"I Survived A Nazi Massacre": The Worst Experience In My 100 Years, Hungary 1944

[appalachiablue]

- 'Experience: I survived a Nazi massacre.' That night was unquestionably the worst I’ve experienced during my 100 years on this earth. The Guardian, Jan. 28, 2022.

I was born in Budapest in 1921 and was living there when war broke out. I received my army call-up in May 1943; at the time, Hungary was one of the Axis powers and had been fighting the Soviet Union on the eastern front for the past two years. I received basic military training but, because I was Jewish, I wasn’t given a regular uniform. Instead, I was conscripted into a labour corps and sent with 3,600 others to the mines in Bor, Serbia, which provided copper for the German army.

The labour camps were harsh environments, but I spoke good German and was able to secure a job as a stoker on a train that carried rocks from the mine, which meant I managed to stay warm. In September 1944, the approach of the Russian army led to the hurried closure of the mine and, to our delight, we learned we were to head back to Hungary, accompanied by the Hungarian guards from the camp. Each of us was given a loaf of bread and a few tins of food. We set out on foot.

The guards had tents for the night, but we had to sleep in the open, under blankets. It was only after a few days’ walking that it dawned on me we weren’t heading to a train station; we were walking the entire 600km. Those who slowed down were threatened or beaten. The guards eventually took to shooting stragglers. As we pressed on, our path often coincided with retreating army units or civilians fleeing the battlefront. By the time we passed Belgrade, 200km into our journey, we began noticing smoke billowing in the sky and machine-gunfire in the distance.

On 6 October, we stopped for the night on the outskirts of a village called Crvenka [which Hungarians know as Cservenka], where SS soldiers were evacuating the occupants. The SS unit was largely made up of local Volksdeutsche – ethnic Germans who spoke the language but had probably never visited the mother country. The following day, we saw some soldiers talking to our guards, who then split us into two groups. Those who weren’t Jewish set off with half our guards; the rest of us were left under the supervision of the SS soldiers. The village was abandoned...

Read More, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jan/28/experience-i-survived-a-nazi-massacre

[Karadeniz]

1. Impossible to truly internalize what he witnessed and felt... too barbaric, brutal, inhumane.

[appalachiablue]

2. You said it all. What strength and courage he had to survive.