Testimony of Shalom Weiss, born in Békéscsaba, Hungary, 1929, regarding his experiences in Békéscsaba, Ópályi, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Trzebinia and Bergen-Belsen

Testimony of Shalom Weiss, born in Békéscsaba, Hungary, 1929, regarding his experiences in Békéscsaba, Ópályi, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Trzebinia and Bergen-Belsen Childhood in Békéscsaba; religious family; studies in a 'room'; studies at a yeshiva in Ópályi for a year, 1943; the Law on the enlistment of Jews for forced labor; enlistment of his father and eldest brother into labor troops, father from 1942, and brother in 1944; arrival of many Jewish refugees in the town. German occupation, March 1944; stigma; arrest and deportation by train to Auschwitz-Birkenau; tattoo number on the hand; entrance to a gypsy camp; transfer with his older brother to a hut for boys; living in overcrowding; information on crematoria; extermination of the gypsies; selection; extermination of small children; going out with his brother to work on the construction of bunkers in Trzebinia; deportation to the west, 15.01.1945; transfer by train to Bergen-Belsen; hunger; mass mortality from typhus; transfer to Bremen for two weeks and return to camp; bombing by British planes; death march. Liberation by the British Army; assistance by British soldiers; rehabilitation; end of the war; return via Yugoslavia to the hometown; training; aiya to Israel on the Galila ship, April 1949.