Protocol Nr. 748
Name: I. Á.
Gender: male
Place of birth: Kökényes
Date of birth: 1924
Place of residence: Budapest
Occupation: plumber
Concentration: labour service
Camps: Sachsenhausen, Berlin, Siemensstadt
Gender: male
Place of birth: Kökényes
Date of birth: 1924
Place of residence: Budapest
Occupation: plumber
Concentration: labour service
Camps: Sachsenhausen, Berlin, Siemensstadt
The person in question has given us the following information: In 1941, I was taken into Poland together with my father and six brothers, from where I managed to run away. When Hungary was reunited with its historical parts I was in Budapest, but I took days off to visit my parents home, and we were all deported during these two weeks into Poland. They crossed the borders with us and then let us free telling us to go wherever we wanted to. We crossed the Polish border at Kőrösmező, we could not turn back as they would have killed us but could continue in the direction of the centre of the country. In Poland we got into a forest where the SS and Hungarian gendarmes were shooting at us. Unfortunately, I saw how they shot my mother and my brothers and sisters. I managed to run away and walked fast till Volóc, this is how I got back to Hungary. Not much later, I came to my firm in Pest but was summoned already at the end of 1943(41) to do labour service in Jászberény where I passed five months before I was transferred into a company in Pest. From the end of December 1942 till the end of December 1944, I was in Budapest in an anti-air raid company, then I was put into an unfamiliar company. Having entrained 75 of us in a car at Józsefváros railway station they carried to Sachsenhausen. During the journey sitting people kept swapping with standing ones as space was so little that we could not sit down all. We were escorted by gendarmes till the Hungarian border where they gave us to the SS. In the car someone committed suicide, and two weak people were trodden to death. At the Austrian border they opened the doors and we got bread and zulag. There were 3,500 people in our transport and the journey lasted ten days. The camp was a collecting camp. In Sachsenhausen they disinfected us, seized what they could and dressed us in striped clothes and wooden shoes. In Oranienburg we were grouped according to professions, this is how I got to Berlin-Siemensstadt, next to Berlin. Here they selected the strong and the weak. I was put into an outlying kommando, we carried iron railway lines, railway sleepers, which was a very difficult job. For this work we had the worst possible food supply. There was an SS foreman who got there because of punishment. He was the one who distributed the food giving us only three quarters of a litre of soup instead of a litre, and stole also from the bread portions, so we became really weak, many died of hunger, and often we ate also potato peels. These foremen and block leaders beat us with batons but we also suffered a lot of cold. One day I put a blanket under my clothes but was noticed by the foreman who reported it to the SS. They gripped my hands and feet and gave me 100 blows, another time I got a slap so strong that the eardrum broke. A great number of people died because of cold, of maltreatment and of starvation, especially young boys. They often bombed the Siemens company, at the end the whole camp burnt down so they took me back to Sachsenhausen. I stayed here 8 days when we got an order to set off as the Russians were already pretty close. We had to queue up immediately and leave but as we were the last transport there was no food left for us. We started our march on foot in the direction of Hamburg, towards the sea, 40 kilometres a day. We were starving so much that on the way we attacked locust trees and finished all their leafs but we were not particularly choosy, we ate also grass. Once we noticed a potato clamp and started to run to it but the SS shot at us and I got a bullet in the head. Those who were left behind on the road were covered with a blanket. This is how I passed half a day, then I got out and ran across the woods towards Schwerin. 17 kilometres further I met the first American soldier. They put a bandage on my head and took me into a sanatorium. This happened the 2nd of May. Thereafter I had a good life, I got everything I wanted, and was carefully treated for a month. I went to Lübeck, and applied for one of the Czech transports. I came to Budapest via Prague and Pozsony. My future plans: At the moment I work here in Budapest, later I would like to emigrate to Palestine.
