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Emerich Grinbaum - October 3, 2000

And what did you-were you working? You were what, eleven yearsold...

No, no.

the Russians-when the war started against the Russians?

Yeah, at that time I was eleven, 1941.

So what did you do? Did they put you to work as well?

No, no, here? No, no, no. Czech...we were going to the school,I told you.

You still continued to go to...

Studying, the Hebrew.

school remained open.

Remain open, right. The schools remained open until '44, March'44 when the German came, you know. Matter of fact we were probably the onlyHungarian Jews, we were the only ones despite the repression and, and shortuh, uh, uh, I mean. We stayed in our homes most of, most of us, except thosewho were taken to the labor camps. But most of them we stayed home. But therestricted uh, economically very much restricted. But we survived, more orless with the family. And we hope that the, the Russian were close that weca...we'll be able to survive. But it didn't happen because the German conquereduh, in March nineteen...they conquered Hungary and they put us in ghetto immediatelyand closed the schools and they took us, in two months and took us to, to,to Auschwitz.

So up-but up to that point do you remember any anti-Semiticincidents that you experienced?

Very often. For instance, the, the-in the schools and the media,in the radio they were so-became in 1942, '43-so anti-Semitic that uh, forinstance, we were beaten up very often going to school by the other Hungarianschool children, ??? school children. Very often. Sometimes my father hadto take me to school because there was uh, so the children, they were vicious.That uh, you know. Other anti-Semitic-it didn't happen to us, but you probablyknow the on-in the 1942 in, in southern Hungary there were, there were atrocities.They killed uh, a lot of Jews. That was in U...in Novi Sad. You might knowabout the story. And there was a movie about that uh, later, after the war.So they killed thousands and thousands of Jews and, and Serbs beca...at thattime. But that's the only, only which we read about that. But uh, and oh,one other things. In 1941 or '42, they took all the Jews from Hungary whocouldn't prove that they are Hungarian because a lot of Polish Jews, theycouldn't uh, the papers were not in order because they came-father came andthen the, I don't know, they couldn't prove. And there was approximate 5,10 or 15,000 Jews were taken from Hungary to Ukraine and they killed them.Among them my uh, s...la...neigh...neighbor who was my rabbi when I was inthe cheder. He took him, he was, he was uh, Polish. And one of my schoolmateuh, also. One morning they told they took the whole family-'41-'42-to uh,uh, to Ukraine uh, and they killed them. So that's was, because that was acampaign which, campaign which those Polish origin, a lot of Polish who couldn'tprove that they were Hungarian papers, I don't know how...

Why the Ukraine, do you think?

Pardon me?

Why the Ukraine?

Because, no-that mean next, that Galicia, Galicia.

Why did they take them there?

To kill them!

But why not kill them in Hungary?

They didn't kill in Hungary. You know, they, they, they triedto, not to, to, to uh, you, you know, the story is that they-during the war,the Ukrainian Russian Jews never been taken-not-they didn't take them to theconcentra...they killed them. They were not uh, ashamed to, to kill in frontof the other Ukrainian. Ukrainians, they ???. In Hungary they tried to, toshow some kind of civility, you know. So they didn't kill there.