Watch the testimony clip.
About the Interviewee
Agnes Adachi (b. Mandl Ágnes) was born in 1918 in Budapest. Agnes’s father owned a textile factory and she was the only child in the family. After finishing secondary school, she travelled to Germany to live with her relatives. There, she attended the 1936 Olympic games where she saw the famous African-American runner Jesse Owens. Between 1939 and 1942, she attended university in Switzerland. In 1944, after the German occupation of Hungary, she got a Swedish protective passport (Schutzpass), but it was impossible to travel to Sweden at that time. Before Christmas of 1944, Arrow Cross Party members shot Jews into the Danube en masse. Agnes, along with Swedish diplomatic rescuers, went to the scene of the massacres in order to help the victims.
Budapest was liberated by the Soviet Army in the beginning of 1945. The same year, Agnes and her family left Hungary. They settled down in Philadelphia. She got married and had two sons. The interview was conducted in New York in 1996.