Avigdor Barak
His journey, and also our
Survivor:
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| Avigdor Barak |
Gefen Friedman gefen94@gmail.com
Survivor:
First Name: Avigdor
Family Name: Barak
Birth Date: November 1928
Family Name: Barak
Birth Date: November 1928
Country In Holocaust: Hungary and Poland
Profession (Main) In Holocaust: messenger
Address Today: Kidron 1, Tzur Yigal
Relatives:
Siblings
Relatives:
Siblings
His father:
Family Name: Berger
First Name: Avraham
Middle Name:Eliyahu
Country In Holocaust: Hungary and poland
His mother:
Family Name: Berger (was Shalfeld)
First Name:Hanna
Middle Name: Helena Country In Holocaust: Hungary and poland
Avigodor's Story
I, Avigdor Barak want to tell you about my Holocaust and my survival. I was born in November 1928 in Hungary. I lived in a nice town. My parents were religious and my father was the head of the community. I had two brothers and one sister. I was the youngest. We studied in an orthodox school.
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| Avigdor,his father,his cousin and his brother |
When the Germans occupied Hungary the Jewish students couldn’t go to college. After I graduated, on the one hand my father wanted me to go to a commercial school. However, on the other hand, he didn’t want me to go because of the political situation. He wanted to wait until it was all better. But it just got worse.
Hungary was the last country to be occupied by the Germans. We had a phone in our home which was very unusual but one day my father tried to make a phone call and he couldn't get through. A messenger came to give us announcements. He told us that the Jews needed to bring their valuables and luggage to the city hall. Before we left my father hid some of our luggage and showed us where. Then we went into the ghettos. We were in the ghettos for a month with very bad conditions. We moved from our 9 room apartment to one with 2 rooms. We were frustrated. The Jews who had always been such good citizens got those announcements.
One day, we were told that everybody needed to have 2 loaves of bread and leave the room. When we left our home the goys came and looted our luggage. We were taken to the synagogue and we lived there for another two days in awful conditions. Next we went to the transport. When the transports came we were taken to a factory. All the Jews were concentrated there because it was a big area. When we arrived it was evening. We sat outside on the floor and we got water and food. On one of the evenings it was raining. We sat outside and everything was wet. It took two days for the luggage to dry. It was one of the most difficult times.
Two weeks later we got onto another transport. 80 people got into one carriage. The transport went on for 3 days. I don’t remember anything from this journey. At first the transport stopped a few kilometers from Auschwitz. Early in the morning the transport entered the camp and stopped suddenly. We got out alone. Everything we owned stayed on the train. It was dark and everyone was disorientated. When the sun came up we were told by the soldiers that we needed to start walking. Women and man were separated. My father and I were together. My brother had been recruited into the army earlier. We came into the showers. We needed to give our clothes and stay only keep our shoes, eyeglasses and medical accessories. We were told that if they found money or diamonds that any Jews had hidden , that person would die. After the shower we got a coat and pants with stripes. We went into a big hut with 3 beds, without mattresses and we lay there. The food was minimal. Sometimes we were told to clean the hut. My father needed to go on some transport without me. However, I asked someone else to take his place on the transport. The solders discovered that and changed it back again. In the end the transport was cancelled. A new date was set for the transport. And I than found someone else to ask to take his place on the transport. I went to the carriage and went with my father.
After 3 weeks in Auschwitz and 3 days on the transport we got to an unknown camp which was very new. The camp was close to Munich. The day after we arrived we had a roll call for 1000 prisoners. At the roll call people were chosen for certain jobs. My father knew how to speak 3 different languages and he had good hands. He was chosen to be the working manager's helper. I was in this group. We worked with a German soldier who was also an engineer. And I was a messenger. I needed to go out a lot and it was very hard. My shoes were torn and I got other shoes. Because of the shoes I was given which were made by bark, I got sores that never got better.
We ate soup for lunch and soup in the evening. Sometimes we got some bread and cheese. I used to hide the bread that I got in the evening. However other people stole it from me sometimes. Then we began the war of survival.
After a few days in the camp, the guards decided to split up our group, and my father lost his job as work manager. They took us to a work camp. It was cold and wet and our clothes were meager. Eighty people from my town arrived including a teacher, young and older kids, and students from my class. My father went to one line and I went to another. In my line they gave us 50 kg bag that weighed more than my body weight. I fall over many times and the guards kicked me a lot. I could barely drag my body back to the camp. When I got back I discovered that my dad had gone to an extra shift. On this day, at this point, our ways parted. On the 16th of November it was my 16th birthday. A few weeks after that on the 4th of December, a date that I will never forget, I decided that I wouldn't go to work no matter what. In retrospect that's what helped me survive.
In the morning it was raining. I fell to the ground and the capo kicked me. I succeed in ignoring the kick, I thought to myself "what needs to happen, happens!" my friend from class who was still alive tried to get me up but I fell again. The capo got bucket of water and he spilled the water on me. Again I didn't react and the kicking continued, another bucket of water was thrown on me, and then the capo gave an order to get me up and throw me in the hospital.
How my father was separated from me is a mystery that I can't understand. I reached the conclusion that maybe my father knew that our end was approaching and he decided to separate from me because he didn’t want us to see each other's death. Actually now I know that this is what helped me survive. As far as I knew, when I fell on the ground, my father got me up and didn’t give up on me.
The capo threw me in the hospital. There each patient could stay just 7 days and there were only six beds. The patients lay down naked. On each bad there were two patients. Actually the bed was made of boards with two thin blankets. The food was poor and they gave us half of the food that the workers got. The 7 days passed and I stayed in the hospital. On the 9th day they brought a boy of my age and he lay down with me on the bed. His whole body was covered with wounds. Next they brought another boy to my bed and we lie down together for 5 months. It was hard to understand how 3 boys stayed so much longer than the 7 days that were allowed. Then we found out that the doctors had succeeded in changing our arrival day, every week. They took a huge risk.
The allies bombed us endlessly and there were days that we didn’t get any food. For over 5 months that I was in the hospital I never had a shower, and didn’t breathe any air. I was skin and bones and had pressure wounds all over my body that were caused by the contact with the planks. These wounds left signs that stayed on my body for many years.
Staying for a long time doing nothing, without clothes, and with little food affects a person mentally. Our only conversation was about food. What we had eaten before and what we would eat after, if we survived.
My father came to visit me daily. When he stopped visiting me I knew he had been murdered. A few days after he died, a friend of mine told me the day that he was murdered. The 4th of January 1945, he was just 51 when they threw his corpse into a common grave, he of blessed memory In this period I was without any emotions, I couldn’t even to mourn for my father.
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Information on Avigdor's father death |
The attacks were strengthening with airplanes attacking us all the time. The noise of the guns came closer and I prayed for freedom. The doctors disappeared, the towers guards were without soldiers. It turns out that apart from prisoners and patients the camp was empty. One day before they abandoned the guard post I got sick with dysentery. I knew that without water I had just 3 – 4 days to live. Luckily I knew were the key to the water room was hidden. Every day this room had a guard, but I could get in because he was asleep. I got inside this room twice a night. I put my head in to the water and drank. I did it for 3 nights. Drinking saved me from dying in the hospital.
On the 4th of May 1945, American tanks destroyed the fence of the camp and freed the patients. After a short time soldiers came into the hospital and put us into a lorry and took us to an American hospital.
My weight at the time we were released was 29 kg and I couldn’t even walk. It took me 10 days to heal and then only after I got food and a blood infusion. My convalescence took 9 months and at the end of this period I decided to return home.
After a long and hard journey I got back to my house in Hungary, my parents' house. Then I discovered the big disaster, 43 people from my family had died. In the house I found one of my brothers who had became a communist. He tried to convince me to immigrate to Israel although I wanted to immigrant to America. I was alone in the big world. After less than a year, in June 1946, I sailed to Israel and started a new life.
Before the second Lebanon war I decided to visit my father's grave and after the war I did it. There I found a document (number 270) In it was written the reason for his death, the date and the exact time. Unfortunately all the pictures I had from this horrible time were stolen from my Kitbag when I was a soldier in the I.D.F.
Town information
In War World two six million Jews were killed. Over 550,000 deaths were of Hungarian Jews. The Hungarian government decided on three anti Semite laws between the years of 1938 to 1941. In July and August of 1941 all the Jews needed to move to Galicia. That was the territory for the Jews under the German rule.
The German moved quickly into Hungary and 1941 was the most terrible year for the Jews. Over 3,364 Jews were killed and a month later that number rose to over 8000.
In March 1944 the Jews could no longer ride in cars, taxis and even listen to radios. However, they didn't care about those things. They were concerned about staying alive. In the summer of 1944, Adolf Eichman took the control of the Hungarian Jews. He wanted to eliminate all the Jews in the least amount of time he could.
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. There were 200,000 Jews living in Budapest before the war. Until 1940 Budapest was a safe place for the Jews. By the end of July 1944 the Jews in Budapest were the only Jews that remained in Hungary. 25,000 Jews from Budapest were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only 70,000 Jews remain in Budapest. During that time Budapest had been completely razed.
Vac is located 34 kilometers from north of Budapest. Vac' was a quiet and pleasant town. 10% of the citizens at Vac were Jews. Some of them were religious. Before the war, not all the schools in Vac' accepted Jews. Only a limited number of Jews could learn in those schools.
At the time the German's captured Vac' the Jews could live in a limited number of streets. They could no longer go to school and keep valuables in their home.
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| Avigdor,his cousin and his brother |
