At our monthly Stories Survive Speaker Series, hear Holocaust survivors share their life stories in their own words. On January 5, 2020, Maritza Shelley was our guest speaker.
Maritza Shelley was born in 1928 in Budapest, Hungary. After the Nazi invasion of Hungary in 1944, she and her sister were selected to perform forced labor. When Maritza returned on a brief visit to her mother, who was living in the Jewish ghetto in Budapest, a roundup occurred and they were sent on a death march. They eventually reunited with Maritza’s sister, and all three women escaped, obtained false papers, and hitchhiked back to Budapest with a convoy of Nazis. Maritza moved to New York City in 1947.
