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In Komárom, my friend, who was two or three years older, and I sneaked away. We made up our minds every day to escape, but didn’t have the strength. At night we slept or rested and waited for the hot soup, and that’s the truth. In Komárom, where we slept on the horse market grounds, we had to get up very early because it was the weekly market and the locals came at five in the morning with their horses. There was a water hydrant, which played an important role. We washed our shoes, washed the mud off, made our appearance a bit more presentable unstitched the yellow star from our coats, and stepped out of line in the crowd and headed towards the Danube. We knew that we must head towards the Danube because on the way we’d spotted arrows that indicated that the railroad station was near the river. We left our knapsacks behind on the horse market grounds, because they would have given us away. I took a bundle more or less the size of a briefcase with me with my father’s blanket from the First World War, a black woollen blanket. My mother had packed it for me so I should have a warm blanket if I needed it. It was held together with a belt, so I took it along because I didn’t know if we’d manage our escape, and I didn’t want to be without a blanket in winter. When the railroad station came into sight – we were somewhere on the outskirts of town – I said to this girl, her name was Edit Láng, that I’m going to put the blanket down on a fence because I won’t be needing it any more. And a boy of about six or seven saw it, and started shouting, deserters! This was a real traumatic experience. When I came home I thought a lot about what could have become of that boy. I felt no hate as such, but I would have liked to know what became of that boy. His family must have held views like that if he said what he said and ran for the gendarmes.
In less than ten minutes, we hadn’t reached the station yet, but the gendarme was there on a bicycle. He took us to the gendarmerie barracks and the next day they put us in the next column. First they put us in a wagon somewhere near Vienna, I don’t know where, and took us to Dachau. If you look on a map, you know that the second front was already approaching from the direction of Normandy, the British-American troops were advancing from the north, the Soviet troops were attacking from the east, so the Germans were wedged in. But they still busied themselves with us. We were in Dachau for two weeks, in a camp called Landsberg. Then they transferred us to another camp. It was called Seestall.42 We still wore our own clothing there, and from time to time, our food was acceptable, too. For instance, I remember how surprised we were that they gave us jam, which was commonly called “Hitler bacon”, to go with the bread. It was a concentrated jam in a box. So things didn’t seem so hopeless there. They gave us hot soup once a day and black coffee once a day, in the morning, with bread and something to go with it.
In less than ten minutes, we hadn’t reached the station yet, but the gendarme was there on a bicycle. He took us to the gendarmerie barracks and the next day they put us in the next column. First they put us in a wagon somewhere near Vienna, I don’t know where, and took us to Dachau. If you look on a map, you know that the second front was already approaching from the direction of Normandy, the British-American troops were advancing from the north, the Soviet troops were attacking from the east, so the Germans were wedged in. But they still busied themselves with us. We were in Dachau for two weeks, in a camp called Landsberg. Then they transferred us to another camp. It was called Seestall.42 We still wore our own clothing there, and from time to time, our food was acceptable, too. For instance, I remember how surprised we were that they gave us jam, which was commonly called “Hitler bacon”, to go with the bread. It was a concentrated jam in a box. So things didn’t seem so hopeless there. They gave us hot soup once a day and black coffee once a day, in the morning, with bread and something to go with it.
Period
Location
Hungary
Interview
Mrs. Gábor Révész