Nicolas

Nicolas Roth

Nicolas was born in Hungary in 1928 into a family of five children. His parents thought they were safe, but in March 1944, the Nazis invaded the country. In a matter of days, their lives were turned upside down. Sensing that the end of the war was close, the Nazis stepped up the pace of the deportation of the Hungarian Jews. In about seven weeks, over 435,000 people were deported to Auschwitz, the vast majority of whom did not even enter the camp and were sent straight to the gas chambers. Nicolas was deported with his father, mother and youngest sister, the only siblings who had not left the country for Paris. At selection, he was separated from his parents and sister. When, a few days later, he asked where they were, he was shown the smoke coming out of the chimneys. It would take him a few days to realize that what he at first found unbelievable was the truth. The few Hungarians in the camp were poorly regarded by the other prisoners, with whom communication was difficult. In spite of everything, Nicolas survived seven months in Auschwitz-Birkenau as well as several death marches before arriving at Dachau. After being finally released, he arrived in France in February 1946, where he was reunited with a brother and a sister. He didn’t share with them anything about what he had endured, just as he never spoke about it with his three children later on. It wasn't until 1985, forty years after the end of the war, with the release of the movie Shoah, that he finally opened up. For two years, whenever he had a moment, in the evenings or on weekends, he worked on a manuscript. It tells the story of his life and attempts to explain the workings of the infernal Nazi machine. Nicolas wants the world to understand its sophistication. Nicholas feels his role as a former deportee is to warn people about the depths of humanity’s evil potential, so that another Hollocaust nerver happens again.