Judith Gidali Baron was born in 1928 in Hungary. She lived there until she was 15 years old. Her father and mother had three daughters. The Germans first entered her country in 1942 but things worsened by 1944. The family decided to leave the city and move to the countryside. They lived there for two years. They had many kind friends who were farmers. In 1944, they were taken back to her city of birth and, with others, were put into a [Annotator’s Note: inaudible] factory. From there, they were transported in cattle cars. Many people were in the car for the three day trip to Auschwitz. Several people died during the journey. Upon arrival, those in the cars were forced out and into rows that separated men from women. An interview was performed on each person. An elegant man named Dr. Mengele [Annotator's Note: Dr. Josef Mengele] stood with a whip and would point left or right as each person approached him. After her arrival at the camp, Baron tried to be patient. She had been told that the prisoners would be working there. They were told that they would be given a bath and something to eat. The children, the mothers with children, and the older people went to the left side of the group. The people who appeared capable of work were sent to the right side. The new arrivals were not sure of what was happening but there was a terrible, unidentifiable smell in the air. Baron's mother spoke German very well. As they approached Mengele, he separated the younger sister from Baron, her mother, and sister. Baron's mother told Mengele that she wanted her child to remain with her. He accepted her request. She had spoken to him in German. The females of the family stayed together. They were put into long buildings with triple bunks with nothing to sleep on between them and the wood.

Judith Baron was put into a barrack at Auschwitz. Every morning and evening they were made to go outside and stand in line with five in each row. Her younger aunt stayed with the four females in Baron's immediate family. After their arrival, the women were taken to have a shower. Their hair was cut. They were issued ill-fitting clothes and shoes. It was very uncomfortable. They no longer looked like themselves. They carried nothing with them to the barracks. Baron has a difficult time with the memories of entering the sparse barracks with nothing to sleep on between the person and the wooden bunk. There was a stove with a chimney in the middle of the building. It provided little heat. The new arrivals did not know what the terrible smell and smoke was. Her mother talked to those who had arrived earlier. They told her that the crematorium generated the smell. Those who went to the left in the selection process were gassed and then cremated. The bodies burning created the smell. Baron's mother kept that information from her children. They found out from other people. They were together in lager C barrack. A count was made every morning. If someone was missing, the inmates were forced to stand for hours until the count was justified. If someone looked sick, they would be separated from the group and killed. Eventually, Baron, her sister, and aunt were separated from her mother and younger sister and put into lager B. It was adjacent to lager C. The women did not know why they had been moved. Those who refused relocation were shot. The guards were cruel people who constantly yelled and hit their captives. From lager B, Baron and her two relatives were sent to a work camp. She stayed in that location for an undetermined period. Baron did not to see her mother and younger sister again. They must have been killed.

Judith Baron and her sister were taken by cattle car to a work camp in Germany. They had been in Auschwitz which was located in Poland. The work camp they were sent to was associated with Dachau [Annotator's Note: near Munich, Germany]. There was a separate camp for men next to the women's camp. Every morning, the women went to the railroad through a village. It was dark when they went. The weather was freezing. Baron had no socks. Her shoes did not fit her well. She and her sister did have coats. Every morning, they had to lay cable at the railroad. The earth had to be prepared. The ground was frozen and difficult to work with pick axes. Baron had a hard time with that work. The railroad supervisor was not associated with the camp guards. He allowed the prisoners to occasionally go into a building to warm up a bit. He did not care if the women did a lot of work. The women were incapable of working the frozen ground anyway. It was a small camp where the women knew each other. As the Russians approached, the inmates were taken to Bergen-Belsen.

Judith Baron experienced hell on earth at Bergen-Belsen. The camp was not prepared for the mass number of people incarcerated there. People had to sleep on the floors of the filthy buildings. There was never enough to eat. It was awful. They wanted to separate Baron from her sister. Baron feels she survived because the two of them stayed together. The British finally liberated them. The fighting was still going on so the inmates could not be taken out quick enough. Her sister contracted typhoid fever and died. From that point, Baron lost track of things until she found herself in a clean room. The Germans had probably used the building beforehand. There were 12 beds in the building. There was a doctor and a nurse helping the patients. The nurse was Jewish. She was in good shape to be able to take care of the patients. Baron was skin and bones. She could no longer walk. The doctor told her that she had to go with the Red Cross to Sweden. Her survival depended upon her traveling there for recovery. Baron expressed concern that she did not know where her father was. The doctor told her that if he survived, he would come to look for her. She was taken on a Red Cross ship to Sweden.

Judith Baron arrived in Sweden along with many other sick people on the ship [Annotator's Note: she departed from Germany on a Red Cross ship]. There were many cries from the sick. It was a terrible trip. She was so ill that she had to be helped to walk. She arrived in Norrköping, Sweden. She was put into a school that was converted to a hospital. She was given good care. She was fed and recovered enough to be able to walk. She and other young girls her age from Hungary were sent to school in the northern part of Sweden. She learned more than she could have in her home country. She was not allowed to go to school in Hungary [Annotator's Note: a Nazi proclamation in the late 1930s precluded young Jewish children from attending school. That was enforced in German occupied Europe.]. The education was a nice experience. Her leg did become injured. It was swollen. She went to hospital in Stockholm. Her leg required an operation. She recovered and was able to walk to a park. She met a girl from Hungary who became someone she could converse with in her native language. Baron also learned to speak Swedish. Her future husband came along and could tell with their dark hair that the girls were not Swedish. He talked to them. He was a camp survivor and would have stomach surgery for food deprivation during his incarceration. He recovered sooner than Baron. He spoke German and English. He said that he did not understand Hungarian. The two girls made comments about him in Hungarian. As he left, he expressed his best wishes to Baron in Hungarian [Annotator's Note: Baron laughs about the surprise.]. Concentration camp survivors were given medical treatment without having to pay for it. They had no resources after the war to pay for anything. Baron and her male friend grew closer to each other. The man had relatives in the United States who vouched for him by signing papers saying he could come to the States without being a burden to the country. He came to America a year before Baron. She had no relatives in the States. She would come to the United States for a four year period as a student. After finishing her studies, she would have to return to Sweden.

Judith Baron got married and lived in New York City. Her husband did not like the city because it was too fast for him. Consequently, it took a long time for her to become a citizen because she left her school in New York. Her husband learned that there was a large Swedish population in and near Minneapolis. He decided to go to Minneapolis because he liked the Swedish [Annotator's Note: the couple had met in Sweden]. She stayed in New York and maintained a job in addition to attending school. She had to provide for herself. She hand-sewed linings in fur coats in a factory. It was 80 degrees with no air conditioning. She had few clothes at the time because of her limited means. Nevertheless, she was always cleanly dressed. The people at the factory were nice to her. She had learned to sew while she stayed with a family in Sweden. Baron worked at an [Annotator's Note: foreign word was not discernible] where she made beautiful women's dresses. She sewed and cleaned every day so that she could pay for the family's help. It worked out well. She became a proficient seamstress. When she moved to Minneapolis to marry her husband, she obtained a job as a dressmaker for a good store. Her husband worked in a factory at the time. She attended university at night to learn to sketch. She also attended English language classes. She had learned some English in Sweden. She learned more and more and was happy doing so. She had little opportunity to obtain an education as a child [Annotator's Note: she had fled Nazis persecution at age 14 in Hungary. Baron was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp at 16 years of age.]. The Baron couple improved their status as they learned more and more. She worked for the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company where she was able to use her language skills. Many companies did not hire Jews at that time. There was strong anti-Semitism in Minneapolis. Her husband was not hired as a bookkeeper because he was a Jew. Prospective employers did not want him to handle their finances. She was the only Jew out of the 100 women working for the telephone company. The nice gentleman who hired her even inquired as to the specific religious holidays she wished to observe. He asked her if she would work on the Shabbat—Saturday. She agreed to do so, and he hired her. He was nice. Baron was treated very well except for one incident. A very religious girl shouted at Baron. She asked Baron why she was there. She accused her of killing Jesus. Baron responded that she did not kill Jesus, the Romans actually did. The angry girl kept going on and on while others were flabbergasted at her behavior. The girl was not there the next day which Baron thought was satisfactory. Baron left the job when she became pregnant with her son. The company wanted her to return to work after childbirth. All the time she worked at the job, she was the only Jewish person there. When she left, there was a black girl also on payroll [Annotator's Note: Baron shows surprise]. The company became more tolerant and likely hired more Jews. Today, the Barons have many non-Jewish friends. They are accepted in the circle of friends. Her husband worked in an office of a factory owned by a Jewish family. He worked there for 12 years until he went into business for himself. He had traveled after he finished his studies but found that some people did not want a Jew handling their books. They lived with prejudice [Annotator's Note: both Barons had lived under Nazi persecution in Europe before immigrating to the United States. They found a distrust of Jews in some groups after coming to the States.]. Otherwise, they met nice people in their adopted country. She was never angry, but instead unhappy with the prejudice she encountered in America. Her religion instructed a person not be angry at their enemies. Even with her orthodox Jewish upbringing, she had that rule embedded in her. Many Jews are like that. There is a desire to succeed rather than becoming angry. They were so happy that they had gotten a family again [Annotator's Note: the Barons had lost their families in the Holocaust]. The couple has a son, a daughter and five grandchildren. Baron's treatment in New York City was different because she worked among many Jewish people there. She learned to be a Hebrew teacher at a teacher's seminary in New York. She taught at the synagogue in Minneapolis. She attended the seminary school with girls from the United States and Europe. She had things in common with those from Europe but not necessarily those from the United States. They got along though. She never told the American Jewish classmates about her experiences in Europe [Annotator's Note: ostensibly, her survival of the Holocaust]. They did not ask and she did not volunteer any information. Even today, no one asks because Baron opines that they feel it is too painful for a survivor to recollect [Annotator's Note: she chuckles]. If they were to ask, Baron would not mind talking about her plight.

Judith Baron and her family lived in a nice apartment in a mixed neighbor in Hungary. The landlady was not Jewish, but the apartment building had both Jews and non-Jews. The children played in the garden. Because of her birth date of 29 September, she missed the cut-off date for school enrollment. There was no kindergarten in Hungary at the time, but her parents found one that would take her. It was a positive time for her because she learned school could be fun. She learned songs in various languages and played games. It was a good educational beginning for her. Before the war, Baron's father bought wheat for the family brewery. Her mother was a stay-at-home seamstress. Baron and her older sister would help by knitting for people who brought wool yarn obtained from their sheep. The girls were paid to knit sweaters. By that time, her father could not work. He stopped working when the war started [Annotator's Note: 1 September 1939]. Hungary already had Nazis living there who did not want Jews to work. They did not want anyone to hire them so that they could make a comfortable living. As a result, the family moved out of town to a village. Baron enjoyed working on the farm. She learned to spin wool and work with cotton. The women did a lot of handiwork. The men made cheese and took care of the animals. She was interested in what people were doing and learned about it. Neighbors liked the designs on the sweaters knitted by the girls. Additionally, they probably wanted to help her family out a bit. The neighbors had a lot of spinning and cutting that Baron enjoyed doing. The family moved her mother's large library when they relocated. As a child, Baron read Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Uncle Tom's Cabin in Hungarian. When she moved to America, she was so excited to be near the Mississippi River and to be able to go and see it [Annotator's Note: Baron chuckles at the recollection]. With no radios or newspapers, the family read books for entertainment. She has continued to be a voracious reader. Before the family moved from the city, the children were told by their parents that bad times forced them to change locations. They were told that, as a Jew, their father could no longer find work. Life in the village would be better since the people there were kinder. There were nice, accepting people in the village. She never returned to the village. When she went back to the Hungarian city, it was part of Romania under Russian rule. When the family was forced to relocate from the village back to the city during the war, they could take very little with them. The man in charge of the village told Baron and her family that they would have to return to their former hometown. The whole village turned out to say goodbye to them as they departed on a wagon. The Hungarian military police came for them. They went to a factory where they had to sleep on the floor. It was a filthy place. When the Germans arrived, they forced Baron's family and others to walk to the railroad. They were instructed to surrender all items of value. They did not dare take anything with them. They did manage to bury some of their valuables in the backyard. After the war, Baron's aunt recovered some candleholders from someone who had discovered them [Annotator's Note: Baron points to objects off-screen]. They were Shabbat candleholders that her aunt brought to Israel. Additionally, a picture that Baron had drawn when she was 12 years old and a lace table cloth were found. Those were brought out, too. Those items were given to Baron by her aunt when she went to visit her. Now, Baron has those family items in her possession. Baron's family was deported on a train from her hometown. There was no explanation as to what was going on with the travel. They were simply and harshly ordered to get on the train. They were questioned as to whether they had any valuables with them. They were assured that punishment would be ruthless if they were hiding anything of value. The family had hidden things in their backyard but carried no items of value with them [Annotator's Note: very few of the items hidden at home would ever be recovered by the family. Baron's aunt would be given just a few items which she ultimately gave to her niece.]. Baron's parents were very kind people. She was yelled at once in awhile but not too loudly. She was never spanked. The family was very soft-spoken. Baron's sister was three years her senior. They got along very well. Baron looked up to her and would have liked to do the things she was doing, but she was too young. While in the village, the villagers there performed weaving. Young Baron enjoyed that. She liked to help with that work. As the family was crammed into the train, they feared what was happening. They could do nothing but sit on the floor with all the other people. It was an unpleasant three day trip. No one heard or knew what was happening in Germany to the Jews. They were living in a village without much outside news. Towards the end, her parents knew something was not right. They did not understand exactly what was to be expected, but they certainly did not tell their children. They were very worried.

Judith Baron lived in a long barrack at Auschwitz. There was a stove in the middle that may have been intended to warm the building. It did not. There were beds on each side. Several people slept in each bunk. It was not like a bed just a wooden thing. She was always afraid. The count of people twice a day was a fearful time. If someone looked like they could not work they would be taken away. They were together with other family members and feared for each other. She told her husband that she felt as if she never slept. She probably did, but she did not remember doing so. There were so many people surrounding them that they could not have deep conversations. The talk mainly dealt with things to be aware of for survival. Some people have spoken of being able to talk of interesting things. Baron and her family could not have done so. It was too frightening a place to be able to do so. There were no trees or grass growing there. It was a very terrifying place. Unlike the village where she had previously lived, the camp had only bare stones. She last saw her father after the family arrived at Auschwitz. The men were separated from the women and children. The men were lined up in rows opposite from the other new arrivals. She last saw him in a row among many other men. After her survival, she hoped that he had also managed to do so. She later found out from a cousin that her father had sacrificed his food for the cousin so that his nephew could live. Her father felt her cousin was young and needed the food more than he. His chance for survival was better. Her father died as a result. Baron was 15 years old and all alone without any family. She was raised with such care that she was not used to doing things for herself. Baron found her cousin and one aunt in Israel after the war. Her father had seven siblings. Only Baron's aunt, her father's younger sister, and one of his brothers survived and made their way to Israel. They reached out to Baron to get in touch with her. She went to visit them because she could better afford the trip. That was because both she and her husband were working. Baron first learned of her aunt and uncle surviving the war while she was living with a family in Sweden [Annotator's Note: soon after the war ended]. It was good to know that some of her family survived. The remote families have kept in touch and visited each other several times. There is even a young related girl named for her in the family. She has the same name, Judith Gidali, as Baron did prior to her marriage [Annotator's Note: Baron laughs].

Judith Baron was imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen. It was absolutely hell. When they first arrived, they slept in tents. It was not too bad. Later, the inmates were taken to barracks where they had to sleep on the floor in filth. There was no way to clean the place so no one bothered to try. The clothing was not clean. There were no baths for a year. It was absolute hell. The inmates were not given any work by then. When they worked, they had more comfortable surroundings. That was in a small camp with 500 to 700 women held in it. That was clean and not too bad. Bergen-Belsen had lice. It was terrible. The inmates did nothing but suffer. There were not even counts by then. New people came from Auschwitz and the count began again. The prior camp inmates could not even move to go out and be counted. Baron talked with her sister about how things were at home. Their chance of survival was greater because they were together. Baron's sister may have survived had she not gotten the disease [Annotator's Note: Baron's sister contracted typhoid fever and died shortly after being liberated by the British]. The Germans tried to separate people for some sick reason. Baron has a difficult time understanding people with minds like that. They did not want relatives together. When asked by their captors if they were sisters, they would deny it even though they looked somewhat alike. Mengele [Annotator's Note: Dr. Josef Mengele] once asked if they were sisters but they denied it. He did experiments on twins. Liberation came as the British entered the camp. There was significant fighting in the proximity so the inmates could not be cared for immediately. Water ran out. Food could be obtained if an inmate could go and fetch it. Baron and her sister could not walk to get the food. Her sister died right next to Baron. It was the worst thing that could happen. She died just after liberation. After that, Baron did not remember how she got out of the filth of the camp. It was not even a happy time after liberation. Each inmate felt they would survive while they were incarcerated. They lived with death every day. In a family, each of them worried about the others. It made it harder in a sense. When Baron was younger, it was common to be treated differently as a Jew. She found that to be the same in the United States after she arrived. She felt disconnected from the group by being of a different religion. It was terrible. It was a saving grace in Hungary because the schools were not as social. Young people did not have to associate with others [Annotator's Note: Baron laughs].

Judith Baron could not look back upon the Holocaust for years. She just wanted to look ahead and plan for the future with her family. Now, she thinks about it a lot. It makes her depressed sometimes. She thinks about it at night. It is good that she can go to sleep and rest. Those thoughts of that year in the camps are unforgettable. Baron has a tattoo from Auschwitz. She cannot remember the number. A doctor said that he could surgically remove it. Baron refused to do so. It happened to her so she wanted it left alone. She would have a scar anyway. The tattoo is naturally fading in places. Baron, along with her older sister and her aunt, stood together in line for the tattoos. Their numbers were in sequence. Her aunt kept her tattoo. After the war, she married a nice man. She was happy living in Jerusalem. Baron stayed with her when she visited there. The aunt was like a mother to the girls [Annotator's Note: Baron's father was separated from the family and died at Auschwitz. Her mother and younger sister also died at Auschwitz. Her older sister and aunt helped each other survive through Auschwitz, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. Baron's sister perished shortly after the British liberated them at Bergen-Belsen.]. When her aunt obtained food and the girls did not, she would share it with her nieces. The essential nourishment of the soup allowed them to live another day. Helping one another kept most people alive. No one fought among themselves. They were in the same boat whether they were rich or poor. Baron married another Holocaust survivor. She could not have done otherwise. They understood each other over their good, marriage that lasted 65 years. They knew what the other had gone through. Her husband was more able to talk about his experiences. He was a fine man. They got along well. They would occasionally talk vaguely about the camp situations. He understood. Baron was never really depressed. Unhappiness would come to her when she thought about the camps. Seeing the small children in Syria who have nothing to eat is troubling to her. They are so hungry looking. It reminds her of her time in the camps. The country does not do anything about it because of the President. Israel may be helping, but they have to do so covertly. Syria might come after them. Baron supports the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, Israel. They are well connected to that group. They attended the first meeting of the group. Being a Holocaust survivor, she feels sympathy for the little hungry children she sees in the news because she went through the same thing. When she reviews books on the Holocaust, she is concerned that events are being repeated. People are forgetting the past. People should be concerned about those things. Baron feels comfortable in her Jewishness here. That was not true in Sweden or the case in the United States when she first arrived. She belonged to a synagogue and is comfortable with her religion and persona. She belongs to a writing group. They are writing about their youth. Baron is the only Jew. The others grew up in the United States and write about a nice childhood with a good family. She is concerned that they will be upset with her different story. They are nice women and they like each other. It is important to teach about World War 2 and the Holocaust. The Jews say that it will never happen again. Yet there are people who deny the deaths of the six million Jews in the Holocaust. There are few survivors of that event and even less as time takes its toll. Events are starting again. We have not learned anything. It can happen again. There are young people marching against the Jews just as they did in Germany. They needed someone to hate. That is just like our President who constantly needs someone to hate. Baron does not mince her words. She does not like to think of those things in the past because they were not easy times. They were not treated like human beings. It is amazing they survived as human beings.