I knew I was starring in a real-life drama, yet I felt almost nothing,” wrote Susan Rubin Suleiman in her memoir. “It was as if everything were happening to someone else

“I knew I was starring in a real-life drama, yet I felt almost nothing,” wrote Susan Rubin Suleiman in her memoir. “It was as if everything were happening to someone else.”

After the Nazi occupation of Hungary #OnThisDay in 1944, Susan was hidden with Christian farmers. Being separated from her parents at age four was traumatic, and when her mother left her with strangers, Susan wiped her tears and promised herself the farmer’s family would never see her cry again.

When her mother came back to get her a few weeks later, Susan barely said hello to her. Later, Susan came to understand the coping mechanism she developed during the Holocaust: “When confronted with a devastating loss, grit your teeth and move on.” After reuniting with her parents, Susan and her family survived the rest of the Holocaust under false identities.

Yet most Hungarian Jews did not share Susan’s story of survival. In just over a year, the Nazis and their collaborators murdered 500,000 Jews in Hungary.

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Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Susan Rubin Suleiman less