Simon Katz

5/3/2023 | 1h 35m 58sVideo has Closed Captions

Simon Katz, born 1930 in Munkács, Czechoslovakia, shares his story.

As a young teen, he survived deportation to Auschwitz, forced labor at Fürstengrube sub camp, the harrowing Death March, and the hellish conditions of Nordhausen concentration camp.

05/03/2023 | Rating TV-PG

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Simon Katz

5/3/2023 | 1h 35m 58sVideo has Closed Captions

As a young teen, he survived deportation to Auschwitz, forced labor at Fürstengrube sub camp, the harrowing Death March, and the hellish conditions of Nordhausen concentration camp.

05/03/2023 | Rating TV-PG

Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback

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Okay.

So my name is Simon Katz. I was born in 1930 in Munkacs. It used to be, after the war before the first World War first World War, it belonged the region belonged to Hungary Austro-Hungarian monarchy-- empire. So then as the war started and after Hungarian were the losers, so they divided pieces by pieces they took took away from the Hungary. Czechs took away our region.

We became Czech till 19-- Czechoslovakia until 1938. My family?

We had my father. We had a few. My father handled with a animals. Cows, cattle, cattle yes. Yes.

He was very good at that. And besides, we had a few acres of field. What my mother sold slowly as every year, more and more, because he was every every two, three years he was in the army. He was in the army in Czech, Czech army. He was a chef in the kitchen. So then came the Hungarians. Again, it was the same thing. In 1936, I went to the first grade. Czech.

Czech. And in the second also. Then it and we had the town, Munkacs, had approximately 30-35,000 people.

Half them were Jews. Half gentiles. Was quite very good.

Was life was as I remember I was wasn't we didn't know about anti-Semitism things like that. It was quite good. Maybe it was. But as I remember that time as soon the whole the whole city city was oriented on the Jews, because when it came Friday an hour and a half before the light, before Shabbes, we had alarm. It means an hour left. So stores have to be closed. Every store. The gentiles and the Jews. Everything was. Then the second alarm the second after that.

A half hour after the first one. We had another.

So everything had to be closed. Police checked. If you are open even the store, you're open you got the ticket. So that's how it was that time. No cars.

Okay, that time we had very few cars, no wagon, no nothing could move through the town. Everything was quiet. Shabbes, that's it. Beside that, we had a cheder every morning, every morning.

4:00 my father woke us up. We had cattle.

So we have, we had he had eight kids alive, One died.

We had nine. But one died when it was born. We have eight kids, so the boys have to work.

In the morning, you get up, you go in the in in the barn, feed the feed the cows. We had 10, 12 cows.

Every week.

It depends how much he bought and sold.

You feed them and even start to milk. Milk. I was the oldest one among the boys. The girls, they didn't do nothing outside, just inside. My mother sent that picture in 1943 or 1942 to him in the working battalion where he worked. So then you go to cheder. You came back. I mean, it was closed. You came back and everything goes fast. You have something to eat then you go to school, 'til 12:00. 12:00, you go home.

You ate whatever they give you lunch, and you go back to cheder til 6:00.

6:00, the adults, they go for Shak---Ma'ariv.

For 2 hours. The rabbi goes also.

You go home, eat something you came back in again 'til 9:00. So that goes on day by day, except Shabbes and Holy Days. That's how it was before. The town was divided. We had a river going through the town. One side lived people like me, who lived among gentiles also, all kind of people. But we, they kept everything just almost like the Orthodox. But we didn't have those beketche or shtreimel. that big, simple, simple. But my father prayed every morning. Tallis and Tfillin.

Why? I remember why. Because when you were young you wanna sleep in the morning especially. And he was, you know, get up, get up, get up and no no no no no.

And he prays and all the time. And you were waiting for a minute more, a minute more.

And when it came to Shemoneh Esreh you have to stay and you cannot talk. And we were waiting until he got to that. We knew that we gonna have 3 minutes after that, sure we have to get up.

You get up. You dress one, two, three, and you go feed the cows. I had friends. Hungarian kid. When I came back, he gave me he got me that picture. We played, okay. We were kids but we still find a way when to play. How do you play? In summer, you have to clean up those cows. So the river is half a mile from our house. You go with the cows, you led them in the water. You ride them, you wash them but you play around. We find a way how to play. We didn't have soccer ball because it was very expensive toys. I don't remember our parents buying toys. We had food enough, but other people didn't have that food also. But still, life was, as I remember nice. Beautiful because for at least for us because you had what to eat and a lot of kids didn't have that. You had milk we had everything, things like that. Besides, we didn't have my-- because my father was almost every two years in the army, nobody was working on the fields. So what my mother did is she rented out. And when fall came then they bring you in hay, they bring you in potatoes, they bring you in everything what grows.

So that's that's how so we had everything what to eat.

Everybody had a a cellar. You keep the potatoes. It was six, seven months.

Not like those. They were good.

You have you had everybody had a little garden.

You had over there apple, you have pears, plums whatever it grows you so we weren't hungry.

We had what to eat. First of all, before, you couldn't hear, kids, ah Jew stinking Jew, things like that, üös zsidó wasn't there before. They didn't touch us because we fought back. We were, we were, we didn't have the payes.

We were lived among them so we learned how to fight. They were afraid of us because we were a few kids who were really bad kids. But those kids who got with those payes, then they pulled those payes, they made fun of those and things like that. But wasn't still it wasn't that the adults didn't do that first. But later on it started. 1939, 40. Suddenly all of those newspapers [names of papers] and every paper you got more more of those articles against the Jews.

Every time every year. I knew, I knew that because I like to read. In our house, in front, there was a barber shop. And he got every week new papers. And I like it. I always went in when I had time. I like to read. And everything was about the Jews. It went on then then suddenly you have in the stores in 1939 new new law.

Jews cannot have a store. You can be the owner 49 percent, the gentile has to be 51. Otherwise, you cannot have this store. You cannot have a vineyard because the town around the town, you have those little mountains and everybody had not everybody, a lot of people had vineyard. A vineyard like for growing grapes, grapes, and Saturday, Saturday you go out and you rest, Sunday, you even sell the vine if you have people came out and did every every Sunday was like this. And they have they have in those mountains they make tunnels and they have their own cellar. So it wasn't big. Ten acres, 12 acres. But other people had it. You couldn't have it. They took it away. That's what I know, what I knew. I was already ten years old.

Suddenly, there came a new law.

People who didn't have Hungarian citizenship -- and a lot of people didn't have that because they came from Poland, from Galicia, as they called at that time Ukraine. They didn't have. So they took them away. They took them away. And there were a lot of those people. We had those Hassidim also from Belzer, I think, Belzer we called they called that. Okay, our Hassidim didn't like them. They fought always. They fought as usually, but they took them also away. I don't know what happen to them but in six months after that, they took us away. First of all, they took every man from I think from 18 'til 55.

Some of them were still in the army, they let them go.

They gave them shovels and they organized those what they called it working battalions. Some of them went to Ukraine digging the trenches, against the the Russian tanks. Some of them went inside deep into Hungary. Like my father. They were more luckier because those people died over there in Ukraine, a lot of them. But they still were better off than we. Then they took us.

So at home, there were women and children left and old people. That's it. There was no men. No healthy males at home. They gave us 24 hours to pack everything. They're going to take us to Hortobágy.

There's a place in Hungary. Nothing grows there. So they say they are going to build us a city for the Jews. People are very naive. They believed everything. So they took us away. Took us away in those railroad wagons. They were closed. They have the little window and that people -- kids. So it wasn't it was something I don't know, but so my father somehow find out that the railroad is going to stop in övetség. He came with two Hungarian officers. Opened the thing, the door and he brought some bread and a pail of soup.

And so and then they left. He must have bribe bribed them. because officers they gave-- When you are in the kitchen you can make money. They somehow-- I never asked him but I know my father, he was good at those things. We were four brothers and four girls. My sister was the oldest. She was 16. Beautiful, strong girl. But, so then they put us back in that wagon. My father had, gives put those things and also a little bottle. Why I'm telling you, because maybe that saved my life. I don't know.

So a little bottle they called it in Hungarian sós borszes.

It's something it's they used it if somebody get sick or he lost his mind, his conscious they put under his nose and then you came alive. Some, some kind of liquor I don't know.

Something of alcohol I don't know what it is. They call it sós borszes. Sós means salty szes means alcohol. I wasn't in that, wasn't warm. Kids, women, they were crying and so I was sitting in a corner. I didn't care too much. You were a lump somehow. I smelled it and smelled it it, smelled it. I remember at one thinking. My grandfather looked out on the window. He said, no, they're not going to take us to Hungary. We're going to Poland. He knew because he was five years in the Russian in the First World War he was a prisoner over there. So he knew.

He knew. So we came to Auschwitz. We came to Auschwitz. You already can imagine how what situation was there. There was a lot of kids and women.

We came down and people were moving.

Thousands and thousands of people ahead.

And there, prisoners, old prisoners, they were helping the Germans to manage the crowd from both sides. They had also the sticks and, ahead, go ahead, ahead.

And you had to throw everything down, nothing. I had my suitcase. My mother prepare ahead, from home but we took, why. And they yelled, put down everything and I didn't want because I think I smelled a few times and I was already a little bit not, I didn't want to put it down. My mother yelled at me. I remember what she said because I never cried. Somehow I cried that she said, I am telling you the last time, put that down. So I, in a minute, the crowd went, so many people, they disappeared. I never saw them anymore. I never saw them anymore. I put it down because I saw how they beat people who didn't put down. I had my father's new costume I had his jacket on me. They try to see everything. So I looked pretty big, I think. So then one guy, one of those prisoners, the old one, come here. How old are you? And I said 14. I wasn't 14 even, 13. Three months, almost. Almost 14. He said, don't say that. Say you are 16. So I didn't have time to think about that.

The pushed crowd in front went, ahead, ahead. And there was the Mengele.

Mengele. He didn't even ask me how old I am. I think he asked or I forgot a lot of things. He just moved like this. Right, left, right, left, left. I saw over there, people standing in the line and in here, there were people old, they couldn't move. They were sitting there waiting, waiting for something and and they moved ahead. So they went straight to the crematorium. I didn't know that at the time. I saw those those people they were sitting And I thought, I am I was tired also.

One of those guards they saw that I was sent there. He just kicked me. So I realized I have to go there. There was standing adults, people were on the line. I was standing also on the line. So we are standing. It was already night.

But it finally it came in.

Huge salle. You have a ton of those a mountain of hair. There was a mountain of shoes and there was papers, everything.

You had to dress up. Everything naked, naked. They took everything away. So finally it came them, they put the tattoos on our hand.

In the morning, we came out we didn't recognize nobody, each other. We had we got those striped clothes, everything. We got the tattoos.

And that's it.

In the morning, we already knew where our parents are. So we knew what's going on. We were not assigned yet. to blocks. We were just a lot of blocks. You went whatever block you want.

But, we already talk to each other the old prisoners.

They told us, if you can as soon as they gonna take some to work, go from here. Stay away from here.

Just disappear. So, I was all by myself. I knew my mother is gone with the kids.

I thought my sister maybe, because she was a tall girl and a strong one, I thought she is going to be also, but I later I realized that it's impossible because I know my mother had those little kids, as you can see. She might have take two, one kids and if you have a kid, you gonna go with the kids. We were standing for hours. They came they need 25 or 30 people. So we jumped on the truck. ürstengrube we supplied Auschwitz and the whole region with coals.

It was a coal mine. The first thing when I came, I was beaten. I I I was beaten. But no not, it wasn't. It didn't hurt.

I didn't know why. We were standing before we saw the camp. Ten feet fence. All around.

Over the fence you have those wires.

Everything. But we are standing.

I don't know why we were standing approximately an hour. Then came a guy, a prisoner, not a German, a prisoner. He was a kapo or something. I didn't know that why. He just hit me like this. I fell right away.

It didn't hurt, just somehow my balance went I went up and again and again. So then came over another one. And he asked me, a Polish Jew. He asked me, you know why? Never, never put your hand in your pocket. And I had my hand in my pocket. What did I know? I was standing like like the rest. So that's but nothing nothing.

That's it. It didn't hurt.

Nothing, absolute. The old prisoners they were locked down. Usually, when newcomers came they didn't let them communicate with all of us. We came in. And the next day you got those wooden boots. We called it Holland papucs. Papucs means when you put down at home, something where you you take off your shoes, you're not going to ruin slippers. But the wooden one was one piece. You put your feet in, you cannot bend your feet.

You just have to pull, or push your feet and don't bend because you bend a lot and you gonna have blood all over you And we were in those boots for a week.

Every day they taught us those how to march those languages.

[foreign words] march [foreign words] just like a military day by day for a few days. And they beat every day, every day were beaten for something.

The smallest thing, you got beaten. They broke us a little. A lot of people people didn't know how to they were always blood full of them. But we learned.

Boys, we learned fast. But you don't have to bend. You just hold your feet straight. And you pull your feet in and just that's how you walk. And so we handled.

For us it was a game. Well, everything was a game.

A bad game, but a game. That's how we went. The first two days they took us, a few of those. They took us in the mine. But for two or three days.

Not more. Then they decide that they needed [foreign word]. some of us we went.

We worked on construction. And the rest we work for the mine. So what we did, what did we do? We had a knife, a two-handled knife. You peeled from the trees, the bark. They cut those things and they use it in the mine when you take out the coals you have to put back otherwise it cave in and everything. So we did that. So and one of those days, they asked for somebody who can take who can handle horses.

We had horses. Sure enough I was lucky.

So I got the job. It was heaven for me. That people worked and I didn't. First of all, I had to go everyday to the to the kitchen and I got those beets. There are beets. They are, they used to make sugar of it. They are sweet.

Sugar beets I think. That's how they call it. We call it cukorrépa in Hungarian, the name of it.

You eat it.

It is, it's it's it's sweet. They made it soup for the people. For the horses we got those just dry.

Every day a few of we had hay for them and that's what I ate. Because I had, I got my my portion anyway.

But the rest what the guys get everybody got the same portion. Even the adults who that high and even the kids so we were better off to survive than they because your body is much smaller and you don't work as as you was much easier to move like this. So the first few months were the most critical. If you survived the first two, three, four months you have a chance to stay alive. But the most of the people died even at third, three, four months the first month. Especially the Hungarians. And beside there was a little animosity between the Hungarians and the Polish Jews. We had all kinds of people.

We had Greek, also Jewish kids. They didn't know they are Jewish. You, ask them, who are you? In broken German.

They say, Greco, Greco. I was in a bunk bed on the top and I heard the kid is some kind some I heard a few words, Hebrew. Very, very familiar. I asked him, who are you? He said, Greco. Greco.

Greco. And then I went closer, I heard he was davening, praying the Shemoneh Esrei. I said, you're Jewish. He said, no, Greco. He didn't even know what Jew means. Okay. Now we had French there were all kinds of people. Hungarians, Yugoslavs.

Romanian and Hungarian. But they the most who suffer or who die sooner were the Hungarians or the people who were sophisticated. They had a good life at home. They most educated. We were used to work at home.

You work every day and and besides the people from our region, they most of those people they worked in the fields they were not that well-educated but they were better to survive. So we worked. I worked with those horses for maybe a month and a half or two. I was lucky, and then my luck turned upside down. I had an idea to, I cleaned them every day and I feed them.

It came summer, it was warm. I decided to wash them up. I took them out from the stable and sure enough, he got on his hind leg. He picked me up and I let him go. They are not, I used to our horses were working every day. They very happy they can stand on their feet. And those guys, they were young ones. So in short, they run around inside in the camp. And I was afraid that, God forbid, they gonna touch the the wire. They gonna die.

They gonna kill me. So finally somebody called them. I lost my job. So they put me to work with that thing. We called it hals commando. There was one commando who cut one commando who who cleaned the bark. So we're about most we're all kids I mean starting by 15 up to 18. And no adults. We had one Polack We had one Polack Vorarbeiter.

There is there is a few people who who we consider them allied in the camp.

Electrician. They were well-fed.

You could see their faces were so smooth, you could see this. Tailor. Two of those do work for the SS.

They make their uniform to fit, things like that and you have barber.

We had to have our hair--we have no hair. We had to be shaved every, every, every. We had to be clean.

You have to give them credit. This camp was very clean. You had to be clean. The miners, when they came out from the mine, they go to the bathroom they take off their shirt. You have a jacket and a trousers.

That's it. You leave it there, and you wash yourself. Fast. Everything has to be fast and time. And run naked, summer or winter naked, you run in the block.

There you have on your bed, everybody is assigned a bunk. There are three layers and there is your number. That's 83224, bed numbers you have over there. You put that blanket you have a blanket, you have a pillow. Pillow is made from wooden things like like like straw, thin. It was a square. It was hard, but it was still a pillow. When you get up, you have to put nicely everything, tip-top. It has to be like. I paid the price because Mommy wasn't there to make it nicely.

So I got again beaten. But also I later was thinking I was still lucky because they had still mercy on me.

Because they had there is cable inside wire and when you smash you feel that. They used to beat people. There was a special table, We call it bok.

You put your feet in a box. You lie down, your skin is tight. They lock your hand over there. And you got some of those people got 15, 20. Some of them they got 25. But but you know, they don't survive that very few people. You came back we had a block everybody is assigned as I said. Everybody has a number on it. You came back from work and you didn't make your bed as exactly as supposed to because he stays, he stands in front and he looks you can see if there something is out of line. That's it. Puts your number down.

You came home from work. 83224 step out. I step out. So I get three of mine, so I didn't have to, I just have to bend.

That's it. The first one I got, I fell on my knees. The second I thought, that's it. And the third one. But it wasn't that that much. It wasn't that in comparison what the rest the people get that's nothing. Okay, if you get strong one, you're not gonna sit on your ass for two months. But that was okay.

It was hurt but you learned how to do it. The next day I got up earlier than I supposed to. But I made that bed as supposed to be. I said, okay.

That's done.

I wasn't beaten any more. No, never. Not by a German and not by a prisoner. Usually we were beaten, by the prisoners.

Because they were Germans also. Everybody had different sign. The Jews had Star of David. Yellow and red. The triangles. The triangles, yellow and red. The criminals, the Germans, they had green triangle with a with a sharp edge S [foreign word] criminals. Then you had over there those um how you call them here LGBT.

You have French, you have all kind. They were good people.

Good people, some were very good.

Even among the Germans, you had you had priests also.

German priests. They were good people.

You had Polish Polacks, the Christians, they had P for Poland. Every everyone had this, you had no name. You had your number.

You are number. That's it. So life went on. I worked in that with those things, with the rest of the kids. They get some more, all of them, most of them, they were from our region and also Yiddish-speaking kids. It goes like this. You have a Vorarbeiter.

He got the yellow band. He got 20 people.

He is responsible for the job. When we outside of the camp we work, we usually always outside of the camp we work in those constructions they bring you the soup in daytime for 20 people or for 30, depends on how many people. And he divides for the he is giving out for the kids, those I don't how they call it they call it [foreign word] in German. It's a bag, for 20 people you have for 20 people.

For 30 there is bigger one. That's in in daytime. You got those soups but this when you have those soups you can you supposed to mix it, because the heavy thing moves down, the cabbage or or whatever they give you cabbage or those those beets. And you have just water if you get from the top. Oh, he was a Polack.

I don't know how old he was because people you don't know how old because they all look, just quite skinny. I think he was maybe maybe a 30 years old.

He was tall. At least to me he looks tall. And every day he besides what he got he got double everything. And besides he didn't give everybody a full you supposed to get a liter of those soup. Every little bit every little bit counts, at least even if its water, you feel something in your stomach. And every day you get less from everybody a little bit.

And beside that, he didn't give every bit.

He changed, now it's your turn, you just get half.

And it goes on for days, And one of those days it came to my to my turn. Sure enough, I complained. I told him, listen, you not going to get nothing. And he didn't give me nothing. He didn't give. And here, one day if you don't eat, the next day you already weaker and weaker.

It's easy to go down. It goes like fast.

Very fast. Especially if you get beaten. So today tomorrow you're not going to be able to do that, the job. The second day again it looks like either I said something but I saw, he is going to finish me. And the kids, they're all complaining but between themselves. They said, we have to go to the Lageälteste and complain.

Lageälteste is also a prisoner, usually a German.

But he is over the prisoner.

He is the God over there.

And there is a Lagarfuhrer.

He is over the SS.

That is different.

But Lagerfuhrer, Lageälteste, who is gonna complain? You can be killed if something he doesn't like he is going to beat even more.

You going to get on that bok. Then you gonna -- nobody wants to go. But we said.

We had a talk between us.

Who's gonna go.

Nobody wants. Everybody is afraid.

I saw, I'm the second day and I didn't eat as I was supposed. I thought, it can't be worst. When we came home. I went home. Home, I call it home, we came to the camp back. I got the rest. I cleaned up because you had to be over there clean and always. Everything had to be buttoned. Your your hat has to be, everything. We got those little margarine in the morning. on bread.

I put on my shoes they going to be a little bit because I know if I not going to be dressed and he is going to find something on me, trouble. So I knew a little bit German at that time. I, he got an office. I, I, I beat on the door and I got the command, [foreign word] so I am allow to came in.

I came in.

I stand three, three meters before him and I reported the number, ask permission to report. Go ahead.

So I reported. we work there, I told him, we work in that place and we do our work every day. But now we cannot, I cannot do it because I didn't eat.

He took away my food, blah blah blah That's what I told him, in short, Vorarbeiter I told him.

I was waiting for what he's gonna do.

One word and I'm finished. But I have no. I had no I had no way out. But he said, you ready? You can go. I turn as I supposed to be.

I make three, three steps as suppose to, I close the door. Two hours we had appell. Appell means every, roll like a roll call. Everybody has his place.

When there is a gong. Everybody has to be in 5 minutes standing in your place. And I saw we came out on our place. I saw the bok was standing. I thought, my God, I'm going to get beaten. But then I saw, he came out also the Lager.

The Kapo. Kapo is more than a Lager, uh Vorarbeiter. Vorarbeiter has 20 people. Kapo commands four, five Vorarbeiters. He divides, but he oversees all of them. He calls up his name the Vorarbeiter's his number. He steps out. Then he calls up our command.

Our 20 people. They put him on that thing on that, the bok and he told us each of us to beat him once.

One. Sure enough, we didn't we didn't beat him as supposed to. But they yelled at us so we beat him, everybody. But even, even beat him so light. They took down his band and put it on my hand. You can imagine I was happy. Sure, I was happy but, I don't know. I don't know what. Somehow, I didn't feel very good. I was happy yeah, but I didn't feel very good because I didn't know what's going to happen after that. Well, the next day I was the Vorarbeiter. We went out and we went, the kids, we did we did our like before. We did even faster because we had rest. So one was always lookout if somebody came over so we supposed to work. We don't supposed to stay.

There is no such a thing. So we always left two, three pieces so we'll have what to do. So we went on for a month or two. But I had a double double what to eat.

I mixed it as supposed to be because otherwise they would, they would, they would eat me up. So and I know how that feel. So besides, always, no matter how you, you can always put your hand go around, you can always have half a liter, a liter. It's a lot.

It's a lot because can you imagine my weight and his weight, an adult's. But I had always a little bit more than than the rest. So it went on for a little time. It was it wasn't bad, it was good for, at least for us. And then this ended. It came winter and they didn't have enough people to work on the bricklayers.

In winter, people doesn't like brick because the the mortar, as they call it, it freezes. But we had enough coals, and we had those they call it [foreign word]. It's it's like a barrel, but it's instead of having a wall around it, it's open.

You just have the metal things around. So it was, you threw in your coals and every around you five, three or four meters you gonna feel warm. So they had those and they put it up where they lie where lying the bricks so they're not gonna freeze.

They gonna dry.

When it's dry, nothing gonna happen. Otherwise, when summer came then that's it. And I was I was working in the beginning. So how we do? How we did it. There was brick layer, he was just standing in line to brick straight. You have to know how to do that. We were making the mortar.

I was happy that my father wasn't there because I knew I knew he wouldn't survive because I saw my friends. I had kids from my same the same even place where I was. It was a father and two kids. The adults, they were so hungry and the kids feed the father. I saw how they shared with their father. He eats his soup and he took from his kids. Even he didn't want to, but he was so hungry. I saw once or twice or three times, all kinds of fathers with sons. I saw the kids shared and I was happy that I didn't have to share. All I had to do was take care of myself. There was a kid over there, I don't know, Hungarian, I think he was. The kid speak three languages, French, Italian and English. He must be. Maybe he was diabetes. At that time, we didn't know what diabetes is, but he was so hungry. He went on his knees and he was asking from us. I got the same food as you. And people hated those.

How do you ask when I have the same thing? But they are newcomer. He didn't know.

He was, he couldn't handle it. I could handle the hunger. He couldn't handle the hunger. They beat him.

He went to the other one. And asked.

Okay. Sure enough didn't last long, for two, three weeks. I had a friend.

A friend I was with his brother. In same school.

[name] was his name They had a bakery. He was older than me. I saw the kid dying day by day. At that time, if you were not buckled up as suppose to be, you didn't have, you had to be always in that camp always clean and nice. They call those guys when you go down you call them Muselmann. It's a slang in that in the camp. Muselmann means not a Muslim. You are gonna to die. You gonna see everyday these, they came out. And I asked the kid, I have soup enough I, I, I cried for him I begged him, eat, eat. So it looks like he was depressed. He was smart already. He knew what the situation is. I didn't know. I know I have to survive and I had to eat and I had to do this. And I had to look where to get more or that. So that's that. That's what keep me going. Even I was looking at those kids with their fathers, I was always happy that I don't have my father here. Then we had to march day and night, day and night. There were a lot of people that were shot because they couldn't go go anymore. There was no, there wasn't you had no... You couldn't move anymore because you were. The the SS even they couldn't. It was hard for them to go. They get thousand and thousands of people from all those subcamps They were in the one colony. The colony went ahead.

You always hear [gun sounds] You were behind, they shoot them.

You can't move. They put us on a wagon on open railroad wagon, open without a roof. In fact, I couldn't get up because it was that high, there were already dead. You couldn't walk anymore. So somebody looks like I was hit. I blacked out. I was just woke up with people are lying on me or already there were a lot of people inside. In short, slowly by slowly people start to die. So we put them one over another.

We took out their blanket. And the fourth or the fifth days we already had... we could lie down. It was good. We didn't get eat, feed for eight or nine days. But it wasn't that bad. The worst was the hunger. The thirst.

The thirst, not the hunger. Always I thought, when I am going to came home, I am going to go in that river and I am gonna drink, drink and drink and drink. So we were lying there for eight or nine days. It was enough room already because they were frozen where we put them nicely because they didn't let us throw it out from the wagon because every wagon had an SS outside here. A little place where he stayed there. He shoot inside if you threw somebody out. So finally we came to Dora Nordhausen. Huge camp. They took us down from there on stretchers because we couldn't walk anymore.

Stretchers. They put us in the washroom. People start to drink. So they put hot and cold water, cold water, hot water so you wouldn't be able to drink. And that's when people start to die because they got diarrhea. They put us in a huge [room]. It's supposed to be like a [kilometer] something like this. So we're on the full floor lying on the on the ground and you can imagine people have the diarrhea. What was going on there I think that was the worst. At least for me.

You couldn't go in toilet because everything was people were dead.

But we're alive there and nothing was good. You laid there.

They tried to bring in food. Potatoes. Two potatoes for people. But, it's impossible.

People didn't stay in line. They're like like animals they are running and they beating so I got beaten also also.

I got once on my back.

I didn't even try to get to that food. I went back to lie down. In the morning they woke us up every day and we had to go out and stay out. People who cannot, couldn't stay, who left who were lying, they picked them up threw them on a wagon on a huge wagon there.

And they put them on, you see. There is moving a leg, there's a hand. People were alive but they were already, they couldn't get out. We were standing.

That was the hardest thing was to stay 5 or 10 minutes. You were holding onto the wall so you don't want to fall down because when you fall down they put you on a wagon and took you away. So that was for 4 or 5 days. Finally they took us from there. They cleaned up everything. They assigned us to a block. We were so we were sitting there, lying there.

They would feeding us. Three times a day. They just put down the food.

And we ate. And we didn't have to work for the 3, 4 weeks. And we came we came back to life slowly, slowly. So it was heaven. There was a huge granite mountain that they made to tunnels.

There were tunnels made. Thousands and thousands of people died before us who build this. And so we went we were they had to put something in food because we were so numb.

So I remember nothing interesting. You work, go, work. Every little thing you did something wrong, they hanged you. Was hanging every day, people every day. And so, I worked in a in a in a like a warehouse. I was giving tools. They made they made those rockets they used to send to London. Fow one, fow two. They call it fow.

Is w. But they call it the German call it fow one fow two to London. It's a huge rocket. Ten, twelve people used to carry it out from the empty shell. And they, some place they they they put it together.

But we did everybody did some kind of a job.

You couldn't go inside. Every minute where you, you were checked. You go in toilet you had to be minute by minute, back. I couldn't see what's going on in the next the next shop. So I just give it.

I had boss. I think he was also something a forced laborer. He wasn't a prisoner. A good guy. He didn't talk much. He just showed me how to, where the tools, what the name of it and I learned fast and in German what was the name of it. You put everything when you get it and you get it out when they came.

We worked there for four, five weeks and then they find they were looking every time, the airplanes.

They were looking for that place. They knew where there was something, but they couldn't find it because when you go in that thing, in that tunnels, if they see a airplane, suddenly it came a gate came down with little trees on it. So it's masked You cannot see from what is this.

But they find it anyway because they saw the railroads go to the mountains and stopped there. It was a huge place, so, short, in a few days we knew already either you gonna to kill us or we gonna be free. They give us a something salt. Salt.

A conserve. A conserve. Some horse meat I think was it.

It was salted, and bread.

And we went in in and I had already I knew already I had experience how to do it. I went inside.

I threw that away, that meat. I put in that can, water. I sit in the corner because I don't know I didn't know how far we gonna go. You sit down in a corner because I am gonna be my back is gonna be secured from two sides. I just have to fight from front. But what happens? You eat.

I ate the bread, I drink water. And I took another water and I put it behind me. And people eat that meat. And it was one and it started. They were looking, water, water. And it's dark. You go, somebody is looking for you. You just put your finger in their eyes and pushed them away because everyone.

I was fine. I had finally I had finished my water also. And that's it. And fine. Three days after that, we came to Bergen-Belsen. Bergen-Belsen. The next day we heard already those the war was close. In the morning you saw a white flag they picked up and the SS start to move one by one. So that's that's it. Then we start. Can you imagine. Then you hear "Hurrah, hurrah" from far.

You go out, you look, you see two Germans officers carrying one of the our prisoners, dead one, almost dead. And the British, after them with the rifles and they went. And then we have those cars coming and every microphone in every language they say, you are free, blah, blah, blah, in Polish and Yiddish and Hungarian and Russian all kind of languages. So don't don't break in in the kitchens because it can be poisoned, things like that. We gonna feed you. You are free and we gonna help you to get home, things like that. You can imagine "hurrah hurrah," you see and right away you see, there is one dead. There is one below the head. There is one. So people took retaliated those guys who tortured them, those kapos and all kind. We had an an [foreign word] a German. He was sentenced for 20 years. He was beside, he was a he was a criminal, he was also a fascist. He always yelled, We will not [in German] We will [in German] He killed every day one or two people in the mine with a shovel.

He was a kapo. They caught him. They put a stick in his mouth all the way his stomach. So they cleaned cleaned his fingernails with a knife. Cut it.

So for about four, five hours they tortured him until they killed him.

And then all kinds of things. But that was the first thing that people did. All kinds of thousands and thousands of people. I was looking around, and I passed out. I don't know for how long, but I I woke up on the floor and I was looking for the for the kids. I find them, those my friends who were in the camp.

And we start to venture went out. We had already all kind of some of them had grenades other of them had pistolettes.

I had a little Browning. So we went free. You go out. You cannot imagine that feeling. You see trees, grass. Free, everything. You have to go through to feel that.

You cannot imagine. You go and you always look right or left because we used to with SS and the dogs. For two weeks you couldn't you couldn't do without looking your right or left because you were always waiting to he is gonna to [foreign word] you. We went from one village or another one. Usually, we were aware that we have Germans maybe in the woods. They were all around. We knew that we have to be aware maybe they had guns, but we had also. But nothing happened. When we were liberated we had three or four kids who had been through the whole thing and we were we became friends over there.

We helped each other. Most of the time I helped them because I was always, I don't know, I didn't I wasn't smart. I just was lucky. I was lucky. And they said, why are you going home? I said, listen, we had decided we are going to go either to Israel to camp against to build the country or to the United States. We didn't know where we gonna go. So I said, listen, guys, I go home.

I know my father. I wanna to see.

I have to go home. I have to see. I have to see.

I have to go. I'll came back. They said, where you going? You have nobody.

You have no mother, no father, no house, nothing.

What are you going there?

And a lot of people, that's how they thought. They didn't care about the houses, nothing. Fields, no.

Absolute nothing.

Let's go. We are young--16, 17, 18 years. Let's go. I said, no.

I want to go. I went. I jumped on a train.

I-- First they took us to Plze because I said, we are Czech. I didn't know that there's, Russians are there. I didn't know. So they take us to Plze .

They fed us, the British. To Plze I saw there the Russians were there also.

Okay. In short, somehow I find over there a woman, she came over. She, I think she is Jewish. She was Jewish. She too me to a bakery, and they gave me a bread but she said, don't speak Hungarian, don't speak Hungarian. So because they didn't like the Czechs, Hungarians.

They always fought. So then she disappeared and I was among people going there. People are moving back and forth.

The whole world was moving. You go you go to a station, you don't know where, you don't know where to ask, how to ask. Finally, I knew where that station goes somebody told me it goes to the Hungary. Hungary, that means Budapest. So we went. I came to Budapest. We were over there a little bit organized already. There was the joint or what, I don't know. But they put us in a school called the [name] and they fed us over there. Now, I have to go home. I know, how do I know where Munkacs is? I didn't know where Munkacs is. I asked one. Nobody, everbody moves. The whole thing was moving around. Finally, somehow, they told me there is a train. Jump on that train. I jumped on that train. And I know one thing. We have a castle in our town. You can see the castle from ten miles.

I was always looking to the window. I thought maybe that train is not going to stop, that if I saw those castles I know I am already in Munkacs. I jumped on the train and that's it. That's what happened. I saw from far. Really. Maybe the train would stop in Munkacs. I didn't know it. I just jumped and I went another five miles or so. I jumped.

Yeah. I went straight with the rails.

I came to a station, and there is a guy in police. They call it militzia.

The guy worked for us before. We went together we cleaned the cows. He saw, he was in uniform. He saw me. Okay he didn't he confused my name and my brother's name.

He said, Itzu, that's you. Yeah, I said.

Yeah.

Come, your father is home. He took me first to the militzia. and they gave me a papers. He took me home.

Sure enough, my father was home. I see my father. And he's not in my in our house. He's across the street. I said, why?

I was bright. I said, why?

Why do you let them, the Hungarians, in our house? You can do nothing don't worry. They gonna go out in a week. Why in a week? In my house, somebody. So I I had that gun. He took it right away from me. So you were angry when you got home. What? You were angry.

Sure. Because now in my house, and my father is not in my house. I said, why did you let them? He said, There is a law.

They're gonna take out Hungarians. No, he is not Hungarian. She is Hungarian.

He is their routine. Routine. So what was your father like? Did you cry when you saw each other?

Was it emotional? No.

No, no. My father is like this.

He is a good guy, but my father, I suppose, thinking back, I understand him. He is a survivor. He he lost a wife and kids and he was already looking for for another woman.

His is a survivor. It's not, I don't blame him. And at that time, I wasn't jealous. But it hurt me. It hurt me because when he brought a woman home and and she was she was trying to hold me. I mean, I couldn't do what I want in my house? I didn't understand that she is young. She is 23 years younger than him. The girls came home from the camp. They have nobody to marry. So and there were a few older guys. They all married the young girls. Did your father ever ask you what happened to you during the war?

Never. Never. My father and he didn't tell me even what happened to him. Did you have time to even grieve for your mother? Your brothers and sisters? No.

No.

I was the first first time I was thinking, then I remember I just fell down. I didn't anymore think of them.

Not since then. Never. Never. And somehow life was so busy that people didn't have nothing. People were looking for fats.

People were looking for cigarettes. People were looking for food. We had, my father had all everything already. He was already managing. He was already having a partner. They opened a sausage shop, they opened butcher store. He was already.

I said, listen I want to move away. I left my best friends. He said, why? Stay, stay. I am also gonna to go. But first we gonna make a little money.

Then we go. And and I stayed.

But at that time you could still leave.

Leave. But later on he somehow didn't ask me and I don't remember even. Okay, they feed me.

I ate. The girls came home. They didn't go back go back to the villages where they are because nobody there. No, no parents, nothing, no house. They came to the town, to Munkacs. Munkacs was a city, but you had opportunity. There everybody gathered in Munkacs. The joint I think was there. So they opened a they call it a [foreign word] where they made clothes, things like that. The girls, they worked there and they find them a place where they were sleeping there. Slowly, slowly they married.

They came home and they married people. Some of them stayed, some of them, but most of them moved.

Moved away. But my father didn't let me.

He said, stay, stay and I was staying because I am used to listen to the parents. We were brought up in this way.

Parents are parents. And you have to respect them and things like that. So did you ever tell them what happened to you during the Holocaust? No.

My granddaughters, sometimes they ask, so I tell them, tell them as little as possible.

Why? Because they wouldn't they, they wouldn't understand. And not just him. I tell nobody I didn't. Because people sometimes didn't, won't believe that. People don't believe what you went through. You, you couldn't tell, He's not going to believe you. And especially, I don't I don't tell and there's a lot of people because they enjoy it. I used to go in the J, the J work out for years. At the JCC?

The J yeah.

The J. I used to work out.

And we came always sitting in the thing, in the steam room.

We are talking.

They saw my tattoo. They asked, what is this?

I said, my mother had a lot of kids.

In order not to confuse them, so she tattooed. I didn't, I didn't.

Okay. They knew it's not true. They ask me, listen, was it really so bad over there? I said no, it wasn't so bad.

The coffee was cold in the morning. Nobody asked you, how did you sleep? That was bad.

But because I know they enjoy it. So I didn't I don't. Okay, sometimes when like something with my sons sometimes something happens is associated with with those things happened, then I tell them a little story, but they don't ask and I don't tell them. Did you have bad dreams? Dreams? Did I mean, it was a trauma right? No, I didn't have dreams but for for years, maybe a year or two, I always was there. I always was there. Then I cut it.

I never thought I never went back.

I never think back.

Now, when I getting old sometimes it came to my mind at night.

I don't rest I maybe because... but I I try to forget.

And I forgot a lot of things. Do you feel angry? Do you feel cynical?

No. No, no. I feel cynical, yeah, but not angry. Because I feel that it doesn't do nothing. All I know I was angry because I was thinking back.

I was 13 years old and I couldn't understand how the hell people let go, let themselves like like cattle? Why didn't they go as partisans in the. Okay, I could hide.

I could hide. And I wanted to hide. Because we had a priest he was somehow we good friends with my father and he helped us a lot of out. And we helped him also. I could hide by him, okay. I didn't do that because his wife was a daughter, a Bishop's daughter from Ungvar.

She was a fascist, but he was a good man. He told me, you can you can hide over there in the barn. I know it's not going to work because of her, but I could hide. I couldn't I don't I didn't want to go in the ghetto. I said, but my mother.

Okay. With eight kids, where can she hide? She would be only two kids we would find enough place where to hide. But people let themselves go like that's what bothered me all the time. Like cattle.

Couldn't you fight? Couldn't you go die? I was 13 year, but it didn't I was a rebel always. And that what they didn't.

That what bothers me.

But cynical, yeah. I was cynical because I knew that if you're not going to fight nothing is going to happen. They talk this is talk, talk.

We have to fight back, and that's it. Maybe I am wrong.

I don't, I don't know. I am skeptical of everything. If you weak, they gonna do that with you. You have to be strong. That's why I I admire Israel. I'm not a Zionist. I'm not a Zionist. But I admire because Israel does the right thing. Is fighting, is preparing people to fight, and that's it. But that what I don't know why. But later in life. I saw not just we, the Jews, I saw other few people are also just like Jews. Almost. I'm not that smart. I'm not philosophical.

But sometimes I just think. That's it gives you nothing. If you're strong, that's it. You have to be strong.

That's it. That's that's. I don't recognize nothing else, but I see that's how it goes. Okay. You cannot persuade people even if they go with you, they agree with you. as soon as turns, they are against you. I am very skeptical.

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