We Remember: Songs of Survivors

I was 12 years old when we were supposed to be deported, to be killed. It was supposed to be a labor camp, but not a death camp. But we found out that it was a death camp, because somebody escaped and they told us what was going on there. Nobody believed us. Every I time I go and visit, it is such a pleasure. Tibor is full of joy. Big, bear hugs. Come here. Give me your coat. Okay. There's an ease, for him, in sharing and conveying the facts of what happened. And sometimes it comes across as matter-of-fact. He's not experiencing distress or emotion when he's sharing horrific stories. We were talking to other people, "Don't go into those cattle cars. "It's not-- it's not a labor camp. It is a death camp. It is a trap." People were laughing at us. "Are you crazy?" You know? We ran away into the forest and hid in a forest for several months under the snow. We miraculously survived. This is a map of where we were hiding. You see, this is how we built it. We cut out the- such a triangle. Here was a little creek. And then we built a-- like, a skeleton. And we inserted it into the triangle. Here is a stump, hollow stump through which we were breathing. This was all camouflaged. And the opening was here, where we crawled in and out. And we had to survive seven months, 200 days.

wheels clattering

It was worth living this long, to make this trip. I delayed it for-- for 57 years... Because I was afraid of it. Not anymore. That time that he spent with his family in the ground, it's such a pivotal part of his story, and in his life. He's gone back to find it. There's actually footage of him looking for it, a long time ago. He's so young in it. See, here is a situation exactly as--as we needed. See, a steep hill. And then it would probably be an opposite hill. And the hole was on the side of that hill. And a tiny creek running in the bottom of the hill.