Protocol Nr. 1859
Name: W. O.
Gender: female
Place of birth: Perecseny
Date of birth: 1926
Place of residence: Perecseny
Occupation: housewife
Ghetto: Ungvár
Camps: Auschwitz, Oberschlesiensee
Gender: female
Place of birth: Perecseny
Date of birth: 1926
Place of residence: Perecseny
Occupation: housewife
Ghetto: Ungvár
Camps: Auschwitz, Oberschlesiensee
Name: W. E.
Gender: female
Place of birth: Perecseny
Date of birth: 1912
Place of residence: Perecseny
Occupation: housewife
Ghetto: Ungvár
Camps: Auschwitz, Oberschlesiensee
Gender: female
Place of birth: Perecseny
Date of birth: 1912
Place of residence: Perecseny
Occupation: housewife
Ghetto: Ungvár
Camps: Auschwitz, Oberschlesiensee
Name: W. R.
Gender: female
Place of birth: Perecseny
Date of birth: 1910
Place of residence: Perecseny
Occupation: seamstress
Ghetto: Ungvár
Camps: Auschwitz, Oberschlesiensee
Gender: female
Place of birth: Perecseny
Date of birth: 1910
Place of residence: Perecseny
Occupation: seamstress
Ghetto: Ungvár
Camps: Auschwitz, Oberschlesiensee
The people in question tell the following: There were about 45-50 Jewish families living in Perecseny. In March 1944, after the Germans’ arrival, breaking into Jewish homes became incessant. The trade licenses were taken away from the Jews, one after the other, so they tried to work illegally without trade licenses in order to ensure their living. Vladimir, the notary of the town hall and his wife Ella Grohman, who also worked there reported the Jews all the time of continuing their trade without a license. They were taken to interrogation and they came home beaten almost to death. The gendarmes were even worse than the Germans. Ernő Meinsz, a local textile-tradesman also reported the Jews, he was watching every movement of them and did everything to make their life difficult. First notary Pukán and chief constable Margittai, however, were better-intentioned: they endeavoured to protect the Jews but the whole atmosphere was so antisemitic that he could not do anything for them. In the beginning of April we were taken to the ghetto in Ungvár; we stayed there for 6 weeks, and around 20th May we were entrained in order to be taken to Auschwitz. At the Auschwitz train station Dr. Mengele and 3 other SS men selected us. We were separated from our parents, who were sent on the left side. We were taken to the public baths, they cut our hair, dressed us up in other clothes and took us to block 20 in Camp C. We spent 6 months there. Rózsi Weinberg regularly sewed for the female block leader and, in return, I received extra food from her, which I divided among my sisters. In mid November they took us from Auschwitz to Oberschleiensee where we dug anti-tank ditches, which were 5 metres wide and 3,8 metres long. It was often very cold and we worked wearing clogs; we were so cold that we stuffed rags around our feet. The food supplies were poor. In the beginning we were given 200 grams of bread a day, later only 100 grams, 75 decilitres of soup at noon and black coffee in the evening. Towards the end of December we went to Zwodo on foot, we stayed there for some days, than we were marched for 4 months to Eda, Czech Republic, in the biggest cold, in thick snow and mud. We only got bread and frozen potatoes three times a day. We ate what we found on the way or what we managed to ask for. When spring was approaching we ate green plants, which had pierced out by then. Our suffering was boundless. Many of us died with cold and of hunger on the way, while some were shot dead, because they were unable to march on. From among 2,000 people 150 of us survived. The Americans liberated us while we were marching at the end of April. They accommodated us in a wasteland in the Czech Republic. At the liberation the Americans gave us 40 tins of food immediately, and we had to go for food to the Red Cross house, which was located 4 kilometres from there. Later the Red Cross people put us in a sanatorium. We came home with a Czech transport 2 months later, in the beginning of July.