Anna Hegedüsné Molnár (1897–1979)

Anna Molnár Hegedűs was born to a Jewish family in Szatmár, Hungary (present day Satu-Mare, Romania). In 1921, she married Zoltan Hegedűs, with whom she had two children. In 1944, during World War II, Nazi Germany occupied her native country, and the family was forced into the Szatmár Ghetto before being deported to the death camp at Auschwitz and the Schlesiersee forced labor camp. Anna survived the camps and the forced death march as the Red Army approached at the end of the war. She, her son János, and her niece Zsófi were the only members of their family who survived. One year later, as the lilacs blossomed, she returned to Szatmár and committed her experiences to paper while they were still raw and vivid. She emigrated to Israel in 1949 and to Canada in 1952. There she became a devoted neonatal nurse. Her memoir As The Lilacs Bloomed (in French, Pendant la saison de lilas) was published posthumously in 2014 as part of The Azrieli Foundation Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs.