Arlene (Grunberger, Shugart) Pergricht was born in 1912 in Budapest, Hungary. She had three brothers and three sisters. Her father was a jeweler. Arlene married in 1942, and in July of that year her son, Peter, was born. When she was still pregnant, Arlene’s husband was taken for forced labor in Russia. Arlene never heard from her husband again. She continued to run their store until March 1944, when Nazi Germany invaded Hungary. Arlene and Peter moved into an apartment with her mother and sister. In November, Arlene narrowly escaped a roundup of Jews who were to be sent to Auschwitz. She took off her yellow star and jumped on a streetcar. When two Nazi soldiers boarded the streetcar, a man pretended to know her and helped shield her from questions. Arlene called him her guardian angel.
Shortly after, Arlene’s mother and sister were arrested and deported to Auschwitz. Arlene was left alone to care for her young son and nephew. They were forced into the Budapest ghetto in December 1944 and lived with close to thirty other people in one room. Arlene searched for food during the Soviet bombings to keep her family alive. Together with her son and nephew, Arlene managed to survive there until liberation in 1945. After the war, Arlene discovered that her husband had not survived. Her mother had perished in Auschwitz. Arlene’s brother, his wife, and their son had been caught trying to escape to Switzerland, and, on December 31, 1944, they were marched to the Danube River and shot. Arlene lost 32 members of her family. Her sister survived Auschwitz and returned after a year and was reunited with her son, whom Arlene had cared for and protected.
With the help of a sister living in the United States, Arlene immigrated to the U.S. in 1948 and worked as a secretary in Chicago. She married Bernard Pergricht in 1959, and they moved to El Paso in 1978. Arlene died in 1994.
Connecting Stories: Bernard Pergricht, Peter Shugart