Ibolya Grossman

The daughter of Ignacz Szalai and Laura Fisher, she was born Ibolya Szalai in Pécs. Around 1931, she joined the Zionist movement in Hungary; there, she met Zoltan Rechnitzer ("Zolti"), who she would later marry. In 1933, she moved to Budapest where her older sister lived; for several months, she worked at a thread factory. The Rechnitzer family moved to Budapest in 1936 and she married Zolti in September 1939. She became pregnant in 1941 and a son Andras (Andy) was born in July 1942. In November 1942, Zolti reported for duty as a labourer in the Hungarian army as was required for all Jewish males between the ages of 18 and 50. In May 1944, Zolti was taken to a labour camp; she never saw him again. In the meantime, she was confined to a Jewish ghetto in Budapest.[2]

In July 1944, her parents and two half-sisters were taken to Auschwitz. In 1945, Grossman was liberated from the ghetto by the invading Russian army. In 1949, she attempted to escape from Hungary. She was betrayed,[2] arrested and jailed. Her second attempt succeeded and she came to Toronto in Canada in 1957.[1] In 1958, she married Emil Grossman.[2]

Grossman died in Toronto[1] from cancer.[3]

Her memoir An Ordinary Woman in Extraordinary Times (1990) received a Canadian Jewish Book Award.[4]

• Grossman, Ibolya Szalai (1990). An ordinary woman in extraordinary times. ISBN 0-919045-46-4.