"Lead your life as if there were nothing else around you but your conscience and God."

Mrs. Susan Kaszas  * April 1, 1945  *  Dillich, Germany
 

My mother

 

My mother's maiden name was Susan Varadi. She was born in 1920, in Györ, Hungary, the largest city in the western part of the country, only half an hour from Vienna, Austria. She came from the Böhm line of our family.
 

 

My mother (in the middle) with her family and my father in 1943

 

She married by father, Alex Kaszas (Cohen) in 1942 and moved to Tapolca, a small town north of Lake Balaton. By that time anti-Jewish laws were in full force in Hungary too. My father was taken away to a forced labor camp and my mother to Auschwitz in 1944, along with their families. The small general store and everything else they had were also stolen away from them. Only they returned.

My parents never spoke about this period of their lives. I found my mother's diary letter book amongst her belongings upon her death in 1990. Reading it made me cringe. It still does.

We translated it since and had our children, Judy and Mark, her beloved grandchildren, edit and proofread it. Our aim in publishing it is simple. We want you to remember, to stand up and say, when confronted with any kind of organized cruelty and inhumanity:
 
 

Never again !
 

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