Tag #155349 - Interview #103735 (Nikolay Schwartz Biography)

I was to go back to the work camp. From Budapest we were taken to a narrow-gauge railroad construction site to Transylvania by train. [The northern half of Transylvania was attached to Hungary in August 30th 1940 according to the Second Vienna Decesion, while Southern Transylvania remained Romanian.] We were to deliver carts with gravel to the track. When the construction was over, we were taken to the USSR by train. The Great Patriotic War [10] had just begun. The Hungarian army involved work battalions in the construction of trenches and blindages near the front line. Unarmed people with spades became very good targets for shooting. Soviet soldiers did not care whether this was regular army or a work battalion. Our freight train stopped for a whole hour in Poland. We managed to shave and have our hair cut in a barber’s. Then I went into a house to ask them for some hot water to get washed. I tried to keep clean and even had a folding basin for washing. I also asked those people to sell me some food. They gave me few big pieces of pork fat and a bag of flour. I exchanged my scarf, my sister’s gift, for a sledge to haul my load. The train arrived at Belgorod town in Russia, near the Ukrainian border, 450 km from Kiev. We were ordered to get off the train, lined up and walked to Staryy Oskol in about 120 km from Belgorod. It was winter and the snow covered the ground. We slept in the open air. In Staryy Oskol we were taken to an old cinema theater. There was straw on the floor. There was a field kitchen on the bank of a river, and we went there to have meals twice a day. Once, when we were on the bank, we saw a military horse-driven wagon sinking under the ice and we were ordered to haul it out of there, but nobody wanted to get into the icy water. They ordered us to line up and then told every tenth inmate to step out of the line. I was so scared that I might be one of them. I couldn’t swim. There were about 10 people stepping out of the line. They had to swim to the spot where the wagon was and drag it to the bank.

In Staryy Oskol we stayed about a week. In late autumn 1942 40 of us were taken to the work camp working for the German army in Yudino village on the bank of the Don River. The inmates worked digging trenches and removing the snow. The death rate was very high there and we were to replace the deceased. There were no residents left in the village. There were only German and Hungarian troops. The temperature was 30-35º below zero. We were told to find lodging. I stayed close to two guys from Subcarpathia. One of them was Ignac from Tyachev. I don’t remember his last name. Another guy was Henrich Singer, a tailor from Uzhgorod. We found a half-ruined hut. There were no windows or doors in it. We were allowed to miss one day at work to put the hut in order. The rest of the camp went to work on the bank of the Don. One of newcomers managed to cross the Don to the opposite bank where there were Soviet troops. His absence was only noticed when they returned to the camp. Again they ordered us to line up, selected every tenth inmate and shot them in front of the line. There, you will know how to desert to the Russians! We went to work every day to clean the snow for German tanks to attack. They were followed by the Hungarian infantry. We were at work from dawn till dark. We didn’t undress before going to sleep. We were hoping for the Russians to come each day.