Agi Sofferova after the war

Agi Sofferova after the war

This photo is from 1946, a year after the war. By then I was better. When I returned, I wasn't in any hospitals, but I had diarrhea. Everything I ate went out. For over a year. I was weak and couldn't immediately go to work. This photograph was taken in Prague, and I know the exact date: 25th January. After the war I lived in Prague for some time.

We were in Prague for a while, two or three weeks. But we had no time nor were we in the mood for sightseeing. You arrived weakened, hungry, lice-ridden. You know, in Auschwitz I worked in the kitchen and had this warm underwear there. That's where lice lived, lice and scabies. Despite the fact that you washed every day. There were these buckets in which we washed, though only with cold water, and I didn't get scabies, but lice I did get.

From Prague we went to Znojmo. Before the war my older sister Rozika had lived here. We came here to look for her. But only her husband, Emil, survived, who then married my sister Helena. He took us in and we lived with him. In the meantime our younger brother Josef, a British soldier, had been looking for us. We met up in Znojmo. He was always this calm type of person. When I saw him, I yelled up at my sister Helena, 'Ibi, Ibi' - that's a nickname - 'Ibi, Ibi, Josi is here!' And he said to me: 'Why are you yelling like that?' And that was after not seeing each other for so many years, and after the war.

After the war I remained in Znojmo, and only went to Mukachevo to have a look. None of my siblings had returned there, but I did have some friends and relatives there.

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