Agnes Vogel
Written by Adrian Dunn

Agnes Vogel was born in Debrecen, Hungary in the 1930s.  Unlike millions of other European Jews, she survived the Holocaust.  Vogel was 18 years old when she and her family were forced to leave their home and move to a ghetto.  As they were being made to walk to the ghetto, a young girl she had always walked to school with came out of her house.  She picked up a rock and threw it at Agnes.

Agnes Vogel endured many other trials during the Holocaust.  Near the end of World War II, she was trapped in a cattle car that was stopped on a railroad track.  The allies were bombing enemy buildings all around them.  Eventually Agnes and her family were liberated.  They had to walk back to their home, which was in ruins.  During their trek, they were approached by some young men.  “Why are you here?  The Germans didn’t kill you?” they asked.  They were surprised to see the survivors returning home.  At one point, someone commented that the Germans should have finished what they intended to do.  

In 1947, after the war had ended, Agnes came to the United States.  She later met and married her husband in Indiana.  Agnes remembers when her husband was a soccer coach in Indianapolis.  One evening, he arrived at the soccer field before his players.  He encountered a man who began telling Mr. Vogel degrading things about prominent Jewish citizens.  After awhile, her husband just walked away from the man.  Agnes also shared a story about her daughters’ experience at school.  A boy who sat next to her in class used racial slurs and made derogatory comments toward her because she is of Jewish decent.  This bothered her so much that she told her mother about the situation.  Her mother suggested that she move to another seat.  Her daughter explained that it was not possible.  A couple of days later, her daughter came home with a smile on her face.  She told her mom that she hit the boy on the head with her textbook.