Ella Ostroff

Frankel: Please state your full name, date and place of birth.
OSTROFF: Ella Weiss Ostroff. I was born in Hungary on June 4, 1932.

Frankel: What city in Hungary?
OSTROFF: Sátoraljaújhely, which is in Zemplén county on the eastern border of Hungary, very close to Russia today. Czechoslovakia is directly north of it.

Frankel: Can you start by telling us something about your family?
OSTROFF: Yes, oh yes. OK, I was the youngest girl of four; I had a brother also. We were all five children in the family. I come from a very middle class and very observant Jewish family. My father had a bookstore, which had everything in it what a Jew needed. He had many of his things, which I guess they use in synagogue and everywhere else. I really don’t remember everything. I know some of it by what I heard from my family. I just know that it was a store where you could buy everything. We lived very gemütlich, I guess is the word what you would want to say. I went to private school and so did my brother and sisters (I’m somewhat nervous, it seems like). And my father was a very wonderful individual and he hailed from what would be Czechoslovakia now, but then it was Hungary. [Nachtmihy] was the name of the place and my mother was from Hungary also, and she comes from a large family. Orthodox, part of it was a rabbinical family. 

Frankel: What was your father’s name?
OSTROFF: My father’s name was Henry Weiss. My mother’s name was Helen Hartstein.

Frankel: Did you know your grandparents?
OSTROFF: Oh yes, on my mother’s side. In fact, my grandfather was deported with us. My grandmother died, I can very vaguely recall her, but my grandmother on my mother’s side, the whole extended family was, of course, deported. We were all deported practically at the same time. They lived very close by, it seems like. As a child it seemed like it was very far, but when we went back to visit Hungary, it was just a very short distance. I think it took us about 15 minutes by car. 

Frankel: How about your paternal grandparents?
OSTROFF: They were gone. They were dead. I never knew my paternal grandparents because before the Second World War started, that was Czechoslovakia and they passed away. My grandfather on my father’s side, my paternal grandfather, evidently had three wives, and my father was from the third wife. In fact, my brother was named after my grandfather, so I know he was gone for quite a while. When my grandmother died, I do not know. I have absolutely no idea. But that side of the family is totally wiped out.

Frankel: What was the name of your maternal grandparents?
OSTROFF: Weiss.

Frankel: Your maternal grandparents?
OSTROFF: Oh, my maternal? Hartstein. 

Frankel: What was the community like where you lived? Did you have other relatives?
OSTROFF: Right in the city we had, yes, but they were very remote. I mean they were second, third, or fourth cousins and we were fairly close; it was a very close family. I had quite a few aunts from my mother’s side. My maternal aunts – none of them lived in Sátoraljaújhely. I had couple of them living in Olaszliszka where my grandfather lived and then they were scattered in different cities. But it’s a very interesting thing – the ones, with the exception of those who lived in Budapest – when, after the Germans established the ghetto, everybody was moved into our city where the ghetto actually was. 

Frankel: Your parents, did they come from large families? How many siblings did they each have?
OSTROFF: My mother had about eight or nine brothers and sisters. My father had four, and they all disappeared.

Frankel: Did you know most of them?
OSTROFF: Yes, I knew all of them. My mother’s side, much more so than on my father’s side. My father’s side, I knew one aunt fairly well, and she had several daughters who survived, but that’s about it. Now I had a couple of them who lived in Czechoslovakia, whom I only knew because they were trying to get away from Czechoslovakia, and they came through Sátoraljaújhely, and they stayed with us. My father helped them to get some papers and they wound up in Budapest. Then they went back and they were caught, and that was the end of them. Never heard of them again.

Frankel: You said that your father didn’t grow up in your town. How did he end up there?
OSTROFF: He married my mother and then they wound up in Sátoraljaújhely. He was originally from [Nachtmihy], which is quite a distance. I have never been there.

Frankel: Had your mother been born there?
OSTROFF: My mother was born in Hungary, she was born in Olaszliszka.

Frankel: So, how did they end up there?
OSTROFF: I understand from stories that my father went… Olaszliszka is a place where there is a great rabbi by the name of Friedman, Zev Friedman and that was a relative of my mother’s, like three times removed – or four times or five times. He came to our yahrzeit and walked by (this is the story what I was told) – he walked by my grandparents’ place and he saw my mother. It was love at first sight, even for an Orthodox Jew [chuckling].

Frankel: What kind of education did your parents have?
OSTROFF: My father was an accountant. My mother, I doubt if she had more than high school.

Frankel: But she did have high school?
OSTROFF: Yes.

Frankel: So, a secular school.
OSTROFF: Oh yes, it was only secular school.

Frankel: And your father was Orthodox, so did you go to a special school after?
OSTROFF:  I have no idea; I couldn’t tell you. Remember, you’re dealing with somebody who was about 12 years old and many of the things I know was because I was told.

Frankel: Tell us more about the community in which you lived. How large was it?
OSTROFF: OK, the population of Sátoraljaújhely we had was approximately 25,000. Of that, I understand, we were about 5,000 to 10,000 Jews. The county itself was called Zemplén county and it had a fairly large Jewish population. It was a nothing town, really. It was the county seat but when I say it’s a nothing town, it was just an average Hungarian town. I went to a day school, a Jewish day school. I finished six grades in Hungary. That’s the extent of my Hungarian education.

Frankel: What about your sisters? Can you tell us about them?
OSTROFF: Yes, I have three older sisters, they not much older than I am. My oldest sister was about 18 – 17 or 18, something like that at the critical time we are talking about. I guess she was going to get married eventually. They were talking about the possibility of meeting someone and so forth and every one of them I know learned to sew and things like that, but their education consisted only of high school, through high school. 

Frankel: When you said that you were fairly observant, do you remember going to synagogue?
OSTROFF: On holidays, yes. My father went, of course, on Shabbat too. My mother did many times on Shabbat, too, but we always went on all the holidays. We observed every holiday in the house strictly, very strictly.

Frankel: Now would you say that most of the Jewish community was Orthodox?
OSTROFF: I don’t think so. It was probably sort of a mixed community just like every other community. Many of my friends weren’t observant at all. But it was interesting, most of them went to the same day school that I did. For the simple reason, you didn’t go to the public school unless you didn’t have any money at all. You went to the Catholic school or the Jewish day school, or there was a non-sectarian private school. And then the public school.

Frankel: They weren’t considered good schools?
OSTROFF: I don’t know. I can’t really answer that question. I know my parents wanted us, I am sure, to go to a Jewish day school.

Frankel: Can you describe your home? What was it like growing up? Even a physical description of the house?
OSTROFF: It wasn’t a house. We lived in a big, I suppose, it’s a typical Hungarian building would you call it? The big tall entry doors, when you walked into an open court area and off the court, there were all these different apartments. It’s typically Hungarian; it’s typically European. Each apartment, some of them were two bedrooms, some of them were three bedrooms. Ours was about that much. Each one had a kitchen and an entry and I know that we didn’t have a refrigerator; we had an icebox. An iceman cometh twice a week sometimes [laughs], especially before the holidays. 

The kitchen, my mother cooked with, I know, wood and coal, we heated with coal. We had those individual big ceramic heaters in each of the rooms; there was no central heating. There was no washing machine or anything like that. We had a woman come in doing the washing once a month. Then the same person came in and did the ironing and all that.

Frankel: You didn’t mention your sisters’ names?
OSTROFF: Oh, I’m sorry. I have three older sisters. My oldest sister is Magda, then comes Lily and then comes Olga. Magda and Lily live in New York. Magda has one daughter and Lily has two daughters. Olga lives in Miami and she has no children. And we have three.

Frankel: You mentioned that you lived a comfortable life. Do you remember going away on vacations?
OSTROFF: Oh, gosh, yes, but always to my grandparents. That was the extent of my travelling, was going to my grandparents. But it was a real fun place. They had a farm and a vineyard. I spent a lot of time there during the summer. And also many times, holidays. Of course, when it came, the gathering of the grapes and making of the wines, that was a special holiday. Also, we used to do something very, very interesting. I mentioned this Rabbi Friedlander (or Friedman? Whatever his name was). Anyway, Friedman I believe. Who had a yahrzeit every year in July or August. We always went and it was a tremendous affair because we didn’t go by train then, but they hired a carriage and we went all night. It took us all night to get there. That was a real big deal for us children.

Frankel: What happened there?
OSTROFF: Well they had – everybody from all over the world they were coming to this yahrzeit and they were selling everything which was Jewish. It’s like a flea market over here, except it wasn’t a flea market because was everything new, but that’s the only way I can correlate it. [Frankel asking a question in the background]. Oh, they took all kinds of merchandise from all over – from Budapest, from Czechoslovakia; they came from everywhere. The whole street, they set up stands and everything was laid out and you could take your pick. Some of them were maybe ancient documents or others were just precious books and so forth. And other things were just regular: tefillin, siddurim, machzarim, whatever.

Frankel:  How long did it last?
OSTROFF: Oh, it was a whole day; it was a special day. In fact my sister just came back from Hungary and she said it still goes on. They still go every year for that yahrzeit.

Frankel: And Jews from around the world?
OSTROFF: Yes. Israel. From everywhere.

Frankel: You mentioned your grandparents living on a farm. Were there other Jewish families living in that area?
OSTROFF: Well, they had a farm. They had a home, it was a real farm home. They had a farm to go with it. It wasn’t very big; they grew vegetables and they had some animals (of course chickens and cows), but it wasn’t very big. I have no idea but there it was – one acre, two acres, or whatever. And then the vineyard was fairly large; that was in a different area but within the same village.

Frankel: So they had people work for them?
OSTROFF: They did the work on the vineyards only. It seems to me as I recall they had some help come in on the farm. I guess we would probably call it a big garden today. But my aunt did quite a bit of it. She really loved it.

Frankel: In the day school, what did you study? Did you study Hebrew or…? 
OSTROFF: Very little. It was a day school, but it’s nothing like the day schools over here. We studied the history and learned how to read Hebrew but not [enough] to speak it. About the holidays and so forth. I guess the religious portion of it I would probably compare it more to a Sunday school, but it all a day school. It was nothing like the day schools are today.

Frankel: How long had your family live in Hungary?
OSTROFF: Well, my mother’s side, I understand that we can go back to 300 years in that one cemetery in Olaszliszka.

Frankel: And on your father’s side?
OSTROFF: No, my father was a newcomer. I know very little about my father’s family.

Frankel: As you were growing up, what do you recall were the first changes that the war brought to your place?
OSTROFF: I think, really the first things, which we were finding out was in the early ‘40s, like 1941 approximately. Maybe ‘42. The first thing was we started to get people coming from Poland and also from Czechoslovakia. Through Hungary they were escaping. My father spoke German and all the Slavic languages, so he could speak with everybody, and he was trying to help them; sort of trying to help funnel them through our city. We were right on the border. See, the city of Sátoraljaújhely at that time was divided from Czechoslovakia by a very tiny river, which dried up during the summer, so you could actually walk through it. 

Well, that’s how they came, most of the people who were escaping from Czechoslovakia were coming, and also from Poland. They were coming through there. Several times we had children staying with us; first, second cousins, who were escaping mainly from Czechoslovakia. They were staying with us until such time that my father was able to find them a place to go to. Some of them he sent to farms in Hungary. He had all kinds of connections.

Frankel: Was he involved as a leader in the Jewish community?
OSTROFF: Well, pretty much so. He paid for it too, eventually. But anyway, that was the beginning. We had suddenly, every time you turn around, somebody was staying with us. Then also, which was different, they start to induct the young Jewish males into the army. They were wearing uniforms, but they weren’t really in the army; they were in the labor camps. They were wearing an armband and the armbands had the national colors on them – red, white and green, the Hungarian colors. This lasted until I think 1943. In ’43 – no it was in 1944, excuse me – they took off the national colors and put on the Jews a yellow armband and the ones who were intermarried, the ones who weren’t 100% Jews, they were wearing a white one. So by the time, really, Germany occupied Hungary, we didn’t have any young males at home.

Frankel: That started in what year?
OSTROFF: Well, they started… They called it a munkatábor really, which means a work camp, rather than military, and that started back in 1942, maybe even earlier. But as far as I can remember 1942.

Frankel: Were there members of your family who had been inducted?
OSTROFF: No. Not that I remember. Probably some cousins. Oh, lots of cousins, yes. But not the immediate extended family.

Frankel: Were they still able to have contact?
OSTROFF: Oh yes. They were coming home on furlough. In the first couple of years they were treated like military except they weren’t able to carry arms. They were just digging ditches and whatever, a labor camp really. This is what it amounted to.

Frankel: But only the Jewish young men were inducted?
OSTROFF: Yes. 

Frankel: And then what? Did you ever overhear your parents talk about leaving, packing up?
OSTROFF: NO. Not that I remember. It was never going to happen in Hungary. We going to survive. It’s just not going to happen. I don’t think that it really hit home until the Germans occupied Hungary, which happened in March of 1944. I think about March 17th, something like that. And then things happened awful fast, very fast. Two weeks later, we were all wearing yellow stars. After Pesach, which was towards the end of April, we were all herded into the ghettos and from then everything moved fast.

Frankel: Before the Germans arrived, had you heard or did you hear your parents talk about what was happening with the Jews in Poland?
OSTROFF: Oh yes. They didn’t know. They knew something was happening because all these people, the refugees who were coming into Hungary, they were saying that they taking us, they deporting us and taking us someplace and nobody seems to be coming back, and nobody hears from them. But I don’t think it ever occurred to anybody what the destruction was really like. 

Frankel: Did you notice people leaving from your community?
OSTROFF: No. Nobody was leaving from Sátoraljaújhely until the Germans occupied Hungary. Then suddenly some people were disappearing.

Frankel: Until the Germans came, nothing was…?
OSTROFF: Not that I can remember. No, nobody from school. 

Frankel:  Everything went on as usual?
OSTROFF: Yes, everything. 
Once the Germans occupied Hungary, that were a totally different thing, because everything was devastating. There was a curfew; you couldn’t even go to the markets. You could only go to the farmer’s market after 12:00pm, after 12 noon, and then by that time there was nothing left. Whatever was left, you paid for it three times as much as anybody else did. Also, you couldn’t slaughter; kosher slaughter was immediately eliminated. Basically, all the Nuremburg laws went into effect: no universities, no higher education, and so forth. The curfews were terrific.

Frankel: Your older sister was still living at home?
OSTROFF: Yes, she would have been 18, I think, or thereabouts. Anyway, she wasn’t really at home. What happened… That’s a story in itself. After the Germans came into our city, my father was taken from us and my mother sent my older sister up to Budapest because we thought with a ransom, we could get my father back. In the meantime a cousin of mine got on a train and left Budapest, and she disappeared. So my mother got in contact with my sister and said, “Whatever money you have, keep it. Don’t get on any train. Because no Jews seem to be coming back.” So my sister stayed in Budapest and she was there through the war, my older sister.

Frankel: How did she survive?
OSTROFF: She had a dream. This is almost breaking my heart as I am going tell you, but I’ve got to tell you. She was petrified after my mother called because we were a very close family and she was afraid; she didn’t know what to do. We did have two aunts there. But one night, she didn’t know what to do, she went to sleep and she had a dream. She dreamt that my father came to her and said, “Daughter, don’t worry. Just go get yourself some papers and you’ll be all right.” (Oh, boy, this is difficult [choked up]). Anyway, she did exactly that. 

The following day she bought Aryan papers for herself and she got a job in a factory, and she said, “Believe it or not, I wasn’t afraid. I walked in the street, and I knew I be taken care of.” And she was. She was liberated in Hungary, in Budapest. It’s an amazing thing what faith is; when you really believe in something. She just will never forget that. I did have two aunts and lots of cousins in Budapest, and one aunt stayed also in Budapest. She also was liberated in Budapest. Another aunt, who now lives in Israel, was deported. She was in one of those free houses and she was still deported. Her husband never came back. None of their husbands came back.

Frankel: You said your father was taken away. How did that happen and where was he taken?
OSTROFF: I don’t exactly know where he was taken, but the Germans took ‘x’ number of Jews after they came in. He was one of them. That’s why my mother sent my sister up to Budapest. In fact, he wasn’t even deported with us. He was deported separately.

Frankel: So he was released after he was taken?
OSTROFF: No, I think he was taken with a whole group of people over there who were detained. I think somebody said they were in [Garon], which was some sort of a detention camp. I don’t really know where he was. None of us really know. All we know is that he was deported several days afterwards with a group and some people said he reached Auschwitz; other people said he jumped in Czechoslovakia and he was shot, because he was told that we are no longer alive. So he said, “What’s the difference?” and he jumped on the train. Whether this is true or not, I do not know. This is all hearsay.

Frankel: Then what happened to you and your two sisters and your mother and brother?
OSTROFF: OK, let’s see. After Pesach, I think about two days after Pesach, which is towards the end of April, we were herded into a ghetto. We were allowed to take whatever we could carry. It was minimum stuff and we had to leave everything behind. Our family was very, very fortunate because, see, the ghetto was in a totally different part of the city from where we lived. We were really very fortunate because somehow (I don’t know how my mother did it), but somehow my family got a two-bedroom apartment or house or whatever it was. We were in it some eight adults and eleven children; it’s an extended family. My grandfather, my aunts and children, we were there from April until about May 15. 

From the ghetto, several people slipped out. Two sisters came with us to camp and two of the other ones got away. They went up to Budapest. These were very, very close friends, so I know that. I’m sure there were other ones too, but them I can remember. Anyway, we were there until the middle of May; I think it was about May 17th that we were taken from the ghetto to the synagogue. It’s a conservative synagogue. I think the Nazis like to take all the Jews who were transported first to a synagogue and rob them of whatever else they may have had. They searched us; they took everything else we may have had. We were there just a few hours really, and from the synagogue they took us to the train station to the cattle car. I’ll never forget that day. It was a curfew. It was bright daylight, a real sunny day. 

Nobody was supposed to be on the street besides the Hungarian SS who escorted us; they are really the Arrow Cross. But we could see the sheets had to all be drawn, closed; we could see people behind curtains peeking out, but no one came out. Nobody said anything or anybody coming to rescue. The walk wasn’t very long. In fact, in 1986 I had to go back to Hungary and make that march from the synagogue to the station where we were deported from. We all got on the cattle cars. We were jammed in like herrings. Most of my family was in the same cattle car; I think there must have been about 70 people in one train [car]. Everybody wanted to know where are we going, are we being resettled? The thing we must remember, there were absolutely no young people there besides some children, some young women and elderly men because all our young men were already taken away from us; they were in the labor camps. 

One of my uncles went insane on the train. He literally lost his mind. Oh, these memories come back. I haven’t thought of this in years. [Thoughtful pause]. We had very little food because they are telling us the trip is going to take two to three days, and it took some seven days. After the third and fourth days when we stopped, people were begging for water. There were babies there who needed something to drink. I think they gave us water once, one stop, and that was it.

After that they didn’t even stop; they just kept going. The three days was either six or seven days, I really don’t remember. When we arrived to Auschwitz; “Arbeit Macht Frei” is the big slogan on the entry way to Auschwitz. The train stopped and they opened the doors to the cattle cars and there was a band playing music. There were a lot of men with striped uniforms and some German military men. All we heard was “geh raus, geh raus, geh raus.” We got out and some of these men wearing the uniforms were walking by us and said, “Nobody is sick. Nobody is younger than 16 and nobody is older than 21, which was ridiculous.” We were coming out, the commotion was phenomenal, screaming, “Leave everything behind. You have your names on it, it will find you. We’ll make sure that your luggage (or whatever we had) will be transported to the place wherever you will be.” Anyway, we got out and we were walking. 

My two sisters, myself, my mother and my younger brother, we started walking together. I was holding on to my mother’s hand, and I wanted to go with her so much because I saw ahead of me that we were being separated. We were getting to the front. My mother said, “No, you go with your sisters. Your brother needs me more.” I said, “I got to go with you.” She said, “No.” She really gave me life twice, because we never saw her again, or my brother. And here I am. Excuse me [crying]. Anyway, my sister and I went to the left. They always say whoever went to the right lived and whoever went to the left died. But it was my left I went to, not the right, or to the right of Mengele, where he was pointing. But I always say I went to the left and my mother went to the right. 

We went to an area where they stripped us and they shaved our heads, and then we stood in line. They were giving us this drab, gray, striped clothing to wear. To this day I don’t remember if I had underwear or not. I just remember I had sort of a dress with three or four buttons on it. We were very fortunate because we were able to keep our shoes. Anyone who didn’t have shoes was in real trouble. In fact, those shoes were so good that it lasted all through camp, all through our incarceration. 

In typical German way, after we got our clothing we went through a line and they were registering us. In the beginning I told you that my mother told my sister, Magda, who was in Budapest, not to leave. Not to come back, because a cousin of mine was taken away and we never saw her again. This is where we met her. She was one of the girls writing our names down and giving us a label, which we had to put on our jackets, or dresses, whatever they were. So that was a reunion with her. 

From there, actually this was Auschwitz. From Auschwitz they took us to Birkenau. In Birkenau we wanted to know where our parents were and where my mother was. We were told that we would be reunited with them. Don’t worry about it. Then one of the kapos came up and said, “Don’t kid yourself, you’ll never see them again. Tonight you will see the smoke going up from the crematorium and that’s where your parents or brothers or sisters, whoever may be, are.” Do you know my mother was 39 years old? My brother was about 11, and my father who evidently came a few days later, he was about… He was born in 1900, so he was about 44, 45 years old. My mother was the oldest of all her sisters. Her brother was younger. In a way we are fortunate. I will get back to Auschwitz, but want to finish this one train of thought. I have an aunt in Israel, an uncle in Canada who survived, and I have one aunt who lives in Denver, but she was in England during the war, so she wasn’t touched. Oh yes, I have another aunt in Canada also, but she was also in Budapest, so she wasn’t in camp either.

Getting back to Birkenau, we were in a barrack. I don’t know, about 1500 people. We had cubicles. Each cubicle held six people. I don’t think the cubicle was more than nine by nine. All I remember is we slept this way, head-toe, head-toe, and if one turned, everybody had to turn. It wasn’t that one could turn and the other one didn’t have to. It was a very difficult time. We were in Birkenau about from middle of May, or towards the end of May probably until the middle of July, so about six or seven weeks. Time was meaningless. We don’t really know time. Every morning and every night we had what you call zählappell. Well that was really you had to get up and they counted you. They wanted to make sure everybody was there. 

Those were the times when they also made the selection. Anybody they took, that was the end, you never saw them again. One of my girlfriend’s mother was taken at that time. She didn’t have a small child so she wasn’t taken at the separation. But she got sick and her legs swell, so she was taken to the infirmary, but she never came back. It was a very difficult time over there. It either rained and then we stood in mud – it wasn’t even mud, it was clay. Or the sun was beating down on us. 

One very interesting thing which happened there – one of the girls, one of the ladies was pregnant (she was a lady to me) and there was a physician among us and she aborted the baby for her over there. I don’t know who the physician was; she was a Hungarian woman. Somebody said it was the same lady who survived and was in Israel and became a very famous physician at a Hadassah hospital, but I’m not sure if it’s the same one or not. But she survived; she came with us out of Auschwitz. Otherwise, the handwriting was written on the wall, she would have never made it. 

As I said before, we were in Auschwitz approximately six to seven weeks, middle of July we were the fortunate ones. We were selected and taken on a cattle train into Germany to Geislingen. We worked in the Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik [metal and ammunition factory]. Geislingen is just a few kilometers from Stuttgardt. It was an ammunition factory during the war. Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik, they do all kinds of things now and before the war, but during the war it was just a munition factory. We were in a camp, a work camp, and always the SS was with us. The electrical wires surrounded us, and we were supervised by SS men and women. We had a Lagerältester and the kapos. The kapos and the Lagerältester, they were all criminals. They took them out from jail and they are the ones who are supposed to take care of us, make sure we don’t step out of line. They were sadistic. Criminals sadistic. For the slightest thing, I have seen them just beating someone half to death. 

We lived here and worked in the factory. I personally did welding, at the age of going on 13. I was welding two pieces of metals together, supposedly it was for an airplane. I don’t know what they would have used so many pieces of welded metals for airplanes, but who knows? We weren’t the only ones there. We had French prisoners of war and there were Russians, but the Russians weren’t prisoners of war. They lived in… We used to march by them, we walked practically five to six kilometers every day, one way from the camp to the factory. We got up roughly about 5 o’clock in the morning. They gave us something to eat, whatever it was, and a small piece of bread. We usually saved the bread to take it with us so we have something to eat midday. We used to see these barracks and the barracks are occupied by Russians. I don’t know who they were, and we never found out who they were. They may have been transplanted from certain areas in Russia when the Germans occupied and then they brought them over, just to do work. Because they weren’t prisoners per se, but we understood that they were not supposed to leave Geislingen. There was a curfew for them, a certain hour they had to be in their barracks, and so forth. But we work between 12 to 13 hours a day, six days a week. 

We had a couple of selections over there. The last one was in, I think, it was towards the end of the year; it was December or January, either the end of the year or the beginning of the year. And I remember that woman, she must have been about 35 years old, a beautiful woman – she went insane. Esther was her name. Haven’t remembered her name or her… She always sang. She had a beautiful voice, but she lost her mind and she was amongst the last people whom they took away from the camp. 

The only bright thing I can say about that camp is that my sister Olga had appendicitis attack, and they actually performed surgery on her in February of 1945. We went to see her in the hospital. My sister Lily had a foreman, a German; he was a very nice man. He took us – how he finagled it, I have absolutely no idea – but he took us to see my sister because we didn’t believe that she was there. He found out that she was, and to put us at ease. He took us there, and we walked into that place and we couldn’t believe it. She was in a bed with white sheets; it was unreal, it was unheard of. There was such a thing as a white sheet and a bed? She was in the hospital about 11 days and she came back and we were extremely concerned that with the food what we were getting (which was absolutely nothing), that she wouldn’t be able to survive. I remember at work every so often the French prisoners of war used to give us something if they could. Many times they managed to give me milk, just little tiny containers of milk. I don’t know whether they put it into containers. After my sister came home, I always brought it home so she could have it. What a thrill it was to get that something and bring it home. 

But getting back to the cruelty and brutality of those kapos. One day, it was the middle of the day (and there wasn’t a clock or a calendar, nothing in the camp), it as a Sunday afternoon. I wanted to know for whatever crazy reason what time it was. I don’t know why. I went to the kitchen because they had a clock there on the wall and I opened the door to the kitchen just to look in and see what time it was. This one kapo was standing there and she yelled at me and she said, “Aha! What did you come for? You wanted to steal some of the potatoes?”  Before I had a chance to answer, she slapped me left and right and then I said, “I would never do that because I if I take it, the other ones can’t have it.” And I left. That night she was serving that miserable soup and she gave me about three times as much as for anybody else. I guess she felt guilty. Because she realized I really didn’t do anything; I just wanted to see the clock. Little anecdotes that come to mind which you never remember.

Anyway, this was a very monotonous thing. We did the same thing, day in and day out. Going to the factory, coming back. Going to the factory, coming back. Up until about the first week of April, suddenly something was happening. We knew it. We were leaving Geislingen. 

We were once again back in our cattle cars. Where were we going? Nobody knew. The SS woman started to ease up. We knew there was something happening. She said, “You are going to near Dachau, to a women’s camp called Allach.” We arrived there just about a day later and when we were walking from our train, or the cattle cars into the camp… the first time we saw some men, Jewish males working, and we were the first women they had seen since they were incarcerated. Amongst all those people working, there was one young man from my hometown. And he’s the one, when he was liberated, he saw my sister Magda in Budapest and told her we were alive. 

But we were in Allach. For two weeks. We didn’t do anything there; we just waited. I’m literally starved; they didn’t give us anything. We had water and grass, that’s about all. Two weeks after that we were once again taken, put into the cattle car, this time the same SS woman were telling us the destination was unknown. She had no idea where we were going. The rumor was they were trying to take us to the Tyrol Mountain and complete the final solution, get rid of us. But the allied forces were closing in by that time and we were going back and we were going forth; and we were going forth and we were going back. We were in the train, we never got down until it was April 29th. We were in the cattle cars about four of five days, maybe a week.

One of the SS women brought us a white flag; it wasn’t a flag. She said it was her wedding veil, and just to put it on the door to the cattle car. We ignored it, but on the 29th of April, the day before liberation, the Red Cross came by and brought us packages of food. We were literally starved. We started to eat the canned food, and some of us got so sick, including me. God, was I sick! That’s about the last thing in the world that we needed was to eat that kind of food. 

Anyway, the following day, April 30th, the American soldiers marched in. They were carrying an American flag and there was a red long ribbon attached to the flag. We asked why and we were told that President [Franklin] Roosevelt died and that’s why the black ribbon on the flag. The American soldiers found us accommodations nearby. The area was called Iffeldorf; its just a little village. We were there for about two weeks and from there we were taken to a DP camp in Feldafing, which is a few miles from Munich. My sister Magda found us there because this young man as I said before, told her that we were there, that we were liberated. She found out that we were in Feldafing and she came to meet us and she stayed with us and we all came to the United States two years later. Or two and a half years later. We were liberated, really, April 30, 1945 and we came here. Magda came in ’46 because she got married and was pregnant, so she came September of ’46, and we came exactly a year later. My two sisters came September 21, 1947. 

I’m sure there are so many things I failed to mention in my story as I was going through it, just little anecdotes. The joy of hearing the bombs falling on the buildings, whether we were in Allach or we were in Geisinglen, because we knew every time we hear a bomb, the airplanes dropping bombs, we knew that hope was closer and closer. I think the most difficult part of it all was the realization that so many of our dear ones weren’t coming back. That they were gone. See, until the very last minute, you can believe it. Even when we saw people being selected and taken away from us, our emotions would not allow us to come to the conclusion and say, “No, my parents are gone.” I honestly believe the only reason I am here is because I had a meaning in my life and the meaning was to be reunited with our family.

There’s no question in my mind. I truly believe if you would have taken that meaning away from us, I don’t think any of us would have survived. It is that thing that you have something to live for. It is so very important. I remember standing in rain in Geisinglen, I was a youngster, and saying to myself, “I’m going to survive. I’m going to defeat Hitler. It may be posthumously, but I’m going to have a family. I’m going to have children, and they’ll have children and there will never be a Hitler again. Whether I’m succeeding, I don’t know, but I’m sure trying.” 

What else can I tell you? I came to this country. I met a wonderful man within a few months I was here. Literally a few months. We were just getting out of high school. I got married. He went to school here. I went to school here. We lived in Texas while we were in school. From there we went to Alaska. From Alaska we came to Oregon. We have our children in Oregon. We have our grandchildren in Oregon. Maybe we will all live happily ever after [smiling].

Frankel: There are a few more questions I wanted to ask you.
OSTROFF: I’m sure you do.

Frankel: You say you may have spent about six, seven days in the cattle car from Hungary to Auschwitz. Do you remember a few things that went through your mind, conversations with your mother or sisters? Did you know where you were going?
OSTROFF: No, we didn’t know. The only thing I remember that this uncle who went insane, the first day he told my mother, “If we go under a bridge, we are going to Poland.” Now I don’t know which bridge is that or where it was, but I can hear it now. Whether we went under the bridge or not, I do not know, but we did go to Poland. I remember that. I remember the tremendous difficulty. One lady died in the cattle car. There were several babies who were constantly screaming. My poor younger brother had such a difficult time. He was just a little kid, and he had to go to the bathroom and he couldn’t. My mother used that precious water to help him along in order for him to be able to relieve himself. But it had to be done. It was a very, very long, long trip. You know you read about these things that people are yelling and screaming at each other. 

Our guard was so calm, people were extremely sad. I think people had a feeling that this was the end. To many, many of them, including my grandfather, a sweet old gentleman, it was the end. My two aunts, and this uncle… My aunt was younger than my mother. But he was for some reason older than my father, so he must have been maybe 50 years old or close to it. He went insane. I had another aunt with us, and quite a few cousins. None of them came back. Anybody who was in our car, to the best of my knowledge, the only ones who came back is the three of us – my two older sisters and myself. No one else in that one particular car. It was basically my extended family there. Because my uncle was in the workforce, he didn’t go with us; he was inducted in this workforce and he was shipped out with all of them into Poland, and they were laying railroads I think he told me at one time. And my aunt Aranka who is now living in Israel, she was deported from Budapest. She wasn’t in Auschwitz; she was somewhere in Czechoslovakia.

Frankel: Before the war, did you have any non-Jewish friends?
OSTROFF: Lots of them. Lots of them. Talking about non-Jewish friends, very interesting. My sister Lily went back to Hungary after the war. And there in the back of my house, evidently my parents hid a lot of things – silver and those type of things. It was just a hole; it was all dug out. But before we were deported one of our neighbors told my mother that “Whatever you give me, when you come home, I’ll give it back to you.” This was our good friends, non-Jewish good friends. They had grandchildren about a little bit older than myself, but more my sister’s age. The boy was my age. We were all very good friends, OK? There was another neighbor who was considered an antisemite, and I think (I don’t know why my mother did it), but she gave a great deal to the one, the so-called friend, and quite a bit to the other one. Whether she felt in order to keep peace because one saw the other one, or whatever reason, I do not know. 

The interesting thing about it is when Lily came back and she went into the so-called friend’s house, “Oh your mother didn’t leave anything.” And my mother’s tablecloth is right on her table, so Lily took it up with all the dishes. She said, “You can have the dishes, but this is my mother’s.” The lady who was antisemite came over to Lily and said, “You know, before you were deported, your mother left this many things with me and I kept it in a chest, and I would like to give it to you.” So, who’s a friend and who’s an enemy? You never know. Yes, my sister Olga’s best friend was a non-Jewish girl. I had some very dear friends, of course, from the day school. But you know, it’s a very interesting thing. My father was a very religious man, but he was a very intelligent man. He read philosophy, history, literature, not only pertaining to Jewish subjects, but worldly subjects also. My house was full of books. There was never a dinner when something wasn’t talked about or discussed. Invariably, there was always somebody coming for a Friday night dinner or Shabbat. My father never came home alone. I think that’s why I can’t have a holiday without having people in my house. I always have to have somebody. I think it’s a carry over from my parents’ house. You asked me something else?

Frankel: I asked about the non-Jewish neighbors. When the Germans, the Nazis invaded, did your mother try and send you into hiding? 
OSTROFF: No. My mother wanted to keep us all together. The only reason my sister Magda went to Budapest was because she needed to make contact with my father’s business associates, people who he did business with, whether it was because they owed us money, or she could get money from them. See the idea was, or the belief was, that we were wealthy, and we were not. We were just middle class people; we didn’t have… As a good example, my father, I remember saying to us, we were four daughters, and my sister was getting to a marriageable age, in a religious family needless to say, and they were talking about the dowry my father was going to give my sister. And I can hear it now, he said, “If I could give my four daughters as much as they say I’m going to give my oldest daughter, I will be perfectly happy.” I think that gives you an idea that what people believe and what you actually are may be two different things.

Frankel: You also said that it was the Arrow Cross who took you to the ghetto.
OSTROFF: Yes, we didn’t see any Germans.

Frankel: When did you first see Germans?
OSTROFF: Not until Auschwitz.

Frankel; Not even on the trains?
OSTROFF: I think the first time we saw the German soldiers was at the first stop we made where they gave us water, and where that was I haven’t the foggiest idea. 

Frankel: Until you were taken back to Germany, to Geislingen, did you work in Birkenau?
OSTROFF: No. In Birkenau we didn’t do anything. In Geislingen I worked. But you know, the Arrow Cross, its a little story, which was a very touching thing. See I remember, all through the war or all through the camps, I should say, you always had to line up five in a row. We were always the three of us and two sisters. These two sisters had the other two sisters I told you to begin with, they slipped out of the ghetto. But the five of us, the Berger girls, we were always together. They lived in the same house as we did and we were very, very close. In fact, one of the boys was going to marry my sister who lives in Florida when they both grew up, you know [laughs].

Anyway, on a serious note, when we were being herded together to be taken to the ghetto, the Bergers, Mr. and Mrs. Berger and the four girls we were all standing together. Because once again, their brothers were already taken in the work camp, the work force. One of the officers, a Hungarian officer from the Arrow Cross, he was wearing the insignia of the Arrow Cross. He started to push Mr. Berger. He was a little man with a long white beard, a very gentle person. This one daughter of his simply adored him and she got between the Arrow Cross officer and her father and she said to him, “If you touch my father, I’ll kill you.” And he actually backed off. We literally froze, the rest of us. This is the words she used: “If you touch my father, I’ll kill you.” That’s a testament to somebody, isn’t it? That’s love, for you.

Frankel: Now when you were in Geislingen and had to walk six kilometers to work, did you walk by or through a town?
OSTROFF: Yes, we walked through a town and many times people were throwing packages for us, like an apple, or maybe a piece of bread or something like that. Nobody ever talked to us because we had SS on either side of us. We were walking in rows of five, because every time you left they counted you, and every time we came back, they counted you again to make sure that we were all there. Yes, we always walked in a row, from the beginning, leaving the camp, going to the factory, leaving the factory, coming back to the camp.

Frankel: Did anyone ever try to escape?
OSTROFF: No, not to my knowledge. You know, we were, on the other side of us there was a prisoner of war camp. They were French prisoners and a couple of people spoke French in our camp and eventually there was some contact. And we always had war stories, what my mother used to call at home the ‘[McMikvah]  telegraph office presents,’ and we used to call it the ‘French telegraph office presents.’ They used to give us, “The Allied forces are here,” or “Allied forces are there,” so we used to celebrate; it was a big celebration. Went to take an ice cold shower and that was a big celebration. 

Frankel: When your sister had that appendicitis attack, how did it happen and how was she taken to a regular hospital?
OSTROFF: Let me think. How did it happen to begin with? She doubled over…

Frankel: Was it at work?
OSTROFF: You know I don’t remember whether it was in the camp or it was at work. I think I feel that it was at work. See I was by myself with two other girls welding in a little cubicle. My sister Olga worked very close to where Lily was, so Lily saw it and I think they had the same foreman. For some reason I think that it was at work. Now the hospital, I feel that it must have been a hospital for the prisoners of war and also probably for those Russian émigrés or whatever they were who also worked for the Germans. Certainly it wasn’t for us Jews. I think if it would have happened three months before or two months before, she wouldn’t be with us. She had life. We were just very fortunate that it happened that late. I think they realized that the handwriting was on the wall and that Germany was losing the war. The Allied forces were coming closer and closer to us. 

Frankel: After the liberation, you said you stayed two more years in Germany. Were you in the DP camp for two years?
OSTROFF: Yes. In fact, from Iffeldorf we went directly to Feldafing, which was a DP camp. They brought people from all over. There were Polish, Greek, just from everywhere; from every country in Europe they were there. But a great many Poles, Czechs, Romanians, Hungarians, and so forth.

Frankel: What was it like living in those camps?
OSTROFF: Oh, it was freedom. You just don’t know what it was! The three of us we actually had a room of our own. We had a bed, and we had sheets. Do you know what we did in Iffeldorf? It’s hard to believe. When we were liberated and given a place to stay… See the American soldiers found sleeping, housing accommodation for each and every one of us. So it happened that about ten of us were housed in the mayor’s house and we walked and we saw all that money. Do you know what we did with the German mark? We ripped them all up. We thought that was the end of Germany, you know? We just ripped them all up. Who cared? Who wanted money? Who needed anything?

All we wanted was just a roof over our head. That was, you know, ripping up the money, I think was… I’m not quite sure whether it was a feeling that Germany no longer exists, so the money is worthless. Or was it a feeling of revenge? I don’t know, but it may have been a combination of both.

I think while we were in Iffeldorf they were trying to find the location that they could congregate us. In Feldafing, this was a Hitlerjungen camp, so they had everything there: they had the beds, they had the individual rooms, they had the bedding and everything for us. All they had to do is, we all got (our shoes were still good), but we got our clothing and eventually they found… Before we left Iffeldorf a couple of the American soldiers (that’s another story) found a shoe factory and they fitted each of us with new shoes. We had to stand in line (and none of us spoke English of course), and all we ever heard from this lovely guard, he was really a nice guy, “Back, go back,” and so we called him ‘Backum.’ “Here comes ‘Backum’” [laughs]. So ‘Backum’ helped us find shoes and then he helped us find some clothing and then we all went to Feldafing, which was a Hitlerjungen camp. They set up kitchens there. Now, over there they were trying to make me go to England.

Frankel: Who are they?
OSTROFF: I think it was the UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration] people. Anyone under the age of 15 or 16 – 15, because Olga was under that too. They said that in England that we will have a home, we will be educated, and eventually somebody will adopt us, and suddenly we all became older. We had all the education we needed because we absolutely refused to be parted. We didn’t have my sister Magda yet with us either, and we were still not quite convinced that we won’t find my brother at least, if not my mother. But it kept going through our head; we saw other people about my mother’s age. Remember my mother would have been 40 years old then. You know what, I look in a crowd sometimes for my brother today? It wouldn’t be such a tremendous surprise if somebody told me he was alive. Of course, I’m out of my mind even suggesting it, but it’s not a definitive. Even though I light the yahrzeit candle and I say Kaddish after him, I still don’t feel it’s an absolute death. That’s foolishness. 

But getting back to Feldafing. So, we said no way are we going anywhere. We are old, we are educated; we became Czech rather than Hungarian. I came to the United States as a Czech citizen, not Hungarian.

Frankel: Why?
OSTROFF: Because we could come as Czechs, and Hungarian we couldn’t. 

Frankel: Do you know why?
OSTROFF: Quota system, whatever. It didn’t make any difference. Czech, older… It just didn’t make any difference. Nothing is real on that birth certificate, but so what. So I’m Czech, and I’m as old as I am [laughing]. We were there, let’s see, from liberation which was April 30, 1945 through August, the very end of August. The very end of August we left, we went for Bremerhaven. We sailed, I don’t know when, but it took us 10 or 11 days. We arrived to the United States on September 21, 1947.

Frankel: What was daily life in DP camp like in those two years? Did you go to school? Did you work? 
OSTROFF: We did work in a way. We were bilingual. Believe it or not, in those days I spoke German quite fluently. I totally forgot it; I don’t know any German. The only time it came back temporarily was at one time we were in Switzerland and were going to Italy and we couldn’t go because it was all fogged in. So we had to drive through Germany and we had to stop overnight and I spoke German fluently. Somehow it came back. Now I don’t remember it again. It’s just an amazing thing to me. I can’t read it; I can’t make a sentence. I understand here and there, sometimes a little bit. But anyway, we worked for the UNRRA. They are the ones who brought us to the United States. That’s how we got out here; they paid our passage, whatever it was.

My sister Magda came first and then we came the three of us. But getting back to your original question, that was about the only work we did. We did a lot of reading, we started to learn a little English; not too much, but we learned some. Whatever books we could get hold of. When we arrived to this country, I got a job on the basis of how old I was on my passport. I was 18, I told them. I got a job in a factory and I sewed buttons on. Sewed buttons, but at eight months I was going to school, learning English and some typing and shorthand. My English was coming along, got a job in the Swiss watch dial factory. They taught me some bookkeeping and I worked in an office, was going to Hunter College at night. A couple of years later I got married, four years I knew Herb before we got married, almost four years. We got married and we went to Texas and I went to school there. Then I got out and I worked while Herb finished school of architecture and from there we went to Alaska and then to Portland.

Lang: When was the first time you told your story about what happened to you?
OSTROFF: It was a theater party. 

Frankel: It must have been after your trip to Hungary.
OSTROFF: Yes. I never mentioned that, did I? 1981 and 1986. 
I used to have dreams, horrible dreams, and it was the same dream over and over again. I’m a child; I’m back in Hungary. The Germans are chasing me, and I’m running for dear life. I hit the big house where we lived; I push the door in – or the gate; its not the door, it’s a big gate. I go through it and I’m trying to close it, but they are pushing it open and I wound up screaming. It was the same thing. Anything could bring it on. I could see the word Nazi or Holocaust. I could see a movie in reference to it, read a book; I knew, I could tell. If I didn’t finish my dream one night, I would finish it the following night. People say you don’t continue dreams. You do. I’m a witness to it. 

We went to Europe a couple of times, and I never wanted to go to Hungary. 1981, one morning I woke up and said to Herb, “I think I want to go to Hungary.” And we did. We arrived to Budapest and then we drove down to my hometown, but first we went to Olaszliszka because that was the first stop, and from there to Sátoraljaújhely. I didn’t know where I was. Nothing was familiar, and suddenly I found a statue in a Catholic church and I knew exactly where I was. After that I could find everything. I was very fortunate because the building was still there. Everything was dilapidated, though. That was on the neighborhood, main street; it was a beautiful neighborhood once upon a time. It was totally dilapidated. 

But anyway we walked; we found my school. I found my favorite teacher’s house. We couldn’t find the ghetto; it didn’t exist anymore. But we walked and we found the high school and then we left. We went back to Olaszliszka, that’s where my grandparents lived. Most of the time I used to go there by train and whenever the train stopped (you know, it was a small village), the conductor used to yell in Hungarian: “Olaszliszka [torchua]. One minute stop. Everybody down or off the train.” I was standing at that railroad station. I heard it. I heard him, “Olaszliszka [torchua] egy perc megállás.” I heard every word of it. But to cut a long story short, we came back and I must have buried my dead because it was a catharsis for me. I never had that dream again since.

In ’86 when we went to Israel and Yugoslavia, I said to Herb, “Let’s go back to Hungary again. I felt I needed to do one other thing which I didn’t do, and that was to walk from the synagogue to the railroad station. Where we walked to the cattle cars. I did that and I felt much better, and I never want to go back to Hungary again. I have absolutely no desire anymore. I did what I had to do. It was like going [inaudible], if you know what I mean.

Lang: So, back to the original question…
OSTROFF: Oh, I’m sorry.

Lang: When did you first tell your story? Was that after you came back the second time from Hungary?
OSTROFF: I think, I’m not sure. Sylvia?

Frankel: I think it might be the second time because that would be already seven years ago.
OSTROFF: I don’t think so; it may have been ’86. I couldn’t, I never talked about it. My children knew very little about this. They never did anything, they never really asked questions. They knew I was a survivor, but that’s about it. I didn’t know whether I felt that I was burdening them and I didn’t want to burden them with my story. I don’t know if I was right; I’m not justifying it one way or another. I did tell them once they were adults, but as youngsters I never did.

Lang: Did you talk about it with your husband?
OSTROFF: I used to sporadically. I told him quite a bit in the beginning; when we started to go together, he knew I was a survivor. Many of the things were really very fresh still in my memory. Now sometimes I think these things are a dream; it’s not really real. 

Lang: How did you meet Herb?
OSTROFF: Upstate New York. I was here not even ten months. Let’s see, I came in September of 1947. I met him during the July 4th weekend in 1948. My sister Magda had a baby then and she went up to the country, and me and my two other sisters went to see her for the July 4th weekend. Herb was playing in the band; he was just a high school kid [laughs]. 

Lang: He was born in the United States? In New York?
OSTROFF: Yes, he was born in Queens, I believe, or Flushing. One of those places. Queens.

Lang: How did you decide to come out to Portland?
OSTROFF: Oh, that’s a long story. When Herb graduated from college he had an obligation to the ROTC. We were up in Alaska for three years; he had a four year obligation. We wanted to really go to the East Coast. We thought, my whole family was on the East Coast, his family was on the East Coast, who wants to come to Oregon? We thought Atlanta would be lovely, because from Atlanta possibly we can go to…he has one more year…then they may ship us over to Europe for a year or some exotic place. So Herb’s major, or colonel by then, was going to Washington D.C. and asked Herb, “Would you like me to fix you up? Where would you like to go?” Herb said, “Atlanta, Georgia.” So he calls back and says to Herb, “I can’t get you Atlanta, but I can get you Portland.” His reaction was, “Portland, Maine?” And he says, “No, no, no, Portland, Oregon.” So he calls me and asks me and I said, “Why not? We’ll never come to the West Coast; it will be fun to see a different place for a year.” So we came and we liked it. We stayed and our children are born in Oregon, and here we are.

Lang: You have two daughters?
OSTROFF: We have two daughters and a son. My oldest daughter is Sherry, she’s married. Her husband is Steven. Sherry and Steven Stone. They have two lovely children, and the third is on her way. On her way, I can say, because we know it’s a girl. She has a daughter, Elana, and a son Adam, and a little girl; I don’t know what her name will be yet. Our son Mickey lives in Seattle. He is not married. He works for Boeing; he’s an engineer and lives in Seattle. And I have a second daughter and that’s why I was saying I’m not so sure I’m doing what I set out to do. She’s married to a young man whose name is Larsnicker and my daughter’s name is Hillary. 

Lang: You’re a working woman?
OSTROFF: Yes.

Lang: And for somebody of your generation that was fairly unusual, I think? I don’t know. When did you first start working?
OSTROFF: Oh my goodness. When did I first start working? A week after I came to this country. I worked; I sewed buttons on. Then I worked for the Swiss Watch Dial company (gee, I remember that name, I’m so proud of it). I worked until I got married, and going to school at night. After I got married, when we were in Texas, first I worked for the University commons part-time while I was in school. After that I worked for the [Stack] company until Herb left for the military and we went to Alaska. By that time I had an education so I worked for the government. I was head of a section in the accounting department, and they wanted me to take over the accounting department if we stayed one more year. They offered me an “11” because I was only a “9.” Or was it a “9” they offered me? I can’t remember. We decided no, we were leaving. 

Then I came to Oregon and for a year I didn’t work until we had Sherry; I actually didn’t work again until Hillary went into first grade. Then I started to work with an accountant part-time. He was an elderly gentleman and he felt if he will retire, if he gives up his practice, he’s going to die. He tried several junior accountants to work with; it didn’t work out for him. Anyway, a friend of mine asked me (he knew him, this accountant), if I would work and help him out. And I said, “Well if he can fit his hours into mine or if I can fit my hours into his hours, why not?” So I was willing to try, and I worked with him for three years. Then he moved and wanted to sell me his practice. By that time all his clients asked me if I would take them over when the old man retires. I went on my own, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I’m slowly and fast giving it up, as fast as I can. But then I have my husband and I take care of our own investments, which is a full-time job in itself [chuckles].

Lang: You went through a whole lot during your life. It’s terrible what you went through but it’s important that people who see this video in the future – children, high school, junior high – when they watch it that they get some kind of idea from you, some kind of inspiration. What are your thoughts, what should they do so this doesn’t happen again?
OSTROFF: What they should do? They should care. They should care what happens to other people. You know, the Jewish principle of caring and tzedakah is a very, very important thing, because if you care for your fellow man, you will never allow anything disastrous or awful or horrible like this to happen. And as individuals in order to survive, you really have to have a meaning in life. That’s a basic principle. I truly believe in that if you have a meaning to your life, if you have a goal, you will survive and you can surmount many, many things. That’s about all I can say.

Lang: Do you have anything else, Sylvia?
Frankel: No, thank you.  
Lang: Thank you very much.
OSTROFF: Thank you.

[Interview ends and the following conversation continues]

OSTROFF:  Do you remember my sister’s surgery? Do you remember that back when, some time ago I got something in the mail about Hungarian Jews who survived that they can apply for reparation or whatever. I told you if I ever get anything the Resource Center is going to get an endowment fund because I don’t want it; I never wanted any money and I still don’t. I start, somehow that thing hit me, that was the time it hit me. I don’t know the correlation; I don’t know what brought it up, but I think that’s about the first time I ever told you that Olga had surgery. There are certain things you totally forget. Even today I can come up with something that she has never heard before.

Frankel: When you and your sisters get together, though, does it bring up a lot of memories?
OSTROFF: It used to. That’s how I found out about my sister and her dream. God, it tore me apart. It was 3 o’clock in the morning one Shabbat Friday night. She and I were sitting, it was years ago, we were sitting on the floor talking and she told me that story. God did I cry my eyes out. I mean, she went into it in lengths. I couldn’t because I was afraid I was going to cry, so I just sort of condensed the whole thing. But what she went through, that’s a book in itself. When she got there, she absolutely didn’t know what to do.

Frankel: She could live with her aunt?
OSTROFF: She couldn’t! They couldn’t communicate. They couldn’t do anything. They sometimes walked by just to see each other. She had these friends, a couple of the Berger girls. One girl was in Budapest also, and they used to walk at certain hours; they had established that they will walk so that they know they’re still around. Nobody knew what to do. Do you know what she found out afterwards? That the house she lived in, they suspected that she possibly could be Jewish. They didn’t say anything. One of them thought she may be Jewish and the other ones thought she may be an informant. Could you believe this? They had a daughter-in-law or a son-in-law who was Jewish so they were afraid and nobody said a word. 

Frankel: Did she tell her stories?
OSTROFF: My oldest, my sister Lily did tell her story to somebody in Washington, D.C.

Frankel: But not us?
OSTROFF: No. Not that I know of. She worked in a factory during the war. She got a job. I don’t even remember what she did, but she has her Aryan papers and some day – would you like a copy of it? It can be Xeroxed. I have some papers, did I show it to you?

Frankel: I don’t think I have ever seen them.
OSTROFF: It has Czechoslovakia on it and all this different information, but it has my picture on it. It is just, I am so fat [laughing]. Do you know when I was liberated (that’s what I should have said), when I was liberated I weighed 58 pounds, or about 38 kilos – it wasn’t even 58 pounds. OK. 50 pounds or something like that. And then I put on so much weight in a year. By the time we came here, I was no longer fat when I met you, was I? Oh, no. It took me eight years to put on six pounds. When I got married, I was 93 pounds. To reach 100 pounds, it took me seven or eight years. I ate [everything], you name it. I worked at it. I really wanted to put the weight on because felt I was just too skinny. But oh God, was I [chubby], you know one of those really full faces. That’s one thing – I’ll never have short hair again. Do you know that? Do you know that if I could a meal, I can’t cook for two people. When I go grocery shopping I buy twice as much food as I need. There is no time can you ever come into my house and I can’t go into my freezer and feed maybe six people. There is just something in me that I’m always afraid somebody is going to go hungry. And not because I want people to put on weight, there’s just something that I just… I could never have a surprise of somebody coming on a Shabbat or a Friday night or a holiday that I can’t feed six other people because there is always this fear of hunger. Hunger is a terrible thing. It is indescribable. I think thirst is even worse. You can get used to hunger a little bit faster than you can get used to thirst. Thirst is an awful thing. I go many times shopping and Herb smiles at me, “You buying out the store again?” It’s just something, an instinct in me that makes me buy food. I always have to have it. I probably have ten boxes of cereal in the house, you know? And I don’t know how many boxes of jam, it’s just something I can’t help.

Frankel: Are your sisters like that, too?
OSTROFF: I don’t think so. Olga is this way. Not Lily. Magda is this way. Magda is always buying too much. [talking in the background between Lang and Frankel]
It was very easy for me to buy meat wholesale, no problem. That was a very natural thing. I’m going to have a lot, never bothered me. I’m just reminiscing these little things. You know, one book meant to me more, maybe because I agree with it so much, more than any book I think I read on the Holocaust. And that’s Dr. [Viktor] Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. That book has so much insight. It totally described my feelings all the way through. I honestly feel I never could have made it if I didn’t have that feeling, if I had never had that will. OK, I’ve kept you long enough. 

What I really wanted to tell you when you asked me what happened in the DP camp, and I completely forgot about it so I’m coming back to it. One day my brother-in-law (my sister Magda was married by then). She married Bernard Eisenberg who was also in camp. He was liberated and he was from Poland. Anyway, he had some friends in Bergen-Belsen; he was going there and he wanted me to go with him. I was the youngest; I was a kid so everybody took me along. They still looked at me like I was a kid even though I was emotionally quite old, too old probably for my own good. I said fine, so I got on the train and went to Munich (because he and my sister lived in the Munich). They knew I was coming and I was supposed to go to their house. 

I got on the train; they had a train in the city. I was getting in, I was holding on, and somebody was pushing from the inside of the train. All I remember was I screamed, “Ich falle! [I am falling!]” And that’s the end of it; I don’t remember anything else. Several days later I woke up in a hospital, which was run by nuns and they told me that I was very, very lucky. I had a concussion and I was unconscious for three and a half days. They were wondering if I’m going to come out of it. They didn’t know if I was in a coma or what it was. Anyway, I came out of it and by that time my sister and brother-in-law found me. They first thought I didn’t make it to Munich, but they called the DP camp. My sister Olga answered the phone in the office (she was working there), and she said, “No, she left. She’s in Munich.” So they called every hospital and they found me. Fortunately, I had ID on me. In fact probably the ID that I have. They knew that I was from Feldafing and they knew I was a survivor or refugee or displaced person. That’s how they found me. Anyway, it took me quite a while to recover. Every time I forget something, I just wonder if its because the nuns told me that I had to lie in bed without moving for a whole week. And I didn’t. Because I was what, 14 or 15 years old? Who wants to lie still? I always think maybe if I would have laid down quietly, I wouldn’t have been forgetting things today.

Frankel: Did someone push you on purpose?
OSTROFF: I’m almost convinced of that. I’m almost convinced of that, but I don’t know. I know nothing what happened, how I got to the hospital. I just felt I was being pushed.

Frankel: Did you encounter any other things in camp?
OSTROFF: Oh, sure, we went to Munich quite a bit, simply because my sister and brother-in-law lived there and we had some other friends over there. They had an apartment. And nobody knew what was happening. Absolutely none of the Germans whom we encountered, nobody knew what was happening during the war. They had nothing to do with it and they didn’t realize what was going on.

Frankel: You actually talked to them?
OSTROFF: Oh, yes. In those days I spoke German very well. I just don’t do it 
anymore. Oh, yes.

Frankel: Was the feeling that it was OK to stay in Germany, or try and get out as fast as you could?
OSTROFF: Well, we were trying desperately to get out. We would have gone to Israel and not to the United States if not for Cyprus. We were waiting, hoping that the English would allow the displaced people to go to Palestine. By that time my sister Magda was heavily pregnant, and she absolutely was not going to have a child born in Germany. Once she came to the states, there was no way the rest of us would go anywhere else. There was this need of staying together. We were always extremely close. They were all brokenhearted when I left New York; they knew we’d all come back. Nobody would have ever believed it, including yours truly, that I would wind up here in Oregon for the rest of my life. But, that’s the way life is – unpredictable.