‘It is regrettable to witness that 80 years later, this topic remains significant’

Magda Bader managed to escape from a crowded cattle car at Auschwitz. The 14-year-old lost hold of her mother’s hand amidst the tumultuous crowd.

“That was the last time I saw my mother, father, and sister with the baby,” Bader recounted.

Now at the age of 94, Bader shared her impactful narrative regarding her experiences in a Nazi concentration camp during a JFK Jr. Forum discussion on Monday evening, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where it is estimated that 1 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazi regime.

Moderator Mathias Risse, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Berthold Beitz Professor of Human Rights, Global Affairs, and Public Policy, indicated that the dialogue transcended rather than solely recounting the tales of one of the few remaining Holocaust survivors.

“It’s essential to hear from someone who experienced it, thus transforming into someone who has absorbed the story from someone who was present and can carry that message through the ages,” Risse explained.

Bader resided in a small community in Hungary with her parents, four siblings, and a baby when the Nazis expelled them from their home.

She vividly remembers being marched several kilometers to a vast area of concrete, where guards stationed in towers shot randomly to deter any attempts to escape.

For many days, men, women, and children slept outdoors without shelter, no restrooms, and minimal food, preceding their ordering into cattle cars, crammed in with hundreds of others in darkness, bound for southern Poland.

Upon their arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bader, her three sisters, and all other captives relinquished their possessions, including their garments and footwear, and had their heads shaved.

Enclosed by towering walls and electrified fences, the sisters were allocated to a single barrack housing 1,000 women, predominantly Hungarian Jews, where they slept collectively on wooden planks. As time progressed, the sisters, donned in vermin-infested clothing and receiving merely one portion of watery rutabaga soup daily, scarcely recognized one another, she stated. “We had lost our identities, we had no names left.”

By November 1944, as Russian forces approached Auschwitz, the Nazis hurriedly endeavored to eliminate or relocate the remaining detainees, over 400,000 Hungarian Jews. Bader and her sisters were transferred to a subsidiary location just adjacent to Bergen Belsen, a death camp in northern Germany.

Bader’s assignment involved breaking stones outside to pave the route from the camp barracks to a nearby munitions facility. Just prior to the British liberation of Bergen Belsen in April 1945, the captives could hear Allied aircraft overhead at night targeting the factory.

“We kept hoping that perhaps the Americans or British would come to rescue us, yet the guards warned us not to even entertain the thought,” she recalled. The guards claimed they intended to compel the detainees to excavate a large pit before executing them and disposing of their remains there.

As the Allied troops advanced, the guards deserted their posts, providing Bader and her sisters a chance to flee. Clad in their striped prison garments, they dashed deep into a nearby coniferous forest and concealed themselves until the British arrived.

They received medical assistance from the Red Cross and were supplied with army uniforms as new attire. Even though Bader was only 15, she was asked to accompany the British Red Cross as an interpreter, aiding relief workers tending to camp survivors.

With no financial resources and no home to return to, Bader and one sister successfully left Germany for England; two other sisters later joined them. After completing high school, Bader was awarded a scholarship to attend Denver University in Colorado, subsequently moving to the U.S., where she stated she endeavored to fit in and kept her traumatic past private.

“There is an abundance of hatred and distrust. My hope is that individuals could learn to coexist as human beings, side by side. That is why I address high school and college students. I regret to acknowledge that 80 years later, this remains a crucial topic.”

Bader expressed that after all these years, it saddened her to realize her narrative continues to hold such relevance. “There is an abundance of hatred and distrust. My hope is that individuals could learn to coexist as human beings, side by side. That is why I address high school and college students. I regret to acknowledge that 80 years later, this remains a crucial topic.”