Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Lanka Ilkow - October 12, 1991

Speaking about Experiences

After the war, either, wither in Sweden or in Detroit, did people ask you what had happened to you? Did anybody know?

You know what, American people didn't believe that you went through so much and you survived. This one thing. The American people. But I don't blame them, they didn't, because we didn't believe either when we was living in, in, in--under Hungary and uh, from Poland people was coming and saying that they're killing Jews and so. For some--they did it so smart, those Germans, I tell you, the way they did it. Because they took away the people in Slovakia and everybody kept secret, you know. The Goyim in Slovakia, they wanted the Jews should go. You know, they was big anti-Semites and, and they was killing Jews too. So they was uh, sending away the Jews. But for some reason, a lot of people hid there in the wilderness and so. When they was taking us, my sister-in-law from my first husband told me she had four little kids. So she told me--they took her before and she came back to Hungary. Took her to Poland. And she came back with the kids. So uh, she says, she ask...asked me, she says, "Let's run away some place because we never will come back. They kill us!" She told me. They was killing Jews and we should run away. But was a big snow. Everything was against us. Even God was against us. He gave us so much snow, it was in April, that never in life did we had in April, they was plowing already you know, on the fields. And that time we had so, a big snow. Where can you go? They find you. They track you down.

What year was this?

In '44.


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