Edit Gruenberger

Edit was the second of three children born to Hungarian-speaking Jewish parents in the city of Kosice in the southeastern part of Czechoslovakia known as Slovakia. She grew up a Czechoslovak citizen. As a young girl, she attended a Jewish elementary school. Her father was a tailor whose workshop was in the Gruenbergers' apartment.

1933-39: After Edit finished elementary school, she entered secondary school. The language of instruction was Slovak and Jews faced no discrimination until November 1938 when Hungarian troops marched into southern Slovakia. With Germany's blessing, Kosice became part of Hungary and their new Hungarian rulers introduced anti-Jewish laws. When she finished her schooling in 1939, Edit began working as a dressmaker with her aunt.

1940-44: Edit worked for her aunt until 1941 when the Hungarians interned her and her family because they were considered "aliens." In 1942 she was released and returned to work. A month after the Germans occupied Hungary in 1944, Edit's family was ordered to assemble in a nearby brick factory. They were kept there until May when they were deported to Auschwitz along with most of the Jews of Kosice. When she arrived in Auschwitz, her mother and younger sister were sent to the gas chambers and she was selected for slave labor.

After her transfer to the Muehldorf subcamp of Dachau, Edit was liberated in Tutzing by U.S. troops on May 1, 1945 and quickly returned home. She immigrated to West Germany in 1968.