In the spring of 1944, three weeks after we’d arrived in the brickyard, the Nazis began to liquidate this temporary transit camp. Several transports had already left for the “east.” I was chosen with some others to clean up the sheds where the deportees had been housed. I found coins and other articles that people had left behind—only the coins were of value to me. My family and I were told to get ready for the third transport. We also had to leave behind valuable possessions because we knew that the cramped space in a cattle car would not allow for any extra baggage besides our minimal personal belongings.
I was preoccupied with thoughts of the past. I remembered how, in 1942, my mother, my aunt, my siblings, and I were taken to the Karpathian Mountains and later sent home. This time, I was cognizant that there were additional members of our family on the transport—my grandfather; my grandmother, who was quite feeble; my nine-month-old sister, Judit—and I was very concerned about how we were all going to handle travelling in the cramped conditions of the first two transports I had seen being loaded.
On the day of our departure, we picked up our meagre bundles and were taken to the loading area, where the cattle cars were waiting. There, we were met by the Hungarian gendarmes. After we were loaded into the cars, the train set off from the brickyard, which was in a suburb of Kassa, to the main railway station a short distance away. Once there, each car was given a pail of drinking water and an empty pail to use as a toilet. Then the doors were closed and bolted down. My gut told me we were in danger. What was happening to us and where were we going to end up?
In my childhood, trains represented stability. Every morning, when I heard the whistle of the train that brought distant students to my town, I knew it was time to walk to school with my friends. And every afternoon, the train whistled again as it took the students back to their homes, signalling that school was out. The train also took me away on summer holidays to my mother’s family’s farm in Kolbašov; my uncle Herman was always waiting at the station with a carriage and two prancing horses. I would sit on the buckboard beside him and take the reins—such an exuberant and liberating feeling.
The contrast between those happy memories and my departure from the brickyard on this transport couldn’t have been more pronounced. One hundred people and their bundles were crammed into each car. We were stuck together, standing room only, and could hardly breathe properly because the heat generated by our bodies made the air unbearable. The situation was dehumanizing, debilitating, and devastating, both psychologically and physically. There was only a small barred opening near the ceiling for ventilation. The water was gone almost immediately, and it was never replaced. The toilet pail was not emptied because the door was never opened, and the stench infused the entire car. Our bundles of belongings, left on the floor, were also overrun with waste.
I couldn’t get close to my parents and they couldn’t protect me. I felt alone, overwhelmed by the stench of urine and fecal matter. I couldn’t relieve myself because the car was so tightly packed and lacked privacy. The moans of people who were claustrophobic or in pain were very unsettling. When I relive these memories today, I have nightmarish thoughts about my mother, who was holding my still-breastfeeding nine-month-old sister. I can’t imagine how she managed without food and water. My two younger brothers, only eight and ten years old, must have found it terrifying to be squeezed and surrounded by taller people.
Some things I will never forget about the journey: the smell of smoke, the sound of the locomotive as it built up steam to pull the thirty to forty loaded cars, the clicking of the wheels as they hit the joints of the rails. On the first day, the train stopped to refuel with coal and water for the locomotive. We screamed out to our guards, begging for water for ourselves. They told us to throw out jewellery in exchange. Some discussion took place, and soon several people threw pieces of hidden jewellery through a small opening in the car. Once the gendarmes got the valuables, they simply walked away without honouring their promise. That first night in the car, I fell asleep standing up, lulled by the rhythm of the train. I awoke suddenly to the sound of the locomotive’s loud whistle; I thought I’d had a nightmare, but in reality I was living the nightmare.
As the sun’s rays penetrated the opening the next morning, I felt somewhat better and thought there might still be some hope. But at the next stop, the person nearest to the small barred window, in the upper corner of the car, was hoisted up to see where we were. He told us the name of the station and we realized that we were now in occupied Poland, a shocking revelation because we’d expected to be resettled in the east. The feelings of desperation worsened. We travelled on for a second night and two people died. Their bodies remained in the car with us.
The crying babies could no longer be heard by the third night, when the train finally came to a stop. Through the opening, we heard people speaking German. The cars were shuffled back and forth, and as the steel bumpers hit each other, a shock wave went through the entire train. We were all awake, a miserable bundle of human cargo.