Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Helen Lang - February 23, 1982

Leaving DP Camp for Prague

Where is this brother now?

Which one? This one here?

The one who fainted.

Yeah, here. And so they tried to get a taxi, because they didn't see that we're not coming. You couldn't write or telephone--no communication. So they tried to take a taxi, you know, to pay for a taxi they should take--went to Lübeck, you know, because that woman said exactly where we are. But you couldn't because you had to go--I don't know how many countries to go through, you know, Russia and--you know, so they couldn't. So they had to wait 'til we coming home. So the last bus they said, "That's it. We're closing down." So I said, "Then we have to go home. So let's see already going to go home." So I arr...we arrived in Prague and the--and you know, it was for me easy to communicate with the bus driver. He spoke Czech, I spoke Czech--it came back to me. Don't forget, from 1938 'til '45 I wasn't allowed to speak Czech by the Hungarians, God forbid, you know. And when, when uh, you were in Czechoslovakia you speak Hungarian they told you--the Czech people, you know, after the war, "You want to speak Hungarian, go to Hungary." Anyway, so he stopped and I see in Prague on the street--I see a woman from Munkacs. I said to the driver, "Please stop, I want to go talk to that woman." So I went on the bus and I says uh, "Do you know if anybody is alive from my family?" And I told her who I am, you know, she was an older person. She says, "Of course." She says, "Your brother-in-law, your brother." I says, "How about"--I have two more brothers. Well, I knew already with my parents what happened, but at least, you know, he was young. Says, "Look, I don't know." She says, "You know what, there is a..." She told me, "Go easy," gives me an address, "You go here and here at night." This is a very famous restaurant in Prague. She says, "All these people from people who came back and who are here..." I says, "From, they--they meet here." "Why don't you go there. Maybe you're going to meet your brother here or your brother-in-law."


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