APPENDIX

My Detailed Life Story-As written in Hungarian by Eugene Weissbluth and translated thanks to the efforts of Alex Reed

I was born in 1899 on the 27th of September in Mezőnyék. I was the second child and my brother’s name is Lajos. Lajos was the firstborn in the family. Later my parents had 2 girls as well, Betty and Rózsi, who died at a very young age, when they were 2-3 years old. My late parents moved from Mezőnyék to Mályiközség which was 1 (or 4 or 7) km away. My late father was a cantor at Rakkimetszés. We had a beautiful apartment. I and my brother, Lajos went to the Reformed school there. Our teacher, Nagy Simon, was trying to treat us well. He barely though us something in the mornings because most of the students were peasant children, and it was a mixed classroom with girls and boys. When the teacher entered the classroom, the students stood up, and the teacher’s first thing was to tell us what to do. 10% of us had to graze the pigs, others had to graze the goose, others had to do garden work and the teaching went on with the remaining students. My brother, Lajos made it clear to the students that the reason they are going to school is to learn and not to work. When the teacher found this out, he wanted to talk with my father and told him: “Jenő, one of your boys (Lajos went to a catholic school after my late parents moved to Mezőnyék). We had to go to school on Saturday as well, so I stayed in Miskolc from Friday afternoon to Sunday. There wasn’t school on the weekend as this school was public school. On Saturday and Sunday, I was staying with a big family at the Teitelbaum family. They treated me as their own. They had 2 boys and 2 girls. Their oldest son, Ernő, was 2 years older than me but we loved each other as one big family. Unfortunately, his life ended tragically. He graduated and became a “Numerus Clausus” as he wasn’t accepted into university. He graduated as an electrical engineer in Prague. But at this time, the Arrow Cross Party started to take over in Hungary and he desperately wanted to migrate to the USA. Meanwhile, he met an American girl who came to visit Miskolc. Eventually, they got married and moved to New York because of her but something terrible happened to him, a great disappointment and he “committed suicide”. His letter home contained only these words: “Enough with the comedy(pretending).” I have lost a very close friend. I was a good student at the public school as well. I got a scholarship and because I could draw well, I drew most of the geometrical drawings for my colleagues, so I always had pocket money. I played a lot of sports. I often went to the cinemas and to the theatre and I already started to collect books at that time. I finished school with excellent grades.

I started a new chapter in my life. In August of 1914, the first world broke out and with this, a long period began in my life. My brother, Lajos volunteered in the army. My parents were against his decision but his argument was that it is our duty to defend our country. He was an excellent soldier and he got promoted fast. He was assigned to the military police where he was promoted to Sargent. He was serving behind the front. One night when he was guarding, he let the inspection lieutenant by and didn’t ask for the secret code and because of his negligence, he was demoted. They took his weapon and he was sent to Kassa next to the other soldiers who fought the war, so he had to go and fight on the frontline. He received a piece of advice from a Galician soldier who gave him an ointment for his legs, so because of this ointment, his legs were swallowed up and he ended up in the hospital and he escaped the war on the frontline. In the hospital, the doctors took a liking to him and offered him a post and he worked there until the end of the war. When the war ended, he moved to Nagymihály where he became the administrator on to Károlyi count’s fields. He had a good and well-paying job there.

Pages 8-26

He was there for about a year – constantly writing and occasionally coming home, dressed elegantly. Then suddenly we heard no more of him – when we wrote to him, the letters came back. After about 6-8 months on a winter Saturday evening, when it was customary for Jewish women to get together and spend a pleasant weekend evening, my late dear Mother and I went to the Mandela family, with whom we were very close. Mandela was my godfather. He was the 2nd child of a very wealthy timber merchant and brick factory owner. We became very close friends. We were together in Auschwitz with one of the boys, whose name was Pali Mandula. Unfortunately, he never returned. While we were at Mandela family that evening, there was a sudden loud ringing at the door. The German girl who had been hired to take care of the children looked out quickly and came back, whispering in my mother’s ear that her son was outside. They opened the door and there was my brother Lajos, emaciated, with a pair of worn tennis shoes on his feet. We were shocked to see him in such a poor condition. We quickly went home. He took off his ragged clothes and went to bed. The next morning he told us what had happened to him. He asked for time off and traveled to Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. He suddenly fell ill and was admitted to hospital. He was seriously ill for months, almost in an unconscious state – that’s why he couldn’t write. When he got better, he was released from the hospital and expelled as an unfit foreigner to the Hungarian border. From there he wandered in extreme cold weather as he had no money. Soon he regained his strength and found another managerial position on the Stein Brothers’ estate in the neighboring village of Emőd. One day he came home to announce that he wanted to get married. My dear parents were strongly against it, but he was adamant, so both my dear parents and I walked down to Emőd. It was about a 3-4 km journey. There, my uncle Lajos was waiting for us and took us to Mrs. Klein’s home – a widow, whose daughter, Betty, my uncle intended to marry. Betty was about 10 years older than Lajos, and she already addressed my parents as ‘Dad’ and ‘Mom’. We went back home, and the next day, my Uncle Lajos came over bent on the engagement. The engagement did happen. He later regretted it, but it was too late. Betty was very attached to the idea of marriage, and soon after the wedding, she became pregnant. Nine months later, Dezső was born. Later, my uncle Lajos moved to Keresztespüspök for a better job opportunity. After 3 years of marriage, they divorced, and Dezső stayed with his mother. Then my uncle Lajos met Erzsi Czakó – whom you can also remember – and they got married in Miskolc. After the divorce, he and prime minister István Friedrich opened a coal mine in Sajókazinc which was in the property of Lajos – but it was soon closed. He was such a clever, versatile man. In Miskolc – which you can also remember – László was the station master. He was the manager of a fertilizer factory with a high salary and a nice apartment. You can remember the beautiful horses, purebred dogs, and a beautiful carriage. He was so elegant that even his shirts were made in Budapest. He had many beautiful clothes, such as fur coats, and a very valuable ring with precious stones. He lived like a magnate – he even bought you the lovely little sled. Around 1937, on a Saturday, after we returned home from church, we spotted an article in the Reggeli Hírlap newspaper: “Manager Nagy Lajos has passed away on Friday, and his funeral will be held on Sunday.” My dear parents couldn’t inform us because of the Sabbath so we got the news in the morning. I traveled to Miskolc in the morning and spent the mourning period (“Süve”) in Hejőcsaba. This is how the life of a talented and ambitious man ended at the young age of about 47. His wife inherited many things from him. When the mourning year was over, my late father had the following inscription engraved on his tombstone (her wife didn’t do any arrangements): “Here lies Nagy Lajos, who passed away at a young age after experiencing many successes, disappointments, and sufferings – may he rest in peace.” He was buried in the Jewish cemetery next to his former landowner in Miskolc, on Avas Hill. I took care of his grave until we got deported. His wife and parents got also deported to Auschwitz.

My mother suffered a lot because of Lajos, so I tried my best to help her – she didn’t know how to handle money.

Now I will continue the story about me and my dear parents. As I mentioned, the First World War broke out in August 1914 when I was 15 years old. I finished four classes at a state civil school. We lived in Mezőnyék, as I already mentioned in the introduction. Late József Láng, the teacher of the state-supported Jewish elementary school was immediately called up for military service. Unfortunately, he later passed away in a military hospital. The school year began with approximately 60-70 students in six elementary classes, but there were no teachers. That’s when Mandela, who was the leader of the Jewish community and a country committee representative, a very influential person, arranged for the School Inspector to entrust me with the teaching responsibilities. The state provided payment. I immersed myself in this position wholeheartedly.

I achieved such good results that the school inspector and the parents were very pleased with me. After immersing myself in teaching, I decided to continue my studies in this field. I enrolled as a private student at the State Jewish Teacher Training College in Budapest and finished the first year with honors. I traveled to Miskolc three times a week after school. The journey took about thirty minutes. I went to a man named Radicziner, who had a private school. He was satisfied with my performance, so I also helped him teaching the younger students. So he accepted very little payment from me. I successfully passed my exams every year. I was already a fourth-year student when, in early 1918, my dear late father was drafted into the army. Since my father was older, he did not have to go to the front, so he was assigned as a military supervisor to a neurology ward at a military hospital in Miskolc. It was a very challenging, almost dangerous post. He ended up in a room where there were only Jewish soldiers suffering from various disorders. I will never forget the way he smiled as he told me about being assigned to service. The head physician led him into a large room. There were about 30 beds and 30 Jewish soldiers. As they entered the room, the neurotic patients started dancing and shouting: “I am the Russian Tsar, I am the German Emperor…” The doctor went out and left my father alone. My father was frightened thinking “What will happen next?”

The door closed, and suddenly the loud noise ceased. The room fell into an eerie silence. Then, one of the patients spoke up, saying, ‘You are Jewish, right? Don’t be afraid of us. We’re perfectly fine, just pretending. If anyone asks you, say that we are dangerous lunatics.’ And so, my late father’s task became easy. Now comes the most interesting part: When the war ended on October 31, 1918, the soldiers got gradually demobilized and sent home throughout the country. The military hospital in Miskolc was also disbanded, but the neurotic patients were kept under supervision to later be placed in other hospitals closer to their homes (to prevent any mishaps). The chief physician came to the Jewish hospital to send my dear father home and replace him with another supervisor. The chief physician, who was a world-renowned neurologist, was very surprised when the patients greeted him warmly and asked if they could go home. He couldn’t believe his eyes, and exclaimed, „Now all my knowledge and expertise in the field is worth nothing…I have never been deceived or misled like this before.”

My father came home permanently and resumed his work. I graduated with honors and received my teaching diploma.

What I want to mention now is very important. The front was disbanded. The military trains were passing one after the other through the fields, and there was such traffic congestion that sometimes they were stuck there for days. There were people of different nationalities on those trains: Bosnians, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats. They came to the village but didn’t go into the houses and did not harass the locals, although they had weapons on them. The world has changed a lot since then! Nowadays you can’t go out to many places during the day (this sentence is not finished and it is possibly referring to going out on the streets today and not knowing if it’s safe or not).

Soon my father was elected to Hejőcsaba, where he worked in peace until he got deported.

Now I’ll tell you more about myself. The position of head teacher became vacant In Mezőcsát and I got an offer to that position. I was promised a big salary. I took the job in 1920 and rented an apartment with full board from a family named Wasserman. Within a year or two I was so successful that Tibor Teper, the nephew of the former Minister of Defence, was sent to live with me C.S.R. (probably an abbreviation for a place, I am not sure) in Rimaszombat. They paid an almost unbelievably large sum of money. He had a wild, spoiled 13-year-old son. I treated him so well that he took a great liking to me and he changed his behavior completely towards me. Meanwhile, I was so successful with this kid that highly-ranked Christian parents also brought their children to me. But as the depression became so prevalent in Hungary, the economy changed so much that one morning Mrs. Wassermann greeted me and said to me, “Today I can probably buy two geese for my monthly salary.

I replied: ’I know, she is right, but unfortunately the state can’t keep up with the inflation.’ The next day three families invited me and I got foor in exchange for private tutoring of their children. Thus I passed the difficult months with ease and contentment. I was well looked after and only stayed with the Wassermans because of the flat. The economic upswing started when Count István Bethlen took over the government. I had a pretty good payment. I had 10-15 private students who paid handsomely. During the summer break, I traveled a lot to Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, etc. In the meantime, I moved out from the Wassermans’ and rented a nice room with a separate entrance at Barányi’s place. You can remember where it was. Then I earned so much, that it was almost unbelievable. I took Dezső from his mother to help him. I paid all of his expenses so that he could finish his education at the State Civil School/Public Elementary School. I put my keys in the wardrobe and kept the money in a tightly locked box on Friday nights. I never counted the money. I was a fool not to deposit it in the bank. Bárány had an adopted son, Laci, who was with Dezső every Saturday when I was in church. The Bárány family also had a key to the apartment. They went in, somehow opened the wardrobe with the keys, opened the box and took some money. This went on for a long time. Once Szalkay’s son, the master chimney sweep behaved very badly. You remember the two Szalkay boys, the younger one committed suicide as a soldier. I told him sternly, and he started begging me, “Don’t tell my father how badly I behaved. I want to tell you something: Dezső and Laci Barány are stealing from you.” Naturally, I was very surprised and immediately put my daily income in a different place. There was still a month left before the exam but I sent Dezső back to his mother. You know, he behaved in the same way as he did after the war. I don’t know if he’s alive or where he is. You know very well about his life in Germany.

In the meantime, I enrolled at the National Teacher Training University in Buda as a private student. I studied literature and history. I successfully completed the university and obtained my teaching diploma with perseverance, diligence, and excellent results. One summer, the school inspectorate sent me on a state-funded basis for two months to the University of Physical Education, and as a Jewish individual, I even received the “levente” primary educational certificate. On another occasion they send me to the Economic College in Pápa. Perhaps you can remember. I was the director of the local economic school until I got taken away for forced labor. I was also the director of the elementary “levente” evening courses, not the Christian teachers (this sentence is not completed here, I am not sure about its meaning).

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One of the great memories of my life was the Echard-Prugly election because Antal Édes died and his place became vacant – you can remember what his flat was on Fő Street. The famous politician Tibor Eckhardt took the mandate and later emigrated to the USA. He was the brother-in-law of Baron Podmaniczky. He came to see me in Feldafing. He lived in Munich, Germany. There he was called “Red Baron” (Vörös Báró). When Horthy came to power in 1919, Eckhardt emigrated from Hungary. His opponent was Baron Purgly, the Minister of Agriculture, Horthy’s brother-in-law – the vote was public and, to everyone’s greatest surprise, Emil Borbély-Maczky, the Archbishop, nominated Dr. Géza Kesseő, a notary public, as President and me as Deputy Vice-President There was worldwide press coverage of the event Nobody would have thought that, the governor’s brother-in-law would fail. Eckhardt became the representative, Prime Minister Gyula Károlyi left and Gyula Gömbös became the Prime minister, allying himself with Mussolini and later Hitler. This is how I became a player in this significant historical event. I took my dear late mother three times to Bártfafürdő, where she really enjoyed herself. I was conscientious to make sure she had a good time. I went to bed at 9 pm to avoid disturbing her if I came home late.

30.

My cousin Luba came to visit us from Vienna and we became very close friends – she worked in Vienna with the world-famous Prot Neumann. I wanted to marry her every time I visited, but my mother dissuaded me, saying that marriage between cousins was not healthy and thanks to God I was so respectful, that I gave up on this plan. In the meantime, I got recommended by many, many girls. Moskovits recommended a very nice girl, Bözsi Schweiger from Tiszabercel. I traveled there, and the girl’s brother was waiting for me at the railway station – they were landowners. The girl was beautiful. I wanted to go home in the morning, but they held me back – they seemed to like me. I left at noon. They gave me a very nice welcome – I wrote a thank you note and that settled it. Later they recommended your dear mother – I went down there too. Your mother was a very clever and educated girl. They liked me. I wrote a thank you letter and thought that settled it, but what happened was that Mrs. Schweiger wrote a letter – that she would very much like me to meet her daughter again. She would come down to Miskolc and I should get to know her better because the family and the daughter liked me very much – I wrote to her that it was all right. It was during the summer holidays and I was in Hejőcsaba. The girl came to Miskolc a few days later to visit her aunt.

32.

I visited her, and the next day, we went on a trip to Lilafüred. As I mentioned before, she was a charming girl. When I returned from the trip to Hejőcsaba, my mother greeted me with the news that you wouldn’t believe who was there looking for you – Ármin Rosenblum from Sárospatak – and he said he would love it if you traveled there once again, and I went with you. My mother promised this, so I traveled there once more, this time with her. We were warmly received, and your dear mother made a great impression on me. We went out for a walk. I will never forget those moments. My dear Rózsi said, ‘Mr. Weissbluth, you won’t marry me – to which I replied, yes, I will indeed marry her. We discussed the engagement and soon, we held the wedding at the Korona Hotel in Sátoraljaújhely. Miklós Pásztor was also there. We stayed in Sárospatak for a week. Previously, I had rented the apartment on the other side of the house from the Barány family, which was empty and where the Chief Magistrate placed there lived before. I rented it and soon, we furnished it with valuable, beautiful, and precious furniture, paintings, and carpets – you remember. Nine months later, you were born, and that’s when I found out that the house at number 22 on Gyóni Géza Street was for sale – we liked it a lot. We bought it immediately with cash.

You were born in Miskolc, as I was a member of OTBA (National Officials’ Health Care).

34.

They covered the expenses for a separate sanatorium, a separate room, and all costs. I went with your mother on September 30th in the afternoon, and on October 2nd, when I was waiting in the waiting room, the doctor, who was my good friend, came out and said that a strong and healthy boy was born – ‘congratulations, the birth was without complications.’ The baptism took place in the hospital, and your grandfather Csaba was your godfather. The grandparents from Sárospatak were there, as well as Margitka, Tóni, and others. There were so many guests that they could hardly fit into the separate room. From then on, only 20 people were allowed at a baptism.

Ten days later, I brought you and your mother back home to Mezőcsát – you were a really good child, you rarely cried and gained weight pretty quickly – and we, your parents, were very happy with you – later, our dear ones, Gyurika, Oszika, Frédike, and Juditka were born – I will never forget those happy, beautiful, and cheerful days spent together. Our beautiful family, unity, understanding, and love were the good Lord’s special gifts – I can’t find words to express it. We had a beautiful home, everything we could wish for. I will later provide a detailed account of those wonderful times in the section of this book that talks about your childhood and development.

36.

Later, we took Hersut Blanka in because she was lost in the world, without an aim. Rózsikám and I did it for Blanka’s sake – because Blanka was truly the family’s pride, she suffered a lot from Toni, who had mental health issues; you surely remember, I took her to Budapest for treatment twice.

Now, I will write about my mother’s siblings. Arthur lived in a Slovak village – we hardly met him – Jenő was an eccentric person. His wife, Dóra, was a proud woman who completely alienated Jenő from the family. Etel was a kind, good-natured woman; her husband Sanyi was a frivolous man with grand ambitions who got involved with a mill – and they put everything in his name, so when the mill went bankrupt, he lost everything – Blanka and we supported her alone. Margitka was a charming and lovely creature, I liked her very much, and she liked me too. Rózsi was the only one in the family who was very jealous, causing a lot of annoyance and trouble for my Rózsika. When she got married to Menyus, as I’ve already told you, they moved to Pest. They lived in great poverty and wanted to get divorced, but somehow, I managed to handle it, but he was so ungrateful.

38.

We both remember our dear late parents from Csaba with the utmost love and gratitude… they gave us so much love. Our grandfather from Sárospatak was a blessed and righteous man, from him we also received much love and understanding; unfortunately, he suffered a lot from your late grandfather – my Rózsika, was his favorite. Jenő was completely distant from the family – Margitka had a kidney problem, and they took her to Pest for treatment before she got married. Jenő didn’t go with her, only his sick mother did. When the doctors suggested surgery, Margitka declared that she would only undergo the operation if I was there, so I immediately traveled there, and the surgery was successful. Margitka was so grateful that she could never forget this – the days were progressing beautifully and happily – but we had no idea that a beautiful sunny period would be followed by a storm. When the villain Hitler came to power and we heard about the horrors, we couldn’t believe it, couldn’t fathom it. When they occupied Vienna, the Jewish Council there turned to the Jewish Central Office in Budapest with a request to send meat, as there was an opportunity to send a certain amount of smoked meat to the hungry Viennese Jews – to the provided addresses. I organized this action in Mezőcsát, and it worked very well, but later the Nazis forbade it, and the Viennese Jews were deported. Slowly but surely, they made the situation of the Jews more difficult in Hungary too – the various Jewish laws, Numerus Claus in the universities. The land reform was already a precursor to the coming catastrophe. Hitler forced Hungary into the war as well. They took away the ranks of Jewish officers – this was the beginning of forced labor – initially, they took away young people – some of them to Ukraine, later even older ones. The sad end was approaching rapidly.

40.

One morning, when I returned home from the church, our maid, who was truly loyal until the last moment, greeted me with the news: Mr. Director, you received a ‘SAS’ summons – your dear mother burst into terrible tears. I told her that I was already 42 years old and according to the law, I couldn’t be summoned. I went to see Lajos Kiss, the chief notary, who was a truly good friend of mine. I explained what had happened, and he immediately came with me to the military command, which was next to the school. I had two sergeants as private students. When they saw me, I could see that it pained them greatly, but unfortunately, it wasn’t up to them to help – the chief notary wanted to explain to Lieutenant Somkúti that my summons was a mistake – however, he stated immediately and rudely that I had to report to the Jewish barracks at 10 o’clock. Even people who were 60 years old were summoned; this was the future fate of the Jews. I immediately rushed home, bidding farewell with the knowledge that I would come back home right after reporting, but unfortunately, it happened differently. Somkúti stood up on a barrel and gave orders from there. It all seemed almost unbelievable. People from all over the country were summoned to the 102/2 labor battalion

40.

– the most prominent merchants, doctors, lawyers, and even Jewish military officers, up to 65 years old. Some could barely walk anymore. There was a chief physician of the Erzsébet Hospital in Miskolc among them, who was a reserve medical captain. Somkúti called him up: ‘Samuka, come here, you’ll see soon what you will become.’ Soon, the District Court surrounded us and took us from Main Street towards the District Court – to Kuligazda’s farm, isolated from the world, where no one could come near.”

After 3 days, Somkúti selected two labor battalions, 108/1 and 108/2. When he left with a mocking smile on his face, two battalion commanders appeared: Dr. Ligeti, captain of 102/1, a decent, kind-hearted, educated liberal man, and Sallay, a teaching lieutenant from Felsőzsolca of 102/2, with whom we got along very well. He never caused any trouble – he drank and accepted a lot of money. In fact, I handled everything. I even censored the mail, tearing up any anti-Semitic comments from the frames. When the battalions assembled, I heard Sallay shouting loudly: Weissbluth, Weissbluth – of course, I got scared, stepped forward, and he said aloud that anyone close could hear it: ‘Listen here, your highness, my wife has become very good friends with your wife

– now you’re going home, the pucer will escort you to your family, you will be my guest at 7 o’clock in the evening, you will sleep at my place. In the morning, the pucer will come for you.’ This felt like a blessing from heaven to me, the bystanders were almost envious of my luck. When the pucer brought me home, your mother and you surrounded me, hugging and kissing me in immense happiness. Your mother packed everything necessary into my backpack. At 7 o’clock in the evening, pucer (unclear who the person is or what is his title, pucer actually means naked but it is not a name since it’s not capitalized) came again, and we went to Sallay’s. His wife welcomed us very happily, saying, ‘Please watch over Pista, as he gets very drunk.’ Everything felt like a gift from God. We returned home at 9 o’clock in the evening.

The next morning, around 6 o’clock, the pucer came for me – your mother and all of you came with me to the station, where you tearfully kissed me, bidding farewell until we meet again.

Dr. Ligethi and Sallay appointed me as the German interpreter for the 2nd battalion – which was a truly great honor. The train started moving at express speed. The train was racing in Mezőkövesd, Pasztor was also on in the 2nd battalion – 60 (the word is unclear) new battalions– when we reached Galánta, the Czechoslovakian border, Horthy telegraphed us, instructing the 2nd battalion of csát to return back, because it was against the law for the elderly to be in a leadership position and there were many outcasts among them.

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Miltényi, a colonel who was the commander of the occupying forces, disregarded Horthy’s orders and the train crossed the border and headed towards Kyiv. After the war, Miltényi was hanged.

The first station was Katowice. We had to stop there to hand over the first deceased to the Germans. It was my task; I was the interpreter. Guthlen from Ároktő village. Interestingly, Trude still lived there then. The train was heading towards Kyiv. We arrived there in the evening – the damn Hungarian military gendarmes drove everyone out of the car, and everything had to be unloaded, including backpacks. Engel, the president of the Miskolc Chamber of Commerce, was asked by the military gendarme what he had brought. He told them and listed everything. ‘You’re lying!’ – said the military gendarme, and Engel stupidly replied, ‘Master Sergeant, a reserve officer, a hundred-year-old, doesn’t lie.’ ‘You filthy Jew,’ he said and beat him bloody. Then he came to me and without asking he took a lot of things from the backpack and went on. When the search was over, they locked us in the cars, and we waited there all night.

Early in the morning, the military gendarmes opened the cars and left. We lined up and walked about 10 km through Kiev. The city is very big.

48.

We reached the Zhytomyr barracks at the end of the city. Here, we rested on the bare ground and waited to see what would happen next. Meanwhile, the young labor servicemen, who had been there for about 2 years, returned from their hard work. They were rough-looking, tired, and disheartened. When they saw us, they came over and complained a lot: Here, a horse is worth more than a man, a labor serviceman. No one leaves from here alive. Hearing these made us feel restless. While we were waiting like this, suddenly I heard, ‘Weisbluth, Weisbluth.’ I went over, and one of them said, ‘You will be the scribe.’ To this, I replied that I didn’t want to, but they called me a second and third time – that’s when I remembered the case of the prophet Solomon when God called him three times, and he accepted to be the leader of the Jewish people – so I volunteered for the office. Juhász was a cadet, the boss there. I remember when I had already been discharged and they brought me to court here. One evening he came to us and said that he had been allowed to sleep with us. He was initially very rough, but when he ended up next to me, he did everything the way I wanted. He did everything he could to improve the condition of the labor servicemen, so I helped him too.

5o.

The next day, I went to Miskolc. One of the former labor servicemen, who was a lawyer, welcomed me warmly and took on his defense. Do you remember the trial? They summoned me too. Sergeant Szabó was also there, who used to handle the magazine. I was the boss back then, not him. By then, the mood had somewhat eased. The court consisted of three colonels. They first questioned me, and I told them the truth, that he had performed his duties humanely and honestly. After me, they questioned Szabó. He answered every question with, ‘Only Weisbluth can answer that, in other words, me. ‘You’re clever, you know everything,’ they said to him. Then they asked what I knew about Juhász’s cadet girlfriend, Natalia, who was Ukrainian. Natalia was a genuine, kind, good-natured girl, and Juhász wanted to marry her. I wrote the application for them back in Ukraine, but she didn’t get permission. She was always with him and with us, but I helped Juhász – Natalia lived with a Ukrainian family and we did not (here comes a verb which I cannot read) so this charge has also been dropped.

52.

So getting back to how I applied for the office job at Juhász, he immediately showed me the tasks I needed to do. I will get better food and I won’t be sitting too much in the office. Right when I made myself comfortable, Sallay came in drunk and didn’t notice me. He was mumbling, Juhász promised Weissblutkat Mezőcsát that he would get a job in the office to be a German interpreter. He didn’t notice me so he said: ‘Tell the Jew to come here’. As soon as he noticed me, he was ashamed and came to me saying ‘Hello, it’s nice to see you, I am glad we will work together.’ I noticed that he regretted saying that and I can forgive him because he was drunk.

I got a nice bed too. Dr. Ligethy too was very friendly with me. I represented his unit too as an interpreter. We spent two weeks in Kyiv. Once a military policeman came in and gave me the order to write down all the names of the slave laborers who were doctors because they had a special and important task to do. But I replied to him that there were no doctors in there. When the layers and physicians heard about this, they almost attacked me for not helping them and they insisted that they wanted to go. So the next day I gave a list of 20 people to the military policeman.

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The military policeman took these people away the next morning, and when they came back in the evening, they were all very dirty. They had to clean the public toilets with their hands. They came to me and told me that I was right, especially those who were mad at me the day before because I didn’t ‘help’ them.

We got a new order to depart, this time the destination was Baturin. This was when Báthory István, although a Hungarian, got elected as king of Poland.

The two units had to march all the distance on their foot with the backpacks on their backs. It was very challenging and very hard. The military policemen were going up and down on their motorcycles and checking on people not to get in the carriages, especially the sick and the elderly. Sallay and Ligethy couldn’t help them at all, even if they tried to.

I had my spot on one of the carriages and I hopped on each morning. When we stopped, I got accommodation and food in the German household where we stayed. I got there 3 hours earlier and I took care of everything at the German headquarters. These people were ‘Wehrmacht’ and they were friendly and welcoming toward me and we had a good chat. When the military policemen arrived all tired and worn out, everything was already prepared for them so they had dinner and went to bed immediately.

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Early morning they got up and continued the journey with the marching units and I got on the carriage as well and went ahead to the designated location to prepare the place ahead of time. We got a full day of rest in Nezsin which is a pretty big city. As soon as we arrived in the city, there was an airstrike by the Russians. We went down into the bunker, there were a lot of German soldiers down there. Next to me stood a sergeant and started talking to me. He said he was from Austria, Vienna. I told him that I knew Vienna very well. My uncle, Dr. Frankel lived in Schelteringen (?). He told me he had two sons, Mac, and Ernst Mandom. Do you know them? I was his/their driver. He wanted to give me food but I refused, telling him that I am a German interpreter and scribe I get fully taken care of.

He could not find out what happened to Dr. Frankel, whom I loved.

Meanwhile, I got an unexpected order. I had to create an exact report on how much food we consume and how much is left. So I didn’t sleep that night, I started working on it right away so that tomorrow the German comptroller, together with Sallay, could get the items.

It was around one in the morning when Ligethy came to me and asked me why I was still awake.

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I tell him that I want to get this done as soon as I can so I can get some rest after I finish. He replied that my men are sleeping this time, so he will take care of it and I will correct it tomorrow morning. But we got an unexpected order early in the morning that we had to leave immediately and I had to report to the German comptroller so Ligethy was rebuked and Sallay was commended.

The next day I went ahead to our final destination in Baturin. The city was built along the Seym River. The Germans marched through this city toward Kurs, then toward Moscow. This route was a heavily used military route and the forced labor unit had to build a very strategic military bridge. On one end of the bridge was the unit of Mezőcsát and on the other end was the unit of Mezőkövesd. Pásztor Miklós was on our side. On this side, Hungarian sappers were leading the operation and German sappers were on the other side.

They wanted to name the bridge after Horthy István.

When I arrived together with my unit companion, I immediately looked for Plock’s chief sergeant to ask for permanent accommodation and boarding. When I entered there, I presented myself and I gave them my authorization to represent two units. He looked at my papers and told me: ‘Du verstinke Jude – Schwarzhandler’ (You filthy Jew, black marketeer)

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‘You sell a watch for 100 German Mark, a pack of cigarettes for 20 German Mark.’

‘Chief Sargeant, I am not a black marketeer.’ ‘We are fighting alongside the heroic German military.’ I saluted him and I went to tell Ligethy and Sallay what happened to me. We need this man, this man is our absolute Lord. I got a watch from one of the unit supervisors and cigarettes from Ligethy and Sallay which I had to distribute to others, 10 packs of cigarettes.

The next day I went again to the Chief Sargeant, I presented myself, and I gave him a watch and 10 packs of cigarettes. ‘How much it is?’ ‘The watch is 19 German Marks and the cigarettes cost 2 German Marks.’ ‘Sit down, comrade’. He listened to all my requests and treated me well. For example, he gave milk and eggs to those who only ate kosher. Krausz–Heimfeld and the rest received better accommodation. This friendship brought great prestige to me. He built a temporary bridge in three days until the bridge was finished.

3000 Ukrainians died but the units could slowly march on the bridge. The bridge got the name of Plock Bridge.

When we started building the bridge, the bastard Hungarian sappers assigned the weakest and oldest people for the hardest work and the younger people for the easiest work during the morning appel.

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On the other hand, the Germans professionally selected the strongest men for the hardest work and the weakest men for the easiest work. This way the work went smoothly and people came back on time. Of course, the Hungarian sappers weren’t making much progress. They beat the people and they came back very late in the evening, all exhausted. The sappers were proud of it, saying ‘You are screwed, you filthy Jews.’

The commander of the sappers was a really sadist person, he was happy to see Jews being tortured. Ligethy tried to talk with him and promised him some things but nothing changed. One day Plock gave an order to bring all the horses into the German’s stable because the horses were grazing on illegal territory, without the permission of Plock. Kőhidy Sargeant called Plock to give the horses back and the answer was ‘NO’. Kőhidy knew that Plock had a good friend, that ‘filthy Jew’ so he went to Ligethy and told him about Plock’s conduct, so he would give an order to Plock to bring back the horses.

He went to Plock to get back the horses. Ligethy said to this that this is useless. Plock does not listen to him, so he goes for the horses anyway. It would be best to call him in person to talk with him nicely and ask him how could he get back the horses. When they told me Kőhidy captain called for me, I got scared. I went to it, saluted him and to my surprise he told me to have a seat. He told me that he knows how close we are with Plock. So he captured the horses, and he had the right to do so because I didn’t ask for permission. He told me to talk to him and try to free the horses because this can become a nuisance. I saw on Ligethy’s face how content he was seeing that terrible man humbling himself before me. That man wanted me out of the office at any cost, and to work somewhere else. I told Kőhidy that everything was clear and I would go to Plock right away. His office was nearby. When I entered his office, I told him why I came to him. He asked me what do I want if I didn’t report him to that puffed-up man. I will bring them back and release them.

I told him that this man humbled himself to ask me to get your help. He agreed. He called in one of his soldiers and told him to give the sappers back the 12 horses. He called the sapper’s office and told him they could come after the horses in the afternoon. I thanked Plock and rushed back to the office where Kőhidy was waiting for the update. He asked me what happened and I told him that the 12 horses would be set free afternoon. Plock already called the office by then. Kőhidy thanked me and told me that I did well. He told me to go back and work in the office, there was a great need for me there. When he left, Ligethy hugged me and told me how happy he was that this terrible man needed my help so he wouldn’t get in trouble. Sallay and Juhász congratulated me personally. I went to Plock and brought him a pack of Honvéd cigars, and he was happy that he could help, which also boosted my prestige. Once Pásztor Miklós entered right into my office. He looked half-dead, barely standing on his feet.

He heard about me and about my position here. He was in slave labor and was passing by with his group. They needed some utensils and he managed to get here as the 5th person. When I saw him I almost cried. I got him some bacon and bread from the warehouse. He was crying and told me that I saved his life. I gave his group a bottle of schnapps (pálinka) and told them to take care of Miklós. Miklós was very grateful. After all of these, he visited me personally and when he was called to read from the Torah in the synagogue, before going forward he stood up and said: “Please forgive me that I am talking from here, but I am standing here because I owe my life to my friend, Jenő, and this is why I came here. Thank you, Jenő”; I had a very important business with Plock. I will be forever proud because of it. God helped me and He was with me all throughout. It was extremely hard during the withdrawal period, many people froze to death on the roads in the cold Russian weather. I always thought that God was helping me because I made a deal with Plock. The Ukrainians got together with the Germans to hunt down the Jews who were hiding so the Ukrainian police in Baturin made every effort to search for hiding Jews.

The Ukrainian police commissioner of Baturin was very famous for his cruelty and he searched for two young Jewish girls from Baturin who found shelter for years at a nice Russian family and they lived like Russians there. The Ukrainians killed their parents, who were wealthy and affluent merchants. That cruel Ukrainian police commissioner arrested the two young and beautiful Jewish girls. He brought them in Baturin and sent them to Plock. The girls were locked up in prison, waiting for their execution. When the girls saw Jewish laborers working near the prison, they broke down crying and they told them about their sad and tragic life in the Jewish language. The lawyer Dr Klein labour worker immediately called for me and told me everything about the girls. I went to Plock who received me almost instantly. “Kamerad, do you want to save the two Jewish girls? I replied “Yes” What do you want for them? I want a gold watch and 3 packs of “Honvéd” cigarettes. I replied without hesitation and I agreed that I will bring him what he wants.

He told me that I shouldn’t rush, and he trusted me with this. I said “Thank you for your trust. I will come back as soon as I can with what you requested.” It’s very important to save the two Jewish girls! One of the comrades immediately gave me a beautiful gold watch and Sallay gave me 3 packs of “Honvéd” cigarettes. Plock was very happy to see me back so fast with his requested things. I sat down and he called in for the Ukrainian commander. He came in and saluted, and Plock got up and started yelling at him. “Du arschlock” (you asshole), you imprisoned two innocent Russian girls, how could you make such a horrible thing? The commander was about to reply but Plock told him “Get out”. When the commander saw me there, he knew that I had arranged it. Plock told me to go near their window and tell them in “Jidish” language that everything is all right. When the guard took them to Plock’s office,

I will be there too, they should be singing Russian Religious songs and they will be set free. So then the guard brought them in, they looked so beautiful and innocent, they started singing “Maria Mastra”, Mother Mary. When they finished singing the song, (Plock) called the secretary, who was a nice high school teacher who knew German and Russian. Her husband was serving on the other side of the Russian military. I only found out later that this woman was a Russian spy. She was typing in Russian what Plock dictated to her in German, “Heil Hitler”, I have stated in the name of the mighty German military, that Fedjana and Marcisa are real Russian girls and stand under the protection of the mighty German military. It was signed with Heil Hitler’s signature, Plock, and an official signature. He handed the paper to the girls. “You are free.” A German soldier escorted them back. When they left, I felt they thanked me with their eyes as a sign of their thankfulness. This moment was one of the happiest moments in my entire life. Baturin was also famous for Catherine II of Russia, as she had a beautiful castle and she spent two-three months there every year

With one of her lovers. She had many many lovers and she was well known for spending two-three months with their lovers. The bridge was finally finished and was named after Horthy István. An order came that the 108/1 labor group had to go back to Kyiv to the 108/2 Manuchuka(?) area. Ligety really wanted me to go with him but I stayed with Sallay. Manuchuka was a small town and the labor group had a very good accommodation. I stayed with Juhász cadet at a Russian family and we got a nice room. The Russian came in at night and checked on us if we were well tucked in. He was a Russian partisan and he was always up at night and was sleeping during the day. Once the Germans captured him, the woman (his wife) who really was pro-Jewish asked me crying if I could help him. I asked Sallay and I wrote a German letter signed by Sallay where I stated that Iván is a very nice and trustworthy man and he is helping the Hungarian military. And the Germans let him go home, promising to take care of him. The whole town was very happy and was making efforts to help the Jews in building the roads.

One evening when the people came home from work, the partisans took two men from the last row and dragged them away. Later we found out that they were taken into the next village and were held captive in a barn. They left a little notice complaining about how they got mistreated. The partisans accused them of helping the Germans. These two men never came back.

Near Manuchovka there was a Hungarian military hospital, (Biopolje), where many people from our labor group had to go. They treated us badly, especially a cadet named Pichler. He was terrible (not sure about the word here). He tied up people who committed very little, insignificant things. The weather started to become colder and colder. We got a new cadet as well, Prohászka, who was a clumsy man, even the labor group laughed at him. He was complaining to me. Meanwhile, Juhász left for a two-week holiday and I had to take over his responsibilities. Pichler came to check on the paperwork in the office and he wanted to find fault in my work but he found everything in order so he left with a long nose. I remember that Dr. Rosenfeld was the lawyer of Marcell. He had a big mansion on the market street. He lived together with a filthy whore who reported him in Csát at the Police station

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And she took with her two revolvers to kill the anti-Jew Hungarians. The police sent his papers to Kyiv to the counter-intelligence office and we got an urgent order to bring him immediately to Kyiv. When Sallay gave me the papers, I called Rosenfeld and told him the situation in a friendly manner and I also told him that he didn't know why he was called to Kyiv. Prohászka lieutenant accompanied him and gave him over to the counter-intelligence. When he was called for the interrogation, he started crying. He said he never had a revolver and that filthy whore wants his house. Then they asked him why they called him to Kyiv. He replied that Weissbluth, the scribe told him to do so. They kept him there for a couple of days, then sent him back with the condition that me and Sallay must present ourselves and the nearest military hospital for an interrogation. The interrogation was very intense. First, they interrogated Rosenfeld, then Sallay, then me. Rosenfeld was tied (this is the literal meaning although I am not sure if this is what he meant or if he meant more like Rosenfeld was tied to that place, or kept there) twice a day and he was there for 1 week. Sallay and I were rebuked for doing such a thing. A few days later they let Sallay go.

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He then visited you as well and the schnapps (palinka) got burned in his mouth. I am sure you remember this. I had a prestigious job as a German interpreter in Baturin, Manuchuka. Every once in a while with a carriage carried by 6 horses and soldiers, I chose 1-8 labor worker(s) to get food from Konotop, and the labor workers were happy to come along. The main warehouse was in Konotop, all the food for the Germans and Hungarian labor workers. I knew at once what I had to do. I made a list and the German soldiers (not the “SS soldiers”) welcomed me in a friendly manner and I had to wait for the lieutenant to sign it and approve it. We had to wait outside. When the lieutenant came in, he came to me and hugged me. He was Eugene and before the war, we were on the same course in Wien. He was happy to see me. The labor workers got the same food as a junior and he asked me a lot of questions and he told me how he became lieutenant in Bregen. He has two boys and there’s a birthday coming up soon for one of his sons if it’s possible to bring something (he doesn’t mention what or he forgets to write the object) from Hungary when a labor worker goes home to a vacation. His child is 3 years old.

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I immediately remembered Gerhard, who has a big shoe factory in Miskolc and how Gerhard is a labor worker here. When one unit is on leave and goes home, they can bring back a pair of shoes as a gift from the shop based on the letter of Gerhard. He (the lieutenant) gave the unit 15 bottles of vodka. When I got home with the food, everybody was cheering and the whole unit got drunk, including myself, because I had many drinks. Gerhard was happy that he would help this good man with a beautiful pair of Hungarian boots. One unit got to leave on vacation and I issued their papers for the vacation in German. The unit searches for most of the families (probably the families of the other labor workers, although I am not sure) and brings back a couple of essential things together with the little boots, but on the train station that asshole wanted to post all the belonging to Manuchovka. He got arrested and they confiscated his belongings together with the pair of boots and the letter from Gerhard’s wife writing that she was happy to gift this pair of boots to such good German person. She didn’t mention any names, not even Gerhard mentioned any names. The German officers didn’t know about my friend, Ruppert. The German officers issued a house search in our homes but one of the officers whose son I was teaching warned the mother about an upcoming house search.

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They told her to hide everything, smoked meat, fat. Meanwhile, a smart unit went home for a vacation, and they gave the address of Lieutenant Ruppert to Gerhard’s wife. So she went to Rupper’s family two pairs of beautiful red Hungarian boots. If I know it right, even Ruppert’s wife wrote to you.

Meanwhile, the Germans were defeated and retreated in chaos. When Sallay came back, he got punished by getting demoted. He was drunk all the time. When we had to go in front of the Germans, I literally had to push him from behind because he would fall otherwise. He wasn’t replaced immediately. I heard about Ruppert later that he was part of a coup against Hitler. Unfortunately, he was hung because of it, he was a true and noble man.

They sent me a pair of russian leather boots, which kept me warm during the freezing winter. We also started to retreat in chaos – the German army was very good at marching forward but very bad at retreating, the whole process was chaotic, not the mention the Hungarians. They threw away their weapons and started running like mad. Unfortunately, many of them died and froze to death in the freezing Russian winter because they had thin layers on them and had worn out boots. We were full of lice.

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But when we rested at a certain place, I took off the only shirt I had on me and brought it out in the snow for the lice to die. The boots protected my feet. We were running together with those who retreated. Once, we found shelter with a Ukrainian family in a small village that was reserved for the Germans. The unit went inside but the Ukrainian man didn’t want to receive us. (somebody) slapped the Ukrainian man who was the commander of the Ukrainian police. The mother ran towards him telling him that the Jews beat his father. The Ukrainian households didn’t have toilets outside, just a designated heap. I was doing my business on the heap when I saw two Ukrainian policemen on a sled. “Heil Hitler” and they point their weapons at me, ready to shoot, while shouting “Here szudáj” (this word szudáj is probably not Hungarian and I don’t know Russian to tell you its meaning and maybe it means come here, because they are telling “come here” right after this sentence), “Come here”, and because I already knew some Russian I started to shout “Pan Jewroj Robotnik”, “I am a Jewish labor worker”. Somebody heard my shouting and came to my rescue, so this is how I got saved. Inside the house, he found out that we weren’t the ones who beat his father but it was the unit. And he couldn’t question them because they already left. I suddenly started to feel sick, and I thought I would die. The sergeant of the unit from Zsoka came to me and handed me a half empty bottke of vodka.

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The sergeant was shouting to me “Don’t drink the bottle too”. I fell asleep and all that vodka helped to disinfect my stomach and I got better. We got on the road again. Meanwhile, some lowlife field gendarmes stole all our backpacks, I even had my tefillin stolen. They gathered the remaining slave laborers in a Russian village named Dutsch. Dutsch was a central retreating camp and when we gathered all together, I found out that, unfortunately two of my best friends, Dr. Feledi and László Ervin bookseller froze to death on the road.

We had to embark on an open wagons. I had only a small blanket on me, so the next day, when we arrived at our last labor camp at Zlinka, I could barely get up under the blanket because it froze on me. Zlinka was a big military hospital. The Germans were running the hospital. The Hungarian labor workers had to cut trees in the woods to heat the building. It was very hard work. Our new commander, that asshole Somkuti had arrived with a cadet named Szabó, who came from the counterintelligence squad. He immediately fired me from the office. One of the Germans… (this sentence is not finished)

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I applied at once and he was happy that he could talk with somebody in German. He asked the sergeant if I could come with him. He asked me if I knew gardening because he wanted to do something beautiful at the entrance of the hospital. I told him that if he gets me 3-4 other labor workers, I will create something really beautiful. Back home (I am not sure if I read these words well) I was the director of the economics school. I chose 3 “csáti” (I don’t know the meaning of this word, it can mean 3 people from a place called Csát or most probably just 3 people) and we cut off a lot of turf. We brought them in and cut them, and I created a plan with a map. The military hospital was located in Württenberg-Stuttgart. I was in a hurry to finish it. When Somkuti found out about this and came to check it out, he wanted to screw me. The next day at the appel, he asked me how old am I was, I told him I was 44. So he replied that all labor workers under 45 must go to work in the woods and are not allowed to work inside the facility. The boys were laughing. If I were 50, then he would have said that labor workers under 50 are not allowed to work inside the facility. The next day at the line-up, I got a big ax to go into the woods to cut out trees. I met a Hungarian sapper corporal who barely spoke Hungarian, he was better with Romanian because he came from Máramaros county. Before he assigned to me and to others our duty, he asked me with his broken Hungarian

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if I want to buy cigarettes and food. I told him I wanted two packs of cigars, salami, and bread. The meals were very bad, and even the Germans stopped eating those meals. When I wrote down in my notebook how much I owed him, I asked him his name and origin. He told me he is from Lipcse Polyána so I asked him if he knows from there Rosenblum Ármin and his son’s logging industry. I told him that he was my father-in-law. The corporal takes my hand and almost kisses them. He told me that he had escaped from there (I am not sure about this word here, it means to avoid something or someone) and your father-in-law gave money to my wife, he is a really good man. May God bless him. I will give everything you need, chocolate, cigarettes, salami for free. You will not cut trees, but rest and bathe in this small pond here. If the lieutenant comes, I will start shouting to you to work and cut the trees. So thanks to this fortunate chance, I had an easy time there. Later at night, when we got back to the building, the corporal shared all his food with me and I was full. Somkuti was happy to see me with the ax in my hands, thinking that he complicated my situation.

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But thank God he was mistaken. The days went by slowly. One day a partisan group surprised our base and took with them some Germans and some other people from the unit. It was such a surprise for us. I have to mention that the work laborers in Baturin gave me an artistic postal card which was signed by Ligethy, Sallay, and Juhász too. You remember it too when we had to go into the ghetto, we buried the card. Edith didn’t bring hers, maybe because she didn’t find it.

One morning we got a surprise visit by young word laborers accompanied by a unit. When we talked with them, we found out that one of them was General Bartha, who is very old now and still lives in Budapest to this day. He gave us a strict order to behave well and humanely with the labor workers and they need to send them back immediately those workers who are past 42 years old. So these young labor workers are here to replace those ones who are past 42 years old.

The next day Somkuti read the new regulations aloud and he called out those who are past 42 years old from the line. But he had a trick up his sleeves because when he read all the names in alphabetical order and asked each person their name, place of birth, father’s name, mother’s name.

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This was Somkuti’s trick to screw us over because the Jewish birth certificates were issued by priests. The priests changed some names in the process, for example, they wrote Faiga instead of Fany. So when Somkuti asked the names of the parents, most of the time the data didn’t match and only those who had matching data could leave. 2-3 of my comrades couldn’t go home because of this. My data was right and matched so I could leave too. We were happy to leave behind Zlinka. We traveled for half a day by cargo train and reached Gomelh. There were regular trains each day to Hungary from here. We got a separate passenger cart for us with comfortable seats. We got served hot coffee, fresh bread with butter, cigarettes, and everything that a Hungarian soldier on vacation deserved. The train traveled at an express speed, we didn’t want to believe it. Kyev was the stop where we had to change wagons. We were accompanied by a sergeant major. There was a man with an arrow cross flag who started shouting at us, “You filthy Jews”, you are taking up space from the brave Hungarian soldiers. The sergeant major stepped in from of him and raised his voice at him, telling him “You with the arrow cross flag, these men are Hungarian labor workers who worked bravely and strenuously, and I had a command from the minister of war to accompany them home. If you hinder them,

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I will go directly to Budapest and make a complaint about you mentioning that you, as a soldier, are going against the order of the minister of war.”

The man with the arrow cross flag got scared, he wasn’t prepared for such a reply and he immediately got down from the train. The train went on and we had to change wagons at Lawaczne station, at the border of Hungary and Poland. We changed to a more narrow train because the trains in Russia are wider. They disinfected us and in Munkács the Jewish community greeted us, the first returned labor workers and they gave us presents. Many others were waiting for us at Miskolc. Dr. Feledi was looking for this old father, his son. We told him they would come with another wager but they will never come! We changed wagons at Mezőcsát. The conductor’s son, Dobos, was a student of mine. You knew him well too. He greeted me with joy. Mr. Director, the great lady is also on the train. We were happy to see each other again, she was the late mother who arrived from Rohod. You and the late Gyurika remained at home. We decommissioned at Csát at the extended military headquarters. Everybody could go home and

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I entered our dearly missed home with joy and with tears in my eyes. Juditka and Oszika were sitting on my lap. They were kissing me and were happy to see me returning home! I got to rest, but my feet were infected and the infection spread. Dr. Abonyi washed my wounds and thank God I could walk after that. Then I went down to Rohod to see you, to give you my hugs and kisses, and to bring you home. Blanka’s family welcomed me warmly.

Tibi had to repeat his exams in maths. I accompanied him to Nyirmadrar where I got to know the teachers there. So Tibi finished his exam and the next day I went home with you. After so many years a new chapter began in our life.

When I called for the Jewish community, how could Fredlar and Grünbaum behave so vilely? I rebuked them and I banned Gubella with the help of Kiss Lajos. I was very surprised but there wasn’t any other way. They paid immediately, without a word, so thank God things got back on track. Tibor, Krausz, and the rest of the labor workers joined me. They had appropriate behavior and they were grateful. The priest tried to wash up but I told him too my opinion.

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I told him my opinion in a harsh manner. I have bought your late mother a fur scarf and for

you, I bought shoes and clothes so after I went through many trials, I finally returned to my

calm and peaceful old life. I had private students again and 2 girls from Ónod. They were the

girls of an ex-Seargent. I also had three Christian boys. I started the classes on schedule. The

ex-teacher also tried to wash herself up (this expression pops up again, I am not sure what

meaning he is attributing to this word because it simply means to wash yourself with water,

but I guess he is referring to making excuses or something similar given the context)

because of her behavior towards you. But she turned her back on me and I told her that I

wanted to speak with her.

One evening somebody knocked on the door. Juhász cadet was looking for her. She told me

that she would be arrested and that she will be taken to the court in Miskolc the next day.

The cadet let her stay at our place. I had a good relationship with her. I promised her that I

would help her. The next day we traveled to Miskolc and one of our former comrades, a

lawyer, was happy to take on her case because she deserved it. At the trial, I was called in as

a witness. By that time the situation of the labor workers slowly started to change.

Nagybaconi general strictly forbids cruel behavior towards the labor workers.

At the court-martial, the judges discussed the charge justly. When I mentioned Dr. Feledi’s

name, the chief judge started to cry. He said that it was so terrible that we lost such an

honorable man.

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An honorable Hussar captain. Such a great loss! I told them that he behaved quite admirably

toward Juhász. He deserved our gratitude. The other question was about Natanja. They

wanted to know if it was true that I wanted to take Natanja, the Ukrainian girl, as my wife. I

replied that, of course, it is not true. Juhász supported her with his wage. So this charge was

also dropped. Then Kovács corporal was called in, who was responsible for the warehouse

and food. They interrogated him. The judges were laughing, because mister Wiessblük

already told them everything. Juhász was complimented and acquitted. I received special

recognition because I helped a certain man, whose behavior was honorable despite the

terrible times. Juhász came to me in the courtroom and hugged me with tears in his eyes. “I

will never be able to repay you or the former labor workers.” I replied, “I only did what

came naturally to me”.

So the days passed happily. My feet got healed. We often went to Sárospatak – Hejöcsaba.

My late father was particularly fond of you. He was proud of you. But he also loved the late

Gyurika,

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Oszika, Fredike and Judika. The late Judika often asked me “Do you love me, your only

daughter?” Unfortunately, on the 21st of March in the evening, the grand Radiék (?) Phillips

didn’t air Budapest, and I was about to call Mehvert to check the radio because it didn’t air

the Budapest news station. Right then, my late mother accidentally turned the radio on on

Wien and we heard that the mighty German army had occupied Budapest. A few days later

they reached Miskolc. Everything went silent for 2-3 weeks. Then we received an order that

all the Jews from the age of 3 are obliged to wear a yellow star on their arm when going out

in public and they are allowed to go out only at a particular time. Meanwhile Horváth family

came over to us from Tiszatarja and we gave them a lot of our things, asking them to keep

them safe, but they brought those things back to us as they were afraid to hide them. So we

brought everything to that arrogant Adamke Anna, but we never got back our things from

her. She denied everything. Barna, an honest man, took a big suitcase with him and he gave

everything back. Miss Farkas took our beautiful fur scarf and our valuable diamond ring. She

gave back the ring to Edith but the Russian took the scarf from her. This happened when the

Germans had already reached Csáth. We got an order that we had to hand in all jewelry, so I

had to hand in many things.

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Some of them we hid under the toilets together with you. Edith later found them intact.

Kecskés police officer moved into our house and he took great care of everything. After the

liberation, Dezső had squandered many things, including the big picture about you. I will

never forgive him for that. You know every detail about Hersu as you have Edit’s letter and

our correspondence with Hersu. This is how he repaid me for allowing him to stay for

Blanka’s sake. He was expelled from all the schools he went to. Once a bastard, always a

bastard.

When we accommodated Magda, we put ourselves at great risk, but we managed to save

her and she was very grateful. That bastard Kosdás, who was the school’s director, stole

most of our books after we got deported. We were still celebrating Shelta Sewon. The

Ferenc, Mehler, Jase, Miki, Dászkál and Kohn house, Glattstein Pali – Krausz district. We had

to go to this district and we were only allowed things that we could carry on our backs and

in our hands. Dear Gyurika went out to the fountain and he was pondering how he could

take water with him from the fountain. Tears come to my eyes even today when I

remember this scene. We got a pretty big room in Ferenci's house. We were waiting for

what will happen to us. Meanwhile, the famous Hungarian gendarme took away one by one

the well-situated Jews and beat them badly. Dr. Furész Winkler, where have you hidden the

jewelry?

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I was lucky because they didn’t ask me. After all, I had taught one of the gendarmes’ sons,

so he didn’t interrogate me out of gratitude. It was a rainy day when a lot of gendarmes

shouted to the Jews, “Jews, it’s time to pack your stuff, and out you go”. They kicked us out

in the rain for 3-4 hours. “Now go back”, they told us. This is how our tragic fate started to

unfold. One time two soldiers visited the ghetto and they gathered all the men. They said

that those who are going to do labor work and their families won’t be deported. As you

remember, most of the men signed in for labor work except Miskovits, Schwarcz, and Gyula

Tannenbaum Lajos. Those who signed in for labor work were gone the next day and their

families were deported. Thank God I remained with you, at least I could save you

miraculously. One of my good acquaintances, a second lieutenant told me to go outside the

entrance of the ghetto. He was responsible for our leaving and our going back. When he

took us into his apartment, he broke down in tears. He told us that soon we would be

deported and bagged me to leave Juditka with them, they don’t have children on their own

and they will take good care of her and when we come back, they will give her back. We also

started to cry. How can we leave dear Juditka behind? I wish we had done it but who would

have thought about the terrible future to come?

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Soon we got the order. We had to pack our belongings. They started to evacuate the ghetto.

We packed our things and put everything in a carriage that belonged to a good-hearted

peasant called Kis János. He took us to the train station which was filled with our peasant

friends and acquaintances. They were crying and waving us goodbye. The trains were ready

to depart. It was raining and I planned to get into the wagon with you but Juhász, that

bastard station master, whose life I saved, because three years ago he came to me crying

and told me that tomorrow some people will come to control the finances and the train

tickets and he is missing 500 forints. If I don’t get the remaining money, I will be fired and

thrown into prison. He asked me to help him out and lend him the missing amount. I was an

idiot and helped him. He slowly paid me back the 500 forints.

So after all of this, he had the nerve to come to us and tell us that it is not allowed to get in

the wagons because I hadn’t yet given the order. It was horrible, I almost screamed at him.

“You filthy bastard, this is the thanks I get after all I have done for you and saved your life?

Shame on you! Get the hell away!”

He then started to talk with your mother, telling her “I don’t get why Jenő is so angry.” Your

mother found out about the situation and told him “Shame on you!” and she turned her

back on him.

He came to us and told us to get in the wagons, but we told him that we were waiting for

our brothers and sisters to arrive. Meanwhile, the Rosotsky family had U.S. citizenship so

they left the ghetto and headed to Budapest. Everyone envied them for how lucky they

were.

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I only found out after the liberation that the building reserved for foreign citizens was

bombed by the Arrow Cross party and they claimed that it was caused by the Americans

bombing the building. This is how lucky they got after escaping the ghetto.

We finally embarked. The train stopped at the train station of the brick factory in Diósgyőr.

We got down from the train and took our belongings with us. I was there with my late

mother and father as well as with the brothers from Hejöcsaba, Miskolc, and Felsőborsod.

We were around 10.000-15.000 Jews. The bastard gendarme didn’t allow the Jews to rest in

closed spaces, only in open spaces. They dug a trench in an open space for our biological

needs and when we wanted to improvise a cover from blankets for the women, the

bastards took our blankets away.

A few days passed when the SS soldiers came and asked if we had relatives in the USA

because that would be advantageous for our case. Etel, the wife of Schwarcz Gyula’s parents

is in the USA. The soldiers asked for an address and they happily gave them the address. I

rushed to get in front of the line, there were about 100 people in front of me, I was lucky

because after the SS soldiers noted down the first 10 addresses from the first 10 people,

they flogged them bloody. I was lucky that I was at the back of the line

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And I quickly sneaked out from the line and went away. We spent a few more terrible days

there. Then we received the order that we were going to be deported. They announced that

families with multiple children will embark last for better work opportunities. So we had our

hopes high. When our time came to embark, the bastard gendarme didn’t let us go to the

train station on the main road but through the hill and they beat us on the road to the train

station. It was very hot. When we reached the train station, they put us into the wagons. Do

you remember it? We could barely move. I went to the fire hydrant to get some water for

you but the gendarme yelled at me “I see you are thirsty, you filthy Jew!”. To this, the

administrator of the train station went to the gendarme and scolded him. The gendarmes

closed the doors of the wagons completely, we could barely breathe. The Germans took

over the transport in Kassa. But before we left, the precious bastard Hungarian gendarmes

took from us all the jewelry and the watches, saying that we wouldn’t need them anymore

when we arrived. One of them took from me a colorful scout shirt which could have been

useful for the work we are going to do there. He took it and said that I wouldn’t be using it

anyway.

The Germans who took over the transport were not SS soldiers but Wehrmacht soldiers.

They opened the wagon doors and asked us who wanted bread and other things. I talked

with the soldier who came to our wagon,

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He didn’t know where were they taking us. He thought we would be taken to work

somewhere. The Wehrmacht soldiers traveled with us until Krakow and were replaced by SS

soldiers from there.

At one station the transport was stationed for a long time. On the next train track, there was

a passenger train and the passengers were crying with their fists clenched. They knew

where they were taking us. We arrived in Auschwitz on Friday night. The wagon doors

opened and suddenly a group of Polish Jews called “Canada” started to yell “Heraus”. I

asked him (or them) if I was allowed to take my belongings out, “Heraus”, everybody stays

here. We got down from the wagons. We were very sleepy. I stood there next to my dear

mother and father. Auschwitz was well-lit as if it were daytime. That bastard Mengele was

standing there with his black gloves and pointed left and right with his hand. My dear ones,

you had to go left and I had to go right. Behind Mengele’s back, we exchanged some words

with your late beloved mother. She told me to take care of little Tomi so you switched lines

and came to me behind Mengele’s back. “May God be with you, see you soon!”. These were

dear Rózsika’s last words to me. Then we started going toward the main entrance. It was

cold and foggy. Two SS soldiers were standing at the main entrance. Schwartz Gyula and

Gabi’s son were also with us. They asked us how old the boy was. He’s 14 years old, he’s not

15 yet. Then he should get back to his mother. My mind was on high alert. He asked me how

old the boy was. He’s 15 years old. He asked me when he turned 15 years old. In March.

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The SS soldiers looked at each other and motioned for us to come in. So once again we

experienced a miracle. Then they directed us toward a house with the “Waschroom”

inscription on it.

A Polish Jew told us that we have to rip apart all photos, and all official papers. We are

allowed only belts, trusses, and our shoes. You have to take off all your clothes. After that,

we entered this Waschroom completely naked, where they shaved our heads. From there,

we stood in line toward the showers and we each got a shirt. I got a pretty small shirt and

you got a pretty big one. When I asked the Polish Jew for a bigger size, he slapped me in the

face. Poor Polish Jews, they already spent many years in Auschwitz, and after all they went

through, they lost their sanity. Outside, we switched shirts with you. When we put on the

striped “hänftling” clothes and the hat, I almost collapsed under the terrible feeling of it.

When they gathered us outside, the SS soldiers surrounded us with dogs and they brought

us inside Birkenau, near the crematorium. They directed us into a barrack. A dead man was

lying at the entrance. After we all got inside, a tall and fat person came in, he was also a Jew.

He was wearing a band on his arm stating “Hungarian-German interpreter. His name was

Weisz and he was a butcher from Wien. He was a scum bastard. After the liberation, he was

torn into two. This is how he died.

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His first words towards us were: “This is a Verninchtungslager, nobody left this place alive. If anybody has any object of value, I advise you to give it to me now because you will all be inspected and if I find anything at you, you will be hanged. Yesterday they I got sombody hanged because of this.” Schwarz Gyula came forward and told him that he had hidden in his shoes a $20 gold coin. An SS soldier immediately took from his shoes the $20 gold coin, then he asked young people under the age of 18 to come forward. They will be assigned to go to a school and the parents can visit them weekly. Unfortunately, many young people came forward, and you also wanted to go but I told you not to and I stopped you. You are over 18. Then we were directed into the 12th block where the Ukrainian lancers-hussars lived. The soldiers slept in the middle with their horses on the sides. There were two rooms in the front of the barrack. The block’s supervisor was a gypsy man who had many children. Hitler deported the gypsy people too. They all died later in the crematorium. Weissz and these gypsy people behaved horribly towards us, they stole even that little slice of bread we got. They stole our good shoes by taking them off of our feet. We soiled our shoes so luckily they didn’t steal them from us.

Weis was sleeping in the middle of the barrack in a comfortable place. The barrack where we were sleeping was overcrowded. Early in the morning, they put us out and explained to us

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How to stand in line at the “Appel”, forming lines of 5 people, and what to do with our hats when the SS soldier comes to count us. “Mütze ap – Mütze auf”. I was the third man in the line when the SS came, so you were standing at the fourth place right behind me. 4 people left the line to bring breakfast from a distant kitchen. They brought breakfast in a big and dirty barrel with a black concoction inside. They got us a dirty pot, 1 pot for 4 people, like we were some animals. Then we stood outside to practice the salute at the appeals. At noon, they brought us soup in a dirty pot. The soup contained some meat waste as well. Weisz took them out from the soup and together with the gypsies they fried them and ate them in front of us. There was nothing left for us. At night before entering the barracks, we had to stand in line to get that tiny little slice of bread with that tiny amount of margarine on top. Weisz and the gypsies distributed the bread to the first few people in the line, but the rest didn’t get anything. They tossed us into the barracks and they claimed that we didn’t get bread because we didn’t stand in line as we should have. These days were terrible. Meanwhile, we found out that those buildings with the smoking chimneys were crematoriums and we saw our poor brothers heading that way. We were together with Dr. Hanszelman

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who was a brain surgeon in Miskolc. It was very difficult for him to put up with our misfortune. He collapsed and died at the appel. Unfortunately, many of our friends and acquaintances were taken from the appel to the crematoriums.

Once at an appel, a German SS counted out 1200 people and told them to go “to the right” so we started marching toward the exit to go to the quarantine lager and from there to Birkenau to work. Moskovits and Schwarcz were standing next to us, but they left the line and choose to stay there. Poor people, they left there to die. You and I were almost at the exit when Weisz stepped in front of you, took you out of the line, and told me “You want to take him outside!”. “No”, I replied and to this, he said, “He is not even 15 years old”. I started to cry and I decided that I wouldn’t go either, I would stay there, I wouldn’t leave my son behind. Then suddenly the chief scribe, a Christian Polish person appeared out of nowhere like an angel. He was there because he was a communist and he was above the rank of Weisz. He pulled you away from Weisz and scolded him for doing such a thing. He then went to the gate to report that you are 18 years old according to your papers. So this is how they registered you and thank God you made it out alive from Auschwitz-Birkenau miraculously. Next time I will be writing from the quarantine lager.

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After Birkenau, we had a great surprise in the quarantine lager. We got proper sleeping mattresses and blankets and proper meals with clean pots. It looks like this is the place they show to the Red Cross when they are coming to visit. They want to keep a good impression of how they treat the poor Jews. On the other side, there was a lager with Jews deported from Theresienstadt. That lager was also an exemplary lager. The families could stay there together. I found out only later that the people there were all taken to the crematorium right after the Red Cross left.

Our barak supervisor, “Blockalteste” was a young Slokavian Jewish boy, who was already half-mad. He started shouting to us “For you it was easy, you got to eat goose liver while we were suffering here the whole time. Then he started to beat the people and they started to cry and shout. He asked some doctors if he was doing the right thing. The doctors told him “How can you do such things with your brothers and sisters?” To this, he started to beat the doctors too. After a few days, we had to stand in a line and an SS committee decided who would be going to do labor work. I remember that in the front of the line stood 2 extremely overweight men from Budapest. One of the SS ordered them to have a box fight with each other. The overweight man’s hands could not touch because he had a massive belly. This is how we spent our days there, the SS was constantly at us. Then an official from the station urged us to embark immediately because the train will depart instantly. So the SS soldiers didn’t have time to

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ask the group of people the following questions: “Are any of you sick?” and “Is anyone under the age of 18?” The train was ready to depart. Thank God for this third miracle concerning you. After we embarked, the train immediately departed. The official didn’t let the train enter into Dachau, because Jews were not allowed in Dachau, it was reserved only for political prisoners. This is how we ended up in Alauch, München.

We were in shock at how different the trains were. We got separate beds and separate warm blankets and no “appels” in the morning. I had a good night’s sleep. We had plenty of warm food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with proper cutleries after Auschwitz. The lageraltester-blockaltester, the barber, who was a Jugoslavian, they are all communists. When I started talking with him I told him that I was in labor camp in the Ukraine. I mentioned the locations and I praised the communist ideologies, quoting from Marx’ and Engels’s works. I remember that they liked you a lot. The barber liked you. He assigned you to the kitchen where you got a lot of things like shirts. We made ourselves comfortable there and we prayed in the morning and evening too but Dr. Fisch rabbi disclosed these things to the lageralters.

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Dr. Klein rabbi from Érsekújvár was with us. He was a very ugly, short man with a bad appearance but he was an extremely educated man. He could speak in 7 or 8 languages. Dr. Borcs rabbi from Székesfehérvár and Gottlib from Miskolc (dajen, I don’t understand this word here) together with his two sons. We were together with them in Mühldorf-Mettenheim. The lageraltesters called for Dr. Klein because he was praying and he warned him to be precautious and to praise the communists. He told me with pride that he would dissuade the lageraltesters about communism. They spoke for about 2 hours and after he came back, he told me „proudly” that he managed to change the lageraltesters’ mind, „I won” he said. The next morning at the appel, the lageraltesters ordered him and Gottlieb to step out of the line and directed them toward the trenches. The shooter pointed many guns over their heads. When they came back from the trenches, they could barely walk from fear and anxiety.

I met Dr. Klein in Toronto after the war. He was very happy that I visited him. He wrote a two-volume book in English and was printed by the Canadian government in London. When I think back about our good condition there, I can only think that that place was an exemplary model of a lager. We were lucky that it only operated for a short time because when a committee came from the Red Cross to check it out, at that moment it was inhabited by Jews from Cseh-Theresien-Stadt in Auschwitz.

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We had some good days there. Once the lageraltester came to me and asked me to write him a list of 300 weak men. I thought that they would send away these men so I didn’t write down my name and your name. This was a big mistake, as I found out later. The lageraltester checked my list and gave it to the lagerführer. When he got the list back from the lagerführer, he was very surprised that we weren’t on the list. He told me that these 300 men would stay here and the rest would be deported to another Lager. He told me that he would need me and my son and he told us that he loves us. He went back to the lagerführer to put us on the list but the lagerführer told him that the list was already closed. They took the shoes and shirts of the men but they didn’t take ours, on the contrary, we got things from the lageraltester. He said a warm goodbye from us and we headed to a new K.2. lager in Mühldorf-Mettenheim near the airport. We were the first Haftlings. We had to form a line and we had to go in the barracks. Our barracks was barrack number 10. Hans Rohr, our lageraltester presented himself to us. He was responsible for the haftlings number 12 for years. He was in the K.2. lager for years and he already looked like a neurotic. Eberle, the lagerführer was a butcher near Port Harbor, Cleveland. Before the war,

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Between the USA and Germany, and in Germany…

He wasn’t at all an SS, he was a very nice person. Rohr came home for a holiday from the Foreign Legion. Meanwhile, the war broke out and he was internated … as a prisoner of Hitler.

When he settled down into the 10th block, we got an order to elect a block-elster. To the advice of my good old friend, Elóhr Miksa, they elected me. Next day at the appel, they announced the new block-elsters, who are the receivers, and what should be done next.

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He was very satisfied in comparison with the other barracks. At night I always gave a talk as a form of comfort, which filled me with power and hope. They already waited for the night to fall, so I could start my talk. Many people remembered me and my stories for a long time. Once after an appel, Rohr called me into his office and told me that from now on I would be his scribe and I have to compile the list of names and the report of the appel before the appel and I have to do the daily tasks in the office during the day. I will get better food and I will also have an easy job. I remember that I did my job very well. People needed (I think here it should have been didn’t need) to stand in line for hours. Rohr was very pleased with me and proud of me, he was satisfied with my work. But before I got this job at the office, Rohr asked me a question. How should a Lagerelster’s scribe react to the things seen in the office? My answer was short and he liked it a lot. I replied, “Men have 2 eyes and 2 ears but only 1 mouth”. “Then you are my man!” We both benefitted from this situation. I helped a lot of people this way. Erdély Pista, the violinist told me in tears that he won’t be able to play anymore because of the hard manual labor. I made sure to get him an easier job. Today he is teaching at a music college in Dayton, and before that, he was the second violinist in the firmarmonic orchestra in Cleveland.

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He was extremely grateful for my help. Maybe you remember Tiszavári, I will write a lot about him. Meanwhile, the remaining Greek Jews have all arrived from Warsaw. And because they only knew Spanish and Greek, the Polish jew receivers tortured them to death. They ended up in the 7th barrack where the Blockelster was an evil Lithuan Jew, who treated them horribly. One of the Greek Jews stole a pair of wooden clogs and sold it to a German office worker for a slice of bread. When the evil Blockelster noticed that the clogs were missing, he reported the case to Rohr at the appel so he made all the Greek Jews stand out of the line, ordered them to pull down their trousers, and started brutally beating them all. They started screaming in agony and crying.

Meanwhile, Eberlea lagerführer walked into the front of the line and stopped in front of me and he approached me in a friendly manner and started talking to me in Finnish. In Port Harbor, 90% of the inhabitants are Finnish so he knew a bit of Finnish, and Finnish language is related to the Hungarian language. Back then, I used to study 29 languages and I could understand a bit of Finnish. So he came into the office I was working in

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to practice and compare the words which are similar in Finnish and Hungarian languages. So he came to me and started talking to me.

I replied in the following way: “I hereby report to you, the Lagerführer, and make a request to you.” I got a friendly reply as he accepted my request. The Lagerführer is not a bad man, not like the Blockelster who betrays his fellow Jewish brothers for such a minor thing and he behaves badly with them in the barracks too. He replied to me, “I understand your point”. Then he shouted the following words: “Stop the beating! Pull up your trousers.” Blockelster, please come here, pull down your trousers. And he gave the order to beat the Blockelster. This evil bastard deserves to be punished. From now the new Blockelster will be a Greek Jew. The Greek Jews never forgot this kindness, they were extremely grateful. Do you remember when we were transported toward Tirol and the US aircraft thought it was a German military transport you were injured by shrapnel in the wagon and at the next stop the Greek Jews lay down on the ground in a line and pushed you over their backs

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to the aid station to treat the wound. After the war, I received a beautiful letter of appreciation from leading scholars – few have survived – in which I was honored as the father of Greek Jews, more on that later. Meanwhile, the situation between Roth and Eberle became very tense and Rohr was transferred to the Waldléger. Before he left, he wrote in large letters in the window: “The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go now.” Meanwhile, before Roth left, when he left the office, you came into the office complaining to me that you had a headache. I took you to Dr. Asztales who examined you and said, unfortunately, it’s typhoid. He will try to do everything he can to cure you so you can stay here. He put you in a separate bed on your side so you wouldn’t infect the other patients, and he treated you there for a few days. When Schalamaier noticed you lying there, to Dr. Asztalos’ surprise he said “We will save this beautiful child. If control comes, I will not introduce them anywhere on this side.” and the German chef Gottschlag secretly cooked for you separately. Schalmaier gave you half a bottle of wine from his ration, so thank God you recovered slowly but nicely. A child who was lying not far from you once stole some of the food you hadn’t eaten and so he became infected.

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and unfortunately, he died. As I have already written, Rohr left, his successor, a Lagerelster of Czech origin, had no sympathy for me, and Laurene, the German scribe, left me in peace while Rohr was still here. When Rohr left, he started to pick a fight with me and was going to take me to the Waldlager, but it didn’t work out. In the meantime a new branch K.2. camp opened in Mittergas and Oberscharführer Hausman was appointed as Lagerführer. When transport was set up for today, there was still a scribe missing to control and supply the food and kitchen. Eberle nominated me and asked me if I would accept it. I said yes, I wanted to take you with me from the hospital, as you were already recovered from typhoid fever, but very weakened. When I went to see Hausmann, he was friendly to me. I asked him to let me take you with me. The answer was, why take the first dead man. But I insisted, and he said it was ok. 2 people supported me and put me on the track, so thank God you were able to come with me.

Unfortunately, I must mention here that while we were in Mittergas, a typhus epidemic broke out in Mühlerdor, and Dr. Asztalos, Dr. Wachter, who was a very good friend of mine, died of typhus.

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We arrived in Mittergas, it was a small village, and in the area they were working for the army and that’s why they had set up a branch K.2. camp here from Mühldorf-Mettenheim, just like there used to be a branch K.2. Csmp Waldlager. The K.2. Lager was brand new with new barracks. Outside there were offices and bunkhouses for the Lagerführer – Raportführer and the SS crew, but inside the camp, there were hospital barracks, lagereltes-office and room, a kitchen building, and for me, as you know, an office and a separate bedroom with 2 beds. There were about 200 Jewish hafting. In the kitchen 2 Jewish cooks came with us, the first lageraltester, Jelin, was a Jew.

You were immediately placed in the hospital. Dr Goldstein was the doctor there. I was very sympathetic to camp leader Hausman. I specifically told Dr Goldstein to take good care of you. I went to Mittergars the next day to the OTT, the boss was a nice, intelligent and well-meaning guy. We discussed everything in detail about how we are going to work together and we became very friendly, he was always helpful. In fact, Husman called him on the phone, and in my presence, the lagerführer was happy to have a true professional to take care of his office-magazine-kitchen affairs and I was happy to work with him.

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When I came back, I contacted Hausman and he told me what the OTT boss had said. I didn’t know, I didn’t even think I heard him talking to him in my presence. I went in to see you afterward and thank God Dr. Goldstein was very reassuring that you are getting stronger nicely and rest is helping. And you get what you order from the kitchen. We were together for a long time, and I went back to the kitchen to arrange everything for the next day. Of course, as you know, we didn’t go to the appel. The new raportführer, Greif, as you remember, was very good-willed honest, and very fond of us. I will write much more about him. The next day I went to Mühldorf to make a purchase, I made friends with the OTT there and was able to arrange and buy many things favorably.

I bought the meat from butcher Braun, a real good-hearted German. When I arranged everything, he called me and Greif into the back room and lowered the curtains so that nobody could see in from outside. A table set with the best food and wine. Greif and I talked and ate like true friends. He sent you specially a veal liver. So began the daily work in the new camp. The men were not working very hard, but the weather was not good and the roads in the camp were

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muddy. Hausman was a sick man, he had throat cancer. He suffered a lot. He often talked to me privately and told me about his family, his profession as a carpenter and he worked hard for his daily bread. Now he had a better salary and an easy job. He was very strict with both the SS and the Haftlings. Thank God, you recovered quickly, it was the happiest day of my life. We had a nice, quiet life in our room too, thank God we had everything. You helped to prepare the rations, which we also gave out to the SS too early in the morning before the appel. And the kitchen could start cooking the food for the day. Unfortunately, the 2 Jewish cooks were very bad, and neglectful and gave the good friends much more food than the others. People started to complain and so a former Russian partisan, a high-ranking man, I can’t remember his name, asked who the head cook was. You remember we talked a lot in confidence about many things. The assistant cook was a Pole, with whom you had a quarrel, later he was thrown out of the kitchen. 2 camp barbers were a Greek Jew who shaved and trimmed the SS soldiers and Max, a German Jew, who shaved me every day in the office and the camp inhabitants in the barracks. Max made me a carving that once the prescribed amount of butter could not be cut out

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Max and the Greek Jewish barber received SS benefits. They were very nice boys. Everybody loved them. Next to the camp, a farmer called Maier had a farm, his family was also very benevolent people. When people were assigned to work for him, he did not let them do hard work and provided them with a lot of good food. There was a woman there, her name was Mary, who used to bring fresh water in barrels to the camp every day in a big cart, her husband was a soldier. In the meantime, she had become friends with one of the SS and became pregnant. Hausman was in great pain and went to Dr. Goldstein at the hospital to help her. The stupid Dr. Goldstein, instead of being happy to treat the sick Lagerführer with ciliates, declared, ” Mr. Lagerführer, there is no help for your illness”. He slapped him and came out angry. Meanwhile, I was there, and he came up to me and told me what happened. The doctor Schusters was immediately relieved. When he told me this, I replied, “Lagerführer, I also studied medicine for two years in Vienna, and yes, there is a remedy for your illness.” Do you remember that young Transylvanian SS, Guszti always asked me to go with him, so he was the escort, and I immediately went to Dr. Asztalos and explained what I was doing there.

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The answer was “You knew he had laryngeal cancer and it was incurable”, and I said I knew there were painkillers that would relieve the pain. To which he said, “I’m telling you the truth, many, many strong painkillers will help and he will be very pleased with you, grateful even, and a sick person is easy to treat and influence.” I thanked him, but I told him about the Goldstein case, only to say that he was a stupid fool to do such a thing. when I got home he was waiting impatiently and I explained everything very nicely when I gave him the first painkiller powder, within 10 minutes he jumped up, took my hand shook it, and said thank you. Of course, this powder relieved the pain for at least half a day. He gave me a bottle of shorts which the two of us drank and I went in three times a day to see how he was feeling. He complimented me to the SS soldier and so he was 100% under my influence. Then an SS who had left Mary pregnant came to me crying for help because he was married and a devout Catholic, he had no other option but to shoot himself in the head. Only I can help him I tried to help him. Gustave and I went back to the headmaster. Guszti went to Mühldorf to the girls, and he brought the Mühldorf newspaper. I spoke to Asztaloss again and he asked me how many months pregnant Mary was.

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At about 3 months, he recommended jumping off a high haystack until she started bleeding. He gave me a couple of aspirin and after a few jumps she started bleeding, so the SS couldn’t find words to thank me for that.

The head cook, Mikoly, was a partisan. Only me and Tomy knew that. In the evenings, we often chatted with the assistant cook Ivan Ivanovich, a Polish anti-Semite. He and Tomy had a quarrel, and I later kicked him out of the kitchen.

Hausman did everything the way I told him to do it and didn’t come out to the appel, so the appel took care of him in no time at all. He was a big idiot, not suited for the position, I could handle anything from lagerführer to raportführer to SS. The raportführer Greif was a real man of goodwill, far from anti-Semitism. A real friend of goodwill to us and to our Jewish brothers and sisters, he tried to do good to everyone as best he could. The new Lageraltester Rohr saw that he came from Waldlager so everything went smoothly. One day Hausman received orders to report for a check-up at a Wehrnacht hospital on the other side of the Inn. He took me with him, took me across in boats, and immediately reported, and I was taken to the chief doctor’s office

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and he introduced me as a doctor from Hungary, a Hungarian, a decent, good-willed man, and explained everything to me and how to watch out for Hausman, of course, I listened attentively and nodded “Jawohl”, Yes. Hausman was very grateful and tried to show that he knew how I was helping him. You could see how stupid Dr. Goldstein was.

Meanwhile, Hausman learned that I was good at playing Chess Shack. He asked me if I was willing to play with him. Oh, yes! For me that would be a great, great honor, that night at the gate the guard let me out and was waiting for me in his office with Greifisett sitting there. The pieces were already on the chessboard and I started to play with him. He played very well, and I made sure that he was the winner. When he won the game, he said, “Now I will play with Greiff. I finished the game quickly, I was the winner. He jumped up with joy and said, thank you, but I play better than Greiff. He beat me but you beat him. I beat you, so I am the best player. In my mind, I thought to myself, you better be right. That’s the way it went almost every night, at the end of the game I went back to the camp, the guard had already opened the gate in front and I jokingly said let me in, let me in.

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One night we were playing a game, and suddenly the SS on duty came in and announced that 2 high-ranking SS wanted to come in. When they entered, Hausmann-Greif got on their guard. I, too, got on my guard, the two high-ranking SS officers just stared at us, they had never seen anything like that in their lives.

Hausman quickly and cleverly bailed us out, “I report, the man we were playing chess with”, Weissbluth, and he didn’t mention my number. He said I am the chess champion of Hungary. The surprised SS officers replied to them, “You can take a seat” but I remained standing. “You sit down too.” I sat down, and they sat down. Now a real miracle happened, one of them leaned over to me and said I would like to play a game with you. I told him, with great pleasure. I was very, very honored.

The SS officer played very cleverly and beautifully but I made sure he won the game. He thanked me happily, and everything was very nicely handled. Hausman-Greif are happy, and my character is even more exalted in front of them. In the meantime, unfortunately, Hausman’s condition had deteriorated badly. One fine day, a new campführer came forward to replace Hausman. Kirsch-Hausman knew everything and he highly complimented me, together with you, and brought us, indispensable Haftlings, to his attention.

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Hausman said a really warm goodbye and Kirsch took over his position. He really tried to get everything done very precisely. He was also strict with the SS. He was fast but precise in his conduct of the Appel. We didn’t have to go to the appel. He came into the kitchen often, maybe twice a day to see me and watched everything carefully. In the meantime, the inspector from Amfing came, who was a friend of Goltschalk, the head cook at Mühldorf (Maltenheim). He was our best friend. The inspector Kirsch had praised me very much and he would have been pleased if I had worked for him in the office in Ampfing. So Kirsch saw that Hausman’s praise was not in vain and that he needed me. Once he came into our bedroom and saw our good blanket, shook his head, and said even the SS crew didn’t have one of those. He asked me where I bought it. I got it from the store in Mühldorf. Éberle sent it to me. Shaking his head, he went out and didn’t take it. Once when I was in Mühldorf to buy potatoes, the potatoes arrived from Mittergas and he entrusted you with the task of ensuring that they were transferred and put away precisely and that no one who was lying in wait for them took any. Of course, you overlooked when some of them put a potato in their pocket. When he noticed, he got very angry and slapped you in the face. When I came home, you complained to me in tears, and guess what, the next day he told me he was sorry he hit you, but he was very angry when he saw the people stealing the potatoes.

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I want to describe two very interesting events here. One came into the kitchen and asked for food. I immediately asked him if he wanted cooked food or cold food like salami, sausages, and cheese. It seems that he suddenly changed his mind, I can’t accept it because someone else will get a smaller portion. I’m going to catch a frog and I’m going to cook it from my butter portion in the kitchen. He was really honest in that respect. The other Greif asked me to cook him one in the same manner it is cooked for a Revierbe patient. I don’t know how he found out, he immediately made a big fuss and took the soup, returned it to the kitchen. On one occasion, when I was in Mühldorf again, Rohr was envious of me when he saw me being treated with respect. When he had his nice haircut, Haftling-style, but later grew back nicely.

He called you for some reason, and of course, you didn’t go. Then he came in and slapped you twice in the face. Gryff immediately called him in and wanted to punish him severely. I am very sorry that this happened, but I, who has been a prisoner for so many years, have no more nerves. He apologized to me and the matter was closed. Meanwhile, Rohr was replaced and Laurence became the lageraltester. He was very surprised to see how I was living and how Kirsch-Greif and the SS respected me as a lageraltester. He called us to appear at the Appel as well.

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Him being an idiot, we had to stay in the warehouse to sort things out. And Kirsch-Greif were surprised to see us there. They took us aside and scolded us badly. Since then, I’ve had no more business being there. He tried to make a jolly face as if nothing had happened. So the days passed peacefully, and one fine day, unexpectedly, about 300 new Haftling transports arrived from a disbanded nearby camp. They were not Jews, but French and Yugoslavian Haftlings, Lagerführer, Raportführer, scribe, and more SS, with orders that Kirsch should take his place, join the SS army, Greif should go back to Mühldorf and the camp should be run by the new Lagerführer-Raportführer Lageraltester-scribe and the others. Kirsch came in to see me and said a really warm goodbye by complimenting me as the new Lagerführer and requesting that he leave me in my job because he was very pleased with me. Then, before they went out, he said he was happy to go out to fight at the front for Hitler and that we would win. The new Lagerführer was a postal clerk in Dresden. He was a very good-willed man. He came in to see me, I greeted him and he shook my hand and told me to stay in my place and do my job as I had done with you. The new raporthührer, you remember him, was Scharf, he was also very friendly with me. In the same way, the Lageraltester was an educated Frenchman and a former scribe from Strasburg who was a bookseller. I was finally working with educated people.

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Greif said a warm goodbye, saying that he would be in Mühldorf, so he would see me often and would always be there to help me, which he did.

The next day at the Appel, the new lagerführer Stolte introduced himself and talked a lot. He wants to help the Haftlings, so whoever feels weak should stand aside. A lot of them were afraid to stand up and stand aside, he told them you are not going out to work today, get rest and I will try to help you with food.

The next day he went to a peasant and asked him if he had any weak calves he could sell cheaply. There was one that he bought with his own money and cooked especially for the weak, so he helped Jews, French, and Yugoslavs, without exception, without difference. He warned the “kapók” (those who receive, I am not sure who they were) to behave humanely, without complaints. All the haftling was relieved. At last, they had a truly benevolent camp leader. The French received a special Red Cross parcel from home, which I collected and distributed among them. They were keen to give me and you good chocolates. The lagerführer had a secretary girlfriend in Ampfing and every Friday he would come out to Mittergars to see her, then he would have a big dinner and invite me and the scribe who worked in the lageraltesters office. We ate and drank well and the scribe got so drunk that he broke his leg and lay in bed there for weeks. You can remember Friedman, who worked as an electrician and said he was not Jewish, even though he was from Máramaros.

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He did not come with us to Mülhdorf, although all the Jews were transferred there. After the war, he was here in Cleveland and later moved to California. Before the camp at Müldorf had been cleared of Jews, a large group from Munich-Aluch arrived. We were there for a short time after Auschwitz. Among them was the renowned priest from Kraszna, whom we helped a lot. He is now a famous priest in New York. I have a great admiration and gratitude for him. Years ago he was very ill. When he recovered, he sent me a long letter of gratitude and wrote this, among other things: “I have God to thank for my survival, I have you and your son to thank for the same, for as long as I remember what you did not only to me but to everyone, you were almost at the risk of putting your lives in danger for us. Every day I pray for you and I ask God’s blessing for you.”

The days passed quickly, one day Scharf the report leader asked me to go to his house in the evening. He received me very kindly. He sat me down, offered me a drink, and in my presence, he listened to the anti-German broadcast on the English radio and said he saw that Hitler would be finished. Then he said he had a great request to me. Mary got pregnant by him and I should help her as I had once helped one of the SS. Mary said this to him. I promised to help, but a few days later, unexpectedly, on a motorbike

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but a few days later, 2 high-ranking SS officers were unexpectedly …

Afterward, Stalte came to see me and I could see he was sad, he could hardly hold back his tears. He said that unfortunately, he had very sad news to tell us. The two SS officers had brought orders to transport all the Jewish prisoners from the camps to the Italian border to be exchanged for German prisoners of war, so only other, non-Jewish haftlings could remain in the camps. I am truly sorry to part with you and your son. You are to hand over the books and the scribe from Strasburg, and you are not to go to Mühldorf by transport and take whatever food you choose, I give you a free hand. And he went out. He’ll say goodbye to me tomorrow when the transport leaves. I started to prepare everything precisely so that I could hand it over to my successor, who was also a very good friend of mine. In the evening at the appel, he said a very warm farewell to the Jews, saying that they would be replaced by the war prisoners so that they would be free. Unfortunately, even he did not know what a terrible order Himler had issued. I have in my possession a photocopy of the order he issued, in which he ordered that no Jew should be allowed to live to see his liberation.

The next day, all the Jews were taken to Mühlford on foot. I remained behind with them.

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Meanwhile, Greif came over from Mühldorf to go with us. The next day I handed everything over exactly to Stelte-Scharf, and the SS were almost in tears. They wished me good luck, and Greif told me that in a few days, the whole lot would be transported from Mühldorf. He would take over all the food for the transport and I would be with him in the special wagon and in case he should see that something evil was about to be done to the Jews, he would chain you and me together and take us to the military authorities and save us. God bless him. Unfortunately, after the war, I could not get his address. When we arrived in Mühldorf, everything was ready for the transport to leave the next day. Rohr, seeing that he has now more power than I had, we really did not miss him, the next day all the food was loaded into the wagon. Greiff and I got on the train which set off for the Alps as secretly ordered. On the way, we distributed the daily rations exactly. When we arrived in Munich, we learned that an uprising had broken out against Hitler. The people shouted, “You are free, Jews, Hitler is finished,” and to this many people jumped out of the wagons.

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I wanted to leave too, but you told us not to exit. You were right. Soon the old Nazis arrived because, in the meantime, the revolution had been crushed and Jews who had jumped out of wagons were shot dead. So, on your advice, we survived. The transport continued on its way, on its way past Kockel the American planes thought it was a troop train. They started bombing the trains. We had to lie down on the floor of the train. Unfortunately, your leg was hit by a small grenade. When the transport train stopped, the wounded men were given first aid at the bandaging station. You were taken to the bandaging place by grateful Greek Jews who, one after the other, lay down on their stomachs on the ground and carried you on their backs to the bandaging place. When the transport stopped at Kockel, the Swiss consul, who had fled from Munich, because Munich, as you know, had been bombed to pieces, came out and told the SS transport driver to take note that the American army was very close. They might be here today or maybe in a day or two. I advise you, I warn you, not to take the transport to the Alps, leave the trains there, and you will not be punished, you will be released, because you have saved these sick, suffering unfortunate people.

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The SS commander took the good advice and left the trains there, and he ordered the train drivers to leave the trains there, on 30 April 1945 at Tutzing, where the train was at a standstill, when we looked out of the wagon, we saw the American advance guard of General Putton marching up. “We are free,” we shouted with joy. I tearfully advised Greif to get out at once, lest he should be hurt. We hugged him and thanked him for everything and he made a lucky escape. Unfortunately, I never found out his address. He was truly a nobleman. From Tutzing the train arrived at Feldafing, the first D.P.Layei with about 2500-3000 people, with both men and women. Feldafing’s Starenberg lakeside was the refuge of many of Munich’s industrialists and office workers. Beautiful summer villas, in this lake King Ludwig Bayor committed suicide, he had many artistic royal castles built. Here Hitler opened the first Hitler Jugend educational institute. The most talented young people from all over the German Reich were sent here to be trained as Gauleiters, leaders. But when the U.S.A. army was approaching, they escaped in time but left a lot of things behind. Feldafing had beautiful villas, Ludendorf was owned by generals and many other prominent politician-managers.

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We found the villas without their owners with beautiful, valuable furniture, pianos, carpets, etc. We went into the empty buildings and waited to see how we would settle in. Lieutenant Schmidt became the camp commander. He was a Jewish lawyer from Indianapolis in civilian life. The interpreter was a Dane … I was instructed on how to take over the management of the food warehouse. When I went down to the warehouse, there was still a Wehrmacht sergeant in charge, there was a lot of food there. I told him that I am in charge of the warehouse and that he should give me the keys. He said he would only give them to the camp commander. I reported it and didn’t bother about it anymore. In the meantime, the men were slowly being accommodated into the empty buildings. For the men and for the women separately – the camp commanders-Lagerführer was also appointed the first Fürstehfeld. He married a charming girl from Kassa and we became close friends with them. A distinguished former lawyer in a building selected about 20 boys to open a school. When Edele found out, she/he came to me, as I was a teacher at home – to open a real school and she/he would help me with everything – I gladly accepted the assignment and opened the Kinderkasino in the main building of the former Hitler Jugend School in IA and we made ourselves comfortable in the office space.

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We settled into the comfortable bedroom – nice office – now I was looking for pupils, fortunately, Mrs Mandeln was a teacher from Büdszentmihály (she had 2 daughters) Mrs Reinorn was a gymnastics teacher from Miskolc, a great communist, but a child-loving, honest, good-willed person who was of great use to me. Then I took in Katzné, Sándor Bauer, and Dr. Berkes, and the boys and girls began to enroll, and I also employed Rabbi Dr. Béla Angyal. In 2-3-4 days there were already about 100 of them, and with the help of the teachers I placed the girls separately and the boys separately and began to work out the curriculum, which was very difficult. Some had never been allowed to go to school because they had already been sent to the ghettos at the beginning of the war and others had already been to school. From day one, the army provided the school staff and the children with everything they needed. The oldest was already older. A few of you were young, I have a precious photograph of the outdoor school. Before the food, clothes, and everything we received in abundance, I took Mandelene, Max, and Dr. Angyal, 2 girls and 2 boys of the pupils together, as we distributed what we received fairly to everybody’s greatest satisfaction.

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Most of the things Nagy had stolen from his pupils so they barely got anything. when the pupils gathered together, Nagy’s pupils were happy to boast, we got half a bar of chocolate today. Our pupils laughed and replied, we get 2 bars of chocolate and cake every day. Then one of Nagy’s pupils reported the incident to Tihamér, who was the commander of the Jewish police in the camp and had stayed on in the Spanish Foreign Legion before the war against France. He came from a very prominent Jewish political family, his father being the Turkish ambassador to the Neimar German state. The next day he walked to his Great School. When it came to the distribution of goods, he caught Nagy and found many things wrongfully withheld, everything confiscated. Nagy was locked up and the students were referred to me. In the meantime, we had a choir, a cultural office, a kitchen, a church, and work groups for tree cutting, so we had everything arranged like in a real town. Many Hungarian and German prisoners of war worked in the camp, we had a school, and I was assigned a German prisoner of war, Alfred, who was happy to work for us. Slowly, different political groups also began to form Mapam-Mapay Schmerltavoir Revisionist Mizrachi and Communist with leftist leanings.

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We even celebrated the coming of May with a big parade. Max was in front with a red flag. He wanted the school to march too, I didn’t allow the school to be political, which Max later admitted…

There were elections, and different parties ran candidates, but the left-wing Mapam won with a large majority so the new leadership of the lager was left-wing. Nearby, the Revisionist camp was strongly organized under the leadership of Moishe Zilberberng, who was a very educated man with a great political track record. Garransky also helped him. He started the Yiddish language Feldafing Neies, I wrote many articles for it, and I still have a few copies. You entered the Betar, and you were happy to be an active participant. Zilberberg his wife and his sister-in-law were true friends with them, in fact, I gave a lecture on Modern Pedagogy to the Revisionist teachers at the Revisionist cultural meeting in Türkheim for 2 days with great success. Meanwhile, the Kinden Casino’s first-rate army was proud of this school, because, you know, high-ranking officers were constantly coming to visit. In fact, in Yom Kippur 1945, Generals Eisenhauer and Palton visited the school. I have a photograph of it. Eisenhauer, when he saw the students praying in bad German, said, “Du betest, du sich bin du” “You pray because I am here.” He shook my hand and thanked me in English.

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In the meantime, Rabbi Halberstam took about 50 children to D. P. Lugor Föhrenmiald via Italy to Israel. Then they migrated to Palestine. They left me a grateful letter which I will enclose. Thus the school was dissolved, it no longer functioning, and in the meantime, the Hungarian Jewish Federation was founded in Munich with the scoundrel Winternitz as its president, the Danish secretary. I was elected vice-president with the task of starting a Hungarian-language newspaper in the editorial office of F… Nymphembürgerstr. …location and I employed Görög, who did all the office work, typing, etc. very professionally. He was an office manager for a large company back home. I gave the newspaper the name UTUNK and it was registered under the UNSER license. JOINT covered the expenses as it was printed in a German printing house. There were many difficulties because of the Hungarian letters, but we overcame the difficulties. It was valuable and meaningful, later on, we had collaborators, Tábori, Bauer, Stella, Dr. Roth, Majtény, and many external collaborators. The first issue was published on 8 May 1947 in Hemmingway … Wündescheim was printed. Later it was produced permanently by Mendel Printing House Pusing and Naftali Lorbor, unfortunately 2 years ago

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he died in an accident in Israel 2 years ago. He really did a very valuable and useful job in both printing and sending the paper. Later Elsie helped him. The Federation office where Wintermitz lived was at 11 Lehchenfelvi Street. The UTUNK office was later at Wiedermajer H9 and finally, the very comfortable Hungarian Consulate was in the building at Maria Theresia 19. In the meantime, I took on the very honest, servile, true, loyal friend Dr. Károly Hornstein as editor, and working with him was a real pleasure. In the meantime, I transferred Görög to the Federation, and instead, I hired Margaret Tusch, daughter of our chef, and 4 Hungarian Hoffmanns for the core team, all of them of true value and quality. I was recognized everywhere, and even the Hungarian state was a subscriber, and the Hungarian Jewish Newspaper especially emphasized that we also had quality articles at UTUNK. I will write about our journey again later. Meanwhile, a school opened in Feldafing, Waldman became the headmaster. I didn’t want to work there at the Kinder Casino at the time, I taught two days a week to keep the apartment until I moved to Munich and I commuted from Feldafing to Munich.

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Meanwhile, Edith sent a letter from the British zone and I arranged for Pötyi to come to us. Edith went home and I took Aliz off the transport in Nuremberg. She was ill and I put her in the Elizabeth Hospital, where she recovered fully. Sanyi B. and Alfred Friedrich helped me to take Aliz off the transport. Aliz is really grateful. Edith came back to Csát and Mrs. Farkas returned her late mother’s ring and dug up the chamber in the arbor and brought many things. Unfortunately, the ring was taken by the Eddy Road burglars, meanwhile, the Berger’s, Pista, Luci, and another friend also came to Feldafing and slept on the floor at our place for a while, they still had a flat. Later I got an apartment in Munich on Gedeon Strasse. I should also mention how I met Fride when I went to Weilheim as a school inspector, she was a secretary here, the Lágerführer Moishe is a Greek Jew and he saw how respectfully I was received and welcomed. At that time the Mayor of New York, Fiorella La Guardia, was traveling to visit the D.P.Légers, he thought he was me, but Moishe explained to him who I was. He asked him to introduce him to me, and to ask for books, and writing utensils for his daughter.

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After the school visit and after the big lunch, he introduced himself and made his request. I said to him, I’m still staying in Feldafing on Saturday and I’m going to Munich on Sunday, he should come and I’ll give him everything. Indeed, I was once in the Lagererwaltung in Meetingen, and you were outside with a woman who came to us with her daughter from Weilheim. I told her/him not to tell her/him that I would be home soon. It was indeed Trude and Vera, I wrote to Waldman immediately to get some pencils and notebooks, and he was glad to do me a favor, he helped me a lot. You brought these things and he was very thankful to you and from then on he tried to help us all the time. Miss Tushed Dr. Nusraumer ?and when he moved to Munich, he got the truck to transport our things to Munchen. We were lucky enough to move to Munich. The landlady was an old, mean retired schoolmistress, very unfriendly, but we didn’t care much for her. We brought the furniture, linen, and dishes from Feldafing and Elsie who did all the cooking and cleaning for us, apart from cleaning the office, did it with the love of a family member. There was another tenant, Fraulein Wild, who treated the old woman savagely, as she deserved, beating her up in the evenings and shouting at her.

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Professor, Hilfe! Of course, we pretended not to hear anything. In that house lived another Dr. Müller, whose name was Cehsonseps?. Hitler had also accepted him as a lawyer and politician. You spoke to his daughter often. Gedeon Street was in a very upscale neighborhood, close to the Beautiful Angel Garden. We walked through it to the office. We were given free lunch by the federation, and later a delicious meal from Rosenthal’s kosher restaurant, because I had placed an advertisement in UTUNK. Everything went very nicely, you even had a tailor when we lived in Feldafing. You got to know him through Freireich and he worked for you and me. I achieved a lot socially in Munich, thank God. When Israel was recognized, Schreiber Lérband, Felffel-Scharlitán and two Polish journalists and I requested for Israel propaganda from David Ben-Gurion, which involved a lot of work. We had to lecture in many places. The revisionists asked me to give a lecture on modern pedagogy at the revisionist cultural meeting which lasted 3 days. Menachem Begin was there at that time and he appreciated the lecture very much, I had no idea how famous he would become. I was very active in Schreiber Verbaud as the only Hungarian Jew. Rubinstein, who was later the head of Koltisroel in Israel was a Radio station in Unser Weg-ben …?

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wrote about my knowledge and activity and greatly appreciated it. I have the article. Politically, I was a member of the Central Committee, and every month there was a meeting in Bad Rei Hall. Prof. Haber and I introduced the schools. He is the president of the ORT World Federation. Once he was in Cleveland on official business, he immediately got to know me and inquired about you. I was elected as the only Jew from IRO University Feldafing. We had one or two exam days a month. Those who came were K.2 campers or refugees from various countries, Russian, Polish, Czech, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc., and self-taught doctors, lawyers, engineers, and priests. They did not have their diplomas, because they were destroyed and lost. They passed the exam before us. Our diploma was recognized all over the world. It was a huge prestige for me. The teaching staff consisted of 5 teachers, 2 refugees from Russia, 2 university professors who fled from the communists to Yugoslavia when Hitler invaded Yugoslavia and were dragged to the K.2. camp. They were old men of great knowledge. A teacher from Sweden, a university lecturer from Romania, and me. I was the head of the pedagogical department. They certainly envied me for my position. Everything that is in writing is very, very precious to me, including the invitations to meetings.

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The Central Committee and the army permanently provided me with a car with soldiers for my exams. They waited there until the exams were completed that day and were paid very handsomely by the IRO for each exam day. How the exams went and my experiences and my activities in the various associations Wizo, Robbi Association, etc. will be described in detail in a separate chapter in this book. I want to tell you about the federation with Winterintz Reichman, they cheated and stole, and when parcels came from the United States, they opened and sold most of it until they finally found out in a very stormy meeting. Winternitz was put down and almost shouted, there is an honest, right man in the federation, Weissbluth, so I became president. Winternitz was dismissed by the Federation Court of Honour. The president Dr. Rosenberg of the Columbia Temple Rabbi in Cleveland was still alive and functioning when we arrived in Cleveland. Winternitz didn’t deserve to be saved, but I made Dr. Rosenberg do more interrogations until people got bored and while they were doing it, he was saved. Meanwhile, Charles Horstein was working as an editor, and we became very close friends

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and we really understood each other. When he married Gila, I was the best man and at the conversion, Gila was a real enthusiastic Jewish woman. She wanted to go to Israel anyway. There was a lot about Munich in connection with Winternitz’s love affair with Batiska, that Jewish girl from Maramures, etc. So time flies. In the meantime, he emigrated to the United States. Vera was always an orphan child first in the US, in the meantime I got Dave Schwarz’s address for Affidavit End. I wrote to him and he asked me to bring him a set of 12 cutlery. We brought it to him, and Basset took it to Bleiman. He was a qualified, good-willed person, a great admirer of mine. Edith married Kertész, Aliz went to Canada, and finally, in May 1949 we were called to Hias and everything went very smoothly, thank God. 1949 June in New York, where Pötyi and I stayed with Edith for a few days and Fizde always gave us a visit, she was in Larchmont at Wodlingen, we went out there then we went to Cleveland.

Cleveland. We arrived in June 1949, Somló was waiting for us at the train and took us to David Schwartzes at their Saywel Ave apartment. We handed over the heavy silverware set of 12 heavy silverware he wanted, I had already paid $250 for it in Munich. Malvin Neurörscht who lived upstairs on the second floor temporarily gave his apartment to us. Schwartz was really trying like a dictator to give all kinds of advice and instructions

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while I was installed as a Spiritual leader at the West Side Jewish Center and Sisterhood in July 1949, but I later resigned, not seeing a future in it. We then moved to Eilz 55 Strasse to miss Gelei, the apartment would have been adequate, except that his son was always playing music, even though he worked for Fleischer. But he was dirty, and he gave the hardest job he gave even to black people, so you left and got a job at Fischer. You worked there with old man Fröhlinger, and in the meantime, Rabbi Bszichner called me and said he would like to talk to me on Saturday after the service. I knew him from Germany, he was Colonel Minister at the camp and visited me in my office at that time. He greeted me very kindly and told me that I should not have to work hard here. He got me a job at Western University to teach “German”. He called Prof. Reményi, whom he had helped to accommodate at the time, a Hungarian Jew. Prof. Reményi called me, I went to him, and he said the following in Hungarian. I waited 18 years to be appointed as a substitute teacher, and you know at that time, they didn’t teach in foreign languages, English was enough. After that Rabbi Brückner called the University of Akron and got the answer, all right you got 2 students who want to study German, they will hire you for $200 a week, so that didn’t work out either.

That’s how I ended up at Bobbie Brooks and started working.

Tom Reed: Bad Arolson Documents