Testimony of Arie Ladislau Sonnenwirth, born in Nagy Varad, 1927, regarding his experiences in the Nagy Varad Ghetto, Auschwitz, clearing rubble in the Warsaw Ghetto, escape from the killing pit, wanderings and forced labor in Fertorakas camp

Testimony of Arie Ladislau Sonnenwirth, born in Nagy Varad, 1927, regarding his experiences in the Nagy Varad Ghetto, Auschwitz, clearing rubble from the former Warsaw Ghetto, and as a forced laborer Family life under Hungarian rule. Drafted with his father to forced labor in the area; German occupation, 19 March 1944; deportation to Nagy Varad Ghetto; daily life; deportation in cattle cars to Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944; entry with his father to the Gypsy camp; transport 10 days later to clear rubble in the former Warsaw Ghetto; transport for execution; separation from his father by the killing pit; shootings: falling into the killing pit and being covered with dead and dying people; pretending to be dead; leaving the pit at night and hiding in a closed-down factory for processing Wolla cotton; wandering between factories and workers homes for a few months; captured by the Germans and drafted to the Todt organization in the Poznan area; deportation to the Fertorakos camp, late 1944; advance of the Red Army, March 1945; attitude of the Hungarian population to the withdrawing German Army and the advancing Red Army, March 1945; liberation. Return to Nagy Varad; activity in the Habonim Dror local branch; arrest for Zionist activities; refusenik; aliya to Israel, 1970.