Ivolia Tzitron

Ivolia Tzitron, is a Holocaust survivor who resides at Amigour's "Yad Vashem" Home for the Elderly at Beersheba.

 My name is Ivolia Tzitron and I was born in 1926 in Transylvania. I had a very happy childhood and in 1938 my parents, my sister and brother and I, moved to Kolozuar. Our lives changed when the Hungarians came and enforced discriminatory rules against the Jews, as requested by their ally-Germany. We had to wear a yellow star on our clothes and we were not allowed to do many things.

 In April 1944 we were loaded on garbage wagons and taken to a ghetto. The conditions were horrific. We slept on the floor, it was terribly crowded and we did not have any food.

 In May 1944 we were shoved on to cattle cars in a train to Auschwitz. Many people died on the way. When we arrived. the men and women were immediately separated. My father waved goodbye and that was the last time I saw him. My mother and my six-year-old brother were taken to another line and I never saw them again.

 My sister and I and two cousins were in another line and we were told to say that we were 18 years old ( I was 17 and my sister was 15 ).

 After some time we were selected together with hundreds of young women to work digging tunnels to bring water to a factory. The walk was 15 kilometers each way in every kind of weather. We were so thin and so sick, but we did it and managed to barely keep alive.

 Eventually we were taken to the Parschnitz concentration camp which was north east of Prague. By the time I arrived, I was very sick with high fever. It was a miracle that I survived. One day it was very quiet. We discovered that the soldiers had run away and we were liberated by the Russian army. It was in July 1945. We were finally free.

Eventually, we made our way back home, praying that there were some family members who had survived.

 We waited, but no one returned. My father, mother, younger brother, my mother's seven brothers and cousins – they were all murdered.

 I found out how my father was murdered. He was moving rocks at Aushwitz and he fell. A Nazi came and shot him.

There were many good people who helped us to recover after undergoing such atrocities. Some bought us medication, others cooked food for us.

 I didn't know how to start living again with such grief, pain and suffering. We were sent to a girl's residential home where we lived in a warm and loving home.

 In 1948 I married Eugene Tzitron, who was also a Holocaust survivor, In 1980 my two sons made Aliyah and we, together with my sister and her family, made Aliyah in 1990.

 Whoever was not there, will not be able to really understand what had happened, the suffering and the pain we went through. What I told you was just a drop in the ocean.

 We continue to live with the memories and hope that no one will go through this suffering anymore.