The secret lay dormant for 50 years until Andrew Laszlo decided to share his past, the story of how his family perished in the Holocaust and only he survived. From his youth in Papa, Hungary, to his experiences with the Nazis, his will to survive was tested again and again.
On March 19, 1944, Germany invaded Hungary. He wrote, "As I warned you, from here on, this account is going to get rough."
Andrew's family was relocated to the ghetto and forced to wear the yellow star. He was conscripted into the Hungarian Labor Service. His father and mother were taken away. As the war dragged on, Andrew was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Years later, his children learned that Anne Frank was a prisoner in the camp at the same time.
At twenty years old, having nothing left, Andrew escaped Russian-occupied Hungary and made his way to a displaced persons camp in Ulm, Germany. He was granted emigration to the United States. He arrived in New York Harbor on January 17, 1947, with two dollars in his pocket. He did not speak the English language.