How I Survived the Holocaust in Budapest

John Dobai, 89, lived through World War Two as a child in Nazi-occupied Budapest, Hungary. In 1944, Germany invaded Hungary, quickly introduced harsh antisemitic policies and Mr. Dobai's father was sent to a forced labor camp. All Jewish people in Budapest were forced to live in ghettos, wear yellow stars of David on their clothes and could not go to school. As the Soviets neared the country, the Nazis and Hungarian fascists commenced a brutal campaign of killings against the 60,000 Jews living in the "international ghetto" of safehouses. Mr Dobai's grandparents were two of 45,000 Jewish people who were massacred by gunshot and drowning in the Danube river, and two aunts and a cousin, who was just 17, were also killed. He and his parents were saved when the Soviets took control of the city before the killings were complete.