Watch Judy Lysy’s testimony clip who remembers how Jewish and non-Jewish people were living together in the Czech democracy.
Judy Lysy (née Singer) was born on February 27, 1928, in Kosice, Czechoslovakia, in a well-to-do Orthodox Jewish family. His father, Morris Singer was a businessman trading with wheat and other agricultural products, while her mother, Ella Singer was a housewife. She had one older sister, Rose. They attended Jewish private school in Kosice. In 1938, the first Anti-Jewish Laws were passed in Hungary, which took affect in Kosice in time as the region was annexed to Hungary in late 1938. These changes gradually worsened the living conditions of her family. After the German occupation of Hungary in 1944, her family was forced into the local ghetto of Kosice. Six weeks later they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Together with her mother and sister they were transferred to several concentration camps in Germany and Austria, and they were liberated by the American armed forces in Gunskirchen. After the war, she went home to Kosice with her mother and sister. Her father also survived the Holocaust. In 1949, she emigrated to Venezuela with her family, and later on moved to Canada. She is married, and has two daughters. Her interview was recorded in 1995, in Toronto, Canada.