Item 19: Holocaust survivors from Hungary ; Helen Glass interviewed by Anita Fisher, 1990

MLOH 500/148

item

22/08/1990

Nonmusical Sound Recordings, Oral Histories

997249

Sound Recording : CY MLOH 500/148

1 sound cassette (1 hr.)

Helen Glass, nee Mikulincer, was born in Ungvar, Czechoslovakia in 1925. She had a comfortable life before Ungvar was transferred to Hungary in 1938, after which came the introduction of anti-Jewish laws and the rise of anti-semitism. In March 1944 the Germans took over and by April Helen's family were taken to the ghetto at the brick factory a few kilometres out of Ungvar.

In June Helen was transported to Auschwitz, Poland. She was paraded before Dr Mengele and was selected for work. She was sent by train to Gruben, Germany, to work in an aircraft factory. In February 1945 Helen, along with many others, was force marched through the snow for two weeks and then put on a train to Bergen Belsen concentration camp. Just before the Americans arrived in April 1945, she was locked up in barracks and left to starve.

Sick and underweight, Helen was sent to Sweden to recuperate, and whilst there she was reunited with her brother. She returned to Czechoslovakia in 1947, meeting her future husband at the World Zionist Congress there. They were married and stayed in Czechoslovakia until 1949, when they fled Communism and went to Paris, before coming to Australia in 1951.

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Log of interview available in the Mitchell Library Reading Room -

Original Mitchell Library allocated tape number 77.