Liberation and Internment

[Text: Agi recalls the liberation by the Russians of her and her family after they were interned by the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian right-wing nationalist party.] 

Agi Bergida: Christmas night, somebody was knocking on the door, which we were shocked. And these guards came in. This was like a kind of Hungarian police, not the Arrow Cross. And they told us that your life is saved because the Russians are very close to the border now, and the Arrow Cross escaped. So, your life is okay. Now, in the meantime, if you get sick, you either got better by yourself or you died. I had typhoid fever. I almost died because I couldn’t move. I was in bed, and there was no food by that time at all, and I apparently couldn’t even move my fingers. That’s what my parents told me. And so again, I got lucky. About before the middle of January, the Russians liberated us. And actually, the Russians liked children. And when they saw how sick I was, they got little pieces of chocolate and put it on my mouth. Every 15 or 20 minutes, I don’t know. I couldn’t tell time. They gave me more and more food. So, they kind of helped me get better. And not the healthiest, but at least I could move and get out of bed. And then we found out that Budapest was also liberated. I have no idea how we got back to Budapest, because every one of us was so weak and so sick. We were full of, you know, whatever louses, in our hair, our everything, we were like not a human being.