Search
Main page
On DEGOB
The Survivor Witnesses
Glossary
Encylopedia of Camps
Supporters

The person in question has given us the following information: Although Jewish Law in 1938 had not been issued yet, in the film industry I could not work any more. Since then I lived on the breadline. I painted sets of liquor cups, glass objects that no one wanted to buy. My life was driven by the word: hardship, hardship and hardship. In 1943, I was summoned to do labour service in Budapest and worked in the 701/22 company. The next time I was drafted for labour service was on the 5th of June, 1944, in Jászberény. On the 3rd or the 9th of July, 1,500 of us were deported to Bor. We crossed Hungarian territories in open wagons and closed freight cars. There were 40-50 people in a car. We were not given anything to eat, only pea soup cooked with laxative that they gave us at the Hungarian border as a farewell. We arrived to the railway station of Nis in locked cars where we got seriously bombed while we were staying locked in there. They put us on a mountain railway and after 7-8 days of journey we arrived in Bor during the night. We were first greeted with a beating. What they gave us as food was inedible and stinky. Later, they distributed us to local camps to work on railway construction. I ended up in “Westfalen” camp, where only the privates did the usual brutal beatings not the officer. They slapped you, kicked you and tied you to different objects. A part of our food was stolen. The commander of the camp was Lieutenant Gusztáv Schaeffer, an iron merchant of K?szeg, his non- commissioned officer was cadet Dezs? Heged?s, whose mother was an owner of a mill in Nagyk?rös. The ruthless privates were: a soldier called Kecskés who beat us terribly, Rézm?ves, and there was a young soldier, a 20-year-old boy, who treated us terribly. Others have already mentioned him - I cannot remember his name. Corporal Ern? Kiss who came from the area of the Balaton volunteered to bring me a package that my wife handed over to him but he never gave it to me. When he arrived I asked what he brought for me, but he replied: “Nothing.” Others told me that he changed money in Pest but he never gave it to anyone. On the place where I stayed there was only railway construction. At the end of August, when the German frontline in the Balkans became vulnerable we were sent back to Bor. On the way, Lieutenant Schaeffer told us – because he was uninformed – that everyone could go wherever they wished to. Later, in Bor, Lieutenant Colonel Marényi considered fugitives those who had left on their own, and later, after the liberation we found in the barrack of the officers a list of ca. 250 names of people who were sentenced to death - signed by Marényi. There was a particular case. A painter called Csillag ### wanted to send home a letter but the letter got stolen and it was derogatory towards Marényi and his companions. Csillag was closed in a bunker and sentenced to stay tied 12 hours a day. ### told me that he was once brought up and flesh was hanging off his hand at the place where he was tied with ropes. A ###leader called ### Fischer took him to ### and beat him to death with the butt. I worked in Bor in a ### and ###. ### comrade came to us, ### a board ###, and when he asked a permit for that, he was told that Jews could have no special marks at all. They crammed ca. 2,000 people into camp “Brünn” in Bor where we lived under inhuman conditions in utmost squalor. This is where I first met master sergeant Császár, whose fate has been already fulfilled by now – he was hanged. We only heard that they shot### 23 people before departure. The 15th of September, the ### set off, around 4,000 people. I got to know what happened to these people only later when I was already home. The 28th of September, 1,800 people left Bor included in a so-called second transport for a place 300 kilometres away, where we ended up among partisans of Tito, and walked with them for around # weeks on unused paths not to be captured again by the Germans. Later, I got back to Bor, which had already been seized by the Russian Army. ### around ten of us ###got to the Danube. When a Russian ### surrounded us ### they told us we were in Bulgaria, in Vidin. These were my own experiences.

Labour Service