The rounding up of Jews started on May 3 1944. They were given very little chance of gathering up many belongings before they were taken to specified areas of Oradea.

The main ghetto, for existing residents of Oradea and holding approximately 19,000  people, was located in the neighborhood of the large Orthodox synagogue and the adjacent Great Market; the other, was for close to 8,000 Jews brought in from the many rural communities.

Between them they formed the largest ghetto in Hungary after the ones in Budapest.

The main ghetto was extremely crowded as around 30% of the population of Oradea was crammed into an area fit to hold less than 7%. Around 15 people had to share a room. Food and water was scarce. Treatment by the Hungarian gendarmes was brutal.                                      

The locations of the two ghettos are marked in red on the map below.

 

  

The extent of the main ghetto is a matter of some debate and we wished to find other evidence, if we could, to support some accounts that the ghetto was larger to the south.

Now thanks to help from The Strochlitz Institute for Holocaust Research we can reveal a plan of the proposed ghetto produced days before it came into existence.

 

 

 

We want you to imagine what it must have been like. Imagine that this was happening to you today. How would you have reacted? How would you have coped?

 

To help you picture that experience we are providing you with materials of the time and the accounts of people who were there:

 

   - a translation of the ghetto orders which had to be held in every property in the ghetto

   - a graphic description of what is was like to be taken and held in the Oradea ghetto told by the Honorary Member of Tikvah, Terez Mozes

   - details of the deportations from Oradea to Auschwitz-Birkenau

   - links to the names of deportees who died

   - a harrowing account of being taken from the ghetto in Oradea, loaded onto the cattle trucks and then the journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau

   - a link to the memorial plaques in Oradea.

  

Reproduction of articles and images is with the permission of Jewishgen for which we are grateful.

 

We also reproduce an article from a Swiss newspaper of the time (courtesy of the Jewish News Archive) which explains the difficulties that Oradea administrators had in coping with the confiscated property of the former Jewish residents.

 

 

Ghetto Instructions issued on May 10, 1944 

 

 

I. GENERALITIES

 

1. The “Ghetto” is guarded by gendarmes. Those who leave the ghetto unrightfully, are found in prohibited area or without gendarme escort, will be shot by gendarmes.

 

2. Only those Jews are allowed to leave the ghetto who receive orders for it from gendarmes on duty at the time. Stepping out is only permitted through the watch area on Zarda Street set up by gendarmes and with gendarme escort.

 

3. Contact with the outside world is totally prohibited. No private person is permitted to bring in or take out anything from the ghetto. Those stepping out or leaving are to be searched by the guards. There is no mail service. Smuggling is strictly prohibited.

 

II. LODGING

1. Everyone is to stay in the allocated house and room. Allocations and lodgings are given according to new regulations by official gendarmes. Following the allocation procedure, rooms designated as lodging must be numbered in continuous order. The room numbers must be hung above the doors on cardboard tablets. The assistant gendarme officer in charge of house group command is naming room commanders and deputy room commanders from among Jewish men lodged there.

2. A lodging list (of names) in three copies is to be made out for each room. One copy is to hung on the outside of the door, one copy to be kept by the house commander with him at all times, one copy to be given for safekeeping to the deputy gendarme officer in charge of the house group. Only lists made out on official forms for this purpose and signed by the deputy gendarme officer in charge of the lodging group are valid. The lodging lists must be written with the same writing, in the same ink.

 

3. I divide the house groupings in such manner that each deputy gendarme officer house group commander has under his command approximately 1500 Jews. I mark the house groups by Roman numerals.

 

4. In every house group the house commander names 15 (fifteen) men between the ages of 20 and 40 to enforce the camp orders. This number includes the commander and his deputy. The house commander and his deputy are to keep on themselves the list of names of those in charge with the maintenance of the decree. Those enforcing the camp orders are to wear on their left sleeve a yellow ribbon marked in red with the Roman numeral of the house group, the letter “R” and continuous Arabic numerals, e.g. “I.R.1.” Arabic numeral one is to be worn by the commander, number two by his deputy, numbers 3-15 in sequence by other assignees.

 

5. During the day, between wake and retreat, only house commanders and orders enforcers are allowed to leave the house grounds designated as lodging, including its yard and garden, and only on official duty. The rest may circulate temporarily on the street only by order and with the order enforcer escort. Standing about, idle standing are prohibited. Orders for leaving the house are given by gendarmes or Jewish order enforcers. All gathering outside the house and visiting are prohibited.

 

6. Wake up is at 6 o'clock. Retreat is at 20 o'clock. Between wake up and retreat each one must be in the allocated room. The room may be left only for taking care of personal needs to and from the designated place, for a short period of time.

 

7. Quiet should rule over the ghetto during the day also. Noise, singing, vociferation, arguing are prohibited. Between wake and retreat the ghetto is to be desolate and mute.

 

III. FOOD SUPPLY

1. The city authority will take care of supply food when the food reserve brought (by the Jews) at the time of entering the ghetto runs out. The receipt and distribution of the foodstuff will be handled by a central and house group provision supervising committees specifically named for this purpose. The central provision supervising committee will be made up of 1 president and 4 members, the house group provision supervising committee of 1 president and 2 members. The appointments are to be made by the managing Jewish leadership.

Cooking is to be organized in common kitchens established separately within each house group by the provision supervising committee.

 

2. Breakfast is to be handed out at 7 o'clock, lunch at 12 o'clock, dinner at 18 o'clock. The food should be picked up by one designated person from each room, taking turns. Their appointment is the duty of the room commanders, while the appointees' line up, their escort to and from the kitchen is that of the house commanders'. Handing out the bread is to take place at dinner time.

 

3. Personnel needed to keep the kitchen functioning is named by the house commander. The kitchen is under the jurisdiction of the camp order decree's commanding officer.

 

4. The name list of the provision supervising committee members and that of the kitchen personnel must be hung in each provision reception area and each common kitchen. The committees' members (including the president) and the personnel shall wear a yellow ribbon marked in red with the Roman numeral of the house group and the letter “E”, e.g. “III E”.

 

5. It is prohibited to drink or possess alcoholic beverages. Those who possesses such shall this very day hand it over to the gendarme committee operating on the first floor of the girl's high school.

 

IV. SERVICE REGULATION

1. In every matter concerning the occupants of the rooms one should go to the room commander, he in turn respectively to the house commander, house group commander, with important issues to the camp official designate unit: the camp gendarme officer on duty will make a final decision in the matter, by following the orders he received. Orders issued by the commander and their proclamation will take place in the same manner, from above down. This is the service regulation and everyone must abide by it.

V. INTERIOR SERVICE REGULATION

1. In every house group the order enforcing commander shall name every day from those below him one person on day duty and one person on house group duty and one on house group on call duty. Their time on duty lasts from 13 o'clock to next day 13 o'clock. The whereabouts of the those on duty is established by the house group commander. The person on day duty will keep watch from 13 o'clock until 1 o'clock at night, from 1 o'clock on, the other.

Their responsibilities include carrying out the enforcement of house regulations within their territory and taking care of messenger service.

 

For the assumption of duty and for instructions they should report to the order enforcing commander and house group commander at 11 o'clock.

 

2. The house group commander shall send every day a designate from among the order enforcing group for messenger/news service from 7 o'clock until 19 o'clock to the camp guard headquarters.

 

3. Those on duty should wear a board marked hanging from the neck, marked with the Roman numeral of the house group and the type of service they perform,
e.g. “II.day duty” The boards are to be yellow colored, the writing black.

 

VI. WORK

1. Within the house groups and within each house, the work needed to be performed and its supervision is the duty of the house group commander and house commander, respectively.

Workers can be ordered for outside work strictly with the knowledge of the house group commander.

 

Inside work orders should be set according to gender and age, in such a manner that each person performs the work equally and by turns.

 

2. The orderly upkeep of the rooms and houses are the responsibility of the room commanders, respectively the house commander. The common area upkeep, such as streets, or for instance the kitchen hygiene, are the responsibility of the order enforcing commanders.

 

VII. HEALTH

1. Every house group should have at least one attending physician and a sick room, the ghetto should have a common hospital and birthing home.

2. The appointment of the medical and nursing staff and determining their sphere of activity are made by the lead physician, who reports to the city's military doctor in chief with any professional question.

 

3. The doctors and nursing staff will wear a yellow armband with a red cross insignia.

 

4. The building which houses the sick room, the hospital and the birthing home should be marked by a hanging red cross flag.

 

5. The sick room, the hospital and the birthing home should have two separate lists, one with the names of the nursing staff and the other with the names of the sick. One copy of each, signed by the doctor should be hung on the outside of the entrance door.

 

6. Sick people from within the house groups should be presented to the doctor at 8 o'clock and a report made to him of those in sick-bed or possibly deceased. Presenting the sick as well as the report are the duties of the house commander. Interning one into the hospital or the birthing house should be handled by the house group doctor in agreement with the leading physician.

 

Doctors should write exact medical notes on each of the patients under their care.

 

7. It is the responsibility of the leading physician to isolate and treat the contagious disease cases.

 

8. It is the responsibility of the leading physician to report immediately in writing every death, birth and contagious decease to the camp command headquarters (officer on duty) and in case of contagious disease occurrence take steps to apply the necessary protective measures.

 

9. Doctors in charge of house group's “eu” [“hr” - hygiene related] duties should also be on guard as to the strict following of the “eu” regulations. The hygienic inspection of the kitchens, toilets and latrines should be made conscientiously.

 

10. Sewer water, where there is no gutter system, can be emptied only in latrines or in other places designated by the house commander. If there is a stoppage within the sewer system, the toilets should immediately be locked and a latrine dug in a suitable location in the yard or garden. Debris, garbage can only be emptied in a place designated by the house commander. If within a yard there is great accumulation of garbage, it should be taken to a collecting place designated by the leading physician.

 

VIII. FIRE REGULATIONS

1. The firemen brigade should be organized by each house commander within the building, by the house group commander within the house groups. The house firemen brigade should be composed of 6-10 men, that of the house group of 25-30 men.

2. Over night, there should be pots filled with water in every room.

 

3. It is forbidden to smoke inside the rooms, in the attic area, or light a match, smoke, or burn an open flame near flammable materials.

 

IX. BLACKOUT, AIR RAID

1. Between wake and retreat it is prohibited to burn a white light or lamp in those rooms where complete blackout cannot be achieved.

2. Upon air raid signal, if the city air raid is sounded, everyone should stay put, go inside the house, and if there is a cellar find shelter within.

 

X. BEHAVIOUR

1. Anywhere within the ghetto, Hungarian or German officers, also superior headquarter commanders should be greeted ahead by men with removing head cover, in a polite manner. They should stand in attention with uncovered head before them. If they go in a room, the person who first sees them, should call out loud: attention! Standing in attention includes women inside the rooms as well. The room commander or house commander should present himself in military fashion and provide the requested information readily.

2. Common residence and living in common of several families requires that in regards of moral character or sexuality, nobody should forget oneself and refrain from committing acts offending good taste.

 

XI. REPORTS

1. Every change in the number of people, including internment or release from sick room or hospital, should be reported up to the level of house group command.

2. The house commanders are to report twice if special situations occurred, at 8 o'clock and after retreat inspection, at 20:30 o'clock during common audience procedures at a place designated by the house group commander. In case of emergency a report should be made out of turn. At morning and evening audiences the order supervising commanders and persons on duty should also be present. They will all receive the orders to be carried out at this time.

 

XII. INSPECTION

1. Aside from house group order supervising commanders, I will control and enforce the carrying out of the house regulations within the territory of the ghetto by appointing continuously circulating gendarme patrols and local gendarme officers. Whoever does not abide by the orders, goes to prison camp.

---

 

This camp order should be hung in every house within the territory of the ghetto on the main entrance door, in multi story buildings also on every floor.

 

Nagyvarad, May 10, 1944

 

Signed: THE GENDARME RECRUIT BATTALION AND COMMANDER OF THE GHETTO

 

 

 

Certificate of confiscation of two silver cigarette cases.

 

 

 

 

In the Oradea Ghetto 

By Terez Mozes

A chapter from her book "Staying Human through the Holocaust" 

Translators and editors:

Maureen Wise, Audrey Demarsico, Oren Hercz, Anna Hercz

 

Days full of terror followed. Arrests became routine. From one day to the next, people lost their jobs and livelihoods. The Jewish population was constantly subjected to new forms of the forced surrender of goods and was plundered without mercy. And yet that was not all. Bad news spread like wildfire, predicting much worse things to come. Railway workers were saying that in the Subcarpathian region and in Sighet the villages had been emptied of Jews. Jews were led away from their homes on foot or by cart, gathered together in some bigger towns and then loaded into cattle cars and sent to unknown destinations.

But oh, eternal Jewish optimism! We tried to look at this development too from the authorities' perspective, to justify to ourselves what was nothing other than madness: we were on a frontier, an area for military manoeuvres. We worried about our relatives and friends, but we continued to be hopeful for ourselves. We were deluded by the thought that this was the fifth year of war and time was on our side. The fanatical advocates of the "final solution to the Jewish problem" had also realized that time was short however. They brought their plans to fruition in record time. Lászlo Endre, the Secretary of State who was known as "the butcher of Hungarian Jews", called a meeting on April 30, 1944 at the Oradea town hall. Information had leaked out about a discussion that a ghetto was to be organized. Officially this was denied, but events led us to believe that the authorities were preparing something. On May 1, the SS General Obersturmbannführer Dannecker, who had organized the Warsaw ghetto, arrived in Oradea. On May 2, a larger unit of gendarmes arrived in Oradea from the other side of the Danube. At the same time, those who had been arrested were unexpectedly allowed to return home. And even these events did not open our eyes. Despite these warning signs, we were shocked by the announcements posted on walls on May 3. I quote a few lines from the abrupt order signed by Dr Lászlo Gyapay, the deputy mayor:

"Jews obliged to wear the yellow star are forbidden to leave their homes from the time that my announcement is made public. Until further orders, Jews may only leave their homes between 9 and 10 in the morning. Therefore outside these hours everyone is obliged to remain at home. By the order of the royal Hungarian government in Nagyvárad (Oradea), I will place all the Jews obliged to wear a yellow star in the ghetto…"

People read the announcement in silence and rushed home. Within hours a wooden fence 2 metres high was being erected. This fence would surround the ghetto. Our neighbors who still had the right to move freely told us that the area around the big Orthodox Jewish synagogue on the left bank of the Körös (Crisul) River had been designated for the ghetto. This was the poorest and most crowded Jewish quarter. It included the following streets: Mezei Mihály or Kert Utca (Avram Iancu), Capucinus utca, (Prahovei), south to the Nagy Piac Square (1st December Square) and Liliom utca (Crinului), then further on to Váradi Zsigmond utca (Kogalniceanu) and the group of houses on the eastern edge which used to be a food market, closing with Vámház utca (Sucevei). The Capuchin monastery was separated from the ghetto with wooden boards. The area around the Kaszárnyatér Square (Cazarmelor Square), which also included Köröslaktanya, and was normally reserved for street cleaners, had been earmarked for the Jews from the provinces. There, many of those interned in the ghetto lived in the open air.

The area for the ghetto covered about one fifteenth of the total area of the town. More than a quarter of the population of 90 000 was to be crowded here. Of the 30 000 Jews living in Oradea then, five or six thousand were in the labour service at that time. It took six days to shut the Jewish population into the ghetto. Our turn to move came on the evening of the third day, on May 6. We were no longer allowed to go out except between 9 and 10 in the morning, when we tried to buy food.

We spent two days packing. Every now and then we secretly listened to the English news, the BBC, at our neighbours' house, as they had been exempted of wearing the yellow star. Our own radio had already been sealed off. At first we filled suitcases, but then, when news arrived that these were being confiscated with all their contents, we began to stuff things into bags - bedding, clothes, groceries, cooking utensils, a small supply of wood and coal. I glanced at the bags. Was this all we had after my father's 40 years of work? Although we did not complain or cry, we had tears in our eyes most of the time. It was like a funeral. We were burying our beautiful family life, all the happy years spent together. And as for our home, we felt that even if the situation should ever change, it would be impossible to recapture its former cheerfulness.

From time to time we looked out the window at those whose turn had already come. One sad, grieving group followed another. Old people, young people and children with bundles on their backs gathered together and followed luggage-filled carts towards the ghetto. When we recognized someone, we uttered a little cry.

In the evening, we called the Katz brothers to come to our house. They were exempted because of their father's war disability status, and we wanted to see if they could keep or eventually use anything from our house, in which we now felt like strangers. It was a strange sensation to walk through the house, to open doors and cupboards, to rummage through things that at one time had been so important to us. A few weeks earlier I could not have imagined anything like this. I would have been very upset if a stranger had gone through my things. Now it left me completely cold. I was looking at the whole scene, not only at the Katz brothers but at myself too, in a strange and distant way. I did not find it difficult to part with a single object. I felt that nothing belonged to me any more apart from the things already in the bags. Late at night, I listened to the English news again. In truth I was only interested in news that could directly influence our situation, mostly news about the position of the front.

On Friday, we finished our preparations. The house appeared to be in order again, but we only felt how desolate it had become. As we could not find anything else to do, we sat around, disoriented and apathetic, waiting for our turn to go.

Finally, in the afternoon, a commission of three arrived: a civilian, a clerk and a gendarme. It made me realize that at least a hundred commissions of this kind must now be at work throughout the town. Three hundred people, who had at one time been honest and respected individuals, were now visiting thousands of families to evict them from their own homes. We would never have believed that so many people would undertake such heartless work. At the time, though, we did not have a moment to think about this. The commission set to work immediately. They rifled through our luggage. They rudely asked if all the goods we had chosen were really necessary. They made an inventory of the valuables left in the house, such as carpets and candlesticks. They took away our money, and most painful of all, they took the wedding rings off Mother's and Magda's fingers. Poor Magda had tried to be strong, but at this she broke into inconsolable sobs. Together with the other occupants of the house, we went down to the street with our bags. With the exception of the Katz family (who were exempted), and Balogh the tavern keeper, all the tenants were Jews forced into internment in the ghetto.

The moment we closed the door after us has remained etched in my memory. The key turned in the lock and disappeared immediately into the pocket of one our supervisors. The symbol of our home was in the hands of a stranger. Would there be any way back? Would we ever see our home again? We stepped out of the house and together with our companions in suffering put our bags onto the loaded cart. I must have been very deep in thought because I learned later that mother and Magda had suddenly remembered that it was Friday evening and they had not yet fulfilled the traditional obligations. They went back upstairs to the Katz family's apartment and lit the Sabbath candles. And the flame was lit one more time, the flame that so many times had thrown its golden light over our beautiful family life. Later, during our dreary days, I often returned to these happy times. But then I looked up one more time to the windows with the drawn blinds. Although we had decided to be strong and keep our dignity, I could not control myself. I felt drained of strength, and tears streamed down my face.

We lined up next to the cart and started off. We only looked straight ahead. I could not say if we were followed by looks full of pity or by gloating faces. Supporting one another, and trying to encourage each other with glances, we followed in the steps of those ahead, crushed and stigmatized. The sight of this sad formation wearing stars, this army recruited from stigmatized humans filled me with an indescribable sorrow.

Our circumstances had never felt so bitter. Never before had I felt so helpless, so defenceless. My strong, wise father and my loving, caring mother were both walking beside me, but I could no longer count on their protection. I was walking with them, and yet in a profound sense I was alone. From now on neither the law nor human rights could protect us. It was spring, but at the time we were not aware of it. I felt cast out, excluded, naked. I was cold.

New groups joined us at intersections. We had grown into a huge crowd by the time we arrived at the ghetto. At the entrance, I realized that as far as the ghetto was concerned we could only go in: there was no way out. When I went through the gate, I felt that I was crossing a gulf away from the world as I knew it, a world that no longer existed for me.

People we knew and total strangers surrounded us. Volunteer helpers smiled encouragement. They picked up our belongings and accompanied us to our new accommodations. At our request, we were assigned to my friend Sári Feldheim's house at 14 Váradi Zsigmond Street. Today the administration of the co-operative Lemnul is there. According to the ghetto rules, 15 or 16 people had to be housed in each room. Many other families had already arrived at the Feldheims' house, relatives, friends and acquaintances; 47 people were crowded into a small house with three rooms and a hall. Another 150 people were crowded behind this house, in homes adjacent to the courtyard. During the first few hours, I got to know a lot of these people as they swarmed through the rooms. We spent the time wandering aimlessly, putting off going to bed. We covered every centimetre with straw mattresses and blankets. We did not close our eyes that first night.

On the second day we evaluated our situation. We realized that we could not survive unless we organized our life in a way that was as unemotional and rational as possible. Aunty Feldheim rose to the occasion. At her suggestion, we took all the furniture out of the house, either to the attic under the eaves or into the courtyard out in the open. We put out furniture that had been lovingly cared for. Only places for sleeping left inside the house. We built makeshift ledges out of the cupboard shelves and attached them to the walls. We put the most essential things on these shelves or hung them on nails that we had put into the walls. Older women lived in one of the rooms and younger women in another, mothers with children were in a third room, and the men were in the relatively small hall. There were fewer men, and they were almost all elderly, as the young men had been taken off to labour service. In other houses, a number of families lived in each room, but we thought our solution was the most sensible.

We gathered together all our food and stored it in the only pantry of the house. We established a roster and times for cooking and cleaning. We also had to regulate the use of the bathroom. As we were living in such crowded conditions, we had to follow a strict order. Outside the walls of the house a world was being born, a state within a state or a town within a town. It was difficult to compare with any other settlement. Jews had been crowded quickly into the houses of a few narrow streets without preparation. From outside, gendarmes supervised our every move.

Inside the ghetto, a five-member Jewish Council assumed control. This internal organization was in the hands of the president of the orthodox community, Sándor Leitner, and this had a calming effect. The council oversaw the day-to-day life in the ghetto and tried to solve foreseeable problems with food, public sanitation and administration. The other members of the council were István Vajda, the rabbi of the Neolog community, Dr. Sándor Lörinc, a lawyer, Dr René Osváth, a doctor, and Sámuel Motzen. Each member of the council had to deal with a wide range of responsibilities. Under their aegis some subcommittees came into being and these formed the essential elements of an administration. Within the limits of this mass misfortune, the council tried to maintain a semblance of civilized life.

How happy we were when in the first days young Jews dressed as postmen knocked on our doors and brought us military postcards from those in labour battalions, our brothers and husbands who were suffering in the Ukraine. The postmen came from the ranks of the Jewish volunteer police. In general keeping public order and overseeing the housing administration had been assumed by those who had returned from labour battalions in the Ukraine, people of experience who had already gone through many hardships. Leaders among these were József Gréda, a translator, and József Halmi, Dr. Izsák Mihály, a lawyer, Dr József Biró, an ex-police officer, Béla Fodor, a detective, and Jenö Pásztor, a journalist. The postal service, however, was soon stopped. The city police ordered the post office to send the letters back to the front with the words "Jew interned in the ghetto - undeliverable."

The housing office functioned very well. The administrators allocated places to live and kept a clear record of who was where. They were extremely efficient - unfortunately. It is painful to write these words because these were the ghetto officials who later had to locate and notify the people who were summoned by gendarmerie, and it happened more than once that they were their brothers, friends or close acquaintances. But what else could they have done?

From the very beginning, it was clear that many people had come into the ghetto unprepared. These people had to rely on the community canteen facilities right from the start. By the eighth day of internment, 7000 people were eating there. As food supplies diminished, the number of those who needed the canteen kept rising. The old kitchen had to be extended and soon a new one had to be set up. But how, and with what resources? Necessity made us inventive. In an abandoned laundry building, boilers that had been used for dyeing and washing were turned into cooking vats. As food reserves decreased, the Jewish Council addressed all the people of the ghetto. Everyone was asked to hand over all food supplies over the minimum needed for the next two weeks. With heavy hearts we complied. At the time, we never suspected that we too would come to depend on the canteen.

Many people had arrived in the ghetto seriously ill, but in those harsh living conditions the number of sick people rose steadily, especially once the gendarmerie torture chambers began to function. An avalanche of suicides began. We were among the first to learn of this sad situation because the ghetto's central hospital had been set up close to our house, in the unfinished temple of the rabbi from Wisnicz. On the order of the gendarmerie, the Jewish community had to provide simple beds made of wooden planks and benches. Bedclothes, underwear and bedcovers were obtained by means of a public collection. Medical instruments, bandages and medication were obtained from the personal reserves of doctors confined in the ghetto.

As the hospital was right next to us, we often went there to help. Overcrowding in the hospital was worse than in the rest of the ghetto. The section for internal diseases was situated on the ground floor and the head of the section was our family doctor, Dr. Vilmos Molnár, the former director of the Jewish hospital. Surgery and gynecology was on the first floor and was led by the well-known surgeon Dr. Ernö Elias and the equally well-known Dr. Miksa Kupfer, who had written Herodes as well as numerous other historical novels. Dr Kupfer wrote under the pseudonym Ádám Raffy, and he was the father of the writers and translators Ádám Réz and Pál Réz.

In the hospital, I found out that people with psychiatric illnesses had also been interned in the ghetto, as had people with neurological disorders and contagious diseases. The orthodox school for boys was set up for them. The chief doctor of the former hospital, Dr. Ignác Dénes, headed the section for contagious diseases. Because of lack of space, only those who were seriously ill were admitted to hospital. Instructions were given for the care of those who were ill and bedridden at home as well as those who were still ambulatory. A few exceptional doctors, who had been through the labour service experience of the Ukraine, visited the sick in their homes in addition to working at the hospital. Among these were Dr. Elemér Deutsch, Dr. Endre Popper, Dr. Sándor Bálint, and Dr. Sándor Németi.

Keeping up standards of hygiene was the most important thing in our overcrowded conditions in the ghetto. We realized this from the beginning, from the situation in our own house. The bathroom, planned for use by a single family, was now shared by nearly 50 people. In fact, we were lucky to have a bathroom. The ghetto area had been considered the poorest Jewish quarter. Here, people often still washed their clothes and bodies in a basin or a trough, and the toilets were usually situated at the end of the courtyard. Space in the ghetto was tight and extremely limited. In our house, and I would guess it was the same in all the others, it was decided exactly, to the minute, how much time each person could spend in bathroom and especially how much water could be used because the water pressure was low. The plumbers were always busy fixing blocked pipes. Latrines were dug at the request of the Jewish Council. And so at the ends of the courtyards, huts appeared with thin wooden walls. There was a lack of wood because the wall surrounding the ghetto had been made from fences that had once separated the courtyards. Latrines were often just hidden by curtains made from bedspreads or sheets. After a few days, a stench hung over the ghetto. We were forever yielding on yet another point and found it harder to tolerate living from one day to the next. And still we continued to hope that somehow we would be able to survive the few remaining months of war. We did not realize that the ghetto, the yellow star, and the restrictions were just links in the chain leading to the final goal of total annihilation. All these things were part of a carefully calculated plan that had already been successfully carried out in the rest of Europe.

At first, communication with the town outside the ghetto walls was not completely severed. Carpenters were still working on the 2-metre high fence, Christian families who had homes in the area were still moving out, and public maintenance workers still entered the ghetto. In Vámház Street, within the ghetto area itself, there was a small chemical products business, NORMA, which was owned by István Radó, a Jewish engineer who was a war invalid. Although he was not offered another location outside the ghetto, he was forced to move his business. As he was an invalid, his 20-year-old daughter Márta took this task upon herself. She put off the move for as long as she could, because as long as she had permission to come into the ghetto daily she could still, albeit through intermediaries and under police supervision, maintain her relationship with her grandmother, Mrs. Ede Mandel. She could not visit her personally, because she only had the right to go through the ghetto by an established route and under supervision.

There was another means of communication between the ghetto and the town: every day a number of people were requested to be used as workers in the hospital, to clear debris, to look after the cemetery, or to help in the municipal bakery. Under ghetto conditions, such opportunities might have appeared to be an advantage, but the brutality of the employers and the supervisory officials made everyone try to avoid such work.

During those days, an old acquaintance from the countryside, whose name I do not remember, sought out my father. This man offered to get my sister Erzsi and me out of the ghetto. He had a daughter who was close to us in age, and for two consecutive days when he was to be working in the ghetto he would have brought his daughter's identity card with him. When he left in the evenings he would have taken each of us with him in turn, saying that we were his daughters. When we were both outside, he planned to take us to the border point near Félix spa where we could have crossed into Romania.

A few weeks earlier, before entering the ghetto, when we had heard rumours about girls being threatened, we might have accepted this wonderful opportunity of escape. But now, when conditions in the ghetto were deteriorating daily and every minute brought surprises, we would not leave our family. Our brother Duci was somewhere on the front line of the Ukraine. We felt that the time was coming when only we young ones would be able to be a support to our family. We could not abandon them. How could only two of us escape? If there had been a chance of freeing the entire family, we would certainly have considered it. But as for this - there was no question of it. My poor father, with tears in his eyes, tried to persuade us to leave. We discussed the matter for a few days. Much later, when only Erzsi and I were left and were suffering in the concentration camps, we often thought that if we had made a different decision then, we would have been free. But we never regretted this decision. Neither of us was sorry that we stayed alongside our parents until the last possible moment. Even if I had known that we would only be together for a few more days, I would not have left them on their own.

In the ghetto, I lived in the same house as Ági Wilkesz and her parents. To our amazement, their cousin from Budapest appeared one day with her hair dyed honey-blond and carrying false Arian papers. She had brought false papers for Ági and tried to persuade her to leave with her for Budapest, where she had already found a hiding place for her. Ági reacted as we had to our offer of escape: she did not want to leave her parents. Seeing that her attempts were in vain, the well-intentioned cousin quickly left the ghetto. She went to the station and took the train to Budapest. I was with Ági in many concentration camps, until a selection put an end to her life. Only then was I truly sorry that she had not taken this opportunity. Many months after liberation, I met Ági's cousin in a Russian camp for ex-deportees, and her hair, which was just starting to grow back, was raven black.

On May 9, when internment in the ghetto was complete, 2500 people were summoned for labour service. Some of them were declared reserves, while the rest were ordered to equip themselves with food and tools to leave for work the next day. Once again, the inhabitants of the ghetto had to outfit themselves from their own supplies. At first we were horrified by this news, but then we began to wonder if enlistment in labour battalions would in fact be better. People were never sent off however. Unexpectedly, the commander of the gendarme regiment in Oradea took over leadership of the ghetto, with the role of ghetto commander filled first by the gendarme István Garay and then by Lieutenant Colonel Jenö Péterffy.

I would not have said that life in the ghetto was monotonous until then, as every day had its own sad and sensational news. Starting that day however, decisions that further distressed the defenseless population followed one after another with incredible speed. Immediately after the new leader's installation, the five-member Jewish Council was summoned. They were ordered to empty all their offices in the ghetto and give them to the gendarmes. They had to hand over the space used by the Jewish ritual burial society (Chevra Kadisha) and the two synagogue buildings, together with their courtyards and outbuildings, as well as the public kitchen and the hospital buildings for contagious diseases and mental illnesses. The gendarmes ordered the inhabitants of the ghetto to isolate these buildings immediately by putting up a wooden fence. We started to execute this order, but after a while the gendarmes changed their plan. Instead, they evacuated the Dreher-Hagenmacher beer factory and took over their offices. This hasty move destroyed many of the Jewish community's archives.

Not even 3 hours had passed since the change of leadership when the shock waves began. New rules for the internal running of the ghetto were made public. Within 1 hour of the declaration of the rules, the announcements had to be glued over the entire ghetto area, which meant on the doors of all the houses and on every floor of each multi-storey house. The yellow star, the order to wear a Jewish label, had been humiliating enough. We had been forcibly driven out of our homes and deprived of our rights. These new arrangements meant the trampling underfoot of our last vestiges of human dignity. When the Fascist regime fell, authorities sought to destroy all copies of this decree, along with other incriminating documents. Almost miraculously, Zsiga Kenyeres, one of my brother's friends, found, kept and later gave my husband a copy of this decree. These arbitrary and humiliating rules set out our bed time, waking time and meal times; they demanded total isolation from the outside world; they ordered that the ghetto should be as silent as the grave. The decree stipulated death by shooting as a punishment for escape attempts, and internment in detention camps for any non-compliance.

In front of me, framed and hanging on my library wall, are The Ghetto Rules. I read them from time to time, and each time I wonder why they had to further humiliate these people who were locked up without reason and deprived of their rights. Why did they have to specify that "inside the house - which must not be left - each occupant must stay only in the room to which he was allocated" and only be allowed to leave to perform bodily functions? Why did we have to rise at exactly 6:00 a.m., breakfast at 7:00 a.m., lunch at 12:30 p.m., dine at 6:00 p.m., and turn out our lights at 8:00 p.m.? Of what possible use was the order that nobody could go out into the street without permission, and that after 8:00 p.m. we could not even go to the courtyard of the house? What sick minds determined that in the evening after 8:00 p.m. the ghetto should be totally silent?

And indeed, after 8:00 p.m. the silence of a cemetery settled over the ghetto, silence and darkness. The electricity was cut off, and the windows were boarded up or whitewashed; it was forbidden to open them. Sometimes we went up to the attic and watched the town through the air vents. From the noises that stole into the house we tried to measure the rhythm of life of the town, as one does from the beating of a pulse. It seemed to me that in our absence this pulse was weaker. Perhaps I was fooling myself, wanting to believe that the town missed us.

The ghetto was divided into districts, which were subdivided into groups of houses. We had to choose house leaders from those in the building. These leaders and their assistants had to ensure that the ghetto rules were respected. I was the leader of my house, and Sári was my assistant. Usually, this responsibility was given to a man, but when my father was chosen in our house, I took on the task to spare him from the rudeness of the gendarmes.

The house leaders wore yellow armbands (again yellow!) with the initials HP (Ház Parancsnok or house leader in English) in red beside the house number. We received identity papers but even we could not go outside without a valid reason. Twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, we had to give a report at the headquarters of the gendarmerie where we were then given new orders that we had to enforce without question. One day, they ordered that all the women had to have their hair cut in two days' time. It was specified that it could not be longer than the earlobes. I knew that this would be greeted by protests, so I cut my own hair before I passed on the order. It hurt me to part with my blond curls. We also had to choose the members and shifts of the groups that went to do community work in the town. I think this was our most difficult job. With 200 people living in the house, we had to be careful to divide the work evenly to avoid complaints of favouritism. We had the most trouble with those who thought their previous social status entitled them to special treatment.

People were only allowed out into the ghetto streets in groups, according to plans pre-established in writing and accompanied by Sári or me. We had to go to the canteen every day for bread, and the sick had to be taken for treatment. We went to the public bath in the same way. The ritual bath was situated in the ghetto area, and we used it as the public bath.

My father conducted himself admirably. He had always been demanding and particular, living by certain standards, but he accommodated himself to his new situation. Our acquaintances loved and respected him, particularly our landlord's family, and supported us in our attempts to create the illusion of an ordered existence. Of course, this was limited. My father refused any privilege and seemed to be content with everything. Often I found him at the bottom of the courtyard, despondent. However, when questioned, he gave a show of confidence and tried to encourage others even if he did not feel it himself.

Our landlady was Aunty Aranka, the widow of Manó Feldheim, and she was marvellous. When we entered the ghetto, we abandoned our previous lives and our house; we knew there was no going back. Aunty Aranka, on the other hand, had stayed in her own house but no longer considered it hers. Her major preoccupation was to ensure, as much as possible, that our little community had a relatively comfortable life. It was her decision to put her furniture in the courtyard and the piano and carpets in the attic. Without complaint or reproach, she was hospitable, although in fact such hospitality had been imposed on her.

With the gendarmerie's occupation of the Dreher-Hagenmacher brewery a new phase began in the ghetto. This diabolical war machine was not satisfied with forcibly evicting people from their homes and seizing their belongings under the pretext of the needs of the war. They then decided to take everything that Jewish families had left with friends or neighbours for safekeeping. They would allow nothing to stand in the way of achieving this goal. Within a short time the inhabitants of the ghetto began to call the administrative building of the brewery just "Dreher" or the Mint, because it was the place where money was beaten out of people. The name reflected the atrocities committed there. This became our new terror. Every day, 100 to 200 people were summoned there for interrogation, as the gendarmes wanted the names of friends who had objects of sentimental or material value for safekeeping. All the members of the Jewish Council were arrested. They tortured Sándor Leitner, the president of the Jewish orthodox community, for 13 days. They tried unsuccessfully to force him to give a list of the wealthiest Jews. They spared neither his elderly parents nor his brother. They took and tortured the 84-year-old dentist Dr. Munk, the 76-year-old Dr. Samu Grosz, and the 73-year-old Dr. Fisch. Women were not spared either. For days on end, they tortured Puti Steiner, who was a native of Simleul Silvaniei and the wife of the journalist Laszló Bárdos; they also tortured the wife of the chief Neolog rabbi, Dr. István Vajda.

When people were summoned to the Dreher, the task of finding their homes fell to people trained as "detectives", who also had the job of escorting them to the ghetto gendarmerie. People presented themselves at the first summons. It did not enter anybody's mind to try to escape or to hide. In any case, there was nowhere to go. Even if there had been, who would have tried to save himself knowing that his entire family could end up in the hands of the inquisition.

During that time, Márta Radó, who was still able to go in and out of the ghetto for the chemical products business, acquired some Romanian peasant clothing with the help of some friends. Her plan was to disguise her grandmother, Aunty Mandel, and get her out of the ghetto and across the Romanian border. But this lively 61-year-old woman, who was still young in her ways, did not take the opportunity. She was afraid that if they looked for her and did not find her they would take revenge on her exempted son-in-law and his family. She was afraid they might lose their exempted status. Above all she was afraid for her niece, Anna Mandel, whom the engineer Radó had adopted to save her (the adoption was predated).

On one of the first days in the ghetto, my friend Hédi's father, the textile manufacturer József Silbermann, was taken from our house. He was brought home a few days later on a stretcher, half dead from the beatings. He was physically and spiritually destroyed. We never heard him speak a word again. We learned what was happening inside the walls of the Dreher from others who had been tortured there. Gendarmes trained in the German political police interrogation course put great effort into combining medieval torture with modern techniques. First, they stripped their victims naked, then they beat them with leather belts, whips, iron rods, canes and rubber truncheons until they lost consciousness. They squeezed women's breasts in the door and holding them by their hair, hit their heads on the wall. They chained their wrists and tightened the chain, link by link, until their bones broke. They hung their prisoners from iron bars, with their hands tied to their feet, and beat their bodies and the soles of their feet. They also tortured their victims mentally. They tortured children in front of their parents. Along with beatings they used subtler methods. They put a copper strip over the victim's head and passed an electric current through it. They put electrical wires on the most sensitive parts of the body - in the mouth, in the ears, in the nostrils, on the nipples, on the genital organs - and applied an electric current for 40 to 50 minutes. They used an intestinal wash pumping enormous quantities of liquid into their victims' stomachs. People tortured in this way should have quickly given up their possessions, yet often refused to speak even when half conscious rather than betray their benefactors. Some resisted. Others gave in. Tortures that did not produce results angered the interrogators. Successful ones encouraged them. They began to widen their radius of action. People were brought in the hundreds to the torture chambers. Music blared constantly from the Dreher to cover the screams of pain.

Fear and panic dominated those who lived in the ghetto. People sunk into themselves without hope, startled by any suspicious sound. No one knew when his turn would come. For fear of torture, many took refuge in death.

In the town, announcements stuck on walls, notices in the newspapers and newsreels at the cinema declared that there would be an amnesty of 48 hours for those who had hidden goods belonging to Jews. Frightened, people presented themselves in the hundreds to relieve themselves of the obligations they had taken on, while we, shut within the walls of the ghetto, trembling, waited for the summons. Some had left valuable objects with several families; when summoned, they did not know whom to declare, so as not to make things worse for those who continued to remain silent.

Hundreds of Jews were tortured daily at the Dreher. Out of their minds with pain, many gave some names. Things got more complicated, and the summons went out in waves with an ever-widening scope. On one occasion someone's hidden treasure was returned. One man, when summoned, was amazed to find his son's cradle with his son inside; the child had been left in the care of a good friend.

We were living in terror. At the beginning, people known to be rich were taken to the Dreher. Those who had been denounced followed, then those whose names had arisen accidentally during interrogation. Only those Jews who had nothing could live in relative calm. Yet even this calm soon came to an end. Bread was distributed at the public kitchen, and each house sent two people for an amount designated according to the number of occupants in the house. Every day, they lined up for endless hours before the bread was distributed. The kitchen was opposite the Dreher, and one day it occurred to an interrogator to question those in the queue too. About 50 people were lifted from the queue and taken to the torture chambers. Then new groups were chosen and then more new groups. The inhabitants of the ghetto were terrorized.

During these days of pain and fear, news began to circulate that the ghetto would be disbanded, or more precisely that the occupants of the ghetto were to be sent to a concentration camp. At the time we did not understand what this meant. In our distress we were only aware of the fact that we would be going far away from the torture chambers that were giving us nightmares. We hoped that the immediate danger that we were facing would thus be removed.

We tried to get information about what awaited us, but nobody knew anything. Once again, an elaborate plan was put into place to mislead us. The interrogators of the Dreher staged a telephone conversation with misleading information that was overheard by their victims. The victims pieced together what they had overheard and joyfully passed the news along. To avoid panic, the gendarmes wanted to make us believe that we would all remain together at a place on the other side of the Danube in a centralized ghetto town. Again, we were naive. We tried to calm one another with the thought that conditions there would be different. A place of work would be assured. We wondered in what capacity we could be used, whether in factories, in workshops or in agricultural work. I had left my baccalaureate diploma with the Katz family for safekeeping, but I had my certificate of dressmaking training with me. I hoped that now I could make use of my sewing skills.

We awoke one morning, only 3 weeks after our internment in the ghetto, to the news that one of the ghetto streets had been closed off and evacuated. The inhabitants had only been given half an hour to get ready to leave. Each ghetto Jew could take only a knapsack and a bag for bread. That day, 300 Jews were removed from Károly Rimler Street. Later we learnt that this group was assembled to complete the numbers of those from the province who had been evacuated and transported earlier.

The leadership of the Jewish Council asked the commander of the ghetto for an explanation. The response was the same as usual. Commander Bodolay informed the leaders that the people who had been taken would remain in the country, he could not say exactly where, and he assumed they had probably gone to do agricultural work.

The following day the deportation continued. Where? How? When? For how long? Together or separately? The terror of deportation had paralysed all our minds. The order to organize the ghetto had been given on May 3, and after only a few weeks, on May 25, its disbanding had begun. We had gone through so much in that short period. By this time we had already begun to guess that everything we had gone through until then was only preparation for some final inevitable act.

A feverish agitation possessed the ghetto. More and more measures followed. The ghetto area was divided into a number of subunits. The evacuation was organized and scheduled by sectors, and 2500 to 3000 people left the ghetto each day. Our turn came on the day before the last.

Reverse numbering began. To avoid panic, we were forbidden to leave our houses. Only the house leaders were allowed to go outside, and only at particular times and in certain streets. Across the courtyards and gardens of the houses (the fences separating them had been used for wood from the start) we found relatives and acquaintances and kept in contact with them. We learned that Kert (Avram Iancu) and Vámház (Sucevei) streets had already been evacuated and that Kapucinus and Szacsvai (Cuza Voda) streets were next. The evacuated streets were closed, but as the gendarmes still supervised them, no one could go there.

Wishing to visit my cousin Manci Szmuk's family, whose turn was to come before ours, I wandered into an evacuated street. A terrible sight unfolded in front of me. he silence of death pervaded the street. Houses had been left in haste with their doors wide open, inviting me to look inside; they were in a state of disarray. In the dust of the street you could still see the footprints of those who had recently been deported. Here and there knapsacks, bundles, and rags tied in scarves were lying around, evidence that people were driven out hurriedly and not allowed to pick up their fallen belongings. Toys had been trampled underfoot, teddy bears once carefully guarded were now scattered in the dust of the street, and I thought of frightened, crying children. In that silent deserted street, a strange feeling came over me, as if I was walking through open graves. I was riveted to the spot. The nightmare vision only lasted a few moments. The threatening whistle of a gendarme brought me back to reality. I quickly retraced my steps to the inhabited area. I had just glimpsed what our fate would be in a few days time.

Following the internment of the Jews in the ghetto, the population of 60 000 in Oradea was left with only eight Christian doctors. To ensure the medical care of the Christian population, six Jewish doctors and their families had been left in the town. During the days of deportation, they were also brought unexpectedly to the ghetto. Thus Dr. Kornelia Mózes, a specialist in the sanatorium for pulmonary diseases and my friend Sári's cousin, arrived in our house. At the same time, Dr. Lajos Ertzmann, an ear, nose and throat specialist, moved into the ghetto with his wife and their beautiful twin daughters, as did the specialist for internal diseases, Dr. Artur Sebestyén, the ophthalmologist Dr Alfréd Bock, the dermatologist Dr. László Barna, and the pediatrician Dr. Ede Aufricht. Watching Kornélia, I realized what it was like for these people, who had been in a privileged situation, to face this unexpected turn of fate. We had got used to things gradually going from bad to worse, while they were overwhelmed and virtually crushed. Only this could explain the action of Dr. Ertzmann, usually a strong man full of life, who administered a lethal injection to his wife and daughters and then to himself while they were still on the train.

Dr. Kornélia Mózes brought us news about the town. The 16 Jewish families who had exempted status because of war disability or because of some special war merit were living in a voluntary ghetto that they had created in their own houses, isolated from the town. Although they were exempted from wearing the yellow star, they did not leave their houses for fear of insults. Those from mixed marriages tried, with the help of lawyers, to save those family members who according to the legislation had exempted status, cases that the ghetto commanders had not taken into account. The only situations where they gave way were those in which, in spite of the fact that they were Christians, the wife or the husband wanted to follow the Jewish spouse and children. Because of this the families of the lawyers Dr. Endre Fehér and Béla Friedmann were taken. Some committed suicide, overwhelmed by the terrible circumstances, as did poor Margit Kemény, the wife of Dr. Romulus Costa.

Even those with exempted status suffered abuse. The engineer Radó was denounced by his neighbor on false grounds, and members of the Katz family were summoned to an inspection in the ghetto with all their possessions and documents. Their exemption papers were torn up, they were taken out into Rhédey Park where people were being loaded into cattle cars, and they were crowded into a train that was just leaving. The chemical engineer Miklós Stern had exempt status because of a war merit. At the last moment, he wanted to give some medication to his family who were already on the train. The door of the cattle car opened and Miklós Stern was pushed inside and deported. He perished with his family.

As the inhabitants of the ghetto were getting ready for the journey, not all were able to endure the tension. Some took poison. The most frequent cases of suicide were among older people, husbands and wives together. Many committed suicide because of the tortures at the Dreher, such as Gyula Stolz and Márton László.

During these last days, many wanted to get into the ghetto hospital. They thought they would enjoy more humane treatment among the sick. Others moved, with or without their luggage and their families, into the attics of those houses that would not be evacuated until the final days. They thought if they gained time they would live. Two families moved in with us as well. I condemned them at the time because I thought it cowardly to disrupt our lives for the sake of a few days' postponement. Later I realized that I was wrong. These people were courageous; they were willing to take a risk, to choose a difficult course of action. They opted for personal solutions, even if the outcome was uncertain. I heard of some who escaped through the wooden fence into town, hid for a few days in a safe place, and then crossed illegally into Romania. Others walled themselves into the cellars of evacuated houses and stayed there until the ghetto was empty and the last train of deportees had left. They still ended up in internment camps, but they survived. Dr. Miksa Kupfer and Dr. Sándor Bálint gathered a group of about 30 people on the pretext that they were suffering from typhoid fever and isolated them for a few days in the section for contagious diseases. When the deportation ended, control weakened and they managed to escape. They crossed the border and got away.

Considering the many thousands of people interned in the ghetto, the number of those who escaped was far too small. Mass opposition could have achieved more, but few thought of resistance. Although at the time we already knew about the Warsaw ghetto uprising, or maybe precisely because of that, we did not have the courage to do anything. In any case, my sister Erzsi was one of those who wanted to act, to do something. "We have nothing to lose," she used to say. "Let's unite. Let's open a breach in the wall and let's rush hundreds through it at once!" It was clear that we would be machine-gunned and many of us would die, but in such a surprise breakout many could escape.

Of course, all these plans were childish, but even now, many years later, I sometimes wonder why we did not try to organize some resistance. Some of the reasons are obvious: our strong young men had all been taken away to labour service; we were unarmed; we had only spent a short time in the ghetto; we had only just managed to get some order into our daily life. The time was not ripe for an uprising. Most of all we believed in humanity, and we let ourselves be deluded by a campaign of manipulation.

During those terrible days, we again remembered my sister Magda's Cuban passport. Magda and I went to the president of the Jewish Council, Sándor Leitner. We explained Magda's situation to him and sought his advice. Unfortunately, his reply was not clear enough, or perhaps we simply did not have the courage to take the necessary risk. We told him that Magda's passport was hidden in the attic of our house in town. He said that we must show it to the authorities. Official representatives would accompany Magda. They would find the passport and on the basis of this would intern her together with little Aniko. Magda was afraid at the very thought of separation and internment, and also of the fact that other documents were hidden in the same place as the passport, for which our father could be summoned for interrogation and perhaps tortured. We did not know what would be waiting for Magda if she parted from us, but we felt that it would be the less dangerous alternative for her. Perhaps if we had not been so afraid for our father, we would have acted. Sándor Leitner kindled a gleam of hope for Magda and her daughter. I can never forgive myself for being indecisive then. Why did I not convince Magda to take this last chance? Our generous, good, beautiful Magda, who had always let herself be ruled by the will of fate, simply could not take a decisive step this time either. She remained with us and shared our common fate. I never discussed this with her, but I am sure that she too was afraid for our father. I have wondered many times what would have happened if she had chosen internment. Certainly she and her daughter would have been saved, but I would have reproached myself my whole life if I had caused the torture of my father.

During those last disturbing days in the ghetto, many people decided to get married. People sought strength in being loved. We organized a wedding in our house. Hédi Silbermann's 17-year-old cousin Vita was living with her. She had taken refuge here from Vienna. Vita married Bandi, the son of the lawyer Pál Ney. Because we did not want to attract attention and get into trouble, we did not erect a chupa in the courtyard. As this is very important for the Jewish marriage ceremony, we substituted a prayer shawl, a talith, that four men stretched out like a tent. We did everything we could to create the illusion of peacetime. In the attic, from the depths of a cupboard, we found an old bride's veil. We bleached it and starched it. The bride received her congratulations dressed in immaculate white. Not even the bride's bouquet was missing, as it was mid-May and the lilacs were in bloom. The ceremony was performed according to the prescribed ritual. We were all deeply moved. Unfortunately, we could not invite guests or even our closest family members to a celebratory meal. We were, however, able to prepare a surprise for the new couple: they received a cup of hot chocolate and cake, and later the traditional golden chicken soup. After lunch they had real coffee from ground beans. Then the moment of parting arrived. The new pair left for their honeymoon. They put their bags on their backs and took pillows and blankets in their arms and left for the groom's house where the attic had been prepared for them.

Our life of constant fear was brightened by the brief spark of these moments of joy. We continued preparations for the journey to the unknown. There were no shops in the ghetto where we could buy essential articles, as business had ceased. Everything had to be done at home, with whatever we could find at hand. In a very short time, we had to sew 47 knapsacks and bread bags from sheets and tablecloths. We made straps from towels, and blankets from curtains and tablecloths, using buckles from belts or buttons. Each of us picked through our belongings for things to pack into a single knapsack. We had no idea what fate had in store for us or what we might need. Thinking of the cold, rain, and frost that was coming, we chose raincoats and warm pullovers with long sleeves. But we would also need underwear, detergent, cooking pots and of course food and blankets. We each packed separately because we had no way of knowing where any of us would end up. Forty-two people raced through the house getting ready for the journey. We sewed, we chose and we packed. We tried out our knapsacks, thinking about what we would miss and what we would need most. Since there were hardly any chairs, each of us was doing all this crouched down on the floor.

Aunty Feldheim, who used to seek advice from the rabbi of Páva before making important decisions, turned to him now. The rabbi gave her a laconic answer: "You don't need to prepare bags; you don't need to pack anything; you don't need anything." Two days later, the rabbi was deported with his family, and we observed, smiling, that on this occasion his prophecy was not correct. In fact he was right, but we did not know it at the time.

Time was passing with astounding speed, and the day of departure was getting closer. The butchers at the Dreher came up with a new plan. Just before a new section was due to be evacuated, they took about 50 people from each group of houses for interrogation. Trembling at the thought that they could be separated from their families, these people confessed everything.

We were to go on Thursday June 1. We spent Wednesday in a state of great agitation, waiting to see what would come from the Dreher. To our amazement, nothing came. By Wednesday evening no one cared about keeping the rules anymore. We sat outside in the courtyard, ignoring our curfew. As a body we refused to obey, because now that we were being deported, we believed that nothing else could happen to us.

Postcard sent just prior to removal to the ghetto.

 

Schedule of deportations from the Oradea ghetto

Translated by: Susan Geroe

TRANSPORT NUMBER	NAME OF STREET	DEPORTATION DATE 5704-1944	ARRIVAL TO AUSCHWITZ 5704-1944
I.	Ghetto of OSSI (for all Jews from surrounding areas)  Rimler Karoly St. -first section	Sivan 3 25-May	Sivan 6 29-May
II.	Kapucinus St., Szacsvai St.- uneven numbers	Sivan 5 27-May	Sivan 8 30-May
III.	Szacsvai St.-even numbers Varadi Zsigmond St.-uneven numbers Kert St. Blaha Lujza St.-even numbers	Sivan 7  28-May	Sivan 9 31-May
IV.	Varadi Zs. St.- even numbers Liget St., Menhaz St.  Blaha Lujza St.  Vamhaz St. - uneven numbers	Sivan 7 29-May	Sivan 10 1-Jun
V.	Liliom St. Vamhaz St., Rimler K. St- even numbers	Sivan 9 31-May	Sivan 12 3-Jun
VI.	Fuchs Mor St., Tompa Mihaly St., Moskovits St., Tompa Mihaly St.,  Rimler Karoly St. - left over parts section	Sivan 10 1-Jun	Sivan 13 4-Jun
VII	Jewish Hospital, Ullmann Palace Gitye Building	Sivan 12 3-Jun	Sivan 15 6-Jun

 

There are variations of this schedule, but only within a day or two.

Deportees who died

A list of many of the deportees from Oradea who died can be found on the Jewishgen website.

A supplementary list is to be found on the Lempert Family Foundation website.

 

The deportations took place from Rhedey Park.

 

 

The Birkenau Platform

by Marton Istvan

Translated by Susan Geroe

 

On that end-of-May dawn, when we queued up in front of our ghetto homes waiting for orders to be deported, a gendarme called the eighteen-year-old Eva Szasz an unspeakable name. He did not talk to her privately, rather in front of her parents and some other hundred or so people. I heard it too. I was standing there, between my father-in-law and my wife, in one of the lines. Yes, I was standing paralyzed. Neither I, nor anyone else retaliated for the insult, which in fact was addressed to all of us, as well as to Eva, the university student.

Had I then snapped at the gendarme, or at least beat him to death, my poor little wife who I thought would surely survive, could have been the proudest woman within the society of a handful of survivors - Jewish widows, widowed Jews. But the moment that challenged my resolve and honesty slipped away shortly, sarcastically, and I didn't act.

Thus, whoever searches the database of my life, will not find even one impressive deed.

We were now stepping up from wide planks among the trees of Rhedey Park into the shaded cattle cars in groups of two, three, gloomily, or impassively, as if they'd allowed us to enter a movie theater after the lights were turned off and they were already showing commercials. Those people who got in first took the better places on the sides of the car, while those who got in later had only standing room. It was a warm summer morning. Birds were singing in the trees and a few blasé gendarmes were hanging out under the trees. Every car was filled and the civilians disappeared from the foreground.

A pretty woman, the only civilian, who probably obtained permission to watch, was staring at this entraining process. She could have been the wife of an officer or the mistress of a field officer. Her experience had not been insignificant. She had witnessed the preparation for a horrific catastrophe with a smile, politely hidden behind her handkerchief. At least two thousand people who in three days time would no longer be alive passed before her. She was watching about forty death row cells resting on wheels, filled with people sentenced to die. She knew about the sentence, while those sentenced to death knew nothing.

An SS soldier was fussing about the train. He wanted to demonstrate at all cost that he was on duty. His presence irritated us a little, but our gendarmes were not paying much attention to him, as if he weren't even there. When the train was about to leave, a gendarme yelled in his harsh regulation language through the closing doors: “If anyone escapes from among you, you will be decimated.”

The women didn't even know what decimating meant. However, to the men it was clear that this threat was targeted at controlling simple-minded people. We were interested in one fact: who were escorting the train? Germans or Hungarian gendarmes? Our volunteer undercover men were watching these decisively important maneuvers from the narrow airshaft of the cattle car. The wheels were already in motion when the watchmen resounded: gendarmes got on the train. A great weight fell off our minds and we calmed down.

Thus, we were going to remain in Hungary. Our grudge against the gendarmes changed into feelings of gratitude. They were our torturers, but at the same time our life saviors. They didn't hand us over to the Germans. “Let us consider the institution, the institution of gendarmerie, not the individual gendarme,” noted Jeno Vadas, a Main Street merchant. “The Hungarian gendarme never recanted his vows,” bubbled effervescently my former schoolmate, Lajos Berger, while twirling his moustache.

The train, carrying its shameful cargo, was lurking now on the tram tracks in the outskirts of the city, about to reach the main railroad tracks.

I didn't squeeze near the airshaft like other people, to see my beloved city for a last time, the place where I was born, lived, and robbed. Later, I glanced at Oradea's towers as we left them further and further behind. They were small, heartless, and the sky far away from them.

We started to eat; I mean those of us who had something to eat. We received for the road a half army ration of black bread per person and a tin washbowl of water for the car. It contained about five-six liters of water. Not much for seventy-two people. Chief Rabbi Vajda managed the water usage. He dispensed it by the shot glass to those who were thirsty, when it was time to drink. The Chief Rabbi's family brought along a considerably large laundry basket full of clothes. A cradle was on the top, foodstuff, diapers, and other clothing on the bottom. The basket was resting on the washbowl in its width, back to the engine, taking up the place of three people. But nobody griped.

Ivanka, the Chief Rabbi's little son deserved that much space.

I no longer recall who started a speech in appreciation of Prime Minister Sztojay. Pretty soon, it dragged to Imredy because, without a doubt, the changes that affected us were direct consequences of his ministerial nomination. “Were Imredy not made part of the government, we would have been delivered to the Germans.” The intelligentsia, crowded on the left side of the car, continued talking politics to the enjoyment of the few men and women on the right side, which were listening with respect. Prompted by a private thought, I said: “Imredy is a British follower.” Everything was included in this thought. Naturally, also the fact that he was the executor of the British action of saving the Jews. Within seconds, my declaration was met with warm response in every corner of the car.

Although rumor had it from the gendarmes that the city of Kassa (Kosice) would be our journey's end, Kassa did not even come up in our elated frame of mind. We were going to Mezotur. Namely, according to oozed out secret, a few weeks ago six thousand Jews were requested from the gendarmerie command. Jeno Gold anticipated that this small Transdanubian town had already been emptied to accommodate us. “We're going to eat lots of chicken there, because Mezotur is the Eldorado of chickens.” We gave in to this thought easily. But suddenly, the train took a rough turn onto a sidetrack and wrecked the Mezotur illusion.

The sun was shining hot upon us. It felt like the walls of the car were almost on fire. The men took off their jackets, the women undid their blouses. The children were crying for water. There was no water. The Chief Rabbi already portioned out this resource. In one word, we were going to Kassa, after all. How swell it would have been in Mezotur, in the center of the country. Kassa was situated on the border. Everyone felt that we no longer were going to be in the forefront, as we could have been in Mezotur. This was rather disquieting.

Everybody had something to say: we were going to live in cazarmes; they would take the men from there for work; we were going to sleep on straw; and, we were going to be cold for sure, for nights were cool in Kassa. “Let's not forget, gentlemen, Kassa is already a mountainous region,” stressed a young man who wanted to be part of the discussion by any means.

At the train stops, mothers were begging for water. At times, they got some. The children drank a few gulps and quieted down. A woman announced sensational news:

“We're not going to Kassa, we'll get off at six kilometers from Kassa, where they're concentrating all the Jews from Transylvania in a bunk-encampment that is being built right now.” For the time being, we're going to live under the sky! But we don't have any covers, and we can't lie on the bare ground! We must do everything in our power to get the children, women, and elderly under cover. We must build the barracks! Who will not take part in this work, will be looked upon as traitor. Yes, but will the command allow us to do the work we want to do? My poor friend, Ungerleider, suggested rather humbly: “We should form a committee that would be always in touch with the command and discuss the most pertinent issues.” Yes, yes. They had already elected my father-in-law president of the committee, but nobody disturbed his thoughts.

 The picture of the camp near Kassa appeared in our own field of vision. A wood merchant even named the station where we were going to get off. There was an old lumberyard whose director was a very gracious gentleman. A party spoiler's worrisome voice meddled in the oracle's forecast: what if the director was called up into the army? We were approaching Kassa. People were becoming anxious. “Supposedly they will take the youth to Germany.” That's silly. “It is impossible that Imredy would agree to such atrocity! At best, they'll ask for a few skilled laborers.” Old Mrs. Weisz's wailing voice is still ringing in my ears: “Is a seamstress also considered a skilled laborer?” She was worried about her daughter.

We slowly rolled into Kassa. The train stopped far away from the terminal building. Were we getting off here or six kilometers from here? We were waiting. The doors of the cars did not open. It was quiet, and nobody broke the silence. Two-three gendarmes and an old reservist with a shotgun were hovering about in front of the train. They opened the doors: “One man gets off and brings back water”, sounded theorder. I jumped off with the bottles. In front, the engine was feeding. How much water did it need for those six kilometers? I was running back with the water so I could make another round. The washbowl should also be filled, who knows how many kilometers would those six become.

By the time I returned from the pump which was on the other side of the train, a slender blond gendarme first lieutenant sprung up from somewhere and a Gestapo officer, who with his head turned into a profile position told him something. The German an away, seemingly angry. He was pale, his face ashen, his nose elongated, as if its root became loose. He was racing across the railway tracks, swearing hoarsely. The gendarme officer addressed me, appointed me car-commandant and took me along.

They placed a fifty-kilo capacity jute sack into my hand, then with my participation began the last sacking of the Oradean Jews in Hungary. Another gendarme, holding a civilian hat in his hands also came with us. The first lieutenant stood in front of the train and pronounced the sentence over three thousand Jews: “All valuables must be turned in. If the Germans find something, they will mercilessly execute you” – he barked stridently enough to make sure even the infants heard him. This is how we found out that they handed us over to the Germans.

The sack soon was filled with money, jewelry, fountain pens. People ripped open their clothes, where they'd hidden valuables. The situation changed to serious, and only few people remained who took a chance on continuing to hide valuables. The sack I was holding was full. Plenty of gold fell even on the floor. People were throwing out their l eftover emergency reserves through the openings and doors. They set me aside with the sack. And while the first lieutenant and the gendarme continued to collect treasures, nobody paid attention to me. 

I felt sorry for the old reserve soldier who was watching the railway tracks. I gave him a gold necklace and a gold watch. I gave a peasant boy my wife's gold wristwatch and a fountain pen to bring me a few cigarettes. For a few cigarettes, I gave a railroad man an old fashioned pair of gold earrings, two gold rings and a fountain pen. But he also coaxed out of me a gold watch. I feel sorry I was not more generous. It should rather have gone to them what was ours than to the Germans, or to the Arrow Cross.

When we were marching in front of the cars with the sacks, one of my friends yelled from the door: “Pista, we are being deported!” So far, we have never used this harsh expression; it was now that I heard it for the first time from our people. We had spoken of relocation, evacuation, but nobody had dared talk of the devil for fear of making him appear. Suddenly, we were ordered back into the cattle cars. I saw Erzsi Feher, daughter of Dezso Feher for the last time in the Kassa train station. The beautiful society lady stood in front of her car. She had her two hands tightly clenched into her hair. She looked upward and with her contorted mouth screamed silently something toward the sky.

A gendarme came and hollered into our car Hungary's farewell: “If someone from amongst you escapes, they'll execute the car-commandant. But if the car-commandant escapes, then they'll exterminate all of you.” Evening fell. The passengers raked up the poison from the bottom of their sacs.

Nobody slept that night. Shrunk like dumplings, bodies were swarming on the floor. People could not extend their legs, and as they were squashed, they were kicking and poking one another. I was sitting in a small place near my wife, with my knees pulled up like an Aztec mummy. I was complaining that the kid ran away with the gold watch without bringing cigarettes. From my three cigarettes, I gave one to Ungerleider and another to Erno Markovits, who was in despair and had been deliriously complaining about not having been able to say good bye to his Christian wife, Lujzi, who lived outside the ghetto.

We could hardly wait for the morning, to be able to extend our legs and arms. The train winged us in a western direction. We were going to Germany. It would be so nice somewhere on the beach. Sure, so that they could bomb us! “They take us to a place where there is no air alarm!” Hitler will account for us to future generations. A high style politician like Hitler, satisfies the present with threats and the future with not redeeming those threats”. Hitler is a genius – raved an elderly relative of the Chief Rabbi.

In the afternoon, the train engine curved sharply to the east. We're done for. They're taking us to Poland. We're going to Lublin. In the ghetto, we didn't want to believe Eva Szasz, who was a dactylographer at the Gendarmerie Commanding Office and to whom an officer spoke about Lublin. What else could there be in Poland other than Lublin? Lublin was the equivalent of Poland and vice-versa. We were going to Lublin: to agonize, starve, in the frightful uncertainty! My wife huddled herself on the floor near me and announced that she was no longer willing to live. “You, take care of yourself, please, you will survive for sure, but I can't face the torrent of suffering,” she said and convincingly enumerated her reasons. I brought to her attention that her reasoning was paradoxical, since if she committed suicide, the Germans interpret that as an escape, and I, the car-commandant would be executed. She immediately backed off from her resolve, although she already entertained such thoughts it in the ghetto.

She sat back in her place and gingerly embraced her father. In the nightfall, I noticed my father-in-law getting up, first stretching his legs, then reaching back into the pocket of his coat. My wife seized his arm. What do you want to do? – she yelled frightened. Do you want him executed? She disarmed her father the same way as I disarmed her. I believe that I committed a grave error. At that moment, I didn't know for sure. Later, Lili, my wife, carefully took out the poison from his pocket and put it away.

At night, Ungerleider touched my shoulder lightly. He found a cigarette in his pocket and wanted to share it with me. We needed a cigarette holder to not waste any tobacco. Lindenfeld had a holder, but he was asleep on the other side of the car, among the swarming mass of people. I went on all fours to get the holder, rising abovearms, legs, heads, amidst kicks and curses. I fell on a man, a woman, a child, a virgin and a young couple too, until finally succeeded on falling upon Lindenfeld himself. He wasn't cross with me, gave me his cigarette holder, then I retreated. It took me at least half an hour to make this five-meter journey back and forth.

By the way, fate brought me together with Ungerledeir later in the camp again. It fell upon me the mournful task of lifting onto the camp ambulance my poor friend's nearly dead, kicked up bloody body. When my friend died, I came to a bitter vindictive resolution: if I were ever free again, I'd fight to have the multi named Grosswardein be named once and for all after the murdered brave assistant painter Mor Ungerleider, in memory of the inhuman era in which we lived. Perhaps today, what I so seriously thought of then sounds ridiculous.

Not by a long shot does one find graveyard mood such as in Poland. How could people live here? One could only die here. Even God created it to be the graveyard for millions. A battlefield. A country in the color of the ground. The train twisted and turned vile, not unlike a lunatic. Sometimes we thought it returned to places it once left. Where were they dragging us? What did they want? Why didn't they give us water? Suddenly, side-tracked to some dead-end platform,

I noticed deportation cattle cars painted white. They were taking us back and forth until we were going to die of thirst. I didn't say a word about my discovery to anyone. It was better that way, because by evening, after a long dazing ride, we unexpectedly stopped, and they started opening the doors of the cattle cars. We were not allowed to get off and didn't receive any water, but were able to breathe fresh air through the meter long opening.

An SS soldier announced with good intent that we arrived. “This is the final destination,” he said. “Thanks God!” added Mrs. Weisz. We were in Auschwitz. A city was in flames across from us. A few minutes later, they rolled back the traverse doors again. Inside the cattle car, the darkness matched that we felt inside our hearts. Everyone was preparing for sleep. Nobody spoke, there was nothing to talk about. We made fools of ourselves often enough and that kind of wrong judgment stays with you even in the casket, according to Meredith's writings. My father-in-law felt the pocket of his coat that was hanging behind his head, then murmured into his moustache:

“Well, I'll face everything that awaits me.”

He sacrificed his own death for me.

This was the first quiet night. The multitude of brave people was well rested as they marched to their final resting place. Around one o'clock at night, the noise of car engines and the blinding floodlights awakened us. We had not even noticed that the trained moved during the night. In the evening, there was no road across form us.

Those lying on the floor turned their necks towards the good morning bidding light. The eyes of those who were asleep in a sitting position opened. But nobody moved, as if the cattle car were our secret hiding place. We felt the danger. We were observing with bated breath. My wife looked at me, I at her. Suddenly, the last car passed by. It turned dark once again and we never saw each other.

They started opening the doors: “Everybody get off, the luggage stays in the car.”

This meant execution. Had we have to get off with our bundles, they would have taken us to a ghetto, for sure. But this way, where could they take us? I lost my head. I was the first to jump off the car. We were standing on a long blacktop. From afar, floodlights were trying to shed light along the length of the platform, unsuccessfully.

Uniformed shadows with straddled legs were standing here and there. They were holding in their hands walking sticks the wrong way. Behind the floodlights, a huge covered truck was standing athwart. The gassing truck.

That was where they were going to execute us. I was in panic and was showing everyone the truck. Suddenly, I fell to the floor. They hooked a cane between the muscle of my neck and my larynx, that's how they slammed me down. Right away, a young man from Margitta plummeted next to me, blood oozing from his mouth. They broke his larynx.

 “Men fall in on the left, women on the right!” The line-up went slowly. We lined in rows of five. Somewhere, from under the cattle cars convicts in striped clothing appeared, hustling among the men and women. They were endlessly carrying human bodies within the small clearance – the dead, sick, suicides – those who already died and those who had just taken the poison as they got off the train. Almost every cattle car had dead.

Ours had none.

Our dead were still alive during the train ride. My father-in-law stood in the first row as the others politely showed him the way, wanting him to be their spokesman in case of need. I stood in the second row, but from time to time ran to get news. I drank honey and fat in my thirst, for water was not to be found even for millions. I got as many cigarettes as I wanted, as now, those who in the cattle cars made up plans to economize, became suddenly generous. We all felt the cool breath of death above our heads.

The news spread that the convicts were throwing the dead people one upon the other behind the truck and a hill was already growing from the bodies. The burning town we had seen the previous night from the train was burning here, nearby. But we still didn't know that those flames could also freeze. We didn't know we were standing by the crematoria. The British radio forgot to report about the German fires. Good for them.

They reported of shot down airplanes, victories and defeats to the Jews of Hungary.

What would have happened, had we known that the gas chambers were on the watch for us?

We were standing on the Birkenau platform, before history's most unmerciful, bloodiest tribunal, but we hadn't had the faintest knowledge about it.

Millions were given the death penalty here and not one sentence was ever commuted.

The horrific judge, that slender officer with a slight smile, who waited with remarkable patience until everybody dragged his body off the train, was already preparing the judgment. So far, he sentenced at least four million people to death by a slight hand movement. He waved to the left and to the right with the hand he held above his belly.

He did not point his thumb down, he wasn't Caesar after all, although he murdered more than ten Caesars, and he wasn't a plagiarizer either, because there had not yet been a precedent to pronounce sentence with the pointing finger. Whom he sent to the left died within the hour, the rest he sentenced to death by starvation, slave labor and exacerbated cruelties. Nobody in this world ever rampaged with such quiet, polite, almost pleasant demeanor as this officer.

The midnight circus show had started. The officer stood by the group of lined up women and began to wave. As in Madach's tragedy, my acquaintances started marching in front of me in long lines. Even if somebody had factitiously encouraged us to assail those few SS soldiers and kill them, we would have paid no attention. The Hungarian Jews' respect for authority knew no boundary even outside state boundaries.

Quietly, without a grumble we were watching how our lover, child, mother, were sent onto a dark unknown road, without us. News rumbled over us that only beautiful women were chosen and the others were not needed. My father-in-law saw when they made my wife stand aside. Oh! They wanted to use our women to amuse the soldiers, as they did with the Slovakian women! Within a second, I gave in. If that was the price to save one's skin…

Mrs. Dezso Feher appeared before me in full floodlights, straightened out, with both her arms thrashing in the air, screaming: “Don't separate me from my children!” An SS soldier shoved her in the side, and then as if she'd have escaped from a hole, she started down a road, which suddenly darkened between a wire fence and a white building, disappearing from view forever. I wanted to reassure my father-in-law: they would select the doctors, I told him, but he didn't care about his own fate. “Would it be better for Lili?”…he asked. He wasn't thinking of what I was thinking with my dirty mind.

School principal Dezso Sebestyen was standing next to him at the edge of the first row, with his typical haggard looks. I saw him take out a small box that contained little vials, then empty the vials into his mouth. Suddenly, I too felt like taking a little poison: dear Sir, would you have in your pocket more of that stuff? – I asked with confidence. “Sorry, there is no more.” – he answered politely and slipped back into his former tight posture. A few seconds later, he collapsed like an empty sack. My father-in-law, a doctor, did not even move. In this place, both, the SS doctor-executioner and the deportee doctor-victim equally served death, rather than do anything against it.

I believe that the presence of two SS soldiers would be enough to have five thousandpeople evacuate harmlessly from a burning theater into the fresh air. The reason for this - the terror triggered panic I had seen in Birkenau, when nobody dared act upon what his frantic thoughts suggested, instead, letting only eyes to bulge and mouths to drop.

The officer stepped in front of my father-in-law, smiled kindly at the seventy-three year old gentleman and touched his shoulder in a friendly manner: this way, please. My father-in-law started out on his last journey, and for as long as he could, he searched with his sight for his daughter. The officer only motioned to the others.

What happened to me from there on is not important. Male war adventure. I lived an ancient or middle age adventure in enemy captivity. All I can tell is that it was impossible to endure the captivity with a normal brain and a healthy mind. I believe that for the patience required to await liberation, a little insanity or melancholy were indispensable. Every loss entails sadness, but the loss of liberty brings about severe melancholy. Through the entire time in concentration camp, I was melancholic, otherwise I would have run into the electrified wire or had myself shot by the guard.

Then, the others would have called me insane.

 I can draw in a few lines my camp self-portrait, which we all more or less resembled. Here it is: a skeleton, shovel in hand, his clothing barbed wires, life threatening to touch.

 

Memorial plaques in Oradea 

 

Memorial plaques remembering the suffering of all those who were taken from Oradea can be seen near the monument to deportees.

 

Confiscated property

 

 

The newspaper article below from 1944 reveals that appropriating Jewish property was not an entirely simple operation for the Hungarian authorities in Oradea.

 

 

 

ZURICH, Jul. 23 (JTA) –

The economic difficulties which have arisen as a result of the barring of Jews from Hungary's economic life and their segregation in ghettos is revealed by Lazlo Gyapay, deputy mayor of the large city of Nagyvarad (Oradea-Mara), in a memorandum to the Sztojay Government, a copy of which was obtained here today.

The memorandum, which points out that Nagyvarad was the first city to set up a ghetto, says that since its establishment on May 3, grave dislocation has occurred. The authorities have found it impossible to cope with the vast problem resulting from the registration and evaluation of Jewish property, including nearly 5,000 apartments, 600 shops and 500 industrial plants, and the consequent unemployment among thousands of non-Jews who formerly were employed by Jews.

Many workers, the memorandum continues, were unemployed for a protracted period between the confiscation of Jewish enterprises and the appointment of a government trustee to operate them. In addition, Jewish employers had been paying allowances to the families of men called to the army, and these have not been paid since May 3, causing wide-spread distress. Also, in industries which have resumed operation under government trustees, workers are complaining that they are receiving lower wages than were paid by the Jewish employers.

Further difficulties have resulted from the fact that the flow of raw materials to factories and manufactures from them has virtually ceased. The turnover of Christian merchants has not increased since the stock from confiscated Jewish shops are still being sold. Small artisans who had received orders from Jews are unable to dispose of the finished products.

 

The memorandum concludes by pointing out that the economic life of Nagyvarad was interwoven with Jewish interests and urges the appointment of a special commission to deal with "the insurmountable difficulties."