Protocol Nr. 2767

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Name: J. I.
Gender: male
Place of birth: Majdan
Date of birth: 1894
Place of residence: Nagysz?ll?s
Occupation: teacher
Ghetto: Nagysz?ll?s
Camps: Auschwitz, Monowitz


The person in question has given us the following information: Me and my family started to experience hardships in 1939. I lived in Silesia with my wife and five children. When Germans entered the country and already deported all Jews of town I came back home to Majdan with my whole family. We lived here till 1941, when they expelled us as people of Polish origins together with all Jews of the village, even those who could prove their Hungarian citizenship. We were wandering for an entire year experiencing great anxieties and adversities when we managed to return all seven of us but could pass only two years in relative peace, when the Germans entered this county, too, and we were put into the ghetto with the others. Here in Nagyszőlős we started starving, we were poor, the family was big and I had no income; we were idle. One day we were entrained, 65 of us in a freight car, and started off to suffer the fate we were going to have. There was neither water nor toilet in the cattle car, already here we lived like animals in a terrible fear of death. Germans tortured us all the time, already during the journey they demanded gold and valuables, and kept on intimidating us. They did not believe that we had nothing to give them. After three days of a journey like this we arrived to Auschwitz. We had to leave all our possessions on train. When we got off I was right away separated from my family we could not even say goodbye to each other. Me and my two sons got into a separate group, my daughter in another one, my wife and two of my sons - one 8-year-old, the other one 14 - to the left side. Since then I learnt what it meant, and now it is certain that they do not exist any more. Out of my five children I only have my daughter with me. Unfortunately I got separated from my sons right away, so we were in three different places. We were beaten a lot already in Auschwitz. They took us into a block where they seized our clothes, cut all our hair, disinfected us, washed us, gave us a tattoo and striped prisoner’s dress and selected me immediately into a transport. I got to Monowitz, a place close to Auschwitz. We did construction works, which was a very hard work; they beat us without any reason. One can figure in what state of mind I fell thinking that my family had the same fate. I still did not even imagine that wicked Germans meant a much more tragic fate for them. Our commander was a beast, although I have heard there were many of his kinds in Germany. I cannot remember his name, only his number “157.” We got very little food, 350 grams of bread and a soup twice a day. A great number of people died, especially at the end, mostly of hunger but several also because of maltreatment. I witnessed when they hanged 6 of my companions. When in January Russians were already very close, the SS evacuated the camp and left behind only the people in the hospital. We stayed here with food supplies for three days what we finished in half an hour. There were not only Jews in Monowitz, it was indeed a prisoners’ camp. My plans for the future: I have found my daughter only now, I would like to get back my sons, too, as I know I cannot wait for my wife and two little sons. If I found them we would leave for Palestine as soon as possible. I experienced the fate of Jews in Europe, I would prefer my descendants - if I will have them - would not do the same. My life has not much value anyway, the past is holding me back but I carry on in order to provide a better future for my daughter.
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