Were a senior in high school or kind of transitioning, because im sure that many of us have experienced certain difficulties, but maybe not to the extent that you have. What can you say that your attitude was, even as a young person . So as a High School Senior say having been through all that youd been through, what was your attitude in terms of going through transitioning of that life from being a child to a young adult, given all that youd experienced . Its a very good question. Unfortunately, im 87 now. Its hard to remember what it was like to be 19 or 20, but as i said before when you are very young, very elastic and plastic so you can adapt to you forget bad things and you just concentrate on the good. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. I think were going to close our program now, and so, again, after julius finishes, joel will come up on the stage and ill ask you to stand at that point and well get julius heading upstairs to sign copies of his book. So julius. Yes. I was asked to make some concluding comments. I will tell you something that i said before. In massachusetts there are over 6 million people, and when kids ask me what was the holocaust like, i would say, imagine you get up in the morning and all the people of the state are dead. But what i in addition, so this is very important. Whats also important is that we should not forget that people can do bestial things to each other and the holocaust was one and darfur and sudan, there was another holocaust, and in africa, there are many holocausts going on. Theyre not as well publicized as the holocaust that happened to the jews. But this was the first time in history that a whole people of ethnic origin were exterminated and they were exterminated in term ways. Also human life was not considered as human. They were the nazis considered jews as less than animals and so i just want you to remember something to make sure that we never have a holocaust again. Thank you. American history tv airs on cspan 3 every weekend telling the american story through events, interviews and visits to historic locations. This month American History tv is in primetime to introduce you to programs you could see every weekend on cspan3. Our features include lectures in history, visits to College Classrooms across the country, to hear lectures by top history professors, american artifacts takes a look at treasures at u. S. Historic sites, museums and archives. Real america revealing the 20th century through archival films and news reels. The civil war where you hear about the people who shape the civil war and reconstruction and the presidency focuses on u. S. President s and first ladies to learn about their politics, policies and legacies. All this month in primetime and every weekend on American History tv on cspan3. Tonight on American History tv primetime, Holocaust Survivors tell their stories of how they made it through world war ii. We begin next with anna grosz who survived, and then what the holocaust was like in the netherlands where she grew up. Thats followed by survivor julius who tells his story of getting through the war in poland and lithuania. Wednesday night on American History tv primetime, civil war and reconstruction. At 8 55, photographs that show the history of emancipation. 9 45 p. M. Eastern, the political battles during reconstruction after the civil war. And at 10 50, historians discuss the different narratives created after the war to explain why the south lost. Next on American History tv, holocaust survivor anna grosz recalls her familys experiences after hungary annexed a portion of romania that included her hometown then imposed antisemitic laws. The family was confined along with other jews to a ghetto when nazi germany occupied hungary. They were transported to auschwitz concentration camp and later forced to do hard labor. This was part of the first person series. Thats little over an hour. The life stories of Holocaust Survivors transcend the decades. What youre about to hear from anna is one individuals account of the holocaust. We have prepared a brief slide presentation to help with her introduction. Anna grosz was born into a jewish family on april 20th, 1926, in rasca, transylvania, a part of romania as anna seelfreund. Anna celebrated her 90th birthday yesterday. The arrow on this map points to rasca. These photos taken in 1919 show annas parents samuel and ilona seelfreund. Am samuel owned a vineyard and was a Wine Merchant while ilona cared for anna and her five series. In 1940 rasca fell under hungary rule and the people there became subject to antisemitic laws. Under the new laws annas father vineyard was confiscated and he was conscripted into the hungarian labor service. Samuel never returned home. This photo from 1943 shows anna and her sisters in order from left to right is clara, elizabeth, margaret, margarets daughter suzan, violet, anna and gisela. In march 1944, nazi germany occupied hungary. Hundreds of thousands of hungarian jews were turned over to the custody of the germans. Anna, her sisters and her mother were placed into the satumare ghetto indicated by the circle on this map and then deported to auschwitzbirkenau. Auschwitz is indicated by the blue arrow on this map. Nazi authorities selected anna and three of her sisters for forced labor while they sent her mother and two other sisters to the gas chambers. In june 1944 anna and her remaining Three Sisters were sent to stutthof concentration camp indicated here with a red arrow. Later they were transported to praust, a sub camp. In february of 1945, ss s evacuated most of the prisoners including annas Three Sisters marching them on foot. Soviet troops liberated them around march 11th, 1945. Anna was left behind with other injured and sick prisoners because she had previously broken her leg. On march 23rd, 1945, soviet troops liberated some 600 prisoners, including anna. Anna later reunited with her sisters gisela and clara and found out that her sister elizabeth had been shot during the forced march. And we close with this photograph of anna in 1946. Anna would remain in romania until emigrating to the United States in 1964. Anna, together with her husband em ary grosz and their two young sons alex and andrew were allowed after much difficulty to leave romania and begin their life in the United States. They settled in new york where emery went to work as a fabric cutter in new york citys garment district. Anna found work as a seamstress in a clothing factory working with fellow hungarian dark speaking Holocaust Survivors and refugees. Anna worked at the same place for the next 27 years driving 2 1 2 hours to and from work each day. After finishing high school, their two sons attended university and went on to very successful careers and are now retired. Alex was an attorney at the u. S. Patent office. Andrew was a geologist with the federal government. Anna has four grandchildren and a 5yearold greatgrandson. After the retirement, anna and emery moved to the washington, d. C. , area in 2003. Annas husband suffered a stroke in 1999 and anna cared for him until he passed away in 2009. She also was the caregiver for one of her sisters prior to her death and then for her receisis husband. Anna now volunteers with this museums visitors service. Youll find her at the visitors desk on tuesdays from 10 00 a. M. To 2 00 p. M. She has spoken about her experiences to local schools. For example, she recently spoke to 500 students at a high school in west virginia. Annas son, alex, and his wife, karla, and annas niece, suzan, are here with anna today. Suzan also volunteers here at the museum, and with that i would like to ask you to join me in welcoming our first person mrs. Anna grosz. No problem. Thank you. Anna, thank you so much for being willing to join us today and be our first person and we have so much to share with you and have so little time so well start away. You were just 13, anna, when world war ii began with germanys invasion of poland on september 1st, 1939. Before we turn to all that happened to you and your family during the war in the holocaust lets start first with you telling us a little bit about your family, the community, and you in the years before the war began. Yes. Hello, first, friends, thank you for coming to listen to my story. What i have to tell, made a mistake, im not 90 because i turned the 9 to a 6 like this so im 60, not 90. I have actual time to tell my story, but im going to try to take the essence from that. One year you read through the family and all of us jewish people is unbelievable. The torture and the humiliation and something that i sometimes think that am i still normal . I doubt that sometimes, you know. So before the war, we had a nice family, right. My father was a Wine Merchant. I had five sisters, so there were six girls. The older girls were sent to high school and the younger girls were in school. I was only 14 years old when the hungarian occupied transylvania. Everybody knows this because thats how they make the horror movies from transylvania. The first thing what they did is they stopped the jewish people to go to high school. So that was the first tragedy for me because i couldnt go to High School Like my older sisters. Anna, im going to ask you just a couple of questions before we go there, if you dont mind, and i hope later youll talk more about what that loss of education meant to you, but your father, he had been a decorated soldier in the First World War, hadnt he . Yes, he was, but in the First World War he was in hungary, and because the germans lost the war then in the First World War also, it became romania, and the same thing happened in the Second World War because the hungarian, the germans gave it back to the hungarians so thats why we became hungarians again. My father married my mother in romania so he remained in romania. Anna so as i said before one more question. Yes. You told me that your parents, both your mother and father were very respected members of the community. Will you tell us a little bit about them . Yes. I would say that they were very honored people because my father was very correct man. Everybody who bought the wine and brandy from him, they bought it in advance because they knew he would deliver it 100 what he sold. So my parents, what i have, i have no school education, but i have i have it from my parents and my very sweet grandmother who was very studious. They taught us manners and discipline. So when she died, i wasnt so sorry for her because i did not like what she wanted me to do. Well, let me go back to the family life that we had. We lived in peace. Everybody had a job. My older sisters in school. Gisela did not go to school because we had a little business at home also, a textile store, and i helped out my father with going to the vineyards and arrange for workers and everything. One day we did not know anything was happened in the world. We had two stations on the radio, budapest and bucharest. We did not know what happened in the world that the germans occupied, germany or something. Nothing about the war. Only when they occupied transylvania, and then changed everything, schools, offices, everything in hungarian from romanian. Not long after that started they took away the license from the store. They did not let jewish people out without the yellow star. They couldnt keep nonjewish help, so it became they were not allowed even go through the street without that yellow star. In may the 4th, transylvania was occupied on march, the 4th march, 140. 1940. 1940. 1940. 1940. In 1944 hungary was the last country that the germans occupied from the whole europe, in 1940, so when they did all these things to us that they did not let us out, humiliation, even said that i am what i am but im not a jew. So we were totally humiliated and thats i dont know, to me, thats even worse than suffering, the humiliation. And anna, after the hungarians did all these terrible things to you, they took away your Family Business and the textile they took away everything. How did your family you had a lot of mouths to feed. How did your family manage to make it . My father took care of that before. We had flowers. We had bread. We had and we had brandy we sold because we had a brandy machine also. A still, they call it. And we sold that and he lived from that. It was enough even to help other people. So it came the day, may the 4th, and family by family, they took all of us in the synagogue and they said that we can take food with us for four days. Anna, do you mind if i just go back and ask you a couple of questions . Sure. Before that happened, your father was con skriscripted int of the hungarian labor battal n battalions. Yes. Tell us about that. Well, the worst thing was that the first thing and the worst thing was that they took forced labor all the young men from about 18 till 45 or so. They took all the men who was the heart of the people and it was all the people, the young people, and they took them to live in forced labor in the country and also i think in our parts of hungary, and they they worked so hard and they tortured them. I dont know. I still dont have the answer for that. If they wanted to kill us because we were the enemy, the jewish people, why did they have to torture us before that . Why did they do that before the killing . You know, one example, who did not happen to me but to my husband. It was two jewish people there who were forced laborer, and a hungarian soldier who was the guard said you say that you are a stinky jew, and the man said why should i say that . And he said, because i told you so. So if you dont say that, that you are a stinky jew, im going to beat you. So he said. He went to the other people and you say that you say also that you are a stinky jew, and he said why should i say that . I am a college professor. If you dont say that, im going to beat you. He did not say that, and he started to beat him until he was half dead, then he said, i am a stinky jew. So this is and similar humiliation happened of which i cant say all of them but it happened. Let me go back yes, you were going to tell us about your father. They took him away, and you never saw him again. My father was sent in a camp. He was a translator from german to hungarian, and he was sent a postcard for us and had budapest of a camp and never heard after that of them. What happened to him. We didnt know what happened. After we were taken, the whole the whole little town who lived, 50 jewish people, jewish family, they took us in the synagogue and we stayed there for about two or three days. And that synagogue, the children and the old people sleeping on the floor. It was a terrible thing and we didnt know why. And whats going to happen after that . After four days, they put us in carriages. Every the nonjewish people have to carry us about 37 kilometers from our homes in a ghetto where it was only jewish people who live there. They took the houses from nonjewish people to have home there. We didnt stay too long there, and then they said take food for four days with you, and they still didnt know what happened but i shouldnt say it was a surprise. It was a shock to us, because it came only that we didnt know what happened before that in the world. So in the ghetto, we stayed there for about sweeping on the floor, mostly children, and old woman. Because men were not there. And after four days, they took i dont know how many people. They took them to the train station, and they put them in a wagon there, and when they took our family, i was the 92nd in that wagon. We didnt know where is my mother, where is my sister because they pushed us in. And it was a battle in the corner of the wagon and who had to do out. They did it there. From time to time, the wagon opened to empty that, but to stay four days in that train, the children cried. The old men prayed. Some of them cursed, why did this happen to us . It was i tried to take one of my most terrible days from the whole part of that life. I thought of that one, the traveling four days and after that they let us out in auschwitz. Later i found out that that was not the most terrible day in my life. They let us out at night. We were all dizzy and didnt know what happened to us. Dogs barking. German soldiers. And they took us to a place and the music played. Jewish music players, they played their music. They wanted the chaos make it a little bit more supportive. So they took us to a door there and a german officer came with a stick and my sister had my ouldr sisters baby, 3 years old girl in her hand. And came a man to her and he asked, is this your baby . And she said, no. And then she said, give it to her mother because if a baby take away from their mother, they try to cry. So she gave it back to the other. But if she wouldnt be warned give it back, she would have to go in the left side where the people were killed. Didnt make a difference, live or die. So my mother, my older sister with the baby and my younger sister, 14 years old, was taken to one side. And my older sister, 25, gisela 20. I was 18. On another side. And they took us in a room. First of all, we had to take off our clothes and then sit in a chair and they shaved you. Took us or cut off our hair. I dont know what i felt because i dont think that i felt anything because i was so tired from that four days traveling in the train. What happened to me, it happened. I could comprehend what happened. So all the sisters were taken in a different room where we were disinfected with some white dust. And after that, we got a gray dress with a number on the sleeve. Because they did not have time to tattoo us like other people were because we were the last people who were occupied and deported. Hungary was the you u told me, anna, because there were so many coming in from hungary, they just didnt have the time to tattoo you and so thats why. Thats why. The last ones were hungarian. The less many places already the war was over already. But they still put the jewish people in trains and deported to auschwitz. Thats what hungary did. They were already liberated, someplace, because in 1944, and 45 was over, right . So we were in auschwitz there, yes, they put us in, and we slept in a stall there and one person came and she said, you were chosen. She was from czechoslovakia. She was there for four years already in the concentration camp. She spoke hungarian, also. And we asked her, whats happening to us . Where are our parents . And our she said, you see that smoke . There are your parents. It was very close. Auschwitz, when we leave, size 12, to