Karpati, Malka

In 1944 when the Germans came into Hungary they slowly took away everything Malka Karpati’s family had and they made them wear a yellow star on their clothes. In 1944 they were sent to Auschwitz on an open train, where Doctor Mengele separated them – mom went to the left and Malka and her sisters went to the right side. Unfortunately her mom and dad were sent to the gas chambers when they arrived. In the camps they had no kind of food – they got one piece of bread to split 3 ways. The Germans looked for sick people every day and they would immediately send them to the gas chambers so when Malka’s sister had a fever Polish Jews helped hide her to avoid being sent to the chambers. After Auschwitz Malka was sent to work in a ammo factory for 10 weeks. On April 18, 1945 the British freed them; Malka says if they would have showed up 2 weeks later that all of the people would have been dead in the camps. It took 2 months to get home from the camp they went on a train with Canadian soldiers to Nuremburg and then from there they were sent home. In 1946 she got married and in 1947 had her first child. On her child’s second birthday they moved to Israel, later emigrating to Canada.

Malka was interviewed at Baycrest’s Cafe Europa by Savannah Yutman, Jenny Wilson, and Alex Lupke.