Documentation of the experiences of Gyula Leber, born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in 1907, during World War II

Documentation of the experiences of Gyula Leber, born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in 1907, during World War II - the account of Gyula Leber's experiences was edited by her son, Andrei Leber. Life before the war; marries Lob Ibolya in late 1939; their daughter, Zsuzsi, is born in 1940; Hungary re-annexes Cluj-Napoca; Jews oppressed; forced to wear the yellow star and banished from places of work and study; men, including Gyula, taken away for forced labor in the Carpathian Mountains in 1943; his wife Lob Ibolya, daughter Zsuzsi, and other relatives sent to Auschwitz in 1944; some die in the camp; Gyula wounded in the course of Allied air raids and taken to a hospital in Baia Mare and, later, in Budapest; escapes from the hospital with several friends and they hide in a "protected house" under Swedish Embassy protection; Jews evicted from "protected houses" to a prison; sent to the Danube River and murdered (tied to each other by the hands); Gyula's partner is an acquaintance from the hospital named Andor Kecskemeti; witness and acquaintance leap into the river amid gunfire and swim to a sewage canal under the Lanchid (Chain Bridge); they wait and climb to the riverbank, finding a hideout for several days with a courageous Hungarian soldier who oppose the Arrow Cross Party operatives; after recovering, witness accompanies them to the Budapest ghetto; develops typhus; returns to Cluj-Napoca in May 1945; works at a smithing shop; marries Margit (Samson) Deutsch in 1947; their son, Andrei, is born in 1948; they immigrate to Israel in 1977. Margit (Samson) Deutsch was deported to Auschwitz with her family. Her first husband, Fulop Deutsch; her two sons, George and Paul; and her in-laws Lipot Deutsch and Etel Deutsch perished in the camp. Her father, Endre Samson, died by suicide the day the Jews of Cluj-Napoca were deported.