Many books have been written about the atrocities that occurred at the notorious Auschwitz Concentration Camp during the German occupation of Poland in WWII. Survivors of Auschwitz and the death march west in the dead of winter have shared their heartbreaking stories, and each one holds a valuable lesson for readers. But one Auschwitz prisoner who was chosen for execution managed to escape.
Klara Lutkovits was a teenager from Sighet, Hungary (part of Romania before the war). She, her parents, and five of her siblings lived in the Sighet ghetto, which was formed in early 1944. One very hot day in May, Klara and her family were told to pack a few clothes and some food—they would be taken to a work camp and would not return home.
The Hungarian police loaded Klara, her family, and hundreds of others into railroad boxcars, and the Nazis transported them to Auschwitz, just one year before Germany’s surrender. They reached the notorious camp on the third night of travel. Dr. Joseph Mengele, a medical officer at the camp, met them on the selection ramp. He was tall and handsome, only thirty-three-years-old, and resembled the Hollywood actor-type. He had a magnetic personality. Mengele talked and joked with the deportees and then sent them to the gas chambers.
Because Klara’s transport arrived during the night, German soldiers grouped their flashlights around Mengele, and he made his selections. He sent Klara’s sister and brother and her parents to the right and Klara with her two other sisters to the left. He smiled and said they would see their family members the next day. The guards led Klara, Rose, and Hedy to a barracks in B Camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The rest of the family went immediately to the gas chambers.
Auschwitz-Birkenau 1944. Selection of Hungarian Jews for work or the gas chamber. Public Domain. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Over the next several months, Klara and her sisters worked eleven-hour shifts in the surrounding fields and factories. They were fed three meager “meals” a day. The girls endured the cold and SS beatings and observed hundreds of new arrivals herded into the gas chambers daily.
Klara’s mind as well as her body began to break down, and she stopped eating. In November, Dr. Mengele announced that he would conduct a selection among the prisoners. After he viewed Klara’s emaciated body, he chose her and others in the same condition to die in the gas chambers.
The Nazis knew they were losing the war and needed to eliminate the evidence of their atrocities, so they pushed their extermination efforts to the maximum. A backlog of prisoners awaited execution, and Mengele could no longer send those housed at Auschwitz directly to the gas chambers whenever he wanted. New arrivals had priority. Klara and the other women selected were taken to the bath house, given black dresses to wear, and told to wait. Klara wanted to die rather than continue suffering in the camp. Her sisters, Rose and Hedy, came to the window of the bath house to comfort her, but they were pulled away and beaten for their efforts.
The guards moved Klara’s group to another holding room, a smaller brick-style building next to the gas chamber. Once the others fell asleep, Klara inspected her surroundings. The walls were made of inferior brick, and she noticed someone had dug around the bottom of one of the bricks. She pushed and pulled until she freed it and then used the brick to chip away at the others. After pulling out more bricks, she slipped through the small passage and into the night. The fresh, cold air and Klara’s newfound freedom awakened her. She decided she wanted to live.
Klara moved through the camp, staying close to the buildings. The wet, snowy rain and very cold weather, kept the guards indoors. She noticed lights on in the bath house. Thick steam covered the windows. Klara found an open window and climbed inside, hidden from detection by the steam. After taking a shower, the girls were given dresses and shoes and were told to line up outside—the Nazis has chosen one hundred young women to work in a factory in Czechoslovakia. The guards counted one hundred and one prisoners and started to drag the last girl in line away. She objected, so one of the other girls volunteered to stay behind with her family and returned to the barracks.
After traveling for three days and three nights, Klara’s train arrived in Weisswasser, Czechoslovakia, the home of a Nazi slave labor camp and the privately owned Telefunken Company. Klara lined up with the other girls but collapsed before making it to the camp gates. She awakened later in a hospital bed in the infirmary, where a female Jewish doctor nursed her back to health.
After six weeks, Klara went to work in the town factory, putting wire transmitters and radio relay systems together. She began to eat again, but the process was painful. Those in charge fed the workers three meals a day, including bread and meat with each meal.
A few months later Klara and her co-workers were ushered to their job site as usual but nobody brought work for them to do. The girls discovered the Germans and their soldiers had left. They were free! The next day Russian soldiers arrived, and their captain arranged transportation for the girls to the nearest operating trains—two days away. The girls were all allowed to board without paying, and Klara traveled home to Sighet.
Several weeks later her sisters, Rose and Hedy, arrived home. They thought Klara had died in the gas chambers. What a reunion of crying, laughing, and screaming took place!
Klara met Ezra Wizel in Sighet, and they married in 1947. Having no desire to live under communism, the Wizel’s escaped and emigrated to America. They eventually settled in Los Angeles, California. Source: Auschwitz Escape – The Klara Wizel Story by Danny Naten and R. Gifford, 2014.
Source:
Auschwitz Escape – The Klara Wizel Story by Danny Naten and R. Gifford, 2014.
Walter Rosenberg, who later changed his name to Rudolf Vrba, and fellow prisoner Alfred Wetzler escaped from the infamous Auschwitz Death Camp on April 7, 1944. Their method of escape was rather unique, and the comprehensive report they wrote about the mass executions taking place at Auschwitz helped to save the lives of thousands of Hungarian Jews.
Walter was fifteen-years-old when he was forced to leave school and study at home due to the anti-Jewish laws passed by the pro-Nazi German protectorate of Slovakia. Three years later, at age seventeen, he’d had enough. He tore the Star of David off his clothes and left home in a taxi, hoping to make it to Great Britain.
At the Hungarian border, frontier guards captured Walter and sent him to a transition camp. Hoping to improve his situation, he volunteered for a “Work Farm” assignment, which was in reality a one-way trip to Auschwitz. He held various jobs at Birkenau (Auschwitz II), where the gas chambers and crematoriums were located.
By April of 1944, about ninety percent of the new arrivals to Auschwitz (6000 people) were sent straight to the gas chambers each day. One day drunken SS guards spilled the news to the prisoners that Hungarian Jews would soon arrive.
Auschwitz II had a very active underground resistance organization made up of prisoners who worked in various departments in the camp. After the group learned that Rosenberg and Wetzler wanted to escape, the members aided their plans. It was past time to expose the Nazi’s secret crimes to the outside world.
Confiscated clothing in the “Kanada” section of Auschwitz Courtesy of Wikipedia. Public Domain.
The underground organization gathered data from the central registry, a list of the SS officers working around the crematoria, drawings of the layout of the gas chambers and crematoria, records of the transports gassed in two of the crematoriums, and a label from a Zyklon B canister. In one department, the prisoners’ job was to sort through the large quantities of items confiscated from the new arrivals and package the goods to send to Germany. From this supply, the underground gathered suits, socks, underpants, shirts, a razor, a torch, glucose, vitamins, margarine, cigarettes and a lighter for Rosenberg and Wetzler.
A barbed wire perimeter surrounded the barracks where the prisoners slept at night. The Nazi guards erected another external perimeter during the day. A stack of wood for constructing new buildings had been placed in a construction area between these two perimeters.
The men created a hollowed-out space in the wood stack, and on Friday, April 7, 1944, Rosenberg and Wetzler, clad in suits, overcoats, and boots, climbed inside their hiding place. A Russian POW had previously told them to soak strong-smelling Russian tobacco in petrol and dry it out to hide the men’s scent from the guard dogs. Their underground helpers piled wood around the escapees and sprinkled the area with the prepared tobacco.
Rosenberg had observed that after someone went missing at Auschwitz, the SS would hunt for them for three days and three nights before calling off their search. The two men stayed in the wood pile undetected for three nights and throughout the fourth day. After nearly 80 hours, they crawled out of their hiding place at 9:00 PM on Monday, April 10th. The external perimeter had been removed for the night, leaving the men free to escape the camp.
Rosenberg and Wetzler headed south to Slovakia, eighty-one miles away. Polish civilians assisted them with food and shelter, and the men crossed the border after eleven days. A peasant family in Slovakia put the men in contact with a nearby Jewish doctor who sent them by train to the Slovak Jewish Council in Žilina.
Although the Slovakian government had turned over thousands of its Jews to the Nazis who deported them, part of the Jewish community was left alone to operate its schools and synagogues as a show piece for German propaganda.
Vrba and Wetzler’s Escape. Courtesy of Wikipedia and Martin Gilbert.
Rosenberg and Wetzler wrote a full report of the atrocities taking place at Auschwitz, including drawings and detailed facts to back up their testimony. Rosenberg signed the report with his new name – Rudolf Vrba. The report was translated from Slovak into German and completed on April 27th. It was copied and taken to Hungary, Switzerland, the UK, Romania, and the United States.
International newspapers eventually picked up the men’s story, and leaders of several countries pressured Hungary to stop the deportations. The United States and Great Britain bombed Budapest on July 2 and dropped leaflets stating those responsible for the deportations would be held accountable.
Although the Nazi’s had invaded Hungary in March 1944 to prevent the country from withdrawing from the war, the Germans had left Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy in power. After the Allies bombed Budapest, Horthy reasserted his authority and ordered an end to the mass deportations. Prior to that, 437,000 Hungarian Jews had been sent to Auschwitz between May 15 and July 7. The order to stop the deportations spared the lives of 200,000 Jews in Budapest.
Vrba and Wetzler survived the war, wrote books about their experiences, and lived to an advanced age. Vrba argued to the day he died that more lives could have been spared if the report had been disseminated immediately. He maintained that politics had played a part in keeping their account quiet for a time. Over the years many theories have been presented for why this may have happened, but that’s a story for another time.
In the last two months, we learned about the spiritual awakening which spread across Eastern Europe prior to WWII. If you missed those posts and would like to read them, here are the links:
Courtesy of Professor John L. Heineman, Boston College
Today the story moves to . . . Hungary.
Dr. Alexander de Csia, the chief physician for the Hungarian Railway, witnessed the changes taking place in the churches of Czechoslovakia (See the story “A Message of Hope in the Time of Need – Eastern Europe, 1936–1939”), so he invited Evangelist James Stewart to Hungary to hold evangelistic meetings on behalf of the Evangelical Alliance of Hungary. Dr. Csia was burdened to see God work in his country and refused to accept the attitude of many that revival in Hungary was impossible.
Hungary, Spring of 1939
Stewart enlisted Christians to pray “around the clock,” and they each dedicated one hour a day for prayer. The first meetings were held in a small Methodist hall in Budapest, but after two days the services moved to the larger building of the German Baptist Church. After two or three more days, the crowds overflowed this location, and the meetings moved to the big Reformed Church, which boasted seating for 2000 people. Soon the overflow crowd had to stand in the center aisle during the entire service.
Just like he had done in other Eastern European countries, Stewart had scripture choruses and gospel songs translated and printed in booklets so everyone attending the meetings would have a copy. He introduced “Into My Heart,” “Jesus Never Fails,” “Yes, I know,” “Wounded for Me” and other songs. It wasn’t unusual to hear these tunes hummed in shops and whistled by delivery boys riding their bicycles down the street.
Stewart shared the message of John 3:16 and invited those who wanted to give their hearts to Christ to leave their seats immediately and go to the front. Hundreds of people surged forward, making their way through the overflow crowd in the aisles.
More prayer meetings formed in other parts of Budapest, and many Christians attended morning meetings on the topic of God’s plan for living a holy life. They left these meetings “determined to make things right in their own lives.” The revival campaign ended before Christmas but began again in 1938. The organizers rented the biggest concert and dance hall in Budapest, the “Redoubt.” In a few days, the crowds outgrew this location.
And the results . . .
Many Hungarians turned to Christ.
Many Christians confessed the sin in their lives and renewed their relationships with God and with each other.
New converts attended discipleship meetings.
School officials, including those from Roman Catholic schools, invited Stewart to speak to their students.
Students from the Baptist Seminary and Training School in Budapest went home to their villages and spread word about the revival.
Interested folks from all over Hungary extended invitations to hold meetings in their towns and cities.
Campaigns were set up in many locations throughout Hungary.
Andi Ungar, a Christian Jew, interpreted for Stewart at many of the meetings, and the two men spoke as if one person. Anti-Semites criticized Mr. Ungar’s role in the meetings, but Stewart and the other leaders ignored the criticism.
A great outpouring of the Holy Spirit took place in the city of Debrecen in eastern Hungary. Debrecen had long been called “The Geneva of Hungary” and “The Calvinist Rome.” Services were held at the Reformed Seminary, which had been established 300 years earlier. In addition to the evening gospel services, meetings carried on day after day for women and girls, for children, for prayer, for youth, and for Bible study. Many people shared about the work God was doing in their hearts.
In the spring of 1938, Stewart held his last campaign in Budapest in “The Tattersall,” a horse riding academy. At the end of each day, “hired laborers quickly cleaned the huge arena, put down fresh shavings, and arranged four thousand chairs which had been rented for the purpose.” The chairs were gathered and stored after the meeting each night.
Members of the Salvation Army and various Baptist groups formed a brass orchestra, which accompanied the revival songs. Several thousand people attended the meetings each night during the two-week campaign. On the final Sunday, over five thousand young people from Budapest and the surrounding towns and villages gathered for a youth rally.
James Stewart left Hungary in 1938, but the revival led by the Hungarian people continued to spread across the country. More souls turned to Christ. More hearts and lives changed. Stewart returned to Hungary for short visits in 1939, 1940, and in 1946 after WWII. He was overjoyed to witness the revival fires still burning, despite the ravages of war.
Buda Castle and Danube River – Budapest. By Costel Slincu.
Source:
Stewart, Ruth. James Stewart Missionary, A Biography. Revival Literature, 1977.
Today is the 80th anniversary of WWII – the day Germany invaded Poland. Six months prior to the invasion, Hitler had encouraged an event which he later came to regret. An event which saved tens of thousands of lives and aided the Allies in their future victory.
What big mistake did Hitler make in 1939 that contributed to his eventual defeat?
The map below illustrates the boundaries of European countries in early 1938 before Hitler began his conquests. Notice that Poland is sandwiched between Germany to the west and the USSR to the east. It was bordered by Czechoslovakia and Rumania in the south.
Before the end of 1938, Germany seized Austria and the mountainous area of western Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland) without opposition. Hitler then devised a way to take possession of the rest of Czechoslovakia and her iron works, armament factories, and huge supplies of modern military equipment. First, he encouraged the Hungarian government to invade the eastern tail of Czechoslovakia and reclaim the territory of Carpathian-Ruthenia lost after World War I.
So, in March of 1939, the Hungarians acted upon Hitler’s suggestion and repossessed their former lands in the Carpathian Mountains. This distraction allowed the Germans to march into Prague and seize the whole western half of Czechoslovakia unopposed. The middle of the divided country became “Slovakia” and a protectorate of Germany. The rest of the world responded with outrage but didn’t move to stop these advances. As seen on the map below, Hungary gained a common border with Poland.
Courtesy of Professor John L Heineman, Boston College
And then almost 6 months later . . . on September 1st . . .
the Germans unleashed the German army, the Wehrmacht, on Poland, giving birth to the blitzkrieg, “lightning war.” In the days leading up to the invasion, the English and French had urged the Polish government not to mobilize its troops so they wouldn’t further enrage Hitler. The Poles had ignored the warnings and secretly mobilized half of their armed forces by August 31st. Unfortunately, the German air force, the Luftwaffe, bombed trains, train stations, and rail lines, preventing many of the remaining troops from reaching their battle stations. Refugees clogged the roads, making it even more difficult for defense forces to engage the enemy.
What the Polish soldiers lacked in numbers and equipment they made up for in bravery and sheer determination. They held the enemy back longer than Hitler had expected. However, armed with the most modern equipment (including the newly acquired arsenal from Czechoslovakia), the German troops attacked from multiple points, broke through weak spots where the Polish Armies were spread out, and encircled hundreds of thousands of troops. The Poles tenaciously fought an army almost twice their size and an air force five times greater.
By September 9th, Hitler was impatient to finish the Polish campaign. The Germans asked the Hungarian government for permission to transport soldiers to Poland on a rail line through Hungary. The Hungarians denied passage. Even though they had signed a trade agreement with Germany, the Hungarians considered Poland their friend. If German troops set foot in Hungary, the government would consider it an act of war.
Nevertheless, the Germans advanced across Poland, and on September 11th Polish Commander-in-Chief Marshal Rydz-Śmigły ordered his remaining troops to retreat to the Romanian border in southeast Poland. He expected new military equipment to arrive from France and England via Romania. He also planned to organize a counterattack from the east when France opened an offensive from the west as they had promised.
Then on September 17th, the unthinkable happened . . .
The Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east and captured Polish troops. Upon hearing the news, Rydz-Śmigły ordered all remaining Polish units to cross the border into Hungary or Romania by any means possible. Although many soldiers, airmen, and civilians escaped into Romania, the Soviets quickly sealed the Polish-Romanian border, leaving Hungary as the only other escape route in the south.
The Hungarians officially opened their border with Poland on September 18th, and tens of thousands of Polish soldiers and civilians entered Hungary safely despite a lack of passports and visas. This allowed many military units and future soldiers to escape to fight another day.
Polish Soldiers. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Both Romania and Hungary followed the Geneva Convention and established refugee camps for civilian refugees and internment camps for soldiers. Refugees who could fend for themselves passed through Hungary and Yugoslavia to Italy and France. Hungarian citizens housed civilians in their homes and transported them to the Yugoslavian border where they found transportation further west. The Hungarian government didn’t stop “refugees” dressed in civilian clothing from leaving the country. In fact, the Hungarians sent civilian clothing to the Polish Embassy in Budapest, and this enabled tens of thousands of soldiers to make their way to France and rejoin the Polish Army and Air Force.
Graves of Polish Soldiers (1939) By Сергей Семёнов User: Stauffenberg via Wikimedia Commons
The Polish Armed Forces joined the Allies and became the fourth largest Allied military force to serve in World War II, and they served with distinction. If the escape route through Hungary had not been available, how many more Poles would have been captured or killed? How much longer would the war in Europe have lasted? How many more civilian lives would have been lost?
Used by Permission from Budby via flikr
Sources:
No Greater Ally (Kenneth K. Koskodan) Poland Betrayed (David G. Wiliamson) Man of Steel and Honour: General Stanislaw Maczek (Evan McGilvray) Hungarian History
