Yolanda Engel

Born: Veréce, Czechoslovakia (now Veryatsya, Ukraine), 1937
Wartime experience: Survival in Budapest
Writing partner: Bev Birkan
Yolanda Engel (née Jolan Lebovics) was born in the village of Veréce, Czechoslovakia (now Veryatsya, Ukraine), in 1937.
In 1940, Yolanda and her family moved to Budapest, Hungary, to join her father. In 1942, Yolanda’s father was sent to a forced labour camp, and her mother was alone raising two children and a new baby. Soon after the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, Yolanda’s mother was taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Yolanda and her two brothers survived in synagogues that had become children’s homes. They were reunited with their father during the liberation of Budapest, and with their mother in 1946. After the war, Yolanda continued her education in Budapest, earning a diploma as an organic chemistry technician and then working as a technician in the rubber industry. Yolanda met her husband, Joseph, in Budapest and they married in 1966. She arrived in Canada to join Joseph in 1967 and together they raised three children. Yolanda worked in a variety of businesses, later earning a diploma in business administration. In the late 2000s, Yolanda joined the Holocaust Child Survivors’ group at Baycrest and began speaking to various audiences about her experiences during the Holocaust. Yolanda continues to speak to student groups in Toronto.
Survival in Budapest
We were subject to the many restrictions imposed on the Jewish community, and soon after the Nazi occupation, we were relocated. We could no longer remain in our home. In Budapest, Jewish houses (sárga csillagos házak, yellow-star houses) were designated. They were actually single-building ghettos, some with only children, mothers with children and elderly people. My mother took us to the one closest to us, a synagogue located at 16 Jávorka Ádám Street, XIV District, but shortly after, the able-bodied grown-ups were taken to the brickyards in the district of Óbuda, and then eventually to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. My mother was among them. My younger brother, Bela, was only two years old at the time. One of his first full sentences was, “The Nazis took my mother away.” My older brother, Harry, at the age of nine, became the head of the family. He changed two-year-old Bela’s diapers and sometimes snuck out of the synagogue, hiding the yellow star on his clothes, to buy us a treat (comfort food) on the black market by selling a tablecloth or some other item. This was a dangerous thing to do.
1946
With my mother’s return, life changed for us. Although my younger brother was too young to remember her and asked, “Who is this lady?” we were together as a family again in our little apartment. The renovated apartment, which was owned by my mother’s uncle and aunt, was slightly enlarged but still small — a kitchen, a bedroom and a pantry. Most things slowly returned to normal, but my mother was never the same person after the camp.
My father started to work as a labourer again for Meyer Itzkovicz, my mother’s uncle, delivering coal and wood that he carried in big baskets on his shoulders. As a result, he had back problems. He would ask us to walk on his back; it was the only massage he could afford. But my father was a jovial man. He liked to play cards, and when he once had a broken leg requiring a cast that made it too difficult for him to get out to play cards with his friends, he taught us to play so he would have company. Day by day, our routines finally took on regularity, and I have many memories of those postwar years.
Sometimes the darkest times can bring us to the brightest places.

Yolanda (third from the left) with her family. From left to right (in front): Yolanda’s father, Ezra; her mother, Helen; Yolanda; her brother Harry; and her brother Bela. In back, Yolanda’s cousin Sandor and her uncle Meyer Irani. Budapest, date unknown.

Harry (standing, left) with Bela and Yolanda. Date and place unknown.
Epilogue
I started to write this story more than a year ago. It took me a long while to finally get it going, but now I thank God I was given the time and health to do it, the skills and wisdom to write it. Hopefully it will show that the past didn’t make me a prisoner, but a survivor of it all. In the end, I want my story to help others.
If I've learned anything from life, it’s that sometimes the darkest times can bring us to the brightest places. I have learned that the most toxic people can teach us important lessons; that our most painful struggles can grant us the most necessary growth; and that the most heartbreaking losses can make room for the most wonderful people.
I have learned that what seems like a curse in the moment can actually be a blessing, and that what seems like the end of the road is actually just the discovery that we are meant to travel down a different path.
I've learned that no matter how difficult things seem, there is always hope, that no matter how powerless we feel or how horrible things may seem, we can't give up. We have to keep going, even when it’s scary, even when all of our strength seems gone. We have to keep picking ourselves back up and moving forward, and we will make it through. We've made it this far. We can make it through whatever comes next.... With all its imperfections, it is still a wonderful world.
Let’s make it even better.
To life, to life.... L’Chaim.