Testimony of Moshe Barkai, born in Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia, 1923, regarding his experiences in labor battalions in Budapest

Testimony of Moshe Barkai, born in Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia, 1923, regarding his experiences in labor battalions in Budapest Middle-class family; his father works in the food trade. Hungarian rule and deterioration of the situation for the Jews, 1938; Zionist family; activities in Haoved Hatzioni youth movement; deportation of many of the Jews of Carpathian Ruthenia to Kamenetz Podolsky, summer 1941; witness learns metalworking; work in metalworking in Uzhorod; move to work in Budapest until 01 October 1943; start of his studies in the University of Budapest; German occupation and the termination of his university studies, 19 March 1944; drafted to the Hungarian Army, 17 April 1944; receives a yellow band on his hat to mark his Jewish identity, but does not receive a uniform or weapon; forced labor on a farm until late January 1945; escape; receives shelter in a Swedish protected house in Budapest; rumors concerning the murder of the Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz camp; escape from a group as they were being marched in the direction of Austria and which later was shot en route; air-raids. Organization by Beitar and Haoved Hatzioni movements to escape in the direction of Bucharest; joins aliya training; appointment as the person responsible for Aliya Bet's smuggling point in Graz in southern Austria; move to DP camps in southern Italy, November 1947; marriage, 24 February 1946; arrival in Venice, 1947; aliya to Eretz Israel; arrival in Haifa; detention in Cyprus; return to Israel with his son, 1948.