[Written in 2010]
Before the War, my parents were living in the Yugoslavian town of Subotica. As Hungarian nationals, when the Second World War broke out in 1938, they were expelled from the country. They settled in Budapest and my father joined my Uncle Shuli in the family business of wholesale feathers (cleaners and distributers), but not much later (in 1939) he was conscripted into the Hungarian Army. His first posting was with the ceremonial bodyguards of the Regent. As he was stationed in Buda, he could come home on leave and conduct some business.
On 30 August 1940, after the Second Vienna Awards, Germany and Italy forced Romania to cede Northern Transylvania to Hungary. My father was transferred to a garrison in Satu Mare (Szatmár Németi in Hungarian). Suddenly he was far from home and prevented from carrying on business.
Also in 1939, the Hungarian government established a forced-labour service, ordering conscription for young Jewish men of arms-bearing age, the legal foundations for this were laid down in Act II of 1939 (“on national defence”), enacted in March 1939. 30,000 of this first conscription were transferred to the Germans, who used them as slave labourers in Yugoslavian mines in return of promised payments to Hungary. Very few of these 30.000 survived. By 1940, the obligation to perform forced labour was extended to all able-bodied male Jews.
After Hungary entered the war, joining the attack on Russia in the summer of 1941, the forced labourers, organised in labour battalions under the command of Hungarian military officers, were deployed on war-related construction work under brutal conditions. Beatings and truss-ups were regular forms of torture and summary executions were far from uncommon. For example, on 11 October 1944, 196 labour servicemen were killed at Kiskunhalas, followed by 13 October, when 63 men were murdered at the Debrecen-Apafa shooting-range. Without adequate shelter, food, or medical care, at least 27,000 Hungarian Jewish forced labourers died before the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944. The Arrow Cross government of Ferenc Szálasi “lent” a percentage of Jewish men between ages 16 and 60, and women between 16 and 40, to the German authorities. Under an agreement, not only the recently recruited, but all labour service companies were ordered to move to western Hungary. By December 1944, some 30,000 Jews from Budapest were marched towards Germany, in addition to thousands of labour servicemen who were handed over to the Germans to build new defence lines in the border region. In these labour camps several thousands were victims to disease, hunger and the cruel treatment at the hands of their captors. The majority of survivors were driven on towards the west. Those struggling to keep up, leaving the column or bending down for a scrap of food were shot on the spot.
On 6 April 1941, Nazi Germany unleashed Operation Punishment on Yugoslavia, the invasion of that country. This gave the Hungarians an opportunity to regain territories lost at the Peace Treaty after the First World War. Hungary annexed the Yugoslav province of Voyvodina (the Hungarian Dèlvidèk). 3,310 Jews were killed by the Hungarians. On 23 January 1942, Hungarian occupation forces in Ujvidék drove 550 Jews to the frozen River Danube, and forced them onto the ice. The Hungarian forces then shot an artillery barge into the ice to break it up. Most of the Jews drowned. The Hungarian forces shot at those who were still afloat. For weeks bodies were washed up, down river at Belgrade. The Hungarian forces murdered 2,550 Voyvodina Jews and Serbs by 1 April, 1942. Many of these killings were done by the Hungarian police force, known as the Magyar Királyi Csendörség, or the Royal Hungarian Gendarmes.
When these mass murders were committed, my father was on business in Ujvidék, thinking that a first-class rail ticket would see him safely back to Budapest. However, as luck had it, he shared a compartment with a high-ranking Army officer. When a ticket inspector discovered that my father was Jewish, the officer went into a rage. How is it possible that he, a true Hungarian, an officer of the glorious Army and a gentleman to boot, was sharing a compartment with a stinking, filthy Jew! My father was arrested and taken to a punishment forced labour unit in the Virgin forests of Bryansk, in Russia. The unit’s job was to walk in front of the “glorious” Magyar (Hungarian) soldiers, to be blown up should there be land mines. And believe me, there were plenty! Out of his unit of maybe 1000, only 5 survived, my father included. When the Axis Powers were routed in Russia, the Work Service men were taken west. The long journey, mainly on foot, ended in a Concentration Camp in Germany.
Between April and July 1944 all the families of the provincial communities were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most were murdered on arrival. A small number were deported to Austria. The Budapest community remained when deportations were first stopped in July 1944. In late August 1944, the forced labour battalions were formally disbanded, a lot of them already in Russian captivity. Many were taken directly to Germany as slave labourers, including my father. Great numbers of the Work Service men were murdered by Hungarian and German units within the extended battle areas and a certain proportion escaped back to Budapest. In September 1944, the murders of Jews in Budapest intensified. Deportations were re-started and tens of thousands were marched toward Austria and Germany including about 30,000 to Mauthausen in Austria. Others were re-conscripted to help new defence lines in the fighting zones. Several train loads were taken directly to Bergen-Belzen, including many former forced labour battalion members. Most of them died prior or just after liberation.
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