Kohn Essay 1

Auschwitz and After Martin (Mordechai) Kohn I was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp after Passover, sometime around May, 1944. I was 14 years old and I was sent from Satu Mare (Satmar), Romania with my mother and six siblings. I was the 2nd oldest child in the family. My father was an Orthodox Jew and did not want to cut his beard. He went into hiding with an uncle in Ny?regyh?za, Hungary. When that Jewish community was taken by the Nazis my father was with them, not with us. This family portrait was our passport photo and survived because a relative in Palestine had a copy. It was taken around 1936 or 1937. My father Lajos is to the left. Next to him is my brother Nachman and I am upper right. My mother, Rivka, is in the middle. My brother Yosef Chaim is in my father?s lap and Moshe Avrum is on my mother?s lap. To the right of my mother are two of my sisters: Miriam Rayzel and Feigl (Eva). The youngest sister, Channa, is not in the photo. We were ordered to meet at a particular town square and told we were going to be sent somewhere to work. The Hungarian gendarme and soldiers gathered us in the square and walked us over to the train. About 50 people or so were put into each cattle car and we spent the next 5 or 6 days there. It took so long because we were often moved aside so other trains could pass. We went through Slovakia and into Poland. En route we saw Polish farmers running their hands across their neck gesturing that we were going to be killed. We knew nothing of what was going on in the camps. The community leaders knew but they never told us. Auschwitz-Birkenau When we finally arrived we were taken out of the cattle cars. Men went one way; women and children went another way. My brother Nachman went with me to the men?s side. We did not know what happened to the rest of the family. I later found out my sister Feigl (Eva) made it through the selection but the younger siblings and our mother went to the gas chambers. Three of the seven children in my family had passed selection. We were not given a tattoo. I was only in Birkenau for about a week. I was not aware of what was happening in the camp. I had seen the chimneys but they did not mean anything to me. It wasn?t until later, in other camps, that I learned what was going on in Birkenau. I was sent to the P?asz?w concentration camp where I worked with cement. My job was to smear cement on building boards and I was there about three months. Plaszow Then I was shipped to Gross-Rosen concentration camp (in transit) to Bolkenhain. Some of us were assigned factory or kitchen work. Then we were making a tunnel. My job was to shovel dirt into and out of the carts that traveled on the tracks out of the digging area. I was there about 6 months, until approximately February, 1945. Then the camp was abandoned and we were taken on a Death March to Subcamp Buchenwald/Dora-Mittelbau at Herzberg/Elster. We knew the Russians were advancing and that is why we were retreating. Afterwards I was sent by cattle car to Dernau, another sub camp of Buchenwald. There we were liberated on May 8, 1945 by Russian troops. My brother and I had survived but we both had typhoid. For my brother, this was his second time with this disease. He had it as a child, too. This time he did not survive and he died right after liberation. After my brother?s death I was alone. There were transports to Palestine and elsewhere but I wanted to go home to see if anyone had survived. On the way I stopped in Budapest and found my mother?s brother, Joseph Braun, and his family and stayed with them for several weeks. I was so decimated and full of scabies that the local doctor said he had seen that in World War I and told my Orthodox aunt to buy me a ham so I could regain some of my strength. She got it. Finally when I was strong enough to continue to Satmar, I found my home empty, stripped of everything that was once a home. I also learned that another uncle, Sender Freund, was also in Satmar. At the time he was the only survivor in his family and I stayed with him for several months. Later he found out some of his dear ones had survived. Around the same time I met my mother?s cousin who survived Bergen-Belsen and she gave me the sad news that my sister Feigl died in her arms right before liberation. Other people that knew my father related to me that my father also died in Bergen-Belsen before liberation. Afterwards I left for Germany with the goal of going to Palestine. When I got to Germany I learned the British would not let me in. I had some cousins from Budapest who survived. They came to Germany and registered to go to the US so I did, too. I registered as a war orphan from Romania and quickly got approved. I was 15 years old at liberation and 17 when I came to America. My son Howard, my wife Lola, daughter Rochelle and myself. My cousin Zalman Kohn created this remembrance book. This business correspondence is from my father?s factory in 1941. This document verifies that my father was in Auschwitz This correspondence, from the Bergen-Belsen memorial, tells more about my father?s Holocaust experience. You wrote that you had found your father?s name Lajos Kohn is the Book of Remembrance. The name Appears in a list about a transport with 500 prisoners from Buchenwald subcommando Ohrdruf to Bergen-Belsen On February 27, 1945. Only the names of the men are given, so I do not know date and place of birth, nationality Or any further data. I have got only the Buchenwald prisoner?s number 108999. This is the only document containing the name Lajos Kohn. Would you be so kind to give me further information about your father, e.g. date and place of birth, way of persecution etc? I would like to complete the entry in the computerised Prisoner?s Registry. My grandfather Geza Kohn My parents Rivka and Lajos and my sister Feigl (Eva) is on the far left in the photo below. My family?Left to Right: Howard Kohn, son, Martin Kohn, Rochelle Fried, daughter, Benjamin Fried, grandson, Lola Kohn, Ian Kohn, grandson, Tari Kohn, daughter-in-law.