Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Lila Denes - May 19, 1989

How, how large was your family?

Pardon me?

How large was your family?

I have two brothers.

So, you lived with your parents, two brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins.

Yes, I had my grandparents, some uncles and aunts. They all went to Auschwitz and nobody came back, except, of course, my two brothers. They were hiding in Budapest also.

Um, your brothers were older?

No. I'm the oldest. They were younger.

Do you remember, was your father or anyone in your family taken to a, a, a forced labor gang? A Hungarian labor gang?

Only my husband and my brothers. My father, uncles, grandfather, all were taken to Auschwitz.

So, under, under the Hungarians they did not go to any camp yet?

Yes, earlier, I mean in the early '40s, they were taken to forced labor camps. And after uh, uh, the Germans occupied Hungary in '44 March, after that they were taken to those camps in Germany or Poland. Mostly from my uh, city and small cities they were taken to Auschwitz. From Budapest, that was the last. They went to Dachau and um, other camps. I didn't, really don't know all of them because I stayed in Budapest.

You were in hiding?

In hiding.

Um, what did your father do?

My father was a merchant, a businessman, textile.