Dr eva olsson holocaust survivor story

Eva Olsson grew up in Hungary, born into a Jewish family in Satu Mare, Hungary. She remembers the family’s Hasidic traditions, and the poverty and simplicity of her early life. Like other Hungarian Jews, Eva was comparatively isolated from the war raging all around them; they heard rumours and such, but as Hungary was allied with the Axis powers, day-to-day life was relatively unchanged. That was not the case after May 1944 though; Nazi Germany occupied its Hungarian ally, and Hungarian Jews immediately felt the weight of the Shoah. Eva and her family were now inside the ghetto, and with in a matter of weeks the deportations began. The family walked seven kilometres and were boarded on to the waiting boxcars, where the brutal conditions were unrelenting for four days. They arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau and with the selections, the family was separated, with most going to the gas chambers and crematoria. Eva and her sisters were selected fro slave labour, and after spending a few weeks in the camp, they were sent to Dusseldorf, and then Essen, Germany, to work in the Krupp factory system. Eva spent some time there during the winter of 1944-45, and was present during the day-and-night bombing that made up the Allies’ Ruhr bombing campaign. Bombs eventually destroyed