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This chapter contains a collection of reminiscences by those natives of Zemplen County and Satoraljaujhely who today live in Canada, the U.S.A. and Israel. They recall memories of the city in which they were born, where they were educated and where they spent their youth. They report on their families, their parents, their loved ones, but first and foremost, theirs is a testimony, a warning memento for their descendants for the generations to come about the Holocaust, the ghetto, the deportations, the compulsory labour and all the suffering connected with these. But this is also a testimony to the liberation which marked the beginning of a new era.

The following two episodes are personal accounts of events in Auschwitz written by Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Meisels. Rabbi Meisels, a survivor of Auschwitz, became, at the war's end, Rav of Bergen-Belsen and Rabbi of the British Zone of Occupation in Germany and later Rabbi of the Congregation Shearith Yisroel in Chicago. The accounts are taken from the preface to his book Mekadshey Hashem (“Sanctifiers of the Name”), a collection of response written by great rabbis of Eastern Europe who perished in the Holocaust (published in Chicago, 5715-1955).

I had a tallit katan with me in Auschwitz. I had cut it out of the ornamental tallit which used to belong to my grandfather, the saintly Rebbe of Sziget. (How I had managed to keep it in the camp, where every single possession was taken from us on arrival, is another story). I wore it under my camp tunic. This too had its dangers. IF it had been discovered by the S.S. men, I could have been struck dead on the spot. And, indeed, one day it was discovered.

It happened when I was just coming out of the bath house. The accursed “Phoenix” guard was there. He was in charge of the bath house. His main job was to see that no one took more than one tunic. He had been a German communist and for his sins, had been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Nazis. Now he had been appointed as our guard. He noticed the slight bulge that the tallit katan caused under my tunic and ordered me to come over to him. When he felt under my tunic and discovered the tallit katan, he was enraged: “What is this?” he shouted. “This is against regulations”. He had never seen a tallit katan before and he ordered me to explain. I didn't want him to think I had stolen it so I told him it was “ein G-tteskleid” (a G-dly garment) which I had brought with me from home. At one he started screaming and shouting and rained down murderous blows on my head and body. “You come into my room” he roared. “I'll teach you something about G-d”.

When I heard this terrible order my hair began to stand on end. Everyone knew the meaning of a command such as this from this murderous fiend. It meant certain death at the hands of that murderer. But what could I do? I had to follow him into his room. Once there, he vented his rage on me again and continued raining blows on me without mercy. “You swine” he shouted. “You still dare to talk about a G-

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tteskleid? Can't you see how they are destroying your people – your own family, day to day? Don't you see them being put to death with the most fearsome cruelties? And you still dare to mention the name of G-d? Do you tell me you still believe there is a G-d who runs the world? Then why doesn't He do something to stop the Nazis destroying you with the most fiendish cruelties and tortures that human beings have ever suffered on this earth?” And more, much more in the same vein.

During all this time, I was lying on the ground like a stone; partly from sheer despair and partly from the terrible beating I had undergone which had left me bleeding all over. Eventually, the man made me stand up. “Give me an answer”, he shouted, “and it had better be a good one or you won't leave this room alive”.

My predicament was a fearful one. I knew perfectly well that the man would make good his threat if I didn't produce an answer good enough to satisfy him and to still his blood-lust.

“I'll have to explain by way of a parable» I said. “There was once a great surgeon. He was famous all over the world for the amazing operations which he performed. Once, he was asked to operate on a very important person who was dangerously ill. Only this operation could save him if he was successful. To start the operation, he made a deep, wide cut in the patient's body, just over the heart. A shoemaker was watching. He knew nothing about the needs of the patient or the purpose of the operation. All he saw was the unfortunate person having incisions made in his most vital organs. “That surgeon must be mad” said the shoemaker. “When I cut fresh leather, I cut round the edges. I don't cut into the finest parts”. Now, do you think that the surgeon will alter the course of the operation because of the shoemaker's ignorant criticism? That's how it is with G-d and us. We don't understand what's going on. We can't see why the cut is being made in the best part – in the people of Israel. But this doesn't make us think any less of Him (G-d forbid). We know we are only human with limited minds. We can't hope to understand the way G-d runs the world”.

I explained this parable to him as well as I could and I concluded with a word of the Rabbi of Yaroslav. When people asked him how he managed to reach such a ripe age, he used to say: “Because I never ask questions on the way G-d runs the world. I prefer to take everything with good grace. I'm afraid to ask questions because G-d might say to me: “All right: you want to understand? Then come up to me to heaven and I'll show how everything is for the best. I don't want to go to heaven yet, so I don't ask questions. That's how I got so old”. I told the guard that if he still hoped to get out of this camp alive, my advice would be to follow the Rabbi's example and not ask questions of this kind.

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Thank G-d my words actually made an impression on the evil Kapo. With a slight smile on his lips, he growled: 3Get out of here you clever Jew. You can go. Call at my block tomorrow morning and I'll see that you get decent food on the quiet”. So I escaped from the Kapo and certain death. Thanks be to G-d for all His mercies.

II

This is something worth recording for all generations. The Nazi murderers had already destroyed all the boys in the camp up to the age of about 15-16. There were only about 50 young boys left in the whole camp. On the night of Simchat Torah 5704, these too were rounded up by the murder squads and taken to the place of execution – the gas chambers. Once there, they were ordered to take a shower so as to “get themselves clean before their release”. This was the transparent ruse adopted by the murderers to try and lull their victims into a false sense of security before taking their innocent lives.

But these boys knew full well what awaited them in a very few minutes. Refusing to give in to panic or despair, they overcame their natural feelings of terror at their impending doom. One of them called out: “Friends. You know tonight is Simchat Torah. We haven't got a Sefer Torah here to dance with but the Ribono Shel Olam (The Master of the Universe) is here with us. Let's dance with Him before we are burnt”. Immediately they joined hands, formed a circle and began to dance. They sang a shreynu mah tov chelkeynu (Happy are we, how goodly is our lot!”) and Vetaher libeyny le ovdecha be emet (“Purify our hearts to serve you in truth”) to the traditional rhythmic melodies. The sounds of dancing and song burst forth from the Place of Burning, like song bursting forth before the altar of G-d. Faster and faster swung the circle. The enthusiasm of those doomed boys knew no bounds.

The Nazi guards, who had been standing in the outer room ready to turn on the gas, came in at the unwonted sounds. When they saw what was happening, they were torn between rage and amazement. How could boys on the very threshold of death find such inner strength and courage? How could they break out in song, dance and praise at that moment?

The SS officer strode up: “What's going on here?” he barked: “What are you so happy about, Jew-swine?”

“You know what we're happy about?” replied the boys, still dancing. “We're happy that we're leaving a world where dogs like you make the rules. Our greatest happiness is that we shall be rid of accursed murderers like you. Another thing: we shall be seeing our parents again, and our

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brothers and sisters whom you foully murdered”.

Almost bursting with rage, the sadistic S.S. man shouted: “I'll teach you a lesson. I'll see that you won't have anything to be happy about. You won't get that nice, easy death you expected. Oh no! I'll have you taken to a place where you'll get 'special treatment'. We'll….we'll cut slices out of your living bodies”.

The opportunity of writing about Rabbi Zvi Hacohen Dick and of helping to keep his memory alive is a responsibility which I accept gratefully, for he truly was a superior human being.

His life was devoted to Torah, to prayer and to charity, the three pillars on which, according to our sages, the world rests and he was fully deserving of the title Zadik (holy man) which was generally applied to him. He was always conscious of the omnipresence of G-d and epitomized what, in the Hasidic world is called, devekut (utter dedication).

Reb Hirsch was the dayan (rabbinical judge) of the Ashkenazi kehilla in Újhely for nearly fifty years, and during this time, he ministered not only to members of his own community, but to all who came to him. Jews brought him their religious problems, their private matters and even their financial troubles. He never refused anyone who sought his aid.

For most of his life he served alone, without the supporting authority of a congregational rabbi and most of the burden of the kehilla fell on his shoulders. In 1934, Rabbi David Klein was named rabbi of the congregation and though the appointment was opposed by many members who considered it an affront to their beloved Reb Hirsch, the latter had no objection. Rabbi Klein filled his post for ten years until, at the head of his flock, he perished at Auschwitz.

Reb Hirsch studied with all the intensity of his being; his object being to try to comprehend the true meaning of the words of the Torah and of our sages. He sought neither fame nor recognition; his sole purpose was to learn truth. His days were spent in studying or in teaching, interrupted only when people came to seek his guidance and advice. I recall his room, a kind of office attached to his home. Three walls were covered with books. He sat at a table, surrounded by benches on which his students sat when they studied with him. Across from him was a window through which he could catch sight of people coming to him, mostly women with problems of kashrut in their households. He would receive their queries, ponder them, provide the answers and then go back to his studies.

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He never wasted a moment of time or uttered an idle word. During the six years in which I studied under him, I never heard him tell an anecdote or a joke. He never voiced a superfluous word.

Occasionally he would begin his classes a few minutes earlier than scheduled or continue beyond the time set, quoting the Hatam Sopher who said that he had become a scholar by virtue of the extra five or ten minutes devoted to study whenever opportunity offered.

His practice of Gemilut Hesed, charity in the broadest sense, knew no bounds. Although Újhely had been a flourishing town until the end of World War I, the border changes effected by the Trianon Peace Treaty undermined the economic life of the city. The Jews of Újhely, most of whom were working people and businessmen, were reduced to poverty and Reb Hirsch sought to meet the needs of many of them. He badgered those with means to allocate a fixed sum for the poor each week or each month, and he himself distributed all his earnings except what he needed for essentials. He did not hesitate to approach strangers in town, wheedling them into providing assistance. There were many who needed his help. Some of his “clients” – and this I saw with my own eyes – would enter his yard, especially on Thursdays and Fridays, and he would catch sight of them through his window. He would go outside, hand them money so unobtrusively that it seemed he was receiving rather than giving, and then hurry back to his studying.

His wife, who had the greatest respect for him, once went to the board of the congregation and asked them not to give him his salary directly since he gave away almost the entire amount. Once, when he was ill, they gave him a fund to go to a spa. When he came back, he returned half the amount because he had not spent it.

His attitude to others was governed by loving kindness and graciousness. In 1922, the Újhely kehilla named Rabbi Joel Fellner of Beled as their spiritual leader. He was one of the leading rabbis in Hungary, and the community was honoured that he had consented to come to them, assuming his duties when he was in his sixties. He was extremely strict and stipulated that he would not come to Újhely unless certain conditions were met, one of these being that the wife of every new member of the synagogue had to wear a sheitel, a wig. This was a sore point for many of the members but they agreed since they wanted him. Reb Hirsch was of another opinion but he showed only respect for the rabbi. He once told my father, who was a great admirer of Rabbi Fellner, that he should not be so enthusiastic about this ruling for it would drive the younger generation into a less religious congregation. This was typical of Reb Hirsch. He was extremely strict for himself but tolerant and understanding of others.

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Rabbi Fellner died after only three years in Újhely and one of the eulogies was delivered by Reb Hirsch. I recall that his remarks were devoted entirely to a plea to the congregation not to forget the widow but to look after and support her.

Little wonder that he was regarded with respect and reverence by Jews from all the diverse elements which made up the population of Újhely.

He met death in the same spirit which characterized the great martyrs of Jewish history. The details were told to me by my father's cousin, Josef Weinberger, who was a member of the Judenrat in the Újhely ghetto. Following the German occupation of Hungary, the Jews were gathered into ghettos and from there, shipped out to the slaughter camps in daily quotas. One day the gendarmerie, who were perhaps worse than the Nazi S.S., came back to the ghetto to round up a few more Jews to squeeze into the already full cattle cars. The Jews sought to hide, to save themselves, hoping to delay their fate a few days longer.

As the gendarmes persisted in their search, Reb Hirsch came out, faced them and cried out in Hungarian: “leave them alone, please leave them. Take me. I have lived long enough. Take me and I shall be ransom for them”. In his final hours, he was true to himself and to his unwavering faith in the ultimate justice of G-d's decrees.

Reb Hirsch had no children but he raised an orphan, his wife's nephew, who stemmed from a family of rabbis. Leibisch Jungreis followed the same religious and spiritual ideals which he observed in his uncle and later became a rabbi in Szikszo, serving there until he met the same fate that befell his congregation and the other rabbis of Hungary.

The story of Reb Hirsch must not be forgotten and can serve as an inspiration to future generations. I feel that I have survived so that I might tell the world the story of this great and holy man.

One quarter of Újhely's population was Jewish which made it, next to Budapest, the most “Jewish city” in Hungary. The parallel does not end there. The presence of these people with their various occupations was so conspicuous that the casual visitor to the city must have got the impression that short of a few gentile occupational strongholds like the

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Police, Military, Court of Law and the County Offices, everybody else was Jewish. Even if that was not the case, they did seem to dominate the city's commercial and cultural life.

In my time in Újhely, there were three major congregations with their respective synagogues: the ultra- religious Hasidim, the very religious Orthodox and the not so religious Status-quo community. The Hasidim did not take part in the city's community life. They lived in a self-imposed ghetto and wore the same style of garb their forefathers did in the Pale. Their language of communication, and in most cases the only language which they spoke, was Yiddish. They lived in complete isolation, set apart not only from the Christian population but even from their Jewish brethren.

The Orthodox came from the same roots as the Hasidim but had already taken the first and most significant steps on the road toward adaptation to modern times. They still had their own dayan (religious judge), Reb Hirsch Dick, to whom their women went with their household and religious questions, and in their more worldly disputes, they sought religious adjudication (Din Torah) instead of going to the civil courts. But they were clad in modern dress, engaged in commerce and were skilled artisans. They spoke Magyar to the outside world but the purest Warsaw Yiddish at home. They sent their sons around Europe to study medicine or law but only after they had received a proper Jewish education in the Heder and Talmud Torah.

The Status-quo congregation was not only the largest numerically but by far the most prominent. For all practical purposes, they were the embodiment of the Jewish life in Újhely. They were the doctors, lawyers, dentists of the city; they were the bankers, merchants, industrialists of the community. They organized the concerts, were the patrons of the theatre and the dancers at the Chanukah Ball.

They were cultured people. They were forward looking and as such, built a Jewish Community Centre which was second to none in the country. Synagogue, school, auditorium and study house complemented each other and occupied a prestigious city block adjacent to the City Hall. The synagogue was an architectural masterpiece, designed by an Italian architect and fashioned after the Verona synagogue which, even today, is a tourist attraction. The study house in the middle of the complex was a reminder of the traditional study house (Bet Midrash) in Warsaw. The pride and jewel of the Centre was the school. When I say “pride”, I mean not only the delightful two-storey school building and auditorium, but also, and even more so, the dedicated teachers such as Lowy, Weiss, Adel Lancy and Moses Feldmar, to name just a few. I mean also the revered principal, Samuel Fodor who, during his long stewardship, educated many generations of Jewish children. His school was co-educational, a

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pioneer and forward-looking concept at that time.

The spiritual leader and the driving force of this model congregation was the learned Rabbi Samuel Roth, who became a legend even in his lifetime. Rabbi Roth was a handsome person, tall, erect, and always immaculately dressed in well-cut conservative suits. His long, slightly greying, well-trimmed beard was accented by a sharp but well-formed nose and his friendly brown eyes radiated warmth and understanding. His best-known and most talked about feature was a striking resemblance to Count Albert Apponyi, then the country's most respected and adored statesman. This remarkable likeness made him so well known among the city's gentile population that when he made his appearance in the County Assembly Hall (this was in the pre-Hitler years when the Chief Rabbi was a member of the Assembly), a hush would follow his entry and curious eyes would be fixed upon him.

He was a gifted orator whose sermons were always anticipated and well received by the congregation. His warm, velvety baritone voice echoed in every corner of the large synagogue and his audience was thrilled when he talked about his favourite subject: “the traditions”. This was well before “Fiddler on the Roof” made tradition the focus of contemporary Jewish life.

His main interest was the youth. He organized and set up the Youth Temple in the school's auditorium. The Sabbath and High Holyday services were accented by a choir which was so admired that adults from the big synagogue often came over to enjoy the magnificent tenor soloist, Erno Grosz.

A born educator, Rabbi Roth was happiest among his pupils. As Chief Rabbi, he was not required to do actual teaching; a competent religious teaching staff was at his disposal. However, guidance and supervision alone did not satisfy him. Teaching was a passion, a devotion with him. From high school up, he moved into the classroom and took personal charge of the religious education. His classes were more like discussions, never a chore and in the relaxed atmosphere which he created, he made us aware and proud of our Jewish heritage. We started with the early history of the Jewish people and he told us about the Biblical heroes, about the Maccabees, about Mordechai and the others. Without realizing it, we became well-versed in the Commentators. We discussed Rashi at length and when the discussion centred around Maimonides, who was his favourite philosopher, the allocated time was never enough for him. He constantly found new approaches and how to get more and more enjoyment from Maimonides' teachings.

Despite his enormous popularity and his tremendous prestige, the year 1944 found him in the Satoraljaujhely ghetto. There were attempts to

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rescue him. The underground offered him passage to Budapest to join the Jewish Council. He steadfastly turned down every offer. “If ever, this is the time I have to be with my people” he said. He stayed with them and he went with them on their last and fateful journey.

Tallya had a homogenous Jewish community but it included three women who did not shear their hair in the orthodox fashion and, therefore, not everyone was willing to eat in their home. It was common knowledge that the Jews of Tallya would not touch non-kosher, i.e. 'trefe” food.

The Jews of Tallya were picked up and transported to the ghetto in Satoraljaujhely in the spring of 1944, soon after Passover. At the time, Dr. Teichman lived in Budapest and his relatives in the village informed him about the conditions prevailing in the ghetto by writing him a few postcards. They did not complain, but it can easily be imagined what it must have meant for them to exchange their pleasant, spacious and airy homes surrounded by gardens for a corner in an over-crowded ghetto room. Dr. Teichman's mother had to be operated on for glaucoma. His two sisters, Louise and Elizabeth who perished during the Holocaust, looked after their mother with loving and tender care. They asked for eye drops which were indispensable for her eyes. Some members of the Pasternak family were allowed to return to Tallya to fetch certain items, and taking advantage of this opportunity, Ilona Kozak sent food for her family through them. Because of their very strict observance of kosher food, not everything could be provided.

The last news regarding his loved ones reached Dr. Teichan on a postcard that was dropped from the train on its way from Hidasnemet to Kassa. They, of course, had no knowledge where they were headed for. Fearfully, they prayed only for the protection of God Almighty. They had been deserted by all – only He and their faith remained with them until their last days. Rosh Hodesh, the first of the Hebrew month of Sivan.

The memory of all the other martyrs from Tallya, some 170 souls, comprising entire large families, is faithfully preserved. These poor souls

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Were credulous, naïve, unsuspecting and deceived people. The frightful, terrible reality surpassed their most vivid imagination.

Following the entry of the Germans into Hungary in March 1944, my family shared the fate of Jewry in the rural areas. The Gestapo went into action immediately after the occupation of the city and, with the cooperation of the local authorities, arrested and held as hostages, men belonging to various social strata (a physician, lawyer, official, wealthy merchant and individuals registered by the authorities as leftists. The hostages were held in the Status-quo primary school. My father was among them but he was released after a few days as “indispensable” at his place of work. Disquiet and fear spread in town. The permanent presence of German soldiers, the constant deployment of various military units, the general political situation and the horrifying reports by those returning from forced labour service, created a fear neurosis which, unfortunately, later proved to be only too well founded.

At the end of March, following an official decree, the Jewish store in which I worked had to be closed down. Subsequently, there were daily summons and instructions. We were subjected to public work, limited curfew and later, the yellow star. Implementation of the orders was first entrusted to the Hungarian State Police and was later transferred to the gendarmerie. Events took their inexorable course. After the setting up of the Council of Jews, the gendarmerie recruited an auxiliary Jewish police force from among the young people and together, with some of my age group, I was inducted into this unit. Our first task was to provide shelter in the main for elderly men and women and for children herded in from neighbouring villages by the gendarmes. The Jews were transported on wagons, horse-drawn carriages or on foot from the provincial villages into Újhely and the process lasted several days. It was a deeply shattering sight. Since the location of the ghetto had already been designated previously and the flats registered according to rooms, it became our task to escort into their designated quarters these unfortunate, tormented individuals, subjected to the brutality of the gendarmes and deprived of practically all their personal belongings.

Our main endeavour was to circumvent the instructions and to concentrate as few people as possible into the very restricted quarters. Mothers

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with children were given separate rooms and we did all we could to ease the chaotic conditions. The relocation was aggravated by the fact that rooms had to be found within the ghetto for the large number of Jews brought in from rural areas. On orders of the commander of the gendarmerie, all furniture, except straw mattresses and cooking and washing utensils, had to be removed from the apartments. In view of my assignment, I made it a point to visit every corner of the ghetto. Despite the risks involved, I also went to town daily to get food, newspapers and essential commodities, and to hear the latest news.

The general mood deteriorated daily. As a result of the congestion, insufficient food, lack of hygiene, isolation from the outside world, illness and bodily punishment, people seemed almost relieved when deportation started in May. Among the deportees were inmates of the Garany Internment Camp who were taken away as a separate group. The unfortunate Jewish patients of the neighbouring neurological and psychiatric wards had previously been assembled in the courtyard of the Kestenbaum primary school. As the auxiliary police, we took turn assisting a sadistic plain-clothed colonel of the counter-intelligence who was in charge. Everyone had to leave: relatives, friends, acquaintances. We tried to help by seeking to get back some of the requisitioned items for their owners or by smuggling the people through without being examined. The final “attention” on Hungarian soil was marked by heavy blows, weeping, imploring. Thereafter, the group, each member wearing the yellow star, set out for the “small station” where the train of cattle-cars was already waiting on a separate track.

It was a hot afternoon in June when my parents and I started out on a journey together with over ten thousand other men, women and children. When we reached the train, some eighty persons were shoved into each car. During the trip, which lasted several days, I sat on my knapsack or attempted to sleep while leaning on my neighbour. Compared to this trip in the cattle-car, the ghetto seemed like a holiday resort – if one can make this kind of comparison. The people abandoned themselves to their mood: some wept, some prayed but most of them stared blankly into space and then, suddenly realizing the situation, began talking loudly. Their voices were drowned out by the crying of children and parents. Somewhere, from the lower end of the cattle-car, came the voice of the principal of my former primary school asking whether I knew where we were when the train slowed down. Orders barked in German and shouts were heard while soldiers in SS uniforms and civilians wearing striped garments herded everybody out of the cars. It was early in the evening – on the horizon the sky turned red and I believed it was sunset. We had arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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Events followed in such rapid succession that we could hardly follow their course. The men were separated from the women. I lost sight of my mother and was left with my father. Then we were inspected by several SS officers and within seconds, at the nod of a head, my father was sent left while I got pushed to the right. I never saw my parents again.

I started down the road. Not far from me, near numerous barracks, were shadowy human forms in striped clothes staggering to and fro. Some were lying on the ground. Watch-towers and barbed wire were everywhere. In front of one building, I was struck by the sign “BATH”. Suddenly, I saw a friend and another familiar face and joined them. After a long wait, we were pushed into the building and the “procedure” started. Our hair was shorn. We were shaven, disinfected, put under a cold shower and while still wet, driven out and given some items of clothing which we put on. We then stepped out into the Birkenau night, looking at each other silently. An illuminated clock on one of the buildings showed that it was 2a.m. In the cool night, the lights of the camp threw ghostly shadows on the gradually increasing group. Through all this torture, I managed to smuggle a piece of bacon which I shared with a friend who drifted to my side. Little did I know at the time that this would be our last food for the next forty-eight hours.

The waiting came to an end at last and we started out under the direction of striped-clothed civilians. In one of the barracks of the so-called Gypsy Camp, I stumbled over many people, squeezed myself into a hole and fell asleep, utterly exhausted. My head rested on a shoulder, my legs were on somebody else's lap. This uneasy rest did not last long; amidst much shouting, everybody was shoved to the front of the barracks – naturally not without blows – and the roll-call started: line-up, count. Each day started with this ritual and it lasted for hours. On one occasion, the count lasted from dawn till late in the evening in pouring rain. Vast numbers fell out of the rows – many of them dead. The presence of friends and acquaintances reassured me. The events of the past months and days helped to sustain me because fatigue and hunger suppressed all emotions. I had not yet become aware that I was in an annihilation camp and I did not know what the Germans intended to do with me. I knew nothing about my parents and occasionally, the thought crossed my mind that they would not be able to survive this torture. My doubts regarding them were resolved a few days later by the reports of more veteran fellow-prisoners, whose accounts were confirmed by the events which I myself experienced within a very short time.

I was assigned to road construction and had to sustain myself on supplies which could hardly be called food and which were far from sufficient for bare subsistence. Subsequently, together with some of my

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Fellow-sufferers, we were ordered to transport corpses thinned down to their bones, using carts for the purpose. In the first few weeks, we slept on the concrete floor of the barracks, intertwined so as to keep ourselves warm. The “selection” continued. The numbers seemed large although many perished as a result of illness, deprivation and various methods of refined torture. The suffering left its mark on everyone. We had one aim: to get out of this death factory no matter where. Occasionally, skilled workers were recruited and I did not give up hope. In the meantime, the number of those from Újhely dwindled as they were dispersed. Some were transferred to other concentration camps for external work; others perished.

My condition deteriorated considerably and I sensed that I could not endure it much longer. The German death machinery functioned efficiently. Slowly but surely each of us broke down both physically and psychologically. Occasionally, a committee showed up to recruit skilled workers and on one such occasion, I succeeded in passing a test as trained watchmaker and got into a group together with another twenty-nine fellow prisoners. I looked forward, hopefully, to a better future. A young man I knew from Satoraljaujhely, the son of a textile merchant, served as interpreter while we were being tested and he did as much as he possibly could to help us. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, he perished. As selected, skilled workers were put into quarantine barracks and following an observation period of a few weeks, my comrades and I left Birkenau, the biggest cemetery of all times, the final station for millions of human beings.

After an eventful journey, we finally reached our destination, the concentration camp of Oranieburg-Sachsenhause, in the vicinity of Berlin. During 1942-43, tens of thousands perished here but by the end of 1944, it was more like a labour camp and this had a relaxing effect on us after our four months' stay in Birkenau. It was clear that there was need for our work which, requiring precision, could not be performed if one were hungry and tired. Consequently, I was certain that we would be adequately provided for. My theory proved wrong, however. A concentration camp has no logic of its own and while we received food regularly, it bordered on the bare minimum.

The majority of the 40,000 people in the camp, including our unit, worked in a very well organized industrial compound which spread over several miles and was hidden by woods. Our so-called “Watchmaker-Commando” made up of Polish and Hungarian Jews as well as young SS watchmakers, had to repair the watches of the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht. Occasionally a contingent of several crates of watches would arrive. In some cases, the watchbands were scorched or bore bloodstains.

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When the top of one of the alarm clocks was opened, ten Napoleon gold pieces, all carefully wrapped, dropped to the floor. Who could its owner have been and where was he?

We Jews were isolated from the rest of the inmates in the concentration camp. The barracks were fenced in and special watchmen kept guard. Our isolation was shared by Russian prisoners of war. Flogging for minor irregularities was practically as a daily feature in the camp. Sabotage or stealing of food was punished by merciless hanging, while all the prisoners had to stand at attention and watch. The chimney of the crematorium towered above as an ominous warning.

Eventually, the Red Army approached Berlin while the Allied bombing continued without interruption. The gigantic industrial compound, hidden in the woods, was bombed in March, 1945 and virtually destroyed. The Watchmaker-Commando on the outside was closed down and thereafter, I performed various physical tasks within the compound of the camp. Food was reduced to the minimum and then stopped altogether. I signed up for the so-called “Bomb Detection Commando”, which, as its name indicates, had to neutralize the bombs which had not exploded. Several men worked on one bomb while the SS guards watched from a safe distance. Relatively many lost their lives when accidents occurred and all of us were in constant fear of explosions. The military food we received was most tempting and while starvation threatened the inmates of the camp, we here could face death well-fed.

Unfamiliar noises woke us up in the early hours of a morning in mid-April. The whole organization was collapsing. Several SS officers and guards had left the camp during the night seeking to escape, but to no avail. People were milling around in the camp like bees in a beehive, discussing events and trying to appraise the situation. Over the loudspeakers, the commanders instructed us to form groups according to nationality since the camp was to be evacuated. Taking advantage of the chaos and having already learned my lesson in the past, I joined a French group and holding onto a piece of bread, I left the camp. I was pleased to detect several of my comrades and a few familiar faces among the prisoners of other nationalities.

We marched vigorously to the north of Berlin – the heroes of the “Master Race” fleeing together with us. We passed through towns and villages practically without food or rest. After a few days of this, some of the marchers could not take it anymore. Whoever fell behind was shot without mercy. At times we managed to get hold of the corpse of a horse and drank contaminated water. During our march we passed bomb-craters filled with dead while the roads were lined with the bodies of those who had been shot. Many among us became ill and ran a temp-

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erature. I threw away my clothes while the rain pleasantly soothed my burning body. I did not know how much longer I could endure this but realized that if I fell behind, I would be shot. We staggered along supporting each other and suffering from dysentery. Suddenly, we were permitted to take a rest. I fell down and came to only late at night. I heard gunfire from nearby and realized that was no hallucination. Occasionally, a military signal flare was shot up. No guards were to be seen. Collecting my last strength, I started crawling and slowly left behind the pitiful remnants of a group which, at the outset, had numbered 400. Inch by inch, I crawled backwards along a field – the minutes seemed like hours. The thought crossed my mind that now I should run – I made an attempt but lost consciousness. When I reopened my eyes I saw an unshaved soldier leaning over me. I must have mumbled something – and later regained consciousness on a Russian field bed. Within a relatively short time, I was back on my feet again thanks to the hospital treatment and my youthful constitution. I again met some of my comrades in the field hospital and from them, I learned that on the night of my escape, most of those who were left behind had been executed.

It was May, 1945. Although I weighed only about 88 pounds, I was free and the war was over.

After discharge from the hospital, I joined some friends and we embarked on a new chapter that reads like a novel. More adventures and trials followed until later summer of 1945, equipped with a new knapsack, I crossed the Czechoslovak border into Hungary.

The above-mentioned book written by Andor Pasternak and Simon Pasternak, formerly of Tallya and now residing in Los Angeles, is highly recommended. It contains valuable details and a list of the many small communities in the neighbourhood of Miskolc, but it is also a beautifully written memoir which serves as a loving reminder of the martyrs for all who knew them. Among the communities listed are: Golop, Forro, Faj, Encs, Bekecs, Beny, Liszka, Kallo, Monok, Ratka and even those who have never heard these names before, can sense the loving familiarity with which the authors, now living at the other end of the world, enumerate them.

The list is headed by Golop, a small village in whose Jewish cemetery there were tombstones of over 200 years old. Furthermore, writes Simon

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Pasternak, in the eighteenth century, the first Jews in Tallya hailed from Golop. The Jewish religious community was founded at the end of the nineteenth century together with the Hevra Kaddisha and cemetery in Kodu, a village about a mile away. The first Synagogue established in 1845 was gutted by fire in 1868 and rebuilt in 1871. The description of the synagogue and the Holy Ark is given with unique details by S. Pasternak as if he were a professional art historian. He also writes about the first rabbi, Jacob Tennenbaum, who was born in Szendro in 1832, and officiated in Tallya from 1858 to 1869. All the other rabbis are also listed up to Rabbi Nicholas Rosenbaum, who, together with his wife, four small children and his beloved congregation was sent to death in the infamous cattle-cars.

Simon Pasternak mentions the curtain of the Holy Ark of the Hevra Kaddisha, donated by Count of Andrassy, made of purple silk cloth with golden embroidery. He refers to “The Royal Hungarian Gendarmerie” which: “under ridiculous pretexts made the life of the frightened Jews intolerably dreadful” during the Hitler period. And this was only the beginning…..

Finally, he refers to those few who returned and tried to rebuild their lives. They cleaned their synagogue, which had been used as horse stables and renewed the Holy Ark, “but there could be no religious life without a rabbi, no kosher food without a Shohet and no prayers without a minyan (ten-man quorum)”. Simon Pasternak's concluding words in this outstanding book are: “The congregation of Tallya, as indeed in all rural communities of Hungary, is today only a memory”.

The essay by Andor Pasternak begins with these touching words: “Our childhood did not pass by: it had been erased. Our childhood just faded away”.

Possibly no more appropriate and at the same time more shocking indictment has ever been written. Will the future generation, for whose benefit he wanted to recall: “the world of their ancestors” adequately grasps this awesome truth? Surely, this is of enormous significance even if it relates to individuals only and how much more grave when multiplied by the millions.

His description becomes even more eloquent when he states that: “the dried-out bones cannot be brought back to life with flesh and blood, not in writing and certainly not when even the skeleton does not exist”. Only now does one grasp to the full the symbolism of the tombstones that have been erected in our cemeteries in memory of the victims of the Nazi era. Tombstones under which there are no bodies serve as the sole physical reminder of our martyrs.

We have reported on that which is “touching” and “shocking” in this

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essay. Let us not refrain from telling also those things which are beautiful. With words which are as soft as freshly baked bread and with the warmth it has when just taken out of the oven, with love that is almost tangible, he describes the wonderful Jewish spirit in the world of “our dear Tallya”. The reader almost forgets that all this does not exist anymore. Even those who have never seen this place or never heard of it, suddenly move around in it as if it were familiar. While reading, one closes his eyes for a moment and it is as if he were participating in the Bar Mitzvah of Andor Pasternak, or as if, following the Sabbath singing, he were going on a trip with him and his best chum, from the “First Ditch”, where we used to bath to the pleasantly situated Kodu…

And when he described “our village Tallya: from our mill to the Zoldag, from Husta to the Lutheran School, the dam next to the watch-house and the Dobogo…” all can sense it. This is not topography alone. One hears the merry laughter of the children, the singing of the girls and boys, the spring and winter of a fairy landscape….

The quietest line is even more painful: “There is nobody left anymore to visit the graves of our forefathers in Kodu…”

One cannot refer to the reminiscences of Esther Schreiber without being deeply moved. They radiate the warm and lasting love she felt for her late sister, Mrs. Livi Krausz, née Rozmann, blessed be her memory, who lost her life during the Holocaust. This fact left a very deep scar on her soul. This statement is not exaggerated in view of the fact that she preserved in her memory every word of a dialogue written and performed by her sister at a Hanukkah celebration in 1938. This performance was given together with Klara Berkovits who also perished in Auschwitz. The co-author of the “Dialogue” was Vilmos Weinberger (Valvus). The “Dialogue” is considerably more than just another one of the numbers performed during the Hanukkah celebrations. It is a soaring prayer, bursting forth from the very depths of the soul, a dialogue with the Creator, Gold Almighty, the wailing of an innocent soul on the eve of the persecutions.

Even in this brief reference to the deeply moving memoirs, we must quote on stirring passage marked by poetic pathos and inspiration in which she touches on the vital eternal question, as valid today as then: “Why, oh why, my God did you compare your people to the billions

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of stars shining in the sky?
When our enemies number that many!?”
This is the vision of seers and prophets, a gruesome prophecy which turned into a frightful reality.

Esther Schreiber, the granddaughter of Raphael Berkovits, daughter of Vilmos Rozmann, in recalling the past, mentions that she was a pupil of the Status-Quo school and fondly recalls her teachers Moses Feldmar and Mariska Frishmann. She also looks back with reverence to her grandfather, who was the head of the Orthodox congregation and of the Hevra Kaddisha. Her sister, blessed be her memory, to whom she dedicates her memoirs, studied in 1937 at the medical faculty in Kolozsvar (Cluj) from which she was deported back to Újhely during the regime of the Rumanian fascist. Goga. The other actor of the “Dialogue” was Klari Berkovits.

The daughter of Esther Schreiber, a very talented high school teacher, translated the above-mentioned work into Hebrew.

Frida Schoenfeld was born into a middle class Jewish family in the small town of Mezolaborc in the county of Zemplen and in 1932, married a second cousin by the name of Max Schoenfeld. Unable to attend university because of the Numerus Clausus, he went into the family's leather and shoe supply business. The couple had two children.

In the spring of 1941, all Jews who could not prove Hungarian citizenship were deported to Poland, among them her husband and he served there in a labour camp.

The German occupation of Hungary was quickly followed by the gathering of the Jews in all the provincial towns into ghettos. Mrs. Schoenfeld was among those evacuated from her home to the ghetto in Újhely. She recalls that each person was given only ten minutes in which to collect no more than ten kilogrammes of personal belongings, primarily food and clothing. All valuables were taken from them. Together with twenty-five other persons, she and her children lived for two weeks in a small, empty room which had no beds, tables or chairs.

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Deportation via railway cattle cars followed and on May 20, 1944 she arrived at Auschwitz. Before leaving the train, the deportees looked out of holes in the cars and saw children playing in the distance and the thought entered their minds that perhaps all the terrible things that had been told about these camps were not true. At the railway station, there was music, flowers and bright sunshine. There was certainly no indication that within a few hours, most of these people would be burned in the gas chambers.

The SS officers separated the families and her two children, Paul 11 and George 6, stood alone, hand in hand. When she was herded away, the German told her not to worry, that the children would follow soon after. She never saw them again.

Frida was in the group of able-bodied women who were considered fit for work. Their clothes were taken away and all were dressed in similar grey dresses. They were completely shaved and looked so much alike that they recognized each other only by their voices. The number A 6878 was tattooed on her arm. The important thing now was to remain alive.

Through the camp grapevine, she learned that her brother Henry was also at Auschwitz, and they met. From him she learned the bitter truth about the place.

In September, the German “celebrated” the Jewish High Holydays in a fiendish way. On Rosh Hashanah, all the girls in the 12 to 16 year age bracket were gassed and on Yom Kippur, all the boys in that age group met the same fate.

The trains continued to bring their human cargoes into Auschwitz. Frida was with the group of women who worked outside the gas chamber. They saw the victims undressing and going into the building. They heard the screams, the prayers and the cries for help and then nothing but silence as black smoke poured from the chimneys. The piles of clothing were carried out to the waiting women who sorted them. The better clothes were separated and shipped to Germany. The women considered themselves “lucky” to work here for often, when they opened the backpacks and suitcases, they found food which they gulped down immediately.

There were instances of bravery and heroism. One young Belgian girl, Manya, attempted to escape, was caught and sentenced to be hanged as all the other women inmates were forced to look on. The girl spat in the face of the hangman, pulled out a hidden razor and slashed her wrists crying out that survivors would yet tell the world of the deeds of the Germans. The impact on the other inmates was quite different from what the Germans had intended.

Frida recalls the time a girl went near the gate of the hospital where

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The twins were kept for “medical research”. Dr. Mengele caught her in the act of sharing her bread portion with the hungry children and ordered her beaten to death as the other women were compelled to look on.

Once, the male prisoners came to a desperate decision to blow up the crematorium. The man who worked in the Auschwitz munition factory smuggled some explosives to the men who cleaned the latrines, and when the signal was given, the building began to burn. The only result was that 750 men were immediately shot to death.

The last transport from Czechoslovakia came on November 3 and word reached Frida that her father, then 64, was with them. He was among the group that was tattooed, meaning they have been “saved” for work. She did reach her father, at great risk, and was able to get food and clothing to him. Realizing that the ability to work meant life, he told the SS that he was ready and able to work and was assigned to wash the floors and clean up the rooms.

On January 17, 1945 in the mid-winter, dressed only in the flimsiest of garments, the women were sent out on a two-day “death march” which many did not survive. They were then taken by train to Ravensbruck. Death was on all sides. Lacking food, they at the snow on the ground. Of the 20,000 who set out from Auschwitz, only 5,000 arrived at their destination.

That was not the end, and again, they took to the road arriving at Malokow, deep in the forest. There was not enough food to go around and the women battled each other for the meagre rations. Illness was rampant including typhoid. Frida suffered from dysentery and an infected foot. Like the others, she was covered with lice.

The confusion became worse and it was obvious that the Germans were at a loss as to what to do. The fighting between the German and Russian armies was very close. Again, the inmates were put on the road and they walked for two days and two nights without any food. Those who ate pieces of flesh hacked off a dead horse, became frightfully ill.

The rest found shelter from the pouring rain in a big stable – and then came word that the Americans had arrived. The unfortunate victims received their first real food in a long time, but this was not yet the end. The troops moved on quickly. The Germans were concerned now only with saving their own skins from the advancing Russians and again, the concentration camp survivors took to the road.

By now, the bedraggled mob had broken up into scattered little groups, each foraging for itself. On foot and occasionally with lifts in trucks, Frida and a friend went on to Furstenberg and then to Kattowitz where they found refuge in the Red Cross station. The trek continued by train to

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Krakow, to Rszeszov and on to Jaslov and then Novy Sad. By now Frida was alone, her last friend having wandered down a street and never returned. She was beset by more adventures and expressions of bitter anti-Semitism from the local population.

At Humenne, she was miraculously reunited with her father but upon arrival in Újhely, she learned from another survivor that her husband, weakened and unable to work, had been beaten to death at this work place.

Frida walked the streets of Újhely where she had lived for so many years. Her weight had gone down from seventy to thirty-five kilogrammes. Skinny and pale, no one recognized her, but she lived to tell the tale.

Although born in Kisradvany, Joe Sorger's entire childhood and youth, until his conscription into the Labour Service, were spent in Ricse. His father was a universally respected citizen who filled the function of Melamed (Hebrew teacher). They were six brothers and sisters. One of his brothers was called up into the Labour Service as early as 1941, and so far as is known, was taken to Bor where he perished. His parents together with his brothers and sisters who had been deported from the ghetto of Satoraljaujhely, also perished in the Holocaust and only one younger sister, Rozsi (Rosel) Bayer, returned. She lives in Toronto today. Regarding the others, he has no knowledge when or where they perished and he marks the memorial (Yahrzeit) for them at the holiday of Shavuot.

He was called up for the Labour Service units in October, 1943. On Christmas of that year, he obtained leave of absence and this was the last time he saw his family. During that leave of absence, he fell ill and was bed-ridden for five weeks, during which time his unit was despatched to Karpatalja where he joined them two months later. En route, he lost his way and luckily reached Munkacs where he visited his relatives: his grandfather, aunts, uncles and cousins. From Karpatalja, he got to Duborka in Poland just as the Germans occupied Hungary (19^th March, 1944). They worked in Duborka during the months of June and July. The commander of the unit was relieved and his replacement turned out to be a frightful sadist who, when he got angry at someone, beat him up terribly. Oddly, he always saw to it that the men had plenty of food. They had to dig trenches and lines of defence.

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Because of his indisposition and sore foot, Sorger and a few of his colleagues, fell behind the unit during the retreat – luckily – because all the others were transported to Germany and only a few returned. He was liberated when the Russian troops entered Ungdaroc near Ungvar on October 27, 1944. He reached Munkacs three or four days later and a non-Jewish business associate of his offered to take him in. However, he moved to the nicest street of Munkacs – Medecei Street – where the wealthiest Jews used to live, and spent five weeks there.

One evening, he was picked up by Ukrainians who interrogated him, made his scrub floors and demanded that he leave Munkacs immediately. He went to Batyu by train then on foot to Kiralyhelmec and from there to Ricse which he reached on December 6. His younger sister returned from Bergen-Belsen only in June, 1945. A man by the name of Friedman also came back. His brother, Izidor Friedman, was his comrade in the Labour unit and now lives in Israel. Another survivor, a boy by the name of Fischer, settled in Montreal.

He served as inspector with a commercial firm in Satoraljaujhely, subsequently left illegally for Yugoslavia and later immigrated to Canada.

Other memories? Once he was arrested by gendarmes in Dobrad. He had two Toupees and was therefore taken for a spy and was about to be dragged off to the gendarmerie barracks. By sheer luck, they changed their minds at the last minute, kicked him in the backside and released him. In Kiralyhelmec, the chief district officer interrogated him personally as to his nationality – which he established. But they kept him there for several days. There was an internment camp in Ricse containing mostly Jews from Poland but with a few Hungarian Jews as well. Sorger was among the Jews from Ricse who supplied them with food. On another occasion, a lieutenant called him to task for not having taken off his cap while saluting him. There were all sorts of people. After the liberation, he discovered all the furniture intact in their home; a neighbouring peasant had threatened he would chase off with a hatchet whoever would attempt to take anything away. There were such people as well. This neighbour had never shown any animosity. At the same time, he came across persons who quite openly, without beating about the bush, declared that it was a pity that the Jews had returned. It would have been better if they had all been taken down to the Tisza and drowned there.

Not long ago, he visited Budapest and while it was maintained that anti-Semitism does not exist anymore, he overheard statements of similar nature. He also recalls that in the labour camp he was together with Cinner Muki from Újhely.

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Mrs. Annie was an outstanding person, universally respected and beloved by all. She was born in Sztropko in the county of Zemplen and Larry Baum, as a child, visited the family there for the first time. In 1939, the Germans occupied Slovakia to which Sztropko belonged at the time, and the Jewish girls were deported. Annie and her younger sister Etya found refuge with a Christian family and a peasant woman hid them away in a cellar which she dug under her store-room and barn. There was an opening to the field through which air entered. Annie and her sister slept on bunks set in the wall of the cellar. Entrance was well hidden by an oven and the opening of the oven was their door. For six months they were hidden like this and with the onset of cold weather, the peasant woman provided them with coal. However, since the ventilation opening was small, the two girls suffered carbon-gas poisoning. Etya became unconscious and Annie, gathering up her last strength, dragged herself through the heavy snow to the woman's house. Etya was rescued but their presence was revealed. Together with several other Jewish refugees, they were smuggled over to Kassa, from where they managed to phone Larry Baum's father, who picked them up and brought them to Ujhely.

Incredible though it may sound, prior to their deportation from the ghetto, Annie, the sensitive young girl, had a vision of Auschwitz. All that became terrible reality there, including her own fate, appeared to her in her dreams.

In the meantime, Annie's parents also found refuge with a Slovak peasant to whom they conveyed, still in good time, fifty-eight acres of land in addition to a considerable amount of money. They went through incredible experiences. At one point, the German officers in command of the fighting installed their telescopes right on top of their hiding place. The peasant, himself afraid of the fighting in his vicinity, wanted to hide away. Through his daughter, he sent them a big loaf of bread. But this aroused the suspicion of his father-in-aw since up to then, he had provided them with slices of bread only. On the insistence of his father-in-law, he finally moved them to another hiding place in the valley where they could neither sit nor stand up, but only crawl, lying down. A German did discover them but since the peasant woman provided him with food, he did not give them away. Thus they were liberated.

After Auschwitz, Annie was in a place taken by the English. Even

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After the liberation, many died from typhoid fever and diarrhoea as a result of the sudden transition from starvation to heavy, greasy food. Eva Bleier from Ujhely, whose father was a musician, found her death in this way.

Annie spent some time in Germany and Belgium and returned to search for her parents in Sztropko. She also visited Postyen, seeking a cure for the rheumatism which she had contracted in the camp and from which she suffered a great deal even later.

“I too visited Belgium and after my return home in 1948, we got married”, adds Larry Baum.

“ I lived in Satoraljaujhely up to the 5th June, 1944, the day the evacuation of the local ghetto started… ” thus begin the memoirs of Ernie Manson (Mandel Erno). Following the occupation of Hungary by the Germans, they started searching for him personally on the basis of prepared lists of prominent Jewish citizens to be taken as hostages. One day at dawn, there was a loud knock on their door and at the last minute, even as his mother opened the door to the contingent of German soldiers, Hungarian gendarmes and a detective who had come to arrest him, he jumped out of a rear window.

What followed was a unique example of filial self-sacrifice. Although he had opportunity to go into hiding, he returned home to his mother, who could move around only with difficulty and thereby sealed his fate. The moving of the Jewish population into the ghetto began around the 10^th April, the day following Easter. At first, the ghetto reached up to the northern end of Rakoczi Street but was later narrowed down, even though more Jews from the neighbouring villages were squeezed into these very restricted premises.

At the beginning of June, the transports started up. While the people were being shoved into the wagons, the gendarmes abused them. Lajos (Louis) Rosenberg was tortured to make him disclose where he had hidden his fortune. In the ghetto were also some refugee Polish Jews who

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had escaped from Auschwitz and they urged everybody to flee by recounting what would be in store for them.

It took four days to reach Auschwitz, during which time the Jews received neither food nor drink. The lack of air and the congestion in the cattle-cars was unimaginable.

“Throughout my life, I bear the burden on my conscience for not having taken leave of my mother”, when Mengele, the angel of death separated the mother from her son during the selection says Manson. This is what our people are like: it is we who have pangs of conscience instead of the barbarian executioners who sank to the level of beasts! Manson reached Buchenwald together with Dr. Ervin Reichel, a dentist, Miklos (Nicholas) Fuszter, Bodner, the manager of the Italian Bank and Schweiger. Subsequently, they were removed to Jena where cheap labour force was required to rebuild a factory destroyed by American bombing. The work completed, the factory was bombed anew and this happened three more times. In the course of one of the bombings, the barber Klein was killed. “It was thanks to God's protection that we did not have more dead”.

Particularly touching was Manson's report on the first white roll he ate after liberation reminding him of his past and his home. While he was writing his memoirs, Manson read that a Slovakian refugee met Dulles in Switzerland and implored him to have the Kassa-Oderberg railway line bombed because the transports ran on it. Unfortunately, neither the Americans nor the English came to the rescue; neither the railway line nor the railway station in Auschwitz was attacked.

1984

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Magda Görög (née Baumann), now a resident of Toronto, singles out the lawlessness of the decrees issued during that dreadful period, such as the Yellow Star, curfew and the setting up of ghettos.. When her parents' store was closed down, she realized that the statement by the Germans that nobody would be harmed, who did not oppose them, was a pure lie. She recalls that the windows of the houses at the edge of the ghetto were boarded up or whitewashed so that the tenants could not see what was going on outside of the ghetto, or those outside be able to look in. In the ghetto, she lived with her grandparents at 6, Jusztus Street. The congestion was unbearable with four families in one room each family occupying a corner of the room. When the area of the ghetto was narrowed, they were all searched and Jusztus Street was filled with confiscated goods. When the first transports were about to start, political prisoners as well as patients from the psychological wards were transferred into the ghetto.

The young girl, with singular perspicacity, realized the kind of fate in store for these people, with no distinction being made whether one can be of use or not, whether one is clever or stupid, willing to accept any fate, or whether a declared enemy. “While we all believed that we were taken for work and the families would stay together, with family members capable of work, supporting the disabled ones – I was more pessimistic than the rest and had only one strong instinct: I wanted to save my life”.

What follows is an epic of female ingenuity, the defiance, audacity and daring of youth. The young girl tore off the yellow star and escapes from a group being led my gendarmes to the hospital. With one change of underwear in her bag, she left for Budapest. On her arrival at the Keleti railway station, she noticed that everyone was being stopped and requested to show identification papers. When her turn came, she ingeniously tricked the police by shouting: “Daddy, daddy, they want my papers”, ran after a non-existent daddy, a man who had already been checked and disappeared in the crowd. With the papers of a Christian friend, she left for Balatonkenese – under the pretext of a holiday! After two months, she returned to Budapest where she learned from a certain Lea that ten days after she had left Ujhely, her parents had been taken away with the last transport.

Her audacity knew no limits. She left for Vac so as to bring her brother Laci (Leslie) to Budapest into a protected Labour Service unit. (Special units for privileged individuals). As in all her undertakings, this one too was crowned with success. Travelling to Vac, she found herself in the

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same compartment with the Hungarian Nazi police chief of the city. A train carrying German soldiers, waving to them, overtook them on the neighbouring track. The police chief noticed disapprovingly that she refrained from waving back and remarked that these soldiers were fighting for them, the Hungarians and thus certainly deserved to be taken notice of. Carrying his digression even further, he noted sharply that after the war, the traitors would be hung from lampposts. To this the young girl retorted: “The war will be over soon and it remains to be seen who will be the ones to hang from the lampposts”. Her self-assurance saved her at the railway station in Vac and she succeeded in having her brother transferred to a protected Labour Service Unit.

The climax came when she occasionally “visited” her brother whose unit was loading ships on the banks of the Danube, and this while the evacuation of the Jews of Budapest was under way and the infamous Hungarian Nazi (Arrow-Cross) regime was in power! She remarked later with incredible simplicity: “I could do it since I lived in Csaky Street and had new forged identification papers in my possession”. Unfortunately her brother was deported in spite of everything. Physically run down, she was liberated from Csaky Street at the end of the war.

The simple saying that it pays to be courageous and daring can certainly be applied to Magda. The fact that she survived is due solely to her remarkable courage and self-discipline.

Dr. Leslie Baumann begins his reminiscences at a much earlier period. He remembers his Status-quo school and his first teacher, Samuel Fodor, who taught him the alphabet. He recalls, with admiration, Mozes Feldmar who was a teacher in the best sense of the word and whose total devotion made him an outstanding pedagogue whose excellent achievements are remembered even after these many years. This eminent man realized that preoccupation with the prescribed material alone was not enough. Fresh air, sunshine and physical exercise were no less important. He organized memorable gym tests together with Lesli (Laszlo) Budai from the Orthodox school.

In the higher grades, Leslie already encountered discrimination though in small matters only, and his first heartbreak occurred when it became clear to him that a Jewish child could not be a member of the scout group. Since this was true for other educational and cultural circles as well, the youngsters set up their own circle. This became the Singer

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Circle which organized cultural evenings and theatre performances as well. Rabbi Samuel Roth, his religious teacher, gave his blessing to these activities and legalized them. Since the Jewish youth had, in those days very limited possibilities, he obtained employment in an industrial plant where he worked from 1939 to 1942 when he was called up into the Labour Service. He built border fortifications in the snow-capped mountains of Transylvania until he was shipped off to the Ukraine and there, the news of the German occupation of Hungary reached him. Following the occupation, a noticeable change occurred in the attitude towards them by the Hungarian supervising military personnel. A sad memory with reference to Ujhely from those days: one evening while they were lined up to receive orders, it was announced that Lajcsi Schönfeld had been court-martialled and executed for escape or attempt to escape.

It was at this time that the transportation of the Jews of Karpatalja began. He heard about the proclamation of Horthy in the East Carpathians and with the total collapse of the front, was moved to Ujhely together with the military units. He spent one night in the loft of the wine cellar attached to the Görgey House, was recognized, bathed and fed. After this pleasant one night episode, he was moved westward with his unit, arrived in Vac and from there, with the help of his sister Magda, escaped to Budapest into a protected unit. However, he was transported from there to Balf and Hidegség, all infamous, notorious places where he was already in the hands of the Germans. In exceedingly cold weather, they were housed in a barn, their food was close to nothing and those caught trying to obtain supplementary food were shot on the spot.

In early spring, he was transferred to Austria where, together with his comrades, worked for the Todt Organization. From here, he started off on foot toward Mauthausen. He learned from his mates who had to bury the dead that those who were incapacitated were shot dead. Near a place called Eisenerz – a name to remember since all hell broke loose here – a one-armed guard organized a blood-bath. He simply fired into the unfortunate marcher with his machine-gun. Blood flowed in streams on the snow-covered mountain road. The wounded were finished off by the other guards. Many dropped dead on the way. When they reached Mauthausen, “we really did not have to do anything anymore. Here and there people were shot down but most of them died of starvation”. In mid-April, another march took them to Gunskirchen and here – for all those who still survived – the war ended…..

He witnessed the disappearance of the guards and the arrival of the American troops. He left the barracks, infested with vermin and corpses, and with his uncle, went to the house of a peasant. After becoming gravely ill with typhoid fever, he was taken to the hospital established by

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the Americans. After his release from the hospital, he was moved into a central camp where he and his uncle met others from Ujhely, such as Gyuszi Blumenfeld, Odi Alexander and Jeno Reich. With a repatriation contingent, he reached his home in August and subsequently left Ujhely for Budapest.

After completing his medical studies, specializing in x-rays, he left Hungary in 1956. Arriving in Canada, he had his diploma approved, completed further training in x-ray and worked in hospitals in Toronto and the provinces. For the last ten years or so, he has had a private practice.

“I have a family, my daughter is married and I have a small grandchild. We are fortunate that we could rebuild our lives”. And, he concludes: “I saw my parents for the last time in February, 1944 during one of my rare leaves of forty-eight hours. I had their names engraved on the tombstone of my paternal grandfather together with the names of those from the family who did not survive the Holocaust”.

Rose Szamet, born Rajce Weisz, a resident of Toronto, remembers her family home, her religious education, her youth and the Holocaust. She was born in Mezokövesd on March 15, 1920, the daughter of Herman Weisz and Regina (Hofstadter). Her father was a Shohet and Kantor in Satoraljaujhely. “Out of nine brothers and sisters, only six survived: Hajnal, Mote, Rajcu, Soram, Brochcsu and Blimcsu. One brother died three years ago, one brother and one sister, Mosje and Klari, were victims of the Holocaust”.

She grew up in an Orthodox atmosphere, in a home where the attention of the parents embraced all aspects of their lives, particularly that of the girls. But within this framework, question arose in her mind which disturbed her. Why did the boys learn the meaning of the prayers, whereas the girls were not given this opportunity? “God Almighty listens to your prayer – this is all you have to understand”, her father told her. And when after finishing school she announced that she wanted to learn dressmaking, he said: “You will not be able to marry! Who will want to have a seamstress as a wife? You are pretty and bright – there is no need for you to learn a craft!” In that world, the wish of a girl to learn a trade was so much out of the ordinary that her father did not speak to her for two weeks. The family atmosphere at home was pleasant

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and well organized, yet for a young girl, the week-days were boring and that is why she wanted to learn a trade.

The isolation and purity of their family life underwent a radical change as the dark clouds of war gathered overhead. Among the boys from Ujhely serving in the labour camp was a young man from Gyongyos, Dezso Barun. She met him because they provided kosher food for his barracks. When the family was taken to the ghetto, he provided Rose and her younger sister, Agi with Christian documents in order to save their lives. However, the father would not hear of this: “It is out of the question to live as a Christian with Christian papers! And under all circumstances, the family has to stay together…”

“We left the city with the fourth transport. While he was praying on the train one morning with tefilin and tallit on, I said to him: “Father, all those whom you see here in the cattle-car, women, children, babies as well as the men, all – without exception – are going to their death”. My father looked at me as if I were a lunatic and said: 'How can you talk like that?” Unfortunately, I knew the answer. I sensed that our fate was sealed and even announced it to the inmates of this terribly crowded wagon. Those who have already been deprived of all their
Personal belongings, their most personal valuables having been taken away by the Germans and being dragged away as they are, - the lives of these people will not be spared.

My father's reply was: “I have always known that your faith was not deep enough, not sufficiently well-based!”

From the perspective of forty years, Rose recalls: “My father was a deeply religious man who just could not imagine that God would not save us”.

Auschwitz. The selection. With 500 other young women, she was taken first to Riga, the capital of Latvia where they worked for the Germans and then to Glöben, near Berlin where they worked for eight months in a munitions factory. As the Russian and American armies closed in on Berlin, they marched for days, or maybe for weeks, fleeing from the Russians in the direction of the American army. Among the marchers were sisters from two families: the Teitelman sisters and Rose and her two sisters. They stuck together through thick and thin. One night, the youngest of all the sisters announced that she had no more strength left. Her shoes were also completely worn through… They knew that if they left her there it would be her end! Consequently, under cover of night, they escaped from the group which was being driven on by the Germans and found a hide-out in the mountains. In the morning, a German soldier showed up and they thought this was the end, but it turned out that the German was also a fugitive. Shortly thereafter, a Russian unit

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Occupied the area and they were liberated.

On her return from deportation, she found that two of her sisters had perished during the Holocaust. She married her late sister's husband, her brother-in-law. In 1946, they immigrated to the U.S. where their two children were born. Her son is a Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University and her daughter is a psychoanalyst, married to a psychologist. Their daughter-in-law is in the same field.

They lead a comfortable life. The children are orthodox, cherishing tradition. “Perhaps my faith is not quite as strong as that of my father, but our present way of life does not differ much from what it used to be, except perhaps in our attitude to the sciences. However, my home as well as that of my children is an Orthodox Jewish home and the food strictly kosher”.

“I hope that never again will such a tragedy occur – neither in our times nor in those of the generations to follow”.

“I told them that the lessons to be learned from these accounts are that whatever happens, if one remains firm in his faith, he is not lost. This trust and confidence is the legacy my later father left to me”.

The opening remarks of Shmuel (Imre) Szamet, husband of Rose, should be blared by loudspeakers into the ears of all who cast a doubt over the existence of Auschwitz and the Holocaust with its six million victims.

“I was born on 22^nd February, 1913 in Satoraljaujhely. My father's name was Joel and my mother's, Sarah. We were seven children at home – four boys and three girls. One sister, Anna and one brother, Pavel, died before the war. Of the remaining five, only Saje and I survived the war. One brother and two sisters perished during the Holocaust. This brother, his wife and four children were in a camp near Vienna and all survived, but my brother died one day after liberation! One sister, together with her seven children, was killed as soon as the transport

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arrived. My other sister, who also had seven children, lived to see the liberation and even informed her husband that they would soon be on their way home when a car, filled with SS ruffians, stopped in front of their barracks and set fire to it. All the eighty or ninety occupants were burned to death. Her husband, my brother-in-law, Schifmann and one son survived. The husband of my sister, who lost her life in Auschwitz, is also my cousin and thus his name too is Szamet. He survived and today lives in Brooklyn. My eldest brother, Saje also has seven children. His wife and two smaller children were in Vienna while he and his five elder children survived in various camps. Miraculously, all seven children, his wife and my brother survived and today live a happy and contented life in Brooklyn with all the children who, by now, are married. This brother passed away last year at the age of 80.

His mother, his wife, Rose's elder sister and their six-year-old girl, lost their lives in Auschwitz. If anybody can still think clearly after such terrible reports, let him try to make an account of all the loved ones lost in the immediate family of one person.

From May 1940 to November 1944, Shmuel worked in various labour camps. At the beginning of 1944, he lived together with his commander in the mountains of Maramaros and served as a clerk in the unit. There follows the gravest accusation of Shmuel Szamet after the long list of his terrible losses. Every Wednesday, the commander attended a weekly briefing held by his superiors at the district headquarters. On his return from one of these briefings, the commander, Nagysomkuti Mercse Leonidasz, told Shmuel Szamet: “I have some news for you. At the officer's meeting today, one of the generals gave a report. All I can tell you is that your loved ones are being deported and do not expect them back because they will all be burned alive”. This was much before it actually occurred. The claim by the responsible Hungarians and Germans that they had no knowledge of what was happening was, therefore, untrue. These officers met weekly and had precise information, officially, on what was going on. They not only discussed the happenings but planned them systematically!

This Nagysomkuty was a bloody anti-Semite as became very clear in his introductory speech: “We will kill you all off!” But at the end, when the train was on its way to Galicia and the Ukraine, he asked for a civilian coat with a yellow ribbon so that he would be taken prisoner in this clothing. From that time on, he behaviour improved. On the advice of one of the unit members in the forced labour camp, Menyhert Mittlemann, he even arranged with a general in the Hungarian headquarters in the Galician Stanislav, that the unit, although destined for the Ukraine, should remain within the Hungarian borders.

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In November-December, 1944 they were taken over by the S.S. who transferred them to Harka. Shmil Szamet contracted typhoid fever in February. On the first day of Passover, 1945, a Friday afternoon, he was ordered to participate in the line-up in spite of his 16-day illness and badly deteriorated state of health. They were given the order to march to Mauthausen. Shmil Szamet and a few hundred other sick inmates of the camp reported that they were unable to start the march and they remained in their barns. The following morning, the barns were surrounded by S.S. men and then the miracle happened. In the early dawn sunshine, the prisoners, completely weakened and expecting nothing better than death, saw that the S.S. men were surrounded and being searched by Russian soldiers. They were saved! – free! It was the 27^th of March, 1945.

He returned to Satoraljaujhely, married his wife's sister Rose and they lived there from May 1945 to September 1946. Via Kassa and Prague, they left for the United States to join his father who had been there since 1937. His mother received an immigration visa from her husband but the day she was due to leave and was tearfully saying goodbye to her children, she was handed a cable from the Cunard Lines Shipping Co., notifying her that because of the war, the ship would not sail. No tickets were available for other boats sailing to the United States and thus, his mother had to remain and ended her life in Auschwitz.

The rest of their story is already known from Shmuel Szamet's wife, Rose, who gave an account of her children and their happy family life. Her husband adds that in March 1947, they came to Canada where he became a successful building contractor. His only regret is that he had not gone to Canada twenty five years earlier.

“My name is Yehuda Lipsitz, better known as Yidu. Today, I am Edmond Y. LIpsitz. I was born in Satoraljaujhely on December 7, 1925. My father's name was Yitzhak Lipsitz; my mother's, Shiffra Sarolta Lipsitz. My father was an employee of his brother and the firm was known as Berger-Lipsitz. My mother had her own store, mainly for fashion-conscious ladies where she sold girdles. We were five children. I had two brothers and two sisters. One of the boys died at a

very early age while still in Hungary; the other, Zvi Dov, was with me in the concentration camp. One night, after liberation, while gravely ill, he was run over by the train that was to take him home. In Ujhely, I had seven uncles and the extended family, every member of which lived in Ujhely numbering at least eighty souls. Except for six or seven, all the others were victims of the Holocaust. Some of them live in Israel, others have passed away. One uncle and one aunt live in New York but they were lucky enough to leave Ujhely before the terrible times started”. Six or seven out of eighty!

He first went to the heder and finished six grades in the Jewish elementary school, followed by two more grades in the public school. Looking back on his education, he now states that having grown up in a small place, he could only acquire a minimal knowledge and experience “and we were naïve to the utmost”. They did, however, have alert minds and were even prepared for minor rebellions. He remembers something that was strictly forbidden; the rabbi listened to the BBC broadcasts and the young pupils served as guards so as to ensure that he could transmit the news to others as well. A typical sign of his inexperience: - up to the time of his deportation he had never left his native town except to go to Sarospatak, some eight miles away. As a Yeshiva student, he was not allowed to read the newspapers. The fact that he trained for a profession was considered a rebellion. He began his training as an electrician with a non-Jew and at first he hid his ritual ear-locks behind his ears. Later, he had them cut off, which in his family was considered almost as great a tragedy as if he had left the Jewish faith.

He was eighteen years old when taken to the ghetto. The house they lived in was, at first, within the area of the ghetto but as the area of the ghetto narrowed, they had to move into another house. Some of the boys from the Bnei Akiva movement raised the possibility of resistance. “We sensed that something terrible was going to happen to us and we wanted to be prepared for it, to do something, but by then, the second transport – including myself – was getting under way…. There was a young boy of Polish-Jewish origin in the wagon who had already been in the internment camp in Garany and he gave us to understand where we were headed for and what was in store for us. We did not believe him. We arrived in Auschwitz on the first day of the Hebrew month of Sivan. He had told us the truth…”

Much later, when as a free person he listened to the lecture of the

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Israeli professor, Jehuda Bauer – “Resistance in the Camps”, he remembered his own resistance in Dörnhau. Together with one of his comrades, a radio-technician, they built a clandestine radio receiver and listened to the Allied broadcasts – all this in a concentration camp on German soil. (For those who have not been through German hell, this may not have a special significance, but one should remember that if they had been discovered listening to the radio, irrespective of whether they were hearing the news or any other programme, they would have been shot on the spot). With the approach of the Russian army, they were taken to Bergen-Belsen and then to Rostov where they were assigned the restoration of a bombed-out oil refinery. At the beginning of May, they were liberated by the Russians.

He somehow managed to return to Ujhely where he found his younger sister. “Out of a community originally numbering about 5000 souls, only some 250 returned and even these 250 included those who lived in the neighbouring villages but considered it senseless to go back there”.

In 1948, he participated in the Israel War of Independence. He married and a daughter was born to him in Israel. In 1956 he left for Canada where his son, now a doctor, was born.

“Here at the age of 33, when others were already more or less well established, I began my studies. I tried to make up for what I had missed until then. In ten years, I obtained four degrees: one B.A., two Masters' and one Ph.D. I can thus fill a respectable position in the Jewish community in Toronto. I feel that I can also show achievements in the field of Jewish education. I think I have contributed to its development. Perhaps I could have become a successful businessman or could have chosen other professions, but I felt it as my vocation to devote myself to Jewish education. And this gives my life a special meaning”.

“My name is Imre Hamermann. At home they called me Icsu. Everybody knew the Hamermann family in Ujhely. We were a very , very, big family. My father was a deeply religious man and naturally the family was too. Our slogan was Torah and Avoda. We were six boys at home.

When the ghetto was set up; we had to register at the Status-quo

school where everybody was searched. Thereafter, the inhabitants of three or four houses were crowded into one house within a closed quarter of the town, all this under the supervision of the gendarmes and the Germans. We were in the ghetto for seven or eight weeks – from Easter to Shavuot. Life there was hard and we were not allowed to leave. My late father organized a so-called “people's kitchen” for those who were unable to look after themselves. I retained several memories from my work in the ghetto office. I remember that there were 5611 persons in the ghetto and only about ten succeeded in escaping. I know about some who hid in cellars and a few of these are still alive. One family was saved by me – Ortner, the son-in-law of Berger the glazier, and his family who live in Vienna today. Those who fell ill were transferred to the Status-quo school, were given straw mattresses and were looked after by Jewish nurses and by the physicians of the Jewish Hospital”.

After the third transport had left, the remaining Jews were ordered to move into the Gypsy settlement while the Gypsies were transferred into the vacated Jewish homes. He reports on the revolt that broke out in the prison of Ujhely, where prisoners from Ujvidek and Zenta were held, among them quite a number of Jewish girls and boys. They killed several Germans, broke out of the prison and escaped. The majority were caught and shot on the spot.

He missed the date on which he was supposed to report for the Labour Service camp and in this way got into the ghetto and from there, a week after Shavuot, was transported to Birkenau. There, on the suggestion of Brunnel Laci, he applied for work together with sixty others from Ujhely. They were sent to Allach near Dachau in a group of 500. Earlier, after having been separated from his brothers, he was assigned to a unit which was to leave for Warsaw while Baum Menyhert, separated from his father, was among those to leave for Dachau. Just one glance between the two young men sufficed to make them change places surreptitiously; “I returned while Baum Menyu never got back”.

In Allach, they were attached to the Todt Organization, repairing railroad tracks which the Americans bombed at noon and the English at 3p.m. This work lasted from July-August, 1944 until about three weeks before the end of the war. At this stage, he was again separated from his

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brothers and transferred to Mühldorf as the commander's batman. There he fell ill with spotted fever and found himself among the other gravely ill deportees, of whom 1000 were put into the cattle-carts. By the time they reached the next stop, only 600 were still alive. Twenty-four hours later – only 300 were alive. Dr. Szekely, the chief physician of the Jewish hospital, died alongside him. From here, he went back to Allach on foot where, together with his brothers, he was liberated.

One of his unforgettable memories of the deportation is when one of the kapos, about whom a book was written in England after the war, bearing the title: “Jew Killer” and who, alone, killed ten thousand Jews, announced that whoever ate on Yom Kippur would receive a double portion of food and a bottle of beer! In spite of the tempting offer, not one of them was prepared to give up fasting.

He admits that there were honest Germans as well, for instance: one of the railway guards, daily brought a piece of bread with margarine and jam for Fischer Tibi of Kisvarda who at the time was only thirteen years old.

He points out that although they had no weapons, they did not lack courage. Seeing his father being beaten with a gun by a gendarme, his brother fell upon the guard and slapped him. Of course, his brother paid a very heavy price for this. He was beaten up until his back was covered in blood. The marks of the beating are still visible today.

He weighed a hundred pounds at the time of liberation and a German who “was very fond of me” fed him. He returned home together with his brothers. He got married; they had a child and remained in Ujhely for another two years.

Today he lives in Toronto. He has visited Ujhely twice. The first visit shook him deeply. As befitting a Jew from Ujhely, he first looked for the synagogue and was shocked to find no trace of it left. The Status-quo synagogue was in ruins. “My heart sank… I went to the cemetery and left immediately thereafter”. At that time, Zinner Muki, Weiser Patyu, Uncle Mencsel and Deutsch were in Ujhely.

He visited Ujhely for a second time in 1975 but this time he knew what to expect and that made things easier for him.

In conclusion, he turns to his grandchildren: “Al tishkehu!” don't ever forget! There is nothing that can be added, he believes. Neither American Jewry or, for that matter, anybody else who was not personally involved, can ever be able to fully grasp what the Jews of Europe had undergone. To those who were watching from the side-lines or from overseas, the atrocities and the deportations were somehow remote. They, themselves, were not affected. The figures they saw could just as well

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have been animals in a zoo, rather than human beings.

“We were denied the possibility of pursuing higher studies and the normal conditions of life were totally restricted: all this even before the ghettos were set up. In the ghetto we were confined in our freedom of movement, robbed of our human dignity; our valuables and all our personal belongings were confiscated, everything taken away that belonged to us. I was eye-witness to atrocities in which the gendarmes and the anti-Semitic population beat up and tortured children and elderly people.

“In Auschwitz, I was assigned to heavy forced labour, was beaten up and subsisted on a starvation diet. At the time of the liberation, I was a so-called “moslem” – a term which designated those who were thinned down to an extent where there was nothing left but skin and bones. My parents and sisters were sent to the gas-chambers upon their arrival in Auschwitz. A similar fate befell many of my relatives, my aunts, uncles and cousins and many of my childhood friends. All of them became the victims of the blind and unrestrained hate and inhumanity of the Nazis. Claiming that they were a master race, the Germans deprived us of all our civilian and human rights and committed the most terrible crimes against us”.

“Friedman Aladar, my father and Friedman Zsofia, my both – both of whom I saw for the last time on June 5^th, 1944, the last date I know of their existence: Friedman (Lichter) Lydia, my sister; Mr. Weisz Henrik; my aunt Mrs. Rothbart Gyula; my aunt and uncle, Rothbart Markus and wife; Friedmann Dezso and wife, my aunt and uncle; Friedmann Laszlo, my cousin; Weisz Andor and Rozsi, my cousins; Bardos Jeno, Helen and Ilon, my cousins; Weisz Hermina, Samu, Sanyi,, Laci, Lili, my cousins; Friedmann Ede and Vilma, my aunt and uncle and their children; Rothbart Tibor, my cousin; Weiszberger Marci, Rozsi, Marika, my cousins; and innumerable other relatives and good friends”.

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When on the 15^th October, 1944 Szalasi and the Arrow-Cross leaders came to power; the fate of the Jewish population of Budapest was sealed. The announced aim was annihilation of Jewry. Deportation was only partly successful in view of the proximity of the Russian front. Even those who had forged Christian papers did not always possess the document necessary to prove exemption from military service. However, even in cases when all the necessary papers were available, if somebody looked as if he might be a Jew, a body search and examination were performed. In many cases, the victim was shot dead on the spot.

20^th October. The Arrow-Cross militiamen entered the houses marked with the yellow star, gathered all the men and drove them on foot in the direction of Gödöllo. The march lasted several days during which the military personnel took over the supervision. In the vicinity of Gödöllo, bordering the royal estate, they were ordered to dig anti-tank trenches. The work was not completed, the advance of the Russian army compelling them to withdraw, this time in the direction of Budapest. The march on the highway lasted several days while the rumour spread among the men that the destination was not Budapest but Austria. Jacob Steindler and one of his comrades were responsible for the kitchen equipment loaded on an ox-cart. In the late afternoon of a November dusk, they dimly made out an approaching tram which commuted between Ujpest and Pest. Their plan was obvious. Since the marchers followed the tracks and the tram slowed down on the curve, he jumped onto the moving car without looking around and thanks to the darkness and the overcrowded tram, he reached Budapest undisturbed.

There were no more men left in the house where Jacob lived in Budapest, hence he had to be careful not to be detected by the concierge. This could have proven fatal. Stealthily, he climbed the stairs to the empty apartment. Much unopened mail had accumulated over the weeks and among the papers was a Swiss free pass. Under no circumstances could he stay there in a house marked by the yellow star where he was bound to be detected. He had to get to the Glass House in Vadasz Street where, in the past, he had met the members of the Zionist movement. Avoiding the Arrow-Cross militia raids on the way, he managed to reach the building. A small group was gathered in front. Entrance into the building of the Swiss Embassy was possible only with the permission of a policeman stationed in front.

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After a short while the gate opened, somebody left and Jacob, gathering up all his strength, hurled himself into the building through the half-opened door. He lay on the floor but he was inside! Within seconds, his good friends Micu and Zsoka, the ones who had sent him the free pass, surrounded him. He spent the night in the cellar, joining a crowd of several hundred. (later this figure swelled to 3000). Here he shared the tale of his bitter experiences with his friend Jumy from Ujhely.

During the siege and bombardment of Budapest, the news reaching them from the outside got worse all the time. The Arrow-Cross killings reached a peak. The police raids selected their victims even in front of the Glass House and in spite of the police control, the Arrow-Cross thugs tried to force their way into the building. At the same time, the gendarmes sought to reach the courtyard through the roof. Their aim was clear but the firm stand of the Swiss Consul and his violent protests saved the situation. Within the building, the peoples' health as well as the food supply deteriorated gradually, while the congestion grew worse.

In spite of all this, a modest rescue operation got under way which ultimately saved innumerable lives. Several thousand forged free passes were issued. A “Housing-Allocation Office” was set up and Jacob and his comrades set out, under police escort, to transfer the inhabitants of the houses marked with the yellow start into the “Protected Houses”. The device worked and the “Protected Houses” were relatively safe.

On a December day, they arrived belatedly at a house marked by the star, as usual under police escort as employees of the Swiss Embassy. The majority of the tenants were already lined up to proceed to the ghetto. With a list of names in his hands, Jacob turned to the Arrow-Cross commander requesting release of those on the list since they had been issued free passes. The commander refused to accept the documents and in reply pushed him too into the line. Fortunately a nearby police officer, whose help he summoned, accepted his papers. The commander had no choice but to respect the officer's rank but before releasing him, he hit Jacob over the head with his gun. Fortunately his fur-cap protected him from the heavy blow but for weeks to come, he suffered from dizziness and headaches. Following a week's recuperation, he renewed his work in the office for “Housing-Allocation” and had as many people as possible transferred into the “Protected Houses”.

By mid-December, the city became a battlefield. Mortars and artillery fire caused considerable damage and traffic in the streets came to a virtual standstill. Thus, one afternoon, he was unable to return to Vadasz Street from the office for “House-Allocation” located on Pozsonyi street. He was stuck there with one of his friends and witnessed the bloodbath committed by the Arrow-Cross gangsters on the shores of the Danube.

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Their attempt to save a few persons from certain death succeeded.

During the final week, a German machine-gun position fired from a third-floor window facing the Danube. Because of the air pressure, the window glass broke and they got the full brunt of the freezing cold in mid-winter. Thanks to the kindness of some of the neighbours, they occasionally received a plate of vegetables. At times the building shook under the artillery fire. The street was totally deserted. Each hour seemed like a day – each day like a year. No news reached them but they knew, saw and felt the battle raging around them. At night they saw the bullets fired from both directions.

January 16^th, 1945. It was night. The noise of the gunfire could be heard uninterruptedly and it was impossible to sleep. That night, they had the clear sensation that the moment of liberation was close but they dared not mention it lest the bestial revenge of one of the Arrow-Cross fiends reach them at the last minute, or lest the building collapse before the liberators reached them.

January 17^th, 1945. Morning. In the dawn they could hardly believe their eyes that were burning from the many sleepless hours. Disarmed Hungarian and German soldiers were being led by Russian soldiers armed with machine-guns.

Although I was only born in Ujhely and never lived there, I always considered myself as belonging to that town. My grandparents lived there until the last minute. I should like to pay tribute to their dear memory.

I think everybody in Ujhely knew Uncle Schwartz, my grandfather, from the hospital and my grandmother. They spent the greater part of their lives in the hospital of the Hevra Kaddisha, working hand in hand from dawn to dusk for forty years. When in 1934 they won the first prize in the State Lottery, they donated most of the money to the poor and deprived, to the Hevra Kaddisha and to other charitable causes.

They were God-loving, pious, honest, true Jews. May God grand them eternal peace.

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Josef Klein was a member of a Labour Service unit which was stationed in Ujhely during the ghetto period. He and his comrades arrived in Ujhely during Easter within the framework of the N°101 unit which was attached to the military clothing warehouse. Along the road, they saw the long lines of carts escorted by gendarmes and loaded with old people, women, children and their belongings. They Jews of the neighbouring villages were being driven into the ghetto. When they established contact with them, they heard the tearfully sad stories of how they were assembled and left without sufficient food since it was Passover. They organized the smuggling in of food which they obtained by exchanging sweaters pilfered from the military warehouse, for canned food available from the military food supply unit.

Later, he too was sent to Germany with his unit and there, his commander, at the suggestion of one of his friends nicknamed Flekkes (Spotted), bribed the German commander of the train who ordered it back to Hungary. After an adventurous journey, he finally reached Besztercebanya and from there went up into the mountains where he joined a partisan unit made up of 3000 men, half of them Jewish. They attacked German troops thus acquiring weapons and explosives and were able to blow up trains.

He was born in Ujhely where he grew up and went to heder. At the age of nine, his mother died, his father remarried and moved to Tiszapolgar. Sam spent a few months there but then returned to his grandfather in Ujhely. His grandfather on his mother's side, Chaim Brach, highly respected by Jews and non-Jews alike, was an industrious, honest, pious and good person. Of his fifteen grandchildren, Lipot's four children and Sam, with his two brothers, lived in Ujhely. His grandfather's memory will stay with him as an eternal symbol.

In 1944, he went to Kassa where he filled a post commensurate with

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his upbringing. The seventeen-year old boy was entrusted with a rescue mission considered the greatest Mitzvah, under the direction of the congregation of Kassa. It involved the weekly smuggling of twenty or twenty-five and sometimes even up to thirty Slovakian and Polish Jews across the border under the most secret cover. This rescue mission was particularly dangerous since they had to pass the barracks in Kassa in order to lead the refugees into previously designated houses, from which, that same night, they were smuggled through to Budapest. However, the counter-espionage discovered their activity and of the eight active participants, one was caught. Attempts were made to uncover the whole network and to ascertain who the organizers and participants were.

Sam Frank returned to Ujhely where he had deep family roots. Once, his beloved grandfather took him to the cemetery and showed him a grave dating back to 1700 which could have been that of one of his ancestors.

The transfer into the ghetto started a few weeks after his return from Kassa and he was designated to serve as a messenger in the ghetto. As such, he was authorized to wear a special armband, which afforded him free movement into and out of the ghetto, thus also enabling him to smuggle bread in. Somebody recommended that he go into hiding in a house at the foot of the mountains, in a completely deserted area but his conscience would not let him do so; he did not want to abandon his grandfather. Indeed, he was the only one who accompanied his grandfather in the third transport sent to Auschwitz. While they were being loaded into the cattle-cars, a benevolent police officer by the name of Horvath, aware of the atrocities committed by the Germans, grabbed him by the arm and said to him: “Come my little boy, you are going back with me”.

“This man knew us well. He often visited us in our home and had great respect for my grandfather, but I refused to go with him.

We reached Auschwitz in the early morning of Shavuot after a miserable and long journey. It was still dark. We saw flames bursting forth from the chimneys and smelled the stench. It was here that I was separated from my grandfather who knew of the plan to hide me and deeply regretted that I had gone with him. Nevertheless, it was a very good feeling that we could at least take leave of each other”.

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attempts failed. He went off to Warsaw.

He reached Warsaw after the ghetto revolt had been crushed. The Germans, known for their exemplary orderliness, commanded them to clear the ruins and to load all the whole bricks onto wagons and these were then shipped to Germany. Here he encountered the highest form of sadism. After their hard labour, carried on for endless hours, the SS men led them to the kitchen for lunch at a distance of several kilometres, which each of them had to carry five bricks on his shoulders and this, in both directions! The bricks had to be removed from their shoulders with the greatest care for the duration of the meal. Those who dropped or broke them suffered terrible beatings.

As the Russians approached, they marched to Kutno. Many of them fell ill; dogs were let loose on them; they were shot at and those who wished to quench their thirst by dragging themselves to a river got shot into the river. He reached Dachau in the winter and went from there to Kaufering, occupying Barrack N°4. When his wooden shoes split in two, he wrapped his frozen feet with newspaper. He would have liked to go to the camp hospital to have his feet treated but was dissuaded by Faber Aranka who worked in the kitchen and who occasionally provided them with stolen food. She explained this would have meant certain death for him. Unable to sustain the pain, he went to the hospital nevertheless, but fortunately he was sent back. (“Faber Aranka lives in Vienna. I met her after the war. Faber Smilu lives in Los Angeles”).

A Czech doctor saved him by providing him with some medicine after he contracted typhoid fever. During the last weeks, they subsided only on grass. In the final days and in the meanest possible way, they were put into wagons which were attached to a train filled with German soldiers in order to make sure that they were killed during the constant American bombardments. In fact, hundreds were killed. Anti-aircraft guns were positioned on the train and thus the 30 wagons with the deportees supported the machine-gun fire practically with their own bodies. Since the Germans disappeared during the bombardments, they dragged themselves into a village where they falsely claimed that the German commander had told them to disperse in all directions. But the Germans returned and reassembled them. Sam and some of his colleagues luckily went into hiding. Three hundred people were killed that night and the following day, the survivors were liberated by the Americans. He was carried to St. Ottilien – literally carried because he was too weak to walk. “Another twenty-four or forty-eight hours and I would not have been among the living”.

He spent two months in a sanatorium together with the Güncler boy. The son of the milkman, Dreiser, was also there but he died after the

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liberation.

His brother was hung in mid-winter because they suspected him of having stolen the blanket which he used to protect himself from the cold when reporting for work.

He returned to Ujhely in September, 1945 to find his sister, Brach Lipot, his uncle and Brach Smilu Lipot, his son and his brother-in-law took into their home all those who had no place to go. One Friday night, away from the Russians, the Hungarian police picked them up to dig holes. Noticing that those who only a short while ago wore the Arrow-Cross were now those that were rearmed anew and who were overseeing them, he realized that: “there was no place for the Jews here any longer”.

Reporting from his home in Toronto, he told that Eugene, his uncle's son, lives in Ottawa. Slojme is in New York and Smilu passed away several years ago. However, the Brach family flourishes again. The descendants have record of over one hundred cousins. Occasionally, a member of the family goes to Ujhely to visit the family graves where, as already mentioned, one of their ancestors had been buried in 1700. A local committee has been set up to decide on steps to be taken for the cleaning up of the cemetery.

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