Testimony of Michael Laks, born in Baia Mare, Romania, 1923, regarding his experiences in the Baia Mare Ghetto, Czikszentdomokos camp and while using a Christian identity

Testimony of Michael Laks, born in Baia Mare, Romania, 1923, regarding his experiences in the Baia Mare Ghetto, Czikszentdomokos camp and while using a Christian identity His extended family, united and traditional; his father is a furrier; witness attends a Romanian school and then a Hungarian school until 1944; supplementation of his Jewish studies with the help of a private tutor; displays of antisemitism during the Hungarian regime; learns tailoring; move to Budapest and work in weaving; return to his parents' home in Baia Mare, 1944. Deportation to the Baia Mare Ghetto; yellow badge; deportation to a labor camp in Czikszentdomokos; labor digging anti-tank trenches; wanderings; escape to a Romanian farmer near Baia Mare and life there while using a Christian identity; approach of the Red Army front; befriended by a Jewish commander who gave him a cart and horses in order to travel to Baia Mare; wait for his parents; rumors concerning Auschwitz. Receives help from the JDC to locate two of his sisters after their liberation from Bergen-Belsen; opens a weaving factory; joins Aliya Bet; marriage; move to Budapest, 1945; travel via Italy and Austria; sets sail to Haifa for 21 days on the "Shear Yishuv" ship; aliya attempt; detention in Cyprus by the British; birth of his daughter; aliya to Israel, 1948; enlists in the IDF; release from the IDF; life in Rishon Letzion.