My Grandmother, Susanna Chiarini (nee Katz) was born in Budapest, Hungary on December 9 th 1942.

She was born to Armen Katz and Irene Katz (nee Gluck) and was the 2 nd of three children including her
older sister Agnes, and younger brother Leslie. This was a very dark period in human history, as we all
know and during this time, the Hungarian government was allied with the Nazi regime of Germany.
Antisemitism was prevalent in Hungary at this time and things were hard for the Jews already. By 1942,
many Jews had been stripped of their assets, businesses, and wealth. They could not vote, nor could
they intermarry with non- Jews. Also, many Jews had already been sent to work in labor camps in
Hungary, or were sent to die as part of support units for the army on the eastern front against the
Soviets.

In 1944, suspicious that Hungary would sign an armistice with the allies, Hitler order the German
occupation of Hungary. Until this point the Hungarian leaders under Regent Horthy had refused to allow
Jews to be deported , but under the puppet regime, Adolph Eichman would begin the mass deportation
of Hungarian Jews which would eventually lead to the deaths of 500 thousand jewish men, women, and
children.

My grandmother was placed in hiding, along with her sister, with a Christian family friend. My great
grandmother was also place in hiding across the river in Buda, unaware of how her children would fare
during the eventual siege of the city by the soviets. My great grandfather, who had already escaped
from Nazi clutches more than once, was also placed in hiding separate from the rest of the family. They
say that Jews who lived in the rural areas had a 15 percent chance of living through this period. The
Jews in Budapest had roughly a 50 percent chance of making it through alive. Amazing to think that all 4
members of the nuclear family survived this ordeal.

After several months, it would be unsafe to remain with the Christian family and thankfully due to the
good will of an army officer who was friends with my Great Grandfather, my grandmother and great
aunt were moved to a red cross orphanage to remain for the remainder of the war. My great aunt Aggie
still has memories of hiding under mattresses as the soviet Sturmoviks rained bombs down on the city
reducing it to rubble.

After the soviets “liberated” the city, my great grandmother was able to find some soviet soldiers to
take her over the river and she would eventually be reunited with her children. Later on, my great
grandfather would also be reunited with the family.

After the war, Hungary remained under soviet control. Hungary was not a friendly place for Jews. Not
only were the Hungarian gentry fairly anti-Semitic to begin with, but the Russian soldiers and civilians
also harboured anti jewish sentiments as well . My grandmother would recall being spit at and being
called a “dirty Jew” more than once. She would spend her formative years in this environment
thankfully developing close friendship with 2 girls who would become her lifelong friends, all having
moved to the US. At 13 years of age, with the help of human smugglers, my grandmother and her sister
were moved to a synagogue in Vienna Austria, snuck out under soviet occupation. From Vienna, in the
summer of 1957, they would be placed on a flight to NY where they would live with great grandmothers
brother, who had gotten out of Hungary a couple years before. Later that year, their parents would
follow.
My grandmother lived in the Bronx,.