Anna Klein

"People should not be so prejudiced or hateful. The Holocaust should not happen to anybody. "

Name at birth

Anna Fenyes

Date of birth

04/14/1927

Where were you born?

Komoro, Hungary

Where did you grow up?

Komoro, Hungary. We were one of only two Jewish families there before the war.

Name of father, occupation

Jakab Fenyes, Owned a grocery store and land.

Maiden name of mother, occupation

Berta Goldberger, Housewife.

Immediate family (names, birth order)

Parents, one brother, and three sisters: brother Elemer was the oldest, Helen, Esther, Irene, and I.

How many in entire extended family?

The family lived close, especially my two uncles. I knew only one grandmother who lived with my uncle, I also had four cousins.

Who survived the Holocaust?

My sister Irene and I, we went through everything together. My three first cousins also survived.

Right after Passover (celebration of the Jewish exodus from Egypt), April 20, 1944, without warning, the Germans came for us. We could only pack a few things. They put a sign on our door saying, “property of the Hungarian Government.” From Komoro, our family was taken to Mateszalka ghetto for two months before being sent to Auschwitz. The whole family was taken to Auschwitz by railroad car. A band was playing when we arrived. We were given showers and our parents were taken to the gas chambers. After awhile, my sister Irene and I were taken to Cracow to work. Rain or shine we had to work. Our job was to remove stones; we saw no meaning to this work. Our foreman was punished by the Germans for not making us work hard enough. We lived in bunk beds in a barrack without heat. We had no pillows or mattresses; we were given soup made out of beets to eat. German dogs had better food than us.

They took us back to Auschwitz after a while in the summer of 1944. We got transferred to another work camp to make airplane parts. We had to walk five miles in the winter to the factory from this camp. We had horrible shoes with wooden bottoms. Sometimes, I had to walk barefoot in the snow. 500 Hungarian girls were liberated by the Russians who wanted to take us to Russia but we would not go. We went home. Everything from our house in Komoro had been taken. Some good neighbors gave us food to survive.

I got married in 1946. My husband lived in a village nearby. His name was Eugene Klein. He also survived a concentration camp. We lived in Komoro until 1956 and the Hungarian Revolution. We hired someone with a truck in Budapest to take us near the Hungarian-Austrian border. We walked across the mud to Austria. I was in the hospital for two months with a kidney infection. We went to Toronto, Canada for three years and then to Detroit on July 1, 1960. My husband died three years ago after 61 years of marriage. He was a butcher who worked in the Eastern market. My sister Irene went to Israel where she died.

Name of Ghetto(s)

Mateszalka

Name of Concentration / Labor Camp(s)

Auschwitz Birkenau / Krakow Plaszow / Work Camp

Where did you go after being liberated?

Went back to Komoro, Hungary.

When did you come to the United States?

1956 to Toronto, Canada and July 1, 1960 to Detroit.

Where did you settle?

Toronto, Canada.

How is it that you came to Michigan?

Came from Toronto, Canada.

When and where were you married?

1946 in Komoro, Hungary.

Spouse

Eugene Klein, Butcher when we came to the United States.

Children

Son Michael, teacher at Olympic Heights High School where he teaches a class on the Holocaust, lives in Boca Raton, Florida. He was 7 when we left Hungary. Daughter Veronica Klein Weiler lives in Boca Raton, Florida. She was 9 when we left Hungary.

What do you think helped you to survive?

My Faith.

What message would you like to leave for future generations?

People should not be so prejudiced or hateful. The Holocaust should not happen to anybody.