- Biography
- Daniel Ripp was born to Hinko and Marie Ripp in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia in 1922. He trained to be an upholsterer and carpenter and started his own shop shortly before the start of the war. Daniel had four siblings, Imre (01/01/1919), Irene (nee Ripp) Keller, Theodore and Michael. Theodore left Europe for the United States before the war. Marie, Irene and Irene's two daughters, Mira and Elvira, were transported to Auschwitz and killed. Imre was arrested for political activity and perished. On January 23, 1942. Hungarian collaborators rounded up men in Novi Sad including Hinko Ripp. They were ordered to lie down in the street and shot in the back of their necks. The collaborators then threw all the victims' bodies into the Danube river.
In 1942, Daniel was conscripted into a slave labor battalion in Coviacha to build military bunkers and offices. From there he was sent to the Hungarian border to build roads and to Tatahago to work in the mines. There, Daniel was caught in cross-fire and wounded in the leg. After his leg healed, he again was forced to work in Hungarian military labor battalions. Working conditions were very severe, and the prisoners were routinely beaten. He later was deported to Budapest and put in the ghetto. There, he met his future wife, Judith Friebert.
Judith Ripp (born Judith Friebert) was the youngest of 9 or 11 children born to Emmanuel and Vera Friebert in Galentar, Czechoslovakia. After the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, Judith fled her hometown and came to Budapest. She had begged her family to come with her, but they stayed behind and were killed. In the Budapest ghetto, Judith took advantage of her Aryan appearance to sneak out, have lunch with German officers and bring food back into the ghetto. Judith met Daniel Ripp, and they married shortly after liberation, on February 26, 1945. They decided to return to Novi Sad to look for surviving relatives. Their children Vera and Henry were born there in 1946 and 1947. Daniel was almost immediately drafted into Tito's army. After his release in 1948, the family left Yugoslavia for Israel along with Michael and his wife.