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The person in question has given us the following information: My
father
was a joiner, he died 8 years ago. My
mother,
my older
brother, my younger
brother, and older
sister
with her 5-year-old son were
deported into
Poland in 1941 (the 15th May). When it happened I stayed in
Budapest to arrange for
the documents needed for
citizenship. Three months later my brother managed to come home
after a trip full of hardship. Around 70% of the Jews of the village were
deported this time, only the widows of soldiers and relatives of labour servicemen
remained, the rest were forced to leave the country through the border at
Kőrösmező. One time
Hungarian, another time
German
soldiers
beat them, elderly people were either
shot or
thrown into the river
Dnester. They
shot my
mother in front of my
brother
who managed to come back from
death’s door. He was
interned for a year till his documents arrived but after another year his fate was decided,
whe
German
occupation brought about another turn in the life of Jews. It was now that I got to
Somogyvár to
my
aunt’s place. Naturally, everything started also here with wearing the
yellow
star. After a thorough
search
on the 18th of May we were carried into the
ghetto
of
Tab travelling like
a caravan of
Gipsies as we could carry along quite a lot of things. Here they
designated only one street for this purpose. This was enclosed, guarded by
Jewish policemen inside and by
military
gendarmes outside. There were around 200 Jewish
families
crammed here, 20-30 living in one room, we could hardly lie down. We also had a
soup kitchen but who had some food supply preferred to cook at home. The members of the
Jewish
Council were
Weisz,
Szirmai, etc.; we had no complains about them. Till the
age of 50 everyone had to
work here, they took us for agricultural work, for construction
works, we built a levente centre.
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The
peasants of
Tab did not want the
ghetto
to be built there, therefore, debates about the
ghetto
lasted for long but the notary of the community, who was a notorious
antisemite, and had lot of land wanted free Jewish
labour force from the
ghetto but also wanted to show off with the levente centre. We were distributed on
different estates of the area, we
worked
from Monday morning till Saturday evening, then we returned to the
ghetto
by cars. We had to
work hard but did not have a bad life as
food was very good in
all manors. However, when we finished the work the owner of the estates
Dr.Gusztáv Götzen did not pay his Jewish
labourers. No one
escaped
from the
ghetto, and I cannot recall the
death
of anyone. The 3rd of July, we received the order to pack and the day after we already set
off. We could carry 15 kilos of luggage. When we were
searched by
Hungarian soldiers and by
gendarmes we had to undress nude. My friend wanted to save a little jar of
apricot
jam for her daughter but the
gendarme performing the search noticed it and
seized
it, together with a ball saying that his son would use it. When they finished searching us
they
entrained us and took us to the court of the army station in
Kaposvár where ca. 7,000
people were
concentrated. We stayed here for five days till we were
entrained, 90 of us in a
wagon. We got a little
water at start but almost nothing on
German territories.
We had a bucket for toilet in the car. Two old
women
died during the journey, we had their
dead
bodies in the car until
Birkenau. It is quite a miracle that only two old
women
died since the heat was almost unbearable in the open
wagons. In
Kassagendarmes got into the wagons and told us to have patience and not to commit
suicide, we would be carried into
Germany where we
would live well, there were going to be cinemas and theatres there, we only needed to work.
When we arrived in
Auschwitz-Birkenau the third night, we almost respired with relief
after this awful journey although we did not know what would happen next.
Häftlings in striped
clothes
came up in the wagons and ordered us to get off and to leave all our stuff in the car. When
we queued up five in each line the
SS
selected us. We did not know what it was about I could not even say goodbye to my
aunt when they took me into the baths, cut my hair, depilated me, and put me under
cold shower. We were so weary that I was close to feeling well after the shower and did not
care about my hair any more. They took our
clothes
and gave us instead
blouses and
long
skirts and put a cross in red ink on the back. If the
blouse
was thin the ink filtered through and ate into the skin. After the bath, I got into
lager B
where we were 800 of us divided in two barracks. There were not even berths here, we
sat on the
ground cluttered up, lying was out of question of course. I stayed here for four
weeks, this was the worst barrack, the
rain
constantly fell in. Apart for
roll
calls there was nothing to do, this was what filled our days. In the morning we got
black
coffee, at 8 am some grass-like
soup
which I never tasted during the time I was in
Auschwitz, and in the evening a little piece of bread and
Zulag.
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The 7th of August, I was
selected for a group meant to
work in
Lichteanu. The journey took us three days and we received sufficient
bread
and
sausage for these days. We travelled 60 of us in a car and when we arrived to
Lichtenau I was very glad we got into a relatively clean
camp. Everyone had a
place to sleep, a
blanket, and even a cup and a spoon, so we started to feel like
civilised people again. Our
job was
to fill 18 kilos heavy grenades in the ammunition plant and to help entraining the goods. We
had to prepare around 2,000-2,500 pieces a day rushed by the masters. We
worked
8 hours a day but in some special fields people had to
work 12
hours. Every three weeks we changed shift; there were morning, afternoon and night shifts.
Some masters beat us but generally all rushed us shouting
Los, los.
In December, there was less
work to
do as we ran out of raw material, hence we were sent for
forest
work. This was much worse, we walked to the mountains in knee-high snow to work
with the pickaxe and it was often already 10 pm when we got back to the lager. We walked 15 kilometres far away in wooden slippers in
which we hardly could walk. January the 15th, we started
working again in the plant. We were very happy about it as we stopped having cold
even if we had to
work hard. At the end
of March,
Americans were
getting closer so they hurriedly put us on
trains,
100 in each freight car, and gave us a loaf of
bread
each. We spent six days and nights in the cars, the officer who came with us could not
decide where to land with us, till we arrived to
Leipzig, where we got off
and spent three weeks in a
camp.
Americans got
closer again, so we left
Leipzig and walked three weeks by day and night. We slept on the fields in
the open, in rain and cold, we got every second day some pieces of cooked
potatoes, the skilful could obtain some raw ones but most importantly we ate the
sorrel of the fields, but we had to suffer even for the sorrel as the
SS-bitch
beat us if she caught us. A day before the
liberation a little girl went into a peasant yard to have a rest in the pigpen and
therefore was
shot. We did not see
bread during these
three weeks.
Americans
liberated us the 27th of April at
Wurtzen, where we stayed in
the following three weeks and rejoiced in all kinds of good
food so
we made up for the
hunger we had before. Three weeks later the
Russians, who
arrived here later, entrained us and took us to
Sagan where we stayed in a
tolerable
camp for seven weeks. The
ill
were cured in
hospital. We returned home via
Nachod with a
Czech transport. My plans for
the future: to
emigrate to
Palestine.