The person in question has given us the following information: Approximately 4000 Jews lived in Nagyszöllős. Most of them were craftsmen and tradesmen, but there were doctors and a lawyer and an engineer too. They were not rich, but everybody lived decently. I lived with my mother and one of my sisters under modest financial circumstances. The first antisemitic measures were issued in March 1939. My mother owned a tobacconist’s shop, which was seized immediately. The shops were confiscated from other people as well, and from that time on our living was getting worse. Chief notary János Kristofori issued these decrees and György Koflonovits harassed the Jews, including me. He forced my boss to fire me, so I was laid off. The Jews could not protect themselves, because there was nobody we could turn to for help. Sunday morning, on April 23, 1944, it was announced that the Jews were not allowed to go out to the street. This situation lasted for a week, during which they were constantly searching for money and valuables. After that we went into the ghetto only with a few pieces of underwear and one set of clothes. Before locking the ghetto up, the militarygendarmes and the leventes ordered us once more to hand over our jewellery and money, because - as they said - we would not need them any more as we would be deported. The local Gentile residents were watching our misery and laughing at us, which I could never forget. The ghetto was surrounded by a fence. Some flats had 10 families living in them and therefore the ghetto was terribly crowded. Unfortunately the Jewish Council cared about nothing. Once I escaped from the ghetto, because I wanted to get some food for my mother, but the gendarmes captured and beat me up seriously. After six days we set off. By this time many Jews had already died or committed suicide. We were not given food at all and we were driven like animals, pushed and thrown into the freight cars. There were 80 people in a cattle car. I was the commander of the car being responsible for everybody. Escaping from the freight car would have been possible, but I did not want to leave my mother. We travelled for ten days and during that time we were given water only three times. The Hungarians escorted us until we reached Kassa where the Germans took us over. It was announced that they expected us to know where we were going and warned us that we would be given food and payment based on our work performance. I was warned particularly. At some level we believed what we were told, because we did not expect what happened afterwards. After we arrived in Auschwitz, the Poles threw the children and elderly people out of the freight cars, and I could hardly say goodbye to my mother and my sister in the midst of crying and moaning. Although we were told that they would allow the families to stay together, we were separated. I have not seen my mother since then. Soon they started the selection, during which they separated the ill from those who were incapable of working. We were taken into a washroom where they shaved our heads, disinfected us and gave us striped prisoner’s clothes. Still wet, with nothing but a dress on we were taken into a block. There we were lying on a piece of board and because it was raining, we could not fall asleep despite our exhaustion. We were in this block for three days. As soon as we arrived we were lined up for roll call that lasted from morning to night. We were not given anything to eat at all for four days.People were starving and felt dizzy. We drank water like animals. On the fifth day we got soup and 200 grams of bread. We were there for three weeks, and were constantly beaten. Selections were performed all the time. Dr Mengele came by taxi and started the selection. He beckoned to himself those whom he disliked, and sent back those whom he needed. It happened to me once that the SS soldier standing next to him misunderstood his wave, grabbed my arm and took me away instead of my fellow prisoner. But I managed to escape through the window. Considering that during selections we were naked, it was difficult, but somehow I got clothes and I escaped into an unfamiliar block. I found myself in block 9, where the entire block had been emptied, because there were too many people in the camp and they had to get rid of 900 people. There was a block curfew, when everyone went into his or her own block. Three dumper trucks with trailers entered and they started to throw us onto the carts irrespective of whether we were ill, young, strong or weak. I was in that group and the only way I could escape was that I told them I was there to help them loading. I got in the truck, sat next to the driver and we went to the crematorium. After we arrived at the gas chamber, we practically turned people out from the car; if someone was not able to stand up, we threw him in. We undressed everybody, but as a beginner I could not imagine the horrible things that came next. We unloaded the prisoners and I had to watch as my friends, acquaintances and relatives were taken away, undressed and given soaps and towels. Finally we herded all the 2000 people into the gas chamber. They went in unsuspectingly and we locked every window from outside. They were expecting water running from the shower and then the gas operator turned on the gas. They were moaning and yelling as the gas was torturing them. Mothers had to see their children die. The strongest man was able to bear it for six minutes. After six minutes we opened the doors and we faced a heap of dead bodies. Then we started to throw the bodies onto trams, as if we would shovel coal, and then took and put them into the ovens. The burning process took place there. I worked with that work unit for three days, but this horrible work was bordering on madness and I was not able to do it anymore. I told the Kommandoführer that I wanted to leave and he sent me to another crematorium, because there were five of them. My work was easier there, as my task was to drive, beat and chase people. It happened that an entire transport from Hungary had to be burnt upon their arrival without any selection. Neither the young nor the old could escape. Our equipments were more modern. Two thousand people were herded into a large hall, of course undressed, with soaps and towels. Then gas came out of the nozzles. After the gaskilled the people, the automatic floor started to move and it threw the bodies into the oven underneath. That was a circle-shaped floor, which could be divided into two mechanically. When all the corpses were thrown into the oven, the next transport arrived and it started all over again. The victims were unsuspicious and thought that the others before them left the room through another door. The procedure continued the same way. I worked there for six days and then one of my acquaintances sent me into an infirmary. Peopleworking there were generally not kept for more than 24 hours, because they were taken to the crematorium. We lived quite separated, and I managed to be sent to another camp. I was assigned to block 19 where 1200 of us stayed for about five to six days. Our food was a small piece of bread and some soup. From there we were transported to Warsaw. I received my first prisoner number there and I was taken into a block. During the first days we cleared rubble in the ghetto in Warsaw. We demolished the remaining walls, cleaned the bricks. What we produced was sent to Berlin. I worked together with young men from Nagyszőllős. The Germans were looking for a barber and since I knew how to shave, I was picked. I immediately shaved one of them. That was a very good position and my food supply was better as well. Sometimes I was given marmalade or margarine. Thus I could help the other men from my hometown. Life went on like this for three months. After that there was a terrible retreat. About 5000 people were driven on foot towards a destination 130 kilometres away. We marched 30 kilometres a day in heavy rain. For the whole journey we received only one third of a loaf of bread. Each of us had to carry three blankets. We had to sleep on those wet, completely soaked blankets under the open sky, in pouring rain. We were entrained at a place 130 kilometres from Warsaw. The Germans started to beat and chase us again. Later we suffered from the terribly hot weather and we did not have any water for four days. On the fifth day we reached a river. When people saw the water, they got completely wild, ran into the water and drank that filthy and dirty water full of seaweed like crazy. We did not want to come out of the water, so the SS began to drive us out, naturally, by shooting at us. Among many others, my friend standing next to me was shot. When the SS noticed that his blood formed a stripe on the surface of the water, but he was still alive, they kept trampling him down until he drowned. We already had been so apathetic that things like that had only a little effect on us. By the time we reached the freight cars, we had been totally exhausted. For example, one of my townsmen died of thirst in the lap of his son. He was moaning and begging for water, but we could not help him. That man even tore his gold teeth out of his own mouth and gave them to the SS guards, but despite that they did not have mercy on him. The capos were our murderers and hurried our death. They beat and killed people with stakes. After travelling for six days without food and water we arrived in Dachau. By the time we got off the freight car, 14 out of 60 people had already been dead. We had to leave behind everything we had, even our blankets. Being hardly able to walk, we were carried into the camp on stretchers, and as usual, we were disinfected. There we were given black coffee and a little bread in the morning and in the evening as well. We were in Dachau for 14 days and then we were transported to Buchenwald, but they did not want to receive us there. After staying there for two days we were taken to Lublin. The situation there was similar as in the other camps. We were assigned to work in a stone quarry near Lublin. The work was terribly hard and people were dying off daily. In the opinion of the SS men there were too many of us, so the Lagerführer gave an order to the capos and the Kommandoführer saying look, here is the commando, bring home 10-20 people dead. Whether they wanted or not, they had to beat some people to death. The Lagerführer came in at roll call to count how many people had been actually killed. In spite of those acts there were still too many prisoners, as far as they judged. Therefore we were sent further to Gross Rosen. That camp was on the top of a high mountain, and in order to get there we had to climb stairs. We stayed there for about two weeks. We were at such a great height, that even going for our breakfast was hard. We would have rather not had food than go up this height. On these occasions the capos started to do their job, and until they collected six people to send for lunch, they had beaten 20 people to death, because we were unable to walk any more. Capos hit people so hard that they fell and he continued the beating until their victims died at their feet. After two miserable weeks we were transported to Mühldorf. A so-called Hauptbaustelle (main construction site) was being built here. It needed a lot of workforce: about 5000-6000 of us worked there. My job was carrying cement. I had to carry 50-kilogram cement bags up to the mixers. People became incapable of working on daily basis. We worked 12 hours a day. Later I was sent to work in the kitchen. The Lagerältesters were criminals sentenced to 10-15 years for murder in Germany. They were appointed as our lords and they became our gods. As I have told before, I became a cook. One time at roll call they were looking for a cook, so I applied. I was assigned to this job. I was doing relatively well, inasmuch as it could be good to see my fellow prisonersstarving and to be unable to help them. I was there until I fell ill with typhus. Then I was locked up in a quarantine camp and stayed there until April 25. At the time of the greatest crisis I was lying ill in bed with a fever of 40-41.6 degrees Celsius. Two of my companions came for me, because our camp was evacuated and they did not want to leave me behind. Otherwise I would not have survived, as those who stayed behind were finished off. The boys took me out of bed and smuggled me out. I travelled for six days still having a high fever until we managed to reach the Americans. They assembled us there, and I was taken to hospital and got over the typhus. I was there until I fully recovered. We received food parcels, clothes and everything we needed. I cannot find my mother and I do not want to live at home without her. I would like to go to Palestine as soon as possible.