Irene Weiss was born in 1930 in Bótrágy, Czechoslovakia. After the Hungarians annexed the territory, her family experienced antisemitic persecution. Then, after Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, she, her parents, and her five siblings were forced into a transit ghetto in Munkács before being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. For eight months, Irene was required to perform forced labor sorting items stolen from victims. She later survived a death march.
This conversation has been edited in length for educational and classroom use. View Irene Fogel Weiss' complete First Person: Conversations with Holocaust Survivors.
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Listen to or read Holocaust survivors’ experiences, told in their own words through oral histories, written testimony, and public programs.