RelatioNet GR IS 27 AJ CH

Jews in Hungary in World War 2

The Jewish community of Hungary was one of the biggest Jewish communities in Europe before the Second World War Although the Germans invaded Hungary towards the end of the war they managed to exterminate most of the Jewish community.Horthy, The Hungarian Prime Minister, was one of the only leaders who refused to give their Jewish community to the Germans. Although Horthy refused to the Germans, he did it because he took advantage of the Jews in his country. This anomalous situation was maintained until March 1944, when German troops marched into Budapest.SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann set up his staff in the Majestic Hotel and proceeded quickly to concentrate Jews from all of the Hungarian provinces, outside of Budapest and its suburbs. In parallel The Yellow Star and Ghettoization laws, and Deportation were accomplished in less than 8 weeks.The first transports to Auschwitz began on May 15, 1944, which was late as the war had started in 1939. As Soviet troops were rapidly approaching the Hungarian border, and because Eichmann and his staff knew that Germany had by then lost the war, the transports to Auschwitz were conducted faster than ever. In seven weeks from May 15 through July 8, approximately 400,000 Hungarian Jews were exterminated. For most of this time period, 12,000 Jews were delivered to Auschwitz on a typical day.Most of the Jews who were sent to Auschwitz, were gassed immediately, therefore there was no way that the crematoria could possibly cope with this number, so special pits were dug near them, where bodies were simply burned in open pits. Historians say that one third of the murdered victims at Auschwitz were Hungarian.Until the Soviet capture of Budapest in February 1945, the Jews in the Budapest Ghetto suffered a time of terror. People were simply shot at will with their bodies dumped into the Danube river, as were those who attempted to hide them. Frequently the murderers didn't want to waste more than one bullet, so they simply tied three people together, and threw the lot into the Danube river after shooting one of them, to sink them all.At this time, one of the most daring figures of the Holocaust emerged onto the stage: Raoul Wallenberg. Raoul Wallenberg was one of few Righteous among the Nations. Using his staff to prepare Protective Passports under the authority of the Swedish Legation, Wallenberg saved the lives of thousands of Jews by providing them with Swedish passports which said that the owner of the passport was waiting to go back to Sweden. Wallenberg even fought for the jews physically, At one point he actually appeared personally at the train station, insisting that many Jews on the train be removed, and presenting the Arrow Cross guards with the Protective Passports for them.Nevertheless, by the end of the war, Hungary's Jewish community, perhaps the second-largest in Europe, had lost over 400,000 or even 550,000 out of an initial population of over 800,000.

Interview With Israel Gross

In my town there was a very small Jewish community. It was a lovely town, it was well known and familiar in Ukraine, but it wasn't a big town. Most of the town was a huge military base. Most of my neighbors weren't Jewish but we had good relationships with them. There were 49 families in the area who were families of the oil factory workers. We were six children, four brothers and two young sisters, and two parents before the horrible war.My family wasn't religious, Although my grandfather from my mother side was a Rabbi, I studied in a Slovakian school and not in a Jewish school. My extended family lived three kilometers away.When I was sixteen years old I studied women's hairdressing and a few months later the Germens invaded. When the owner of the place heard about the Germen invasion he suggested that he and his wife adopt me because they had no children and that way the Germens wouldn't catch me. I was shocked and I didn't know what to do because I had family and I didn't understand the importance of the idea. I told him that he must speak to my mother and ask her permission. Meanwhile the owner had prepared all the documents which were needed. My mother told me to go if I wanted to but I decided to stay with my family. My father was taken to an unknown labor camp. My oldest brother joined the army and my other brother left home and went to Hungary.The military police had came to our neighborhood and said we had an hour and a half to pack our staff and leave the house. They took us to the Ghetto which had been a brick factory in the past. My uncle was in charge of the maintenance of the place so he let us and all the family in the furnace room which was warm. My family and I were there for about a month and then we were told to pack and leave again. After Passover of 1944 we were on our way to a concentration camp in Hungary. We were taken in trains and after a few days we arrived in Auschwitz. There we were separated and in that place I lost my name and I became A-7435.From Auschwitz I was taken by foot to Birkenau, there we were divided into work groups, I was in group number 13. My group worked in a coal mine, the conditions in the mine were not so bad and we got food every day. We worked in teams of two and there were two mangers who supervised us. They were very nice, they always told me to do something and never sit around doing nothing because there was one officer who was very dangerous. My work was to make wooden beams so that the mine would not collapse. Each day on three o'clock we used to get back to camp for food, shower and sleep. It was like that for several weeks. One day the supervisor came to our block and said that in few hours we wouldn’t be here any more because the Russians were coming. After few hours we really heard explosions and we had to run fast, it was snowing outside so we went into some barn. From there we were taken to the death camp named "Berganbelzen". There, there was the typus disease which wasn't treated because it was a final destination.The Germens looked for volunteers, we didn't know what for but I was the first one to volunteer myself. I was lucky we were taken to an underground bunker to sort ammunition. After another few days we were heading back to "Berganbelzen". In the death camp each one had to take a carriage and start to take out dead bodies for burial. The bodies had been buried in a grave that was 300-400 meters long and 10 meters deep, part of the bodies had already been there for a long time and they were rotten.On May the 8th 1945 we didn’t see any soldiers but we were used to doing our work without any commands so we continued doing it. Suddenly, we heard military cars with Germen and British soldiers and we heard them speaking "Yiddish", they had came to rescue us. They took me to a place where all the survivors were and there they striped me down, fed me and gave me other clothes. We were given military food with a lot of fat which killed many of us. I got the "typhus" disease but somehow I managed to be cured. In the camp everybody searched for food, they looked for it in the garbage and they ate rotten potatoes and potato peelings. That kind of food caused different kinds of diseases. I didn't eat the food that was found in the garbage, although I was as hungry as everyone else, because of the education that I had got from my parents I was saved. The British transferred me to Czech by train with hot drinks and warm food and from there to my home. On the train my package was stolen while I was asleep and I was left with nothing. When I arrived home I met my cousins and brothers, we all came home by coincidence and found each other and I found out that my brothers had been "Partisans" during the war. We were with a non-Jewish family in a widow's house which was huge. Later we went to refugee camp in Austria called "UNRWA" I was there for one year. My brothers went to different countries and I came to Israel after I had to decide between Israel and the USA. I came to Israel with an immigrant ship called "Transylvania" that left Italy for Haifa. When I arrived in Haifa, my cousin was waiting for me, he was married and he played soccer for "Hapoel Haifa". From there I went to an immigrant house in Hadera. When I was in Hadera someone looked for me by name and I was taken to Kfar-Saba to "Beit-Hchalotzim", here I worked in an orchard and I played soccer for "Hapoel Kfar-Saba".On the 14th of February 1948 I joined the IDF just five months after I arrived in Israel. I served for two years in the army in the "Alexandroni" division. Afterwards I moved to Haifa and joined the Police force. I was a policeman for 11 and half years. After I left my work as a policeman I worked in "Timna" in the south. I got married at 1953. Now I have two children, a son who is 50 years old and a daughter who is 44 years old. In addition I have three grandchildren - two boys and one girl.One of my brothers who survived the war died a few years ago and the other one lives in Hungary and we are in touch.

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