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

The person in question has given us the following information: Still before Hungarians re-conquered Carpatho-Ruthenia my husband had a wood and coal store. Later, he was constantly in labour service so I was forced to make a living on my own. I spent four weeks in the ghetto of Ungvár. During this time Hungarian policemen would beat me all the time with no apparent reason. We buried our valuable belongings but someone must have told them about it and denounced us, so policemen came and made us dig out everything, and brutally beat me up and also my aunt. Four weeks later, Glück’s brick factory started to be evacuated. Earlier, they thoroughly searched us and let us keep only some underwear, clothes and food. They crammed 82 people into the freight cars. We did not get water when we departed but could buy it only at Kassa, where Germans took charge of us. No one died in our freight car although I heard about several people dying in the other cars. They told us that we were going towards Western Hungary to work but when we arrived at the border we realised in dismay that we were heading towards Poland. Three days later, on the 16th of May at 3.30 pm we arrived in Auschwitz. Polish prisoners chased us off the train right away. We had to leave there our entire luggage. On the railroad-sidings SS-henchmen were already waiting for us. After selections we were taken into the building of the baths, where they cut our hair, shaved us, gave us some bad, old cloths and took us into Camp A, where there were 1,500 of us in a block, 14 of us on a bunk. Our rations were the usual camp rations: little and bad food. We did not work in Auschwitz; we had to stand for roll calls almost all day long: between 4 and 8 at dawn, and later again for hours in the evening. At the end of June, I was selected for a transport of labourers and was taken to Hamburg. The journey lasted again for three days but there were now 50 of us in a car. We got a quarter of a loaf of bread and Zulag for the journey. When we arrived in Hamburg they right away gave us soup in the evening and then they locked us in for two days. 1,000 women arrived here, and two groups of 500 people occupied two blocks. We lay in separate beds, and everyone had two blankets. On the third day we went to work by ship. The voyage lasted two hours to get there and two hours to return, and we had to walk around 3 kilometres from and to the ship. We worked in a factory, on construction and we cleared up rubble. We also carried roof plates; two of us carried one plate up the height of a storey. We worked 12 hours a day. There were a lot of air raids, which killed five girls also among us and injured another five. Six months later there was no more work in the factory and we carried on to Edelstadt. We constructed houses for 13 hours a day, doing hard work of men. We also dug trenches, using pickaxes and also constructed roads. Rations were somewhat better than in Hamburg. There were 150 of us in a block, 45 of us in a room and everyone had a bed of her own with two blankets. Four months later, one day, we were about to leave for work when the woman supervisor told us to remain in the block. Later, there was a roll call that lasted for half a day. They searched us and seized everything we had, even our coats, and then we had to leave the place with provisions for three days. There was an immense number of people in Bergen-Belsen. Ten people shared a loaf of bread, which was supposedly also poisoned; many people died also from our transport. A week later, on the 15th of April, English troops liberated us. People rushed to eat, and the fatty, heavy food gave diarrhoea almost to everyone. We were transferred to Bergen where we spent around 3 months. Supplies were so excellent that I regained my energy soon. I came to Budapest with a Czech transport through Pilsen, Prague and Pozsony. My future plans: Palestine!

Looting