Survivor lost her parents, three sisters to Nazis
AURORA, Ill.—It was a missed opportunity I truly regret.
By the time I got around to calling Bright Oaks retirement center in Aurora to set up an interview with 86-year old Agnes Hoffman, she had passed away.
I could have kicked myself for having lost this chance to meet a Holocaust survivor in person and to listen to stories that, no matter how ugly, we should never tire of hearing.
If I would have gotten the chance to chat with Agnes, I would definitely have asked her thoughts about the increasingly-ugly tribalism we are experiencing in this country … a disturbing trend that is leading to more online vitriol and physical acts of hate and anger. Unfortunately, that includes a local case recently, when vandals drew a swastika on a colorful “Got Love” sign a St. Charles woman had placed in her front yard, also making reference to sex organs, “White Power” and other disgusting messages about people who identify as LGBT.
Kane County Sheriff’s Sgt. Patrick Gengler says he’s not aware of an uptick in the use of these hate symbols or phrases throughout the county, which he would like to believe is at least in part because “we’ve got a pretty diverse jurisdiction” where kids are taught in school from an early age on to respect those who are different than they are.
He believes this incident could not be so much about evil hate but the handiwork of knucklehead kids—my description, not his—who are clueless to the deeply-painful feelings certain words or symbols carry.
Because this youngest generation is further removed from those who were first-hand witnesses to the horrors of a world war and the atrocities that came to define it, a swastika to them is a middle finger to the establishment they feel compelled to rebel against.
Whatever the age or intent of these vandals who chose to go on private property and deface a sign promoting peace, I wish they, too, could have talked to Agnes Hoffman.
Thankfully, her story did not die when she passed away this summer. Oldest son Keith Hoffman, who lives in Naperville, Ill., recorded a recent presentation he gave about his mother to the Rotary Club in Downers Grove, Ill., where he is a mortgage lender. Relying on his own recollections, letters and other memorabilia she left behind, along with snippets from an interview she did with the Dallas Holocaust Museum a few years ago, he painted a compelling portrait of an incredibly gifted, giving and, in his own words, “extremely lucky” woman who lost her parents and three siblings to the Nazis during World War II.
I’m sure these vandals could not even imagine what it must be like to walk out of a movie one day when you’re not quite a teenager—the theater was owned by her father Bela in their Hungarian village outside Budapest—and see SS soldiers taking over the lobby. Nor could they imagine what it must have been like to lose their home and be forced into a ghetto. Or to hear that your beloved father disappeared one morning while standing outside a train station, never to be heard from again.
Later, the rest of the family was crammed into a cattle car and taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where her mother and three little sisters, ages 11, 5 and 3, were ordered into a group for the young and old, while Agnes was assigned to a line for women ages 18-35.
Can you imagine the sheer terror of being separated from other family members? Or being forced to walk 47 miles to to a place called Auschwitz, where your head is shaved and you are given one thin piece of clothing to wear, with no pillow or blanket to provide warmth for your bed on the floor?
Likely being put into the young women’s line saved the teen’s life, for Agnes never saw her mother or sisters again. She became a messenger running between barracks, a job that forced her to speak to those scary soldiers with their swastikas who held her life in their hands. No one terrified her more, however, than Dr. Josef Mengele, the notorious “Angel of Death,” who would walk in at any time, looking for the sick and frail to be sent to their deaths.
Hoffman said his mother likely escaped the gas chamber because she had blue eyes, could speak German and was eventually assigned to factory work. A female barracks operator, he added, also took a liking to her and would try to direct her to the jobs she felt would give her the most protection.
But the horror continued. Imagine being forced to walk for days to yet another death camp—this one in Weiswasser—where you are only fed a sip of coffee for breakfast; grass soup for lunch; and a choice of a slice of bread, a bite of cheese or a teaspoon of marmalade for dinner?
As news came the Allies were drawing near, Agnes recalled being herded into a field with other prisoners who had so far survived the gas chambers, where guns were raised to shoot them. But at the last minute, the decision was made to hide them inside railroad cars, where guards opened the door every three days to give the prisoners a handful of dry oatmeal.
By the time the liberators arrived two weeks later, there were 54 dead people inside the car where Agnes had been imprisoned. She was one of only six who survived.
Agnes was sent to Denmark, where, while spending two weeks in a hospital, she taught herself some Swedish. She attended boarding school, lived in a tent while working a farm, was invited to be part of a United Nations peace conference in Switzerland and worked as a nanny for a wealthy steel baron, according to Hoffman.
At age 19 she arrived in New York aboard the Queen Elizabeth, the fare paid for by her uncle, Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount Pictures. While in New York, she worked as a high-fashion model and a flight attendant for Scandinavian Airlines. After marrying, she moved to Park Forest and raised four children while also becoming a commodities broker.
Despite the horrors his mother went through, “she never let bitterness or hatred enter her heart,” her son proudly told me. All her life, she only wanted to give to others, no matter what color their skin or their nationality or their religion.
Now do you see why I’m kicking myself I did not get to hear her incredible story in person? Now do you see why I wish whoever painted those ugly symbols on that beautiful sign would have also had a chance to sit across from Agnes before she died?
I wonder what she would have told them. Perhaps the same thing she shared with so many others who got to hear her incredible story: “My children say I see things through rose-colored glasses,” she is quoted as saying. “But I am the one who colors it rose.”