Testimony of Tomas Hirshel, born in Kula, Yugoslavia, 1919, regarding his experiences in Kula, Szeged, Burgenland, Mauthausen and Gunskirchen

Testimony of Tomas Hirshel, born in Kula, Yugoslavia, 1919, regarding his experiences in Kula, Szeged, Burgenland, Mauthausen and Gunskirchen His childhood in a well-to-do, secular family including attending a Serbian school and high school; activities in the Hashomer Hatzair movement. Outbreak of the war; German Army occupation of Kula, 1941; obtains forged documents; move to Szeged, 1942; draft of the men to forced labor; labor building an airfield and repairing railroad tracks in a military camp, 1943; hospitalization due to an injury; approach of the Red Army; transfer to Austria on foot; arrival to Burgenland; camp life including hunger and labor digging anti-tank trenches; arrival on foot to Mauthausen including eating grass, sleeping outdoors, shooting of weak and disabled people, and the inmates' attitude; life in Mauthausen; approach of the Red Army; transfer on foot to Gunskirchen; life in Gunskirchen including labor as a translator, and the disappearance of the German guards; departure from the camp. Hospitalization due to typhus disease; return to Yugoslavia; attitude of the Serbian population toward the survivors who returned; aliya to Israel, 1949; life in Israel.