Julika Spiegel

This is Julika Spiegel, my sister Bozsi Spiegel's daughter. The photo was taken in Eger around 1941. Bozsi married someone from Pest. She had a great love in Eger, a boy called Pista Deutsch, but his mom didn't allow him to court Bozsi because she was a rather poor girl. They used to meet but you couldn't really oppose your parents at that time. We had to follow the traditions in everything. Pal Spiegel was recommended -matchmaking was common in those days. Spiegel had a pickle-producing workshop. It was a family business. Bozsi didn't work. In those days not everybody worked. Her husband provided for her. They got married in 1937, but they lived together for a relatively short time. Their daughter, Julika, was born in 1939. The troubles started in 1944 and by that time Pal was already dead. He committed suicide because he had asthma and couldn't sleep at night, so he jumped out of the window. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery, but I don't know the details how this could have been arranged. I don't know, someone must have managed to get the permission, probably the relatives. The whole family was shaken. Nothing like this had ever happened in our life. He was a very intelligent nice man, only he wasn't healthy. But we didn't know that when Mom married Bozsi to him. [After his death] Bozsi returned to Eger and lived with Mom and Dad and sew clothes for others. She had to make a living from something. If Bozsi had remained in Pest, she would have survived, but she wanted to go back to my parents in Eger. And off they went to Auschwitz together. Bozsi and her daughter were gassed immediately, just like my parents. Julika was six years old. She was a beautiful little girl, smart, intelligent, she was to go to school that year. They would have never thought in their worst dream to what place they were being taken. Who would have thought that such an evil thing could happen in civilized Europe.

Photos from this interviewee