Irena (Toby) Gevurtz
Irena Gevurtz was born on April 1, 1926 in the Northern Transylvanian town of Halmeu, Romania. Her parents, Mariam and Manis Gevurtz, owned a butcher shop, and raised Irena and her four sisters – Goldie, Havi, Blanche and Cecelia – in a religious Jewish home. Because the region changed hands several times over the centuries, the children spoke Romanian at school but Hungarian at home. They enjoyed a beautiful life until Hungary, an ally of the Nazis, took over the region from Romania in 1940.
After that, everything started to change. Irena’s parents were forced to close their business and the Jews of the town were required to wear yellow stars. As a child, Irena noticed the antisemitism brewing. She recalled how her non-Jewish neighbors no longer came out to play with her, and when they did go out, they were told not to go near the “dirty Jew.” Over the next few years, under Hungarian rule, a number of anti-Jewish racial laws were instituted. In March 1944, in response to Hungary’s efforts to withdraw from its alliance with Germany, the Nazis invaded Hungary and the situation became even graver.
In April 1944, just after Irena turned 18, she and her family were celebrating Passover with the traditional Seder. It would be the last holiday they celebrated together as a family. That night, having heard rumors that Jewish children were going to be abducted, Irena and her sisters were taken to hide in a small bedroom where a door was covered by a china cabinet. Their parents were asleep when they heard glass shatter, and they were so frightened that they jumped from their bedroom window. Irena recalled hearing someone yelling “Stinky Jews, where are you running?” Her father responded, “I don’t know, someone broke into our home.” Captured and beaten, they were commanded, “March back to your home and go to sleep.”
Although they were spared for a few weeks, one day in May, the Hungarians announced that all Jews should be ready to leave the following morning. They could not take anything with them. Irena’s mother baked some bread and hid it in her pockets. The family’s two dogs, Budrie and Muxie, followed them, barking, as they were taken in open trucks to the local synagogue and then on to a ghetto in Budapest. They were crammed into designated buildings, where they shared apartments with four or five other families, subsisted on very little food, and were uncertain what would happen next.
After about a month, the Jews in the ghetto were rounded up and taken to the train station, where they were loaded into cattle cars. They traveled for a few days until they reached Auschwitz, where Irena was separated from her mother and younger sisters, Goldie and Havie, whom she would never see again. Miraculously, she was able to remain with her two other sisters, Cecilia and Blanche, as well as a cousin, Bella, until liberation. One morning, during roll call, Irena fell and was lifted up by her sisters. A Nazi officer came over and hit her in her hip with the end of a bayonet gun; she would have pain in her hip for the rest of her life. Another time, the notorious Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele pulled Irena’s sister, Cecilia, out of the lineup; Irena, Blanche and Bella protested, “We are shvesters (sisters).” Dr. Mengele responded by saying, “Take the whole family!” They were moved to another barrack and warned by a guard that they would be taken to the crematorium the next morning. Somehow, that night, they managed to sneak back to their old barracks. Their lives were spared but they continued to endure the daily roll calls, which could last for hours, and performed hard labor the rest of the day, breaking rocks with hammers to build roads.
In December 1944, as the Germans were losing the war, Irena, her sisters, and cousin were taken to a labor camp in Torgau, Germany. There, they worked in a bomb factory, sitting at a conveyor belt and stamping the bombs. Though the provisions were still extremely sparse there, prisoners were given clean clothing and small amounts of food. One morning in February 1945, about two months after they arrived, they heard planes flying overhead and sirens going off. Amid the chaos, they discovered that the gate was open and there were no officers in sight. A group of around 250 girls walked out of the labor camp together and found food and some clothing in an abandoned house nearby. Having nowhere to sleep that night, they returned to the factory, where they were liberated by American soldiers the next morning.
Jewish organizations helped Irena, Cecelia, Blanche and Bella move to Antwerp, Belgium. There, Irena was trained as a diamond cutter while working for a caterer. In 1947, Irena and Cecilia emigrated to America through Ellis Island, having obtained visas with the help of their uncle, Max Gevurtz, and his wife, Margaret. Max had been brought to America with three brothers by their mother, Irena’s great grandmother, before the war, and settled in Philadelphia. IIrena’s sisters Blanche and Cecilia, as well as her cousin, Bella, along with fellow survivors they met and married in Belgium, joined them a few years later.
Upon arrival in America, Irena changed her name to Toby. She worked as a seamstress in Philadelphia until she met her husband, David Wiener, while vacationing in Florida. David, who served in World War II, was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant as well so they immediately felt connected.
Toby never fully recovered from her traumatic experiences during the Holocaust but she maintained her faith and went on to build a beautiful family. She and David had three children: Rosely, Edward, and William; five grandchildren, including Heschel Holocaust Commemoration Committee member Goldier Hertz; and 11 great-grandchildren, including Heschel students Brody and Zev Hertz. Irena passed away in September 2021 at the age of 96.