Summaries courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, the UC Irvine Libraries.

Name:                                                  Butnik, Suzanne

Birth:                                                    1939

Birthplace:                                            Budapest, Hungary

Religion:                                               Jewish

Age Group:                                          Child

Type of Exp.:                                        Hidden

Left Family Home:                                1944

Camps Occupied:                                 N/A

Parents Survived Occupation?              Both

Number of Siblings:                              0

Sibling(s) Survived?                              N/A

Suzanne Butnik was five years old when the Germans marched into Hungary.  Although she did understand what was happening, she remembers being restricted to the apartment where she lived with her mother and grandparents.  "All the people I loved acted different," she says.  Suzanne says that her memories of the rest of the war blur after the first of two occasions when her mother was taken temporarily by the Nazis.  She vividly recalls frequent hunger and cold.  She also remembers time spent in a Wallenberg safe house with her mother and grandparents, as well as a period in a Red Cross orphanage which she describes as "awful."  She describes living in the country with her mother under a false identity and being "drilled" by her mother about what to say if they were ever questioned.  Suzanne also recounts that upon returning to Budapest at the end of the war, her mother tore the yellow stars from her grandparents' clothing and trampled them.

Suzanne's account conveys a small child's conception of time in that often she cannot recall durations for her experiences.  She also notes the alienation she experienced on coming to the U.S. after the war.  She says that she tried to bury her memories for many years.  However, her daughters' increasing curiosity has helped her come to terms with the past.

See also: Interview with Magda Salzer-Weinberg (#78 -- mother)

   Play Video