I was minutes away from being executed at Auschwitz – then stroke of luck saved my life, says Holocaust survivor
I was minutes away from being executed at Auschwitz – then stroke of luck saved my life, says Holocaust survivor
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A HOLOCAUST survivor has revealed she was minutes away from being sent to her death at Auschwitz - before her train was diverted in a lucky twist of fate. Agnes Kaposi, 92, was just 11 years old when she and her family were shoved into a cramped and dark cattle wagon with 86 other petrified Jews - the padlocked door slamming shut behind them.
![[Portrait of Agnes Kaposi, a Holocaust survivor.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/83a6c5ce-06dd-4ada-ab36-2b64619a594a.jpg?strip=all&w=657)
The little girl didn’t realise that their train was trundling across the Hungarian countryside towards Auschwitz where they were to be executed in gas chambers with half a million others. And she wouldn't know until years later that she was on the only train in history to be diverted away from the concentration camp at the last minute in a move that would end up saving her life.
![[Black and white photo of a young girl wearing a polka dot dress and glasses.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/480245c2-943d-43ae-9c82-f63360d48b8d.jpg?strip=all&w=576)
Agnes, speaking from her North London home, told The Sun: “Historians tell me that there was a single train - mine - that was diverted from Auschwitz.”. As the world marks Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday, Agnes said if it wasn’t for that “quirk of history” she wouldn’t be here today and her children and grandchildren wouldn’t exist.
![[Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz, 1944.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/874c169e-09ce-4482-b4cb-865afa553794.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
It was on this train - over a gruelling five days and nights - that Agnes witnessed horrors that she’ll never forget. Agnes recalls the 87 of them cramped tightly together with no room to lay down and only a small A4-sized window with metal bars across it and a small gap in the gateway for light.
![[a black and white photo of a young girl wearing glasses .]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/agnes-kaposi-950487533.jpg?strip=all&w=612)
