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
Canada to see warm summer, wildfire risks loom for some regions: forecast
Get ready to feel the heat, Canada. Weather experts are predicting more sunshine and warmer temperatures for the summer.
'It was hell': Israeli mother held hostage with her children describes 51 days in captivity
Hagar Brodutch, her three children and four-year-old neighbour were kidnapped by Hamas-led militants from their home in Kfar Aza, Israel on Oct. 7 and held for 51 days. They were released in November, but Brodutch says her thoughts are never far from those still being held in Gaza.
New COVID-19 subvariants become the dominant strains in Canada
More than four years after COVID-19 effectively shut down the world, two new variants of COVID-19 have become the dominant strains of the novel coronavirus in Canada.
3 Israeli soldiers killed in Rafah booby trap explosion, media say, as offensive widens
The Gaza health ministry called on Wednesday for ensuring safe pathways for the immediate entry of fuel and medical aid to Rafah and northern Gaza, according to a statement carried by Hamas media quoting spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra.
P.E.I. kiteboarder 'lucky to be alive' after shark attack in Turks and Caicos
A professional kiteboarder from P.E.I. says he has been seriously injured in a shark attack that occurred while he was snorkelling in the Turks and Caicos Islands last week.
'Unruly passenger' forces WestJet flight to make emergency landing in B.C.
A WestJet flight heading to Calgary had to make an emergency landing in northern B.C. Monday due to an incident involving an 'unruly passenger,' Mounties say.
Introducing peanut butter during infancy can help protect against a peanut allergy later on, new study finds
New evidence suggests that feeding children smooth peanut butter during infancy and early childhood can help reduce their risk of developing a peanut allergy even years later.
The double-level airplane seat is back. This time, there's a first-class version
It’s the airplane seat design that launched a thousand memes and kickstarted a media storm. And now the double-level seat is back – only this time, with a twist.
House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus survives vote calling for his ouster
Greg Fergus survived a vote to oust him as House of Commons Speaker on Tuesday, but with close to half of MPs expressing a loss of confidence in him, he faces a precarious path forward in maintaining order in Parliament.