Zseni Also

This is my grandmother, my mother’s mother, Zseni Also. The photo was probably taken in the 1930s in Debrecenben. It was probably made in a photo studio, but I don’t know for what occasion. This is the only photo that I have of Grandma Zseni. She was very very close to me. I lost her in the Holocaust.

My grandmother's maiden name was Zseni Grunstein. She was only religious in as far as she attended synagogue on high holidays. I didn't know any of the grandparents, my mother's parents. I heard that grandmother had some sort of cousin in Marosvasarhely (today Tirgu Mures, Romania). The maternal family was from there and my mother was from there too. I have no idea when they moved. I know that my mother married when she was 18 - my father was from Pest. So they must have been in Hungary in 1923. They lived in Debrecen. We lived together and in many respects I can say that she raised me. 

I was together with my grandparents and my mother when we were taken from the ghetto to the wagons. We were put in the same wagon as well. If I recall we took poppy-seed rolls with us and we had to eke out the food. We travelled for a long time. when we got to Birkenau, they took us out and we had to leave everything we had saved, food, everything. And Mengele was there, he selected us and waved us left and right. They sent my grandfather right first. My last image of him is as he turned back and said 'look after your mother'. And then I was there with my mother and grandmother. Then my grandmother was sent to the right and that was the last time I saw her.