Holocaust remembrance: Survivor, born in Nazi concentration camp, recounts early years
WARNING -- This article contains details some may find distressing
Angela Orosz is one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust. On Dec. 21, 1944, she was born in a concentration camp.
"In Grade 1, or Grade 2, in Hungary. You have to write (in school) where you were born,” she said, recounting the moment she started coming to terms with just how different her upbringing had been from other children.
"I couldn’t spell ‘Auschwitz.'"
Orosz described her childhood for a packed house at the Montreal Holocaust Museum on Thursday during a public interview with former CTV National News Anchor Lisa LaFlamme. The event took place on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
She described her family’s life in Hungary well before she was born, prior to Adolph Hitler’s rise to power and the beginning of the Holocaust.
Between 1941 and 1945, Nazis and collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe and Nazi Germany. More than two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population was killed.
Angela Orosz, who was born in Auschwitz-Birkenau, tells her story to a crowded audience during a talk at the Montreal Holocaust Museum moderated by Lisa LaFlamme on Jan. 26, 2023.
Her mother, Vera, came from an educated family. Orosz said her grandmother had passed down four languages — French, German, Slovak, Hungarian — and exposed her mother to classical music from a young age. She met Orosz's father, Tibor, a lawyer, and the two made a life for themselves in Sárospatak, in northeastern Hungary.
Hungarian authorities collaborated with the Nazis through the deportation of thousands of Jews to German-occupied Ukraine, "with full knowledge of the fate that awaited them," according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 1942, nearly 1,000 Jews were murdered by Hungarian officials.
Two years later, in May, they came for Orosz's parents. Vera was three months pregnant.
"They said, 'In an hour, you get ready. We’re going to take you to a better place,'" she said.
Tibor was killed after he was separated from Vera on the platform in transit to Auschwitz. That was the last time Vera saw her husband and father of her unborn child.
Six months later, Orosz was born on the top bunk of a cramped sleeping quarter over a thin bed of straw. She says her mother told her that a mere three hours after giving birth, she had to be standing for the camp’s regular roll calls.
At just one pound, she was born too weak to cry, she said — something that may well have saved her life. Her mother hid her on the top bunk for six weeks.
She says she believes her birth inspired her mother to survive until the camp was liberated on Jan. 27, 1945.
SURVEY PROMPTS PLEA FOR AWARENESS ABOUT HOLOCAUST
Orosz has told her story many times, and has said she’s motivated to educate young people so that the atrocities of the past don’t happen again.
"Her story is so unique," said the museum’s spokesperson Sarah Fogg, calling it an example of "incredible resilience" and "strength."
"We hope that we’ll be able to continue to promote this message of Holocaust awareness in order to build a better world," she said, "because there is a direct link … between Holocaust education and the prevention of antisemitism."
A recent survey by the Azrieli Foundation found that more than half of surveyed millennials could not name a single concentration camp or ghetto.
Nearly two in 10 told researchers they either hadn’t heard of the Holocaust or weren’t sure if they had heard of it.
Nearly a quarter of all Canadians believed that substantially less than six million Jews were killed (two million or fewer) during the Holocaust
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Maple Leafs fall to Bruins in Game 3, trail series 2-1
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
New Indigenous loan guarantee program a 'really big deal,' Freeland says at Toronto conference
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
'Life was not fair to him': Daughter of N.B. man exonerated of murder remembers him as a kind soul
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.