Show Notes
A Hungarian Holocaust survivor keeps a German banknote with a stranger’s penciled message-what do you carry when the country gives you its currency?
Would you keep a war bill with a stranger's pencil promise or burn it
In this episode, we follow the life of Engelman Lívia from a small Hungarian town through Auschwitz, forced labor, and an eighty-year afterlife shaped around a single banknote. The episode traces the decisions, movements, and moments that kept her alive while asking what we choose to carry forward.
Person: Engelman Lívia (Lily) Date: Born 29 December 1923; died 9 October 2024 Location: Bonyhád, Hungary; Auschwitz-Birkenau; munitions factory near Leipzig; London Event: Deportation to Auschwitz in July 1944; forced marches in 1945 Detail: Kept a German banknote for eighty years with a soldier’s pencil message
- A family of eight in Bonyhád is rounded up after Germany invades Hungary in March 1944 and deportations begin by May. - On arrival at Auschwitz a selection separates Lily, Renee, and Piri from their mother Nina, brother Bela, and sister Berta. - Lily and her two sisters are transferred in November 1944 to a munitions factory near Leipzig to perform forced labor making weapons. - In early 1945 the sisters are forced on a winter march away from advancing Allied and Soviet forces under conditions meant to cause attrition. - For eighty years Lily keeps a single German banknote, folded until soft, bearing a pencil message from a soldier on the other side of the world.
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