Certificate stating that Laszlo Galla was in Mauthausen

This is a document I got in Mauthausen, certifying that I was in that camp during the war. The document is dated 1945 in Mauthausen.

I was in forced labor until 1944 when we were handed over to the Germans at Hegyeshalom, but not as laborers but as deportees. Then we were brought down to Harka with a little trip through Austria and then to Mauthausen where we were for about two weeks. In Harka, we dug tank traps for the Russian tanks. We spent nearly five months there.

On 28th March 1945 they took us from Harka. I was liberated in Gunskirchen in May 1945. Then we wound up in Wels in a reception camp, and the International Red Cross transmitted the names of who was there on various radio stations. Some people in Szentes heard it on the radio and went to my mother, and out of breath, told her that I was alive. In Wels the news was always going round that now we were going home. There was a gentleman there called Hiller who was agitating for us not to go home, but to Israel [at that time Palestine] or some other western country. I wanted to know what was going on at home, how my mother was, what happened to my father, so I never even gave it a thought. On 1st August we got under Soviet rule instead of American rule because of a territory exchange, and my chance came in the middle of August: I went straight home, a good way on foot. As it turned out, the place where my mother was deported and Harka, where I was, were only about 40 kilometers apart, but we had no idea about each other.