Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Eva Cigler - March 17, 1982

Okay. And um, where were you when you heard about a war, the war?

I was at that time home. We heard about the war and we heard about the radio. But that radio you, you know, you was afraid to listen to. And a neighbor uh, a Christian people came in and they heard about Hitler. And that time Hitler said uh, he gonna wipe out the Jewish population and he wouldn't like to be even a Jewish dog, who has a dog uh you know, the Jewish people. And we was uh, thinking, my God, what that guy is talking about. No such a thing they could kill all the Jewish people. So that time I heard uh, war was going on in uh, in Germany. And then uh, when the Hungarian came, then we see already what's uh, coming because they bring some tanks you know, that little tanks and all of 'em has uh, uh some hardware uh, with that when they move the, so.

Some artillery?

Yeah, artillery. And then we know uh, soon already uh, going to come. But uh, we didn't realize what they're going to do to the Jewish population there.

When did you--did you wear a yellow armband?

After, yeah, I think it was in forty...'42 or '40, we have to wear the yellow arm...

You said that there were, your father's store was taken away from him.

Yeah.

And you said that you had to have a curfew. Um, what, what went through your mind when you all of a sudden had these restrictions put on you?

That uh, one thing was in my mind, I couldn't go out.

You were a young girl.

Yeah, young girl. I didn't have too much uh, in my mind. I didn't even think about it. Uh, I never went through a war. So uh, I didn't know that time uh, things uh, could happen.

What about your family? What were the things that you heard them talking about?

My father was always very sad about b...the war is uh you know, someplace else is going on. And uh, and my mother had trouble with keeping the family together and uh, raise the children, so they don't talk too much about it. This was a hush... The children shouldn't know nothing about it uh, because they couldn't explain to us uh, what is a war. If we could understand that we'd know.

Um, did your father belong to any political groups, the Bund or...

No, he wasn't.

None of...

Mine uncles, yes. They was in a Communist uh, thing because they was thinking that Russia going to come and everybody going to be free.