Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Regina Cohen - April 18, 1982

Help from Hungarian Grocer

They were hungry.

They were hungry. Uh, I was hungry too. I would have preferred a piece of dry bread. It's something that uh, my taste--this is the reason I remember bringing something in. Uh, a couple other times uh, there was uh, in, in good times the man was a, what they call a chimney sweep, sweeper. His name was, Hungarian name Borosch. I remember him. And when the Jews were uh, uh, being hauled into the ghetto all the businesses were taken away and he rec...he got--or I don't know whether the state or the city allowed him--somebody's grocery store. He knew my father very well--he knew the family. Very nice, nice person, nice family. I went in there wearing a, a disguise like a barefooted little farm girl. And I had to--and he motion I have to stand and wait. Two or three SS, Gestapo came into the store. I'll never forget. The, the store was very small and, and they lived in the back of the building. There was like a step going, a few steps going from the store to the back, where they lived. And I saw the woman--the wife opening the door, looking slightly and motioning to me to be quiet. And they looked around, they looked around. And he came over, the owner of the store and he says to me, "Clean up over there." And I bent down pretending to do some stock 'til they left. And he let me have a little bit of sugar, some, some this, some that. And he's the one as a matter of fact that said, "Don't come anymore." As a matter of fact, he said, "They won't--I don't need to tell you but you'll be taken away the next few days." But he didn't want me to come anymore. It was, it was dangerous to him too. Now I don't doubt that he helped some other Jewish families with some foods. Um, there were a few nice people. There's a lot of bad ones. We would have given anything to some of them just to hide us out or to hide us--a couple of us. But some people took the money, our jewelry, our furniture or whatever you gave them and then they made sure that they...

Did, are there any...

...go to the authority.


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