Description
In June 1940 Nina and her family lost their comfortable home and lifestyle to the Russians and not long afterwards were hiding from the Nazis. After a harrowing escape with her mother and grandmother through the forests from Poland to Hungary, they were reunited as a family, only to face a near-death train trip and a labour camp.
Nina then spent time alone in an orphanage, a villa for children and a convent, before joining her family in Budapest, where together they survived the bombing of that city. After the war they spent time in Romania and Czechoslovakia before immigrating to Australia.
Although the early years in Melbourne were fraught with difficulties, Nina would go on to have a fulfilled and happy marriage, three children, four grandchildren and a precious great-grandson and, sixteen years after her husband died, marriage to an old friend.
Through her involvement with the Child Survivors Group in Melbourne, Nina was instrumental in publishing an anthology of writings, Silent No More. In it she wrote: ‘Because we were only children, people liked to think we did not know exactly what was going on. However, we also saw, heard and felt.’
