Testimony of Veronika (Sztrul) Friedmann, born in Sarmas, Transylvania, 1918, regarding her experiences before the Holocaust and in the Plaszów, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Parschnitz camps

Testimony of Veronika (Sztrul) Friedmann, born in Sarmas, Transylvania, 1918, regarding her experiences before the Holocaust and in the Plaszów, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Parschnitz camps Born to an observant family in Sarmas (Hungarian: Salamas); her parents were Adolf, born in Bilbor and Eszter (Rubin) Sztrul, born in Salamas; her siblings were Jenő Sztrul and Ernő Sztrul; her other siblings were not mentioned by name; her maternal grandfather was Salamon Rubin whose two sons Adolf and Herman perished in the Holocaust, and whose daughter, the witness' mother, and the two children of his second daughter, perished; her father had two sisters and a brother; her father's family lived in Toplica and Gyergyószentmiklós; the language spoken in her home was Hungarian; the family owned a shop; childhood in Salamas; good relations with the local population and the village judge; attendance at the elementary school; the family moved to Gyergyószentmiklós in 1929, when the witness was 10; acceptance of Jewish children in the Christian high school in Gyergyószentmiklós with the approval of the Prime Minister; receiving one-time permission to study in Gyergyószentmiklós; attendance at the French Institute in Vásárhely; attendance at a Romanian public high school; learning to be a kindergarten teacher at the Jewish Safa Yisrael School in Czernowitz; falling ill with pneumonia a year and a half later, and return home; attendance at the high school; displays of antisemitism at the high school; membership in the Hanoar Hazioni movement in Vásárhely; her father's support of Keren Hayesod; change in the attitude of the local population at the time of Hitler's rise to power; Annexation of Transylvania to Hungary; turning in [various] items to the Hungarian authorities; her family owned a company called "Rubin Salamon és fia", its factories were in Gyergyószentmiklós and in the forest; her mother and her maternal aunt inherited the factory after her grandfather's death; her father and her uncle worked at the factory until the Hungarian occupation; quartering of Hungarian officers in a room in the family home; good relations with the Hungarian officers; yellow badge; confiscation of shops; deterioration in their living conditions after the German occupation; deportation of the men up to the age of 42 to forced labor in labor battalions; taking of men under the age of 42 to the railroad station to transfer coals from place to place; taking of the elderly Jews, among them her father who was 59, to the Romanian church to dig fortifications around it; removal of the Hungarian officers from her family's apartment after the German occupation, and their replacement with German soldiers; order to hand their apartment over to the Germans by 03 May 1944; transfer of her family and [other] Jewish families from the neighborhood to the school by Hungarian gendarmes, the night of 03 May; living in the school under harsh conditions; transfer to the train station a week later; travel by train to the brick factory in the Szászrégen Ghetto where there were Jews from Toplica and other places; interrogation of Jews in the cellar, and their being beaten in order to make them hand over valuable objects; inclusion of her father among those interrogated; the witness and her sister helped in the ghetto hospital feeding patients, and more; remaining in the ghetto for a week; deportation of the witness, her sister, and their mother to Auschwitz-Birkenau by transport; arrival at the camp, apparently in June 1944; selection; disappearance of her mother during the reception process into the camp; separation from her father; camp life; roll calls; crowding; hunger; inmate number; transfer of the witness and her sister to the Plaszów camp; not receiving food during their early days in the camp; forced labor at groundworks; shooting of Jews and Christians who helped Jews; transfer to the Vizau camp [an unidentified place; perhaps what is intended is the Wiesau camp(???)]; harsh conditions; work in a mine; staying at the camp for a short time; return to Auschwitz-Birkenau; entry into the Sick Barracks of the camp; being given medicine by a Jewish [female] physician who returned her to the Block; living conditions in the camp: threats, hunger, roll calls, crowding, beatings from the Polish inmates who were with them in the Block; transfer to the Parschnitz camp; beatings from the Polish inmates who were in the camp; work in Zwirnerei, a factory that produced sewing threads; hostile treatment by the worker who trained her for the work there; transfer of the witness, and forced labor by the witness, her sister, and a [female] cousin in laying railroad tracks; mortality due to the work accidents while unlading coal from the train cars; remaining in the camp for several weeks; liberation by the Red Army, 09 May 1945; Arrival at Opice [an unidentified place] in Czechia; good treatment by the local population; arrival at Brünn; staying in a school building; arrival in Budapest by train; hospitalization due to life in the camps; her sister was with her husband's family; arrival in Kolozsvár, and from there to Vásárhely; reunion with her brother who had returned from forced labor in the Hungarian Army labor battalions; life in Gyergyószentmiklós. Her brother did not survive. Her maternal uncle was taken to the banks of the Danube River and shot to death. There are photographs at the end of the film: Picture 1.) The witness' father Adolf Sztrul who perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau at the age of 59. Picture 2.)The witness' mother Eszter (Rubin) Sztrul who perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau at the age of 49. Picture 3.) The witness' sister who was with her in the ghetto and in the camps and survived; she died in 1999 from a disease. Picture 4.) Veronika with her husband, their son-in-law and daughter-in-law, their daughter, a grandson (their son's son) and a granddaughter (their daughter's daughter); Picture 5.) Her granddaughters (Her daughter's daughters); Picture 6.) Her grandsons Dávid (Dévi) and Ami (her son's sons). Note: Her husband's testimony is Sapir Item No. 9196823.