Holocaust Survivors For The Friend Of My Friend

Holocaust Survivors

For my friend's friend



There were six brothers, two females and four males. My parents were Ignacio Matyas Legman and Bertha Schmidt. My eldest brother, Frank, born in 1907 and reside in Los Angeles since 1925, the second, who was my professor of sports and athletics, Alexander (Hz), born in 1909, Livia (Diszi) in 1911, Judith, in 1915, Andor in 1920 and I, Tibor, the youngest, was born on May 25, 1925.

When I was seven, my grandfather died, a doctor who was well known and loved by all, Schmidt was named Mordechai. My paternal grandparents, I remember only their names and telling Efrain Shalon Matyas of Matyas.

I spent my early years in Cluj, a city of over 100,000 inhabitants, of whom 15,000 were Jews. It was a modern city. Beautiful and decorated buildings were in charge of deck. Many synagogues, churches, both Catholic and Orthodox, showed signs of the great faith of its inhabitants.

Until 1939, we ruled the Romanians. A year later we became part of the Hungarian people, under an agreement signed by Hitler.

Because he was the youngest, was spoiled by my parents, my brothers and even some of my uncles. Looking back, I seem to see my mother, who many nights came to my bed, watching my dream and when I felt uneasy, tried to calm me, telling me stories of my grandparents, my uncles and experiences of my brothers' antics. She, God rest his soul, was an exemplary mother.

Sixteen years ago I had my brother Hertz, I loved him like a son, he was the one who took care to teach and improve my skills and styles in terms of my taste for the sport. He taught me to stand on my hands and then with great patience, to walk on them. A Hertz owe most of my fond memories as a child. Concerning us, I mean, I was surrounded by a great passion. My brother was the athlete in me could not be. Had great faith in my future as a professional athlete, I was encouraged and which behaved proud father,

I was about seven years old, when a traveling circus in the city came and my brother took me Hertz. It was an unforgettable experience to see the acrobatic clowns appreciate what they have learned with my brother, the handstand happened to have a great sense to me. In his show, they mounted a chair on a table, then another on the first and with a demonstration of skill, hand stood at the top of both. Just got to my house when I saw that there was no one did the same. The table, a chair, then another and with great determination I managed to stand on them, just as I saw in the circus. My mother entered the room and then saw me, she was surprised, shocked. It screamed for me not off balance, but I know he did not lack the desire. His expression of shock and amazement, I remember with pleasure.

My years as a child were spent in the Urania building in Cluj Palota, this building was on Main Street in Joseph Ferenz Ut. It had four floors and the ground floor had other businesses, in addition to the Urania cinema, as an increase of skin, a very famous pastry and ice cream called Takacs, a haberdashery, a fruit and a fabric store.

One of my strangest memories was when through the window of my house, which was on the first floor, I saw the owner when he dropped the ice cream into the pan of ice cream a chicken that was peeling and preparing for dinner, and did not even flinch!. This was disgusting to me, I got shocked to claim the action, I figured botaría ice cream, but all I received in return was a negative, scolding and a threat of beating. Above, the lady branded as a liar in front of others.

I recall with pleasure the first time I went to the movies, by the way the Urania, was a cowboy movie, the actor was well known Tom Mix, we were at the beginning, at the entrance of the twentieth century modern and unjust.

In my day, movies were silent. The Urania had hired several gypsies who played music, the most notorious was the violin and to the extent that developed the film, played by bringing the action gypsies we saw. If the actors were running, the music was fast, or sometimes dramatized as the fear or risk missing and romantic music, when at last the main couple was united after many ups and downs. Impressive to see Tom Mix, running after the Indians and sometimes after the robbers, was good against everything it stood for evil. He highlighted his ability to ride on horses and who executed pirouettes. Sometimes we saw him shooting the bad guys and when they tried to do the same, Tom Mix in a very own, completely hiding lying on one side of the horse, leaving the bad guys and awe aroused the enthusiasm of the public; we were up and the audience applauded. The amazing thing was that the weapons, both of evil as of good, we seem magical, the actors constantly firing and firing and they are never out of bullets ... and they never dropped their hats.

The film ends with an end of a fight or battle, the hero always triumphed in the interest of justice.

On another occasion, a famous singer named Joseph Schmidt by chance, and who is not bound me no relation, came to my house to eat invited by my father. It was a great honor to receive your visit after his performance on stage, while it was the first man I saw with high heels. He was very small in stature, but his voice seemed very large, therefore, that could compare with that of Nelson Eddy and even that of Janet MacDonald.

I recognize the quality of my parents, but by detailing my memories, I see how important they should be, my father was for many years president of the Jewish community of Cluj, was also elected mayor by popular vote, even though a Jew, my mother, since I can remember, was the president of WIZO organization in charge of caring for the needy and destitute. Both the one and the other shared their time caring for their children and any community aspect that required it.

Upon graduating from high school, my father gave me as a gift a box of cigarettes, he knew I smoked, and with this gesture that he should make me let up in his presence. For our time, that was very important. I also gave three tips that I have always remembered and practiced: The first was: never lie, the best lie is the truth and to be a good liar, you must have a privileged memory to remember what it was that you said to each and eventually, you always find out. His second tip demonstrates his vision of what would today's world and its ideology. He said, "but the habit does not make the man, tend to always dress well, because the first impression that counts" and completed "Your stomach can not see, you can fill with bread and water, that never You may be criticized. " The last of his tips to consider as a transfer of worldly knowledge. He said, "when you go somewhere to eat, drink or just have fun, always leave a good tip, so that you open all doors. Failure to do this it is best to exempt you go."

We live in an age in Cluj, where we do not suffer any kind of persecution for being Jewish. All anti-Jewish expression, I believe, begins with the arrival of the Hungarians, between 1939 and 1940.

My sister Judith was an opera singer, but my father would not let him pursue it as a profession, he accepted that he did within the community setting to assist charities. My sister, unwittingly, had been working to educate my ear, she practiced music and I loved to hear her. But when I took her to see my first opera, I was impressed, it was Faust. Suddenly, without my expecting it, the stage came a flash and smoke appeared Mephistopheles, I got scared and even cried. With kindness and patience, my sister hugged me and said, "Fely ne" (no issues), many of the public laughed, for them it was a nice episode for me was the awakening of my passion for music and theater.

When I was eleven, I could have emigrated to Palestine like many young Jews. But my parents would not we parted, my older brother, Frank, a few years before had gone to Mexico, lived in the United States border. This was the reason why my parents did not approve of my trip. My mother said, and indeed it was, she felt the trip of my brother as if he had lost a child and was not willing to lose another.

Knowing two famous players of the national football Cochuban brothers, sons of Cochuban Orthodox priest, a former schoolmate of my father, and to treat them in person, inspired me to devote myself to football, they encouraged me and sometimes guided me with some secrets of the sport. I remember from my seven years I played with passion, served as front side and sometimes defending the goal. I took great satisfaction in football. Being on the computer Hagibor, with just thirteen years of age, a more senior Romanian team, I borrowed to defend a state championship kind of where we very good figuration.

Not only outstanding achievement in football, helped by my brother and one of my childhood friends, Janovicz Otto, but I learned and mastered other sport, the Olympic jump on skis. In 1942, together with my friend, we represent our school in the national tournament held in Horty-Csucs., Without our parents knew nothing. We won the first place, no trophies were given to us, nor the merits as they discovered that we were Jews. My parents found out a few weeks later, during the news at the movies, that night came home proud and amazed at our audacity .

Emil Marinca Cornelius Titus, were friends of my brother. Emil was secretary Maniu July, Minister of farmers in Romania. On one occasion sent a commission from Bucharest where my father, we went to Rumania. He told us he had arranged things so that we arrived and we passed the border.

Between Cluj and Turda have about ten miles away. With delegation, as well as secure access to freedom, we are also allowed to take few things we wanted. My father, who was very successful the first time with the move we made to the house of my uncle on the outskirts of the city, in this new opportunity is hopelessly wrong in not accepting the proposal of a friend of my brother.

One of my uncles was a great Chacham (sage). I was for him, the son who did not. On the death of his wife, lost his faith. The man, known as wise by the Jewish people and also elsewhere, could not endure the death of his beloved. This lesson helped me to a very short time, to endure with dignity and resignation the lack of mine, but in turn made me more sensitive about other human beings. Both positions were learned to respect. When my uncle Solomon Matthias suspected what might happen to us, he took his precautions, he was a clever man besides, very rich, had property everywhere, had accounts in Switzerland and many Napoleons (gold coins). One day he called and told me that the two buried their valuables and to return any of the family, dig up and use them to him and his family.

That night, with specific measures, we took twenty paces from the tree to the north. When you get started with the pick and shovel up to a meter deep. Widen the gap and then check the measurements, we brought the trunk loaded with Napoleons, some foreign coins and bills, I remember well, a gold watch chain, the watch was beautiful. Which characters from Robert Louis Stevenson unforgettable in Treasure Island, we relive the actions of their stories and to sleep and dreamed I was the protagonist of the story, my uncle had entrusted his wealth. In a dramatic gesture, he transferred his efforts and sacrifices of their lives.

But things are not always as we want them, are as they are and that's it. When the war ended, I returned to my uncle's house, the Germans had dug deep underground. The entire property had been reviewed. The soil was removed inch by inch, I guess I used to search through a metal detector. The government not only sent us to death, also wanted our property and our valuables.

Already, since the beginning of 1944, the Jews gathered in the streets. My brother Andor, was imprisoned in Russia. Both my brother and my sister Livia Alexander, married with children, were saved by moving to Bucharest time. Frank, as I said, living in Mexico. We, at the beginning of the invasion, we felt that we would be helped by our neighbors, yes that was a tall order.

Andor escaped from Russia in the year 1950 and settled in Bucharest. From his experience he was hired as sports news reporter on the radio and in the year 1968 was when he applied for an immigration visa for Israel, which will he lost his job for several months. A few years later my brother Frank, sent him a visa, so he sent for and ultimately died in the United States.

It was in the beginning of the year 1941 when we started seeing trainloads of Jews. In the city, we thought that had to work or in the worst cases, to the front, to help in the construction of defensive lines , any of us ever imagined what would happen in reality.

I remember those days, my parents were busy collecting clothes and food for those who would take them on trains, they thought that way were helping them. We later learned that the clothes could not use and what little food they were given and does not alleviate their hunger, or pain.

At a certain age we were forced to go to hard labor, I felt emboldened by my age and I managed to escape to the mountains in the Carpathians, with the intention of staying with the partisans and go. Came the news that the young men who offered to work spontaneously, help their parents. Mine were already in the ghetto, I could not leave my parents abandoned. Believing that the help I got out of the mountains and joined the work in the ghetto of Cluj. A young, we were sent to do various jobs, cleaning streets, building roads and so on. Not only we are not paid, but must also bring our own food. The price we were paying only for being Jews, was extremely high.

Today, I am very proud of being Jewish, but I have yet to find an explanation for the behavior of the Nazis. Personally I fell as gullible with their promises. The ghetto was in a brick factory. For years the Jews were forced to wear a yellow band on the arm or a Star of David in the chest with the printed word: Jew. The Matyas family was exempt from use due to merit earned by my father during the First World War in any way, always on our backs. My father, as well as being very Jewish, said that we should give examples, not using the strap or the star would make you feel worse than others.

Two weeks ago I was in the field. The Germans arrived and we boarded the train. He had reached our deportation. My father had 60 years old, my sister Judith was 29 and I was barely nineteen. I can not explain, but somehow we did not see reality. The year was 1944 and still thought that the mobilization was only to lead to job sites, ever, we imagined, that herd of animals which we were led to the slaughter.

Joseph Goebles, fooled everyone with their propaganda, the masses change their views driven by pragmatic and programmatic manipulation of the Nazis, Germans used to live, to live with the Jews for hundreds of years, listening to Nazi slogans, that ills were caused by the Jews, reacted converting them from one day to another as guilty of everything and as mortal enemies.

They felt with the right to remove, first, nationality and the right of any human being to feel protected and cared for in their country of birth, and to decide the fate of each and every one of us Jews, toilets before of considering the vile canard animals within the human species unless they say, cigars, or Aryans.

The ability of the projection was enviable, were systematically inculcating their ideas, their goals were achieved as well as their objectives flawlessly. Unfortunately again we see that history is guided, directed and manipulated by a single mind. There are peoples, and its people, those who change their destinations, has always been and will be someone with a sick mind and the belief of being sole possessor of truth, drag civilized in the way of his ambitions and achievements also turn them into vicious murderers.

The whole family had been united in the ghetto, both Schmidt Matyas as we rode in one car, my father had been careful to take their Rujhsack (tahalit and tefillin), backpack with their ceremonial objects; needed for daily prayer. Before boarding the train, one of the Nazis called me and made chief in charge of my car, it made me believe again. I thought that on arrival, should provide trip reports, but again I was wrong.

In the ghetto we were told that we were taking in Hungary, an agricultural field in which we would work and so help our parents. With that lie, we were willing to help young people to work for the welfare of our parents. A day trip, a little boy asked his father how God punished the children, which he replied that sometimes minor illnesses, with little evidence of faith. The child in his innocence, replied that he wanted him to change his name because he said, with the name that had already been punished too much and could not stand the punishment to follow without water and food.

The train stopped at a station, opened the doors and shouted to us to come down quickly for a drink of water. From my car a few had managed to lose, I, agile for my athleticism and my age, but I managed to jump off the wagon, I had enough time to reach the water source was at the end of the season. The queue was endless. After a few minutes the train whistle sounded warning that we would leave immediately. That day, the Germans were taught that they were not playing. Those who did not leave the queue in the source water, they started shooting. I saw one fall, one and other. I jumped up and went back to my car, without having seen the water.

Days after come to the country understood the situation. At some point, the cries of the Jews had been asking for water to soften the heart of an officer in charge of the train, I guess ordered to stop on reaching the next station and opened the doors to fill, a little thirsty. The policy of the SS was very simple, the final solution was to exterminate the Jews. The more dehydrated and it was better we were weakest first, because it required less time and amount of gas to kill people, and second, it was easier to handle them at will and finally and most inhuman, after poisoned by gas was faster and dispose of the bodies to get them dried in the crematoria.

I know some of you this will break down the body, I have known for over 50 years, this painful truth, it is not even wanted to tell my daughter. I always dreamed that this horrible nightmare was part of a past no return, I thought the human race in general, all suffered equally with the Holocaust, and with that high human cost, the world's people united will never allow anything like this or similar recurrence. But how sad to know that one thing we all did was to repent in a silent majority.

I thought in man, in humanity, but when they saw my mistake I can not die taking my secrets, I can not live without having my pain is not fair that my fears, my fears, my complexes, my daughter , my grandchildren, and the sensible world unaware of what happened to your family, with my family, with all the Jewish family.

Just the train was full, we started our journey towards death agony, there we were, we were more than 80 people, most of my family accompanied me on that trip for them was of no return. The car lacked any kind of comfort, was one of those cars which used to transport the animals. The Germans carried us in the most inhumane, boasted of it. We were all standing, the atmosphere was as it were, grim, rough, very dark. The light just went through some slots of the boards that had the walls or by a small gap of the two slots type windows. We breathed in the odor environment ocher by not having bathrooms, needs were everywhere, a disgusting stench began to surround us. Our hearts first learned what it is vibrating in a runaway for hours.

At first we started a small storm, the place to which we were transported would be equal?. Then, as the train was moving when we realized that we lacked food and water, fear and doubt focused on whether or not arrive alive.

At the end of the car, a woman cried out his pain. It was not the time or place but nature had decided it would be that day. The woman was in labor. A woman with experience in similar cases, took over. Ordered and made the men moved across the wagon by hacináramos us further into the little space we had.

Our women have always been worthy representatives of our people, both the mother and the midwife showed us how skilled, patience and faith with which they were made, we infected a little with the hope they felt. Showed the child what reward for our help. It was a sense of shared parenting, each of us conveyed his love. It was for me a similar experience I had years later with the birth of my only daughter Belinda. But again, the joy could not last, our fates were not drawn with the wand kind only, as Churchill later said, we had to make our blood, our sweat, our tears and I would add: the lives of our loved ones .

One day on the train, a boy was born. The next day a man died. Screams, cries, prayers.

My mother always told us would not survive a single minute without my father. In his desire, the Germans were responsible, both were killed the same day. During the trip, I know my parents tried to reassure me that I know were giving encouragement, no doubt I shared their feelings, but my mind has blocked all that experience. My memories for them, in those hard times I have failed and still fail me. I can see others, I can remember and feel the smell, I see the darkness, I hear the pain, tears, memories and feel the thirst and hunger, reliving the anguish, fear, but the image and the words of my parents for this agonizing journey, I can not remember.

A few days pass and arrived at our destination. They open the doors of the wagons and hear screams, SS men and their dogs greet us, were Germans were Nazis, they shouted at us scnel-raus (fast, out), we feel a relief with the arrival, we assumed that things would improve. Again, the reality proved our mistake.

We got off the wagon, we were forced to form rows of five, we were embraced. At our reception came a band of musicians Hungarian Jews, I got excited. From my knowledge of music, I saw part of them.

The only truth was that the Germans, making fun of our future, we feasted on the eve postrimeras of our deaths.

We went in the direction of an officer impeccably uniformed it (I later learned was Mengele) ran right about giving them a small chance of life and condemning others to the left to an immediate death .. At that very moment separate me from mine.

An unfortunate Nazi murderer, decided the future of my parents, my sister, my uncles, my cousins ​​and my cousins. I've heard others who took leave of their own, I've heard and envied the embrace, kissing, or the blessings that gave them their parents at the last minute. I had not, and this taught me to appreciate the full extent, my family, my friends and mine.

We were in June 1944, after having passed the first selection led us to take a bath, shaved our heads and out rape was given to us prisoner pajamas. Hence, they put us in a hut, called tzigeiners laguers (only Jews and Gypsies). We were like 800, slept over each other. The next morning, we make an appeal (control) and an officer gives a great speech. We said we'd passed through a machine Roen Goen, an X-ray machine, which would be thoroughly reviewed and that of being in our guts jewelry, precious stones or things of value, we would be shot ipso facto. We recommended that the smart thing was to say before they discovered, was admittedly brave and be forgiven. But those who fear or other reasons not to, would be shot and open like animals, for example, and obedience.

The same afternoon they made another apel (presentation) and asked us to each profession. The vast majority of the outstanding Kies group, or some very tough teams, very risky. When my turn came, to your question, I answered in German, with his accent, who had studied in an industrial technical school, I was separated and taken to a secluded place, at which point I did not know where he was, but I felt comfortable. As I said, the site was removed from the barracks at the highest concentration camp. On arrival I was given a bowl of soup, then a prisoner of the Jews also with me, gave me a cigar made with a kind of funky with root used paper bags of cement. This really surprised me.

I went to work in a large kettle, I was instructed to monitor the vapor pressure and do not allow to happen in such a temperature, or it would burst and all of us.

The job was simple, the food I ate was plentiful, the workplace was comfortable, fellow prisoners were nice to me, but the stench surrounding the entire facility was unbearable. I understood why we gave three servings of food a day. I understood immediately why the Germans to such a smell, we were left alone and allowed the prisoners to smoke in secret.

On my second day in the field and in office, made another apel, passing list, a lad beside me asked me if I spoke idish. He said he was Jewish. Janek was called, was a Polish town called Sosnovich, at which time it was he who told me we were in the Birkenau extermination camp and we were working in the crematoria. My body broke down, my blood took a downturn that led me to lose consciousness. The human survival instinct to react in time, otherwise my slackness at the time to appeal, would have been fatal.

There are things in life that we did not know, without thinking, there are things in life that remind us that we are only human and when we see our sad past, our cruel reality, we feel very bad.

For I have always lived with that pain, the Germans, even when they could not kill me, destroyed my mind the thought that my parents and most of my family died in Birkenau and know that from the second day I worked on the boilers, crematories and somehow with my own hands had something to do, it's almost like being responsible for their deaths.

When we appealing, I told my new friend how he felt, shared the pain with me and from that moment he was born between the two a friendship that only death managed to separate. My brother in the field, so we called him, told me that an SS officer assigned to the crematoria at Birkenau us, had grown up with him in his own house, under the protection of their parents and had told him that flee, he was willing to help, but Janek did not feel brave enough to do it alone. He asked if I could run away with him. I took the night to think about. I knew that the Nazis had done to my family and having no ties that join me, I decided to go with him.

Janek, excited about my company, spoke to his friend, the SS and it was this which gave us the plan of escape.