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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Memoir:
Courage and Despair
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Volume 9b
Irene Romer
Courage and Despair
published by the
Concordia University Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies
Copyright � Irene Romer, 2000
Key Words
Arrow Cross, Auschwitz-Birkenau (father in),
Budapest, Catholic seminary, Debrecen, false papers, Germans, ghetto, hiding, Mikl�s
Horthy, Hungary, liberation, lice, nightmares, Nyiregyhaza (town in Hungary), post-war
volunteer work, Russian soldiers, Seder, Szalasi, Yad Vashem, yellow star armbands
Abstract
Irene Romer, born in 1928 in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary,
a town with a sizeable Jewish community. She attended Protestant school and felt very
integrated in Hungarian culture, although her parents were very religious Jews. After the
German occupation of Hungary, she was forced to wear the yellow star and she and her
family were sent into a ghetto. Romer, her sister and her mother escaped the ghetto the
day before the Germans liquidated it. Her father did not want to risk being caught trying
to escape and remained in the ghetto. They remained in hiding for the rest of the war,
posing as Christians. Romer hid in a seminary for a short time, but she returned to hide
with her mother and sister in an apartment building in the outskirts of Budapest. She
described the fear of being raided by members of the arrow cross gang, and living in
constant fear of being exposed. Her cousin and a Christian neighbour helped keep her and
her mother alive, as well as saving the lives of approximately 30 Jews, by stealing, lying
and bribing people. They were liberated by Russian soldiers.
She describes having to disguise herself as a boy
to avoid being attacked by Russians. Her mother hid her sister and then disguised herself
as an old woman during the first phase of the Russian occupation. Romer, her mother and
her sister went back on top of the train to Nnyiregyhaza after they were liberated, thanks
to a Russian Jewish officer who helped them leave Budapest. She describes the arrival of
the survivors from her town, the return of her father from Auschwitz, and the
psychological effects she and some members of her family experienced because of the
Holocaust. Romer met her husband in Nyiregyhaza after liberation; none of her
husband’s relatives survived the Holocaust. Part of this memoir consists of a letter
to her child, Agi. The memoir is also translated into French.
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