Print Email

Talking back to the Angel of Death may have saved young Agi Laszlo's life.

In late 1944, 14-year-old Agi, her younger sister and her mother were sent to Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in Poland -- for the second time. They had spent the past several months at Plaszow, a forced labor camp in Poland.

This time at Auschwitz, the Jewish family from Hungary stood in front of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death" for his medical experiments on Jewish prisoners and choosing who would live as forced laborers and who would be killed in the gas chambers.

A flick of Mengele's hand to the right meant life, while the left meant "the other place," Agi said.

"My mother and sister were sent to the right, but I was sick, so he pointed in the other direction," she said. "I said no, and he looked very surprised. I don't think anyone had told him no before. He said I was too sick to work. I said I could, let me prove it. He sent me to the right with my mother and sister. I don't know what changed his mind."

Agi managed to survive the death camp, as did her sister and mother. Agi moved to Israel, where she married and took the name Agi Geva. She lived 53 years in Israel before moving to the U.S. in 2002 to live with her daughter. There, Agi began volunteering at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where she recorded her personal testimony and began to speak in public of her Holocaust experiences.

Few survivors left

Agi, 79, arrived in Salina on Monday to participate in Holocaust Remembrance Week at Kansas Wesleyan University. She will give a presentation from 7 to 8 p.m. today at Sams Chapel.

"There are so few survivors left alive -- many of them have passed away," said Mike Russell, assistant professor of history at Kansas Wesleyan University and organizer of the local event. "As long as they're willing to talk, we should bring them in to talk about what happened."

Agi told her story before several classes of eighth-grade English students Tuesday at Lakewood Middle School. English teacher Adrienne Mammen said her students study the Holocaust and read Holocaust literature each year.

"We have an obligation to learn the lessons of the past and be compassionate to people we know now so this can never happen again," Mammen said.

It didn't take long for Agi to quiet her audience of 50-plus middle-school students as she began to speak of what she frequently referred to as "the unspeakable."

"You're probably the last generation who will see and hear a survivor like me," she said. "I was your age when I went to the camps."

Germany invades Hungary

Born in Budapest on June 2, 1930, Agi was just 13 when the Germans invaded Hungary on March 19, 1944. At that moment, she said, "everything changed."

Soon after the occupation, Agi, younger sister Zsuzsanna and mother, Rozsa, were sent to Auschwitz. The girls' father, Zoltan, had suffered from a long illness and died the day of the occupation.

"We were put into cattle cars," Agi said. "There was just a small window under the roof for air and light. They put as many people inside as possible. The situation was undescribable."

Mengele was not present when the family arrived at Auschwitz the first time, but prisoners still were being separated. Miraculously, Rozsa and her daughters were allowed to stay together.

"Only my mother kept us alive," Agi said. "If I had ever been separated from my mother and my sister, I don't think I would have had the will to survive."

A forced labor camp

After several weeks at Auschwitz, the family was transferred to Plaszow, a labor camp outside Krakow, Poland. When that camp was liquidated in late 1944 due to the approaching Soviet army, the family was marched back to Auschwitz, where Agi had her fateful encounter with Mengele.

A short time later, the family was sent with other Hungarian and Polish women to work in a factory near Stuttgart, Germany, that manufactured spare parts for airplanes. Conditions were only slightly better than the concentration camps, Agi said.

"The work was very, very hard, with very little food," she said. "We worked at night from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m."

After working at the factory for several months, the women were sent on a forced march of nearly 400 miles. While on the march, the starving and emaciated women were liberated by American soldiers on April 28, 1945.

The war over, Agi, her sister and mother went back to Hungary "to see who was still alive," Agi said.

Immigrating to Israel

Agi and Zsuzsanna immigrated to Israel in 1949, and each got married and had children. Mother Rozsa remarried and lived in Israel with her second husband until her death at age 98. Zsuzsanna still lives in Israel.

Students who listened to Agi Geva speak were impressed at her story of survival.

"I learned a lot about history," said Barret Koch, 13. "Their determination to stay together as a family had a big impact on how they survived."

Koral Long, 14, believes that Holocaust survivors are "the bravest people alive."

For Drayton Willey, 14, it was a reminder to never forget what happened in the Holocaust.

"If you forget, it might happen again," he said.

nReporter Gary Demuth can be reached at 822-1405 or by e-mail at gdemuth@salina.com.

Discuss This Story:

Email this story to a friend:

Subject:

Recipient:

Sender's email (required):



Enter text seen above: