insert_drive_file
Text from page 1
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.
insert_drive_file
Text from page 2
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.
insert_drive_file
Text from page 3
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.