Arie Viktor Mesleni

Testimony of Arie Viktor Mesleni, born in Budapest, Hungary, 1931, regarding his experiences in Budapest Life before the war; childhood with no family or social contact. Outbreak of the war. Decrees including dismissal of his father from his work in a bank and his deportation to Koszeg to labor in a beer factory; return of his father; German occupation, March 1944; ghetto life in a protected house; placed in an orphanage after the draft of his father to labor in strengthening fortifications at the Soviet front and deportation of his mother to Auschwitz, December 1944; liberation by the Red Army, January 1945. Life with his grandparents and their deaths; separation from his aunt and work in a factory, summer 1945; joins Hashomer Hatzair youth movement; aliya training, 1949.