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• Letter 1: Agnes Grunwald-Spier

Letter 1: Agnes Grunwald-Spier

Dear Friends,

I am a woman of 62 who lives in Sheffield. I have 3 sons aged 28, 25 and 22. I wanted to tell you what happened to me when I was a baby a long time ago in a city called Budapest which is the capital of a country called Hungary. I was born there on 14 July 1944.

My Mum, Leona Klein, had been born in Budapest in 1913 – she was the eldest of four girls. In March 1942 she married Philip Grunwald who was my Dad. They were both Jewish although they were not very religious. Hungary was the last country occupied by the Nazis, so it was only on 19 March 1944 that they took over. However anti-Jewish legislation had been imposed in Hungary prior to the occupation and my Dad had been taken away to be a forced labourer in Poland where he worked disposing of mines and building airfields.

• Letter1_Agnes (pdf)