My mother, Elizabeth Thaler née Roth was living in Budapest in 1944, with her father, Eugene Roth, her mother Martha Roth, her sister Susan and her grandmother whose name I don’t know. My mother did not like to talk about her time in Budapest and her sister refused to talk about it at all. So I have pieced together some of her story over the years but it is very incomplete. My mother is now 87 and is more willing to talk about the past but she has dementia and now remembers very little. My aunt Susan died a few years ago.
What I know is that their father was arrested, injured in an air raid or some kind of bombing and died of an infection. My mother and her sister were in a labor camp and made bricks through a cold winter, and my mother got frostbite on her fingers. At some point just before the siege of Budapest they left the city with their mother and grandmother, by train. They ended up in a displaced persons camp in Bremen Germany in 1945 and made their way to the US by ship.
I would very much like to know more about the details of my mothers experience. I think it is possible that she and her family were aided by Raoul Wallenberg. I would appreciate any help you could give me in finding more about this place and time and the specifics of my mothers experience.
Please contact Rick Thaler
rthaler@msn.com
Corrales New Mexico
USA