Cohen, Judy

Judy Cohen is a Holocaust survivor from Hungary.  She was born on September 17th, 1928 in the city of Debrecen.  Judy was the youngest in a family of 7 children.  Her early life was a good one, full of promise and possibility, until she and her family were caught up in the terrible events unfolding all around them.   When Hungarian Jews were deported in 1944, she and many members of her family were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Judy became a slave labourer.  She was later sent to other camps in the Nazi system and was fortunate to survive the death marches at the end of the war. Today, Judy is committed to Holocaust and human rights education, and she has set up a website “Women and the Holocaust” to further this end. She has spoken to classes at Crestwood and was interviewed for this project by student Megan Rudson in 2009, and again by Lauren Chris and Lauren Weingarten in 2010.  In 2012 Judy invited Sarah Mainprize, Savannah Yutman and Kristin Stribopoulos into her home, and she spoke at Crestwood’s first Human Rights and Tolerance Symposium.  She was interviewed again by five Crestwood Preparatory College students in her home, on February 21th, 2020, just a month before the pandemic lockdown.  Judy was one of the first survivors to become involved in the Crestwood Oral History Project, and we thank her for her many years of dedication and hard work on our behalf.