Mary Eckstein shares her story of surviving the Holocaust as a child at PBSC

Palm Beach State College welcomed Holocaust survivor Mary Eckstein to the Lake Worth campus Jan. 23 to share her story to students, staff and faculty of how she and her mother escaped death many times during the dark years of the Holocaust.

The talk was held in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day and was organized by associate professor and librarian Lisa Seymour with the help of the Library Learning Resource Center Director, Rob Krull, and the entire faculty and staff of the LLRC in Lake Worth.

Eckstein was eight years old when the Holocaust began and lived in an apartment complex with her family in Budapest, Hungary.

Even though Hungary sympathized with the Nazi doctrine, none of the Jews in Hungary were deported.

That all changed in March of 1944, however, when Germany invaded Hungary. Eckstein's father was taken and forced into labor, and she would not see him again until the following year.

“I remember there were air raids, and I was always scared every night," said Eckstein. "We had to go to the air raid shelter, and we heard the bombs explode and we would wait for our building to be hit. It was a scary time especially for a child.”

The deportation of the Jews immediately began. By the end of June 1944, the only Jews remaining in Hungary were in Budapest. She and her mother along with her grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins remained in the same apartment complex they were living in which was designated as Jew houses.

However, that fall, Eckstein and her mother were forced into the Budapest Ghetto by the Arrow Cross Party, which she recalls being terrified of because they could shoot you at the drop of a hat.

"I remember I was always scared, and I was always hungry," said Eckstein.

Eckstein recalls the Ghetto as a terrible place. It was overcrowded, full of sick people and had little food. While there, Eckstein's mother was able to obtain a Schutz-Pass, which was made possible by Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, called ‘the ‘Angel of Budapest' and the Swiss consul, Charles Lutz. The pass allowed you to move into a safe house and be protected by the Swedish government.

Eckstein and her mother and aunt then went out to look for a safe apartment one day. Eckstein's aunt was able to get on a bus, but Eckstein and her mother weren't so lucky and got captured. They were forced to walk about six hours out of the city to the big factory, which were deportation points made up of many sheds.

"When we arrived, I remember people screaming that there were dead bodies scattered around," said Eckstein. "Luckily, I didn't see any bodies."

Eckstein recalled several miracles that saved her life.  One of them happened in the big factory. When Eckstein and her mother were taken into one of the sheds, Eckstein's mother begged the Hungarian policeman who was standing guard to let them go. He refused. However, every morning that same policeman would find Eckstein and her mother and move them to another shed. They would then hear that the people in the shed they were in the day before got taken.

She told attendees that although these miracles sound impossible, to always believe Holocaust survivors. In those times, she says the impossible was their reality.

After a week in the big factory, Eckstein and her mother were marched back to the city. They, along with her aunt, eventually found a safe house. However, many times Eckstein remembers that they had no food to eat. Eckstein experienced more miracles when she was given food from not only her neighbors but a German lady and janitor of her safe house who took pity on them and brought baskets of food to them every week.

At times, the Arrow Cross Party would come and take people from the houses. Eckstein's aunt was among them along with her grandmother, uncles and cousins who died at concentration camps. Eckstein and her mother though were able to stay when her mother pretended to be sick, and Eckstein pretended to give her a glass of water when they came.

Although she never entered a gas chamber, Eckstein heard what it was like for the Jews who did from her husband, Joseph, who she met in 1953, who was at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers.

“The gas chambers had windows on them so the guards could watch the procedure," said Eckstein. "Now the gas was heavy and sank to the ground, so people were trying to stretch upward. Mothers were holding their children high so they would be able to breathe. It took about 15 minutes, and it was all over.”

Eckstein and her mother were eventually saved when the Russian army liberated Budapest in 1945. Unfortunately, Eckstein's father died of sepsis in 1945 after cutting his hand on a rusty nail. Eckstein, her husband and her mother eventually immigrated to the United States where she lived the rest of her life in freedom and without fear.

Eckstein talks about the Holocaust anywhere she can. “We have to remember and never forget.” She also says that she sees a lot of hate in the world today, and encouraged those in attendance to let go of hate because it will destroy them.