Testimony of Zvi Hirsh Shahar, born in Tacovo, Czechoslovakia, 1926, regarding his experiences using a false identity on Hungarian farms, in the Olmas Pusta mines and Budapest

Testimony of Zvi Hirsh Shahar, born in Tacovo, Czechoslovakia, 1926, regarding his experiences using a false identity on Hungarian farms, the Olmas Pusta mines and Budapest From a large, ultra-Orthodox family; family livelihood is from a sewing store, commerce and brokerage; learns in a "heder". Re-annexation to Hungary, 1939; learns in yeshivas in Vishk, Moshtina and Sighet; German Army invasion of Poland, September 1939; studies with Rabbi Teitelbaum in Sighet; joins Hashomer Hatzair in Budapest, March 1944; deportation to forced labor; move to western Hungary using a false identity; labor on estates belonging to Hungarian barons; labor in the Olmas Pusta mines; fate of his family in Birkenau; life in Budapest with help from the Hashomer Hatzair underground and using a false identity; escape from a labor battalion. Illegally crosses the border to Romania, May 1944; move to Debrecen; move to Transylvania; move to Bucharest; aliya to Eretz Israel via Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, August 1944; aliya to Eretz Israel, January 1945; absorption on Ein Shemer.