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The person in question has given us the following information:
Jewish
laws concerned me only in as much as my application was accepted only by the
University of
Pécs, and even there I needed the support of someone to get in. At the
university, I witnessed some harassment,
beatings and things like that.
Antisemitism was intense at that time and in some cases I also received some
beatings. Having done some
lawyer’s
practice in
Mohács and
Pécs I came to
Pest and found a job. Later, however, I obtained new training and worked for
the weaving
factory Star. I had no
problems here since I worked as a physical labourer. The 15th of
March, 1943, I left the
factory and was
drafted for
labour service in
Mohács. Later, I was resent
to
Pest to work
in the package selection department of the post office No. 70., and later I worked as a
draftsman for the boss. Here I had a good life till I was sent into
Transylvania. In
Dés, in
Désakna we had a
malevolent
commander, a criminal, 2nd Lieutenant
Ferenc
Fehér, who came from
Vízvár in Somogy. There was
also
Ferenc Kökönyei who
stole
my watch and wore it. The 19th of February, 1944, at 10 pm
Béla Steckel, who was on night patrol,
took me and 11 of my companions to the headquarters from the Jewish Casino although I had a
regular permission for a leave. Here I had to stand 40 minutes and he slapped me and broke
my eardrum.
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I made a great fuss about it, I went to the
army corps
headquarters but in the meanwhile
Germans
entered the country and I had to withdraw the
denunciation. First, we
worked
on railway construction for the railway co., later we lay military cables in the ground
between
Óradna and
Újradna. We
had to walk 28 kilometres a day back and forth to the
workplace. We
worked only during the time that remained. Our correspondence (both
incoming and outgoing) was destroyed by the captain of the
troop,
so we gathered torn pieces of
letters from the
toilet. I had another incident with
Cadet
Sergeant
Károly Fejs (from
Szekszárd) who
beat me
and kicked my bottom because I went to get hold of
food.
During the withdrawal from
Transylvania we walked on foot from
Újradna till
Kassa without any
food.
We got to
Kassa the
20th of December. We were terribly crammed in the brick
factory of
Kassa. It was cold, we had
no
food and suffered greatly. We were nearly
frozen.
The brick
factory of
Kassa had a very bad reputation. 7,000 people were kept there, out of whom
many were
frozen and remained without
food.
In December, they
entrained us, 75 of us in a freight car, not more. We got
food
once a day. One day we got
lunch,
the other day
dinner, the next day
breakfast. We got
no
water at all and could not buy it either because the freight car was locked. It was
full of
lice and people got
sick
one after the other. We had to use for the toilet either a great teapot or other pots. Signs
of
spotted
fever could be noticed already on the
train. When we arrived
there was a
dead person, the boy next to me. The journey lasted 9 days till
Donnerskirchen. We arrived at 2 am after 9 days of travel and the
Germans ordered us to work
already at 6 am. We had to
make
trenches and bunkers, and had no opportunity to wash. We had no
clothes
and some had to go to
work barefoot. Here a sergeant forced me to get out into the snow
having a temperature of 40 degrees and he also
broke
my cheek-bone with a club. I stayed here 9 days before I
escaped
with four of my friends in the possession of a service ticket which was forged. The 7th of
January, we crossed the German-Hungarian border and arrived in
Sopron. From
Sopron we went to
Győr, where luckily we
contracted
typhus, which meant 5 weeks stay in
hospital, till the 1st of March. The winter was then over and we had a good life
in the public
hospital of
Győr. Later, the 1st of March,
a 1st lieutenant of the
Arrow Cross ordered
us to leave the
hospital and put us
into the collecting place, the
prisoners’
camp of
Győr, from where we were taken to
Schandorf. The sergeant
who received us seized all the few things we had, he took even razors and soaps, etc. The
20th of March, they took us to
Szombathely, once again
searched our luggage and
robbed us anew, leaving only a blanket.
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We then went to
Schandorf on foot. Here
we were crammed, 750 of us, in a single cellar. In
Schandorf we dug trenches
and bunkers. We
worked from 7 am till 4 pm. In the meantime we were maltreated,
beaten, and struck. I left this
camp,
but later I heard it became an unbearable place where they
shot
people. Out of 750 people, 250 survived this
camp.
Out of my team of 40 people only 8 survived. The rest all
died
from
typhus. There were no
doctors
at all. They kept these people in a special ward of a
hospital but it practically meant a
death
sentence. A
veterinarian treated
them but had no medicine, and people
died of
starvation.
Food was anyway extremely scarce. We set off from
Schandorf because of the
Russian
approach and
walked for 16 days. We got food 6 times during these 16 days. The
person who got tired or was out of step was
shot.
They treated us in an incredible way. An average of 40 people
died
per day. The 7th of April, in the forest at
Eisenerz, which was one of
the greatest metallurgical towns, the
SS
killed 150 Jews with machine guns without any reason. About 10 centimetres behind
my back my friend was
shot, too, but we had to proceed, we could not stop. This is how we
got to
Mauthausen. In
Mauthausen we lived in
tents.
After an
air raid at night 9 people remained
dead
and 20 were wounded. There was also another tragic event that affected my spirit a great
deal. One of the
supervisors was beating a 50-year-old friend of mine badly when I
jumped on him. He went to the
SS to
complain about me. The
SS
beat me up so much that they broke my ribs and the bone of my little finger.
Food
was terribly poor. For breakfast we got 0.2 litre of bitter black
coffee,
at noon some turnip
soup, and in the evening 100 grams of
bread.
That was all for a day. It was only natural that we became feeble and many
died.
Death was caused by
typhus,
by
starvation and
beating. From
Mauthausen we went to
Gunskirchen
walking for four days. We were
starving a lot on the way; we ate grass, nettles, and leaves. If they noticed that
someone was out of step they
shot
him, they
shot also those weak people who could not carry on
walking, so there were a great number of
dead
bodies lying on the road. 50 men were sent ahead to dig
graves. Once, an
SS
soldier disliked the work of a gravedigger. He made him stand in the grave and beat him till
he
died. One could see the inner parts of his skull, that is how much he beat him. It
was a terrible view. The others then covered him with soil.
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When we arrived in
Gunskirchen we were put up in wooden huts. They
crammed
2,000 people in a
barrack for 500. We were terribly cramped, could not lie down, and
slept sitting on the rucksacks. Later, I learnt from the
Americans that
they found arsenic in dissected
dead bodies. They put
little portions into the
food that caused the general
diarrhoea. If someone went to the toilet he could not get there because he was
shot by the
SS. We were very much
full of
lice; there was no water to
wash,
not even for
drinking. Sometimes we got a decilitre of
water
and could decide to use it for drinking or for washing.
Food
was turnip
soup all the time, and ca. 70 grams of
bread.
Here they did not beat us, they just simply
shot
the people they disliked or against whom there were complaints. One day we were carrying the
dead. One of the boys ran out of energy and put the body down before it was
allowed. He was
shot. Around 150-200 of us
died
daily, completely feeble people who either
died of
exhaustion or of
typhus. We had to bury them in a
pit.
The
Americans found this
pit;
that was when they found out about arsenic poisoning. The
Americans
liberated us the 4th of May, 1945, and we started
to do better. These were my own experiences.