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Home Presentation for Yom Kippur Symposium 5769, October 9, 2008
First I like to thank Rabbi Block and Rabbi Vann for choosing me to be one of the speakers. I feel very honored. My name is Anna Rado. I'm a proud member of Temple Beth-El for over fifty years. I'm also a Holocaust survivor.
I came to SA in 1957 from Hungary Europe with my husband Charles and our two small children, Jim and Clara and also with my brother Mike, my sister in law Elsa and their children Robert and Judy. We settled in SA because our sister Susanne Jalnos lived here who we didn't see for 13 years because of the Holocaust.
I was growing up in a small town in Hungary about 300 Jewish people lived there. It was a very happy childhood for me. My parents were orthodox Jews. Our father went to the synagogue every morning like his father did also.
We lived in good terms with the mostly Christian townspeople until the Germans invaded Hungary in March of 1944.
I had just turned 13 years old, when the Jewish people's life changed for the bad right away. We had to wear a yellow star to be marked that we were Jewish. Shortly after, Jewish children could not attend school anymore. My sister, Susanne, was away in college and had to also come home. My brother, Mike, was drafted into a labor camp. Our life after that turned very bad. But my father kept to his morning prayers.
A month after the German invasion, we had to leave our homes with just a few belongings, and were taken to a ghetto. Life there was very bad also.
Everyday they took people we didn't know where. In the middle of June of 1944, they called our name. It was my father, mother my sister Susanne and I. We traveled three days in cattle cars. 80 - 90 people crammed in. Then we arrived in a concentration camp called Auschwitz.
A few minutes after we arrived, our parents were taken and we never saw them again. They were taken to the crematorium and murdered. My sister and I were separated after one night in Auschwitz. She was taken to a labor camp.
I stayed in Auschwitz for 5 months, had to fight for my life every day.
After Auschwitz, I was taken to two labor camps in Sudetenland. I worked every day from morning to night in an airplane factory. I stayed there until the end of the war, May 9th, 1945.
The Russians liberated me. I went home, which took me six days to reach, because most of the bridges were bombed. I had to walk most of the way.
For my happiness, I found my brother Mike at home. The reunion was unbelievable.
Shortly after I came home, we received a message from my sister Susanne telling us she also survived the Holocaust. She was liberated by Americans and wanted to come home, but Hungary was under Russian rule. The communist had closed the borders.
It was four or five months after the war when the mail started for us to correspond with our sister Susanne. We wrote to here not to come home even if she could because we would try to get out of communist Hungary.
In 1949, my brother, his wife, their child, and I tried to leave Hungary. My brother hired a man who claimed he knew where the mines were to take us across the border, but was actually an informer for the KGB. He took us into a trap. KGB was waiting for us, and we were all imprisoned. A relative cared for the child.
Shortly after I came out of jail, I married. My husband, Charles, and we had two children, Jim and Clara. I met my husband when his family had to leave Chechoslovakia.
Because they were Hungarians and the town mayor put them in our house. They were very nice people and their son Charles and I fell in love. He was not born Jewish but he respected and honored Judaism and was a very faithful member to Temple Beth-El. Rabbi Jacobson used to say you are a better Jew than who is born one.
We were still under communist rule. In 1956, a revolution broke out, which opened the borders, and 100,000 Hungarians left Hungary. We headed to Texas with my brother and his family. We arrived in SA in February 1957. That is when we saw our sister Susanne after 13 years that was also an unbelievable reunion.
We started a new life here and had to learn the language. My husband was a cabinetmaker and worked for a company. Not long after we came here, we saved some money, and my brother and Charles built a cabinet shop. They worked very hard.
Our children learned the language very fast as they started school. We had a happy life while our children grew up. Charles liked to fish and camp. All together, we enjoyed our life in America. The children went to Sunday school at Temple Beth-El. We always connected to our Jewish upbringings.
Our children are grown up now, and have their own children. We have five grand children, of whom we are very proud of. Hitler tried to destroy us, but was unsuccessful. In the mean time, my husband Charles passed away, with whom I had a wonderful life of 53 years and now just good memories.
I talk to schoolchildren about my experiences at Auschwitz and labor camps. The children ask a lot of questions and some time one is “Have I every thought about giving up the Jewish faith because you have suffered so much?” My answer is that I am very proud to be Jewish, and my parents and six million others died for it. Judaism has enriched my life in many ways and I'm very proud of my Jewish heritage.
In the beginning I mentioned that 3oo Jewish people lived in our town and just 15 of us survived. God had a plan for my sister Susanne, my brother Mike and I. We survived and are able to tell our story. I also say to the children that I never lost my trust in God because I knew he would get us out of this terrible ordeal and get us a good life after.
I wish everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year. Shanah Tovah.
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