it just... That was written for me. The only, only child of my parents who survived this. That's it.
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