Noemi Engel Ebenstein - July 22, 1996
Family
Now when was your brother born?
My, my brother was born in 1932. He's nine years older than me. Um, and he lived part of the time, after my mother married, just for a few months. But my mother when she moved back home after she lost her husband, uh, she had two brothers and her mother. And so my brother had the extended family. So when my mother married my father, she moved to Belgrade, my brother stayed with his grandmother and his two uncles. One of them was married, one of them was not. And, um, she became pregnant with me and in 1941, um, in April if I'm not mistaken, the Germans bombed Yugoslavia. And my mother, I guess she still did not have my brother with her because she was by herself. That I remember. She was seven months pregnant and she fled the bombed city of Belgrade. Um, she left everything. As she described the apartment that she left there, she had everything in there including all the baby clothes that she was preparing, uh, that later on she found out the German woman who occupied that apartment was selling. Uh, she told me many stories about how she was running between the bombs to the railway station, um, trying to catch the train going back to Budapest. I forgot to say that, uh, before that my father was drafted to the Yugoslav army. That's why he was not with her at the time. I don't know when he was drafted. Maybe months before, maybe longer. I, I don't know the dates. Um...
But this was in 1941, in April?
I think it was April.
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