Interview with Alex [Sandor] Star
[Born 2/20/1926]
Interviewed by Lauren Math
Recorded on 10/15/2006 by Lauren Math
Transcribed on 11/22/2006-11/24/2006-12/14/2006 by Lauren Math
My name is Lauren Math, and I am interviewing Alex Star who is a survivor of the Holocaust. Alex was at working camps, and escaped from all of them. Most of his family, including his nine-year-old sister, his mother, grandmother, grandfather, are just some of his family members killed in the holocaust. Alex was born in Cssil, Hungary, and was moved to working camps in Austria, and around Hungary.
[Interview starts at 002]
Lauren Math: So, what is your full name, and you can go ahead and say your original name?
Alex Star: Alexander Star.
LM: Where were you born, and when?
AS: I was born in Hungary in 1926.
LM: So, did you grow up in Hungary then?
AS: Yes, those days the sixth grade was obligatory, and it was a small city. Would you like the name?
[008]
LM: Sure, if you can remember the name of it.
AS: Spelled Cs-s-i-l, I went to sixth grade, then I went in the biggest city, I get two extra grades to eighth grade, then I went to four years of trade school as an electrician, because I was Jewish, and I can’t go any higher education. I can’t get any college or anything anymore. And I just finished trade school, in 1943, I was eighteen years old.
[020]
I have my mother and my nine years old sister go in the ghetto. And the name was S-co-r-n-a. And I was in the ghetto for what, - three weeks - then they took me out of there to work on a farm, and when I came back - then in 1944 June fourteenth they packed the ghetto up, and took my nine-years-old sister and my mother (forty-eight) took them to Auschwitz. Then took me to a working camp.
That I was the last age, but I didn’t go with the mother or family. I didn’t know what happened exactly. I find out after war, what happened to my mother and sister. During ’44, they took me different places - different camps, and then ended up eastern part of Hungary. Worked different places, then they walk us out to Austria. It’s quite a bit a walk. [045] And then, it was in close to Vienna, there was a camp, a place was Brukn o Lighta. They took us out every morning at about four o’clock, digging ditches. All the way across from Prague down to Yugoslavia. It was different places. [050] We were in the barn, about 600 of us, and one day, I just picked my self up and took us out to the working place and I was in very bad condition, you know,- didn’t have anything to eat.
[055]
I stay out there and I waited for the train, ammunition train. And I jumped on the train, and I went back to Hungary. And I did not know where to go, because they catch me anywhere, and it was very cold and overnight. I had some wooden shoes on, and I kept cold, I could not even take the shoes off. And I ended up, I went in some hallway of some hospital. And I got the shoes off; I left everything, anything I took forward with me, about three shirts on me, and any clothes that dry-clean. Can’t take anything with me. I tried to get somewhere, where I could hide, so I couldn’t find anywhere to hide. I went in a place, where they group together people and they caught me. And they put me in front of the military journeymen SS, in Hungary in military court and I got lucky. I did not tell them where I was coming from. I told them, that I was running from the Russians, they
let me go.
I did not know where to go again, and finally. I went back and forth in Hungary, it was snow, and everything on the outside was on the inside. I join up with the group again and the group was heading out to Austria again. And I said, “I know what it is, and I am not going to go back.” And I escaped from the group for where we walking. And I went back to the city where I was born. It was four foot of snow, and I walk to the field and I don’t know how, I made it. [080] And I went in the barn the people who live but three, four doors from my house was occupied by Germans they used as a storage room, and I could not go there. But these people, they were good friends, - they were Jewish friends, good friends of my parents and I went in their barn. They don’t even know I’m in there for two days and I never knew who was in their barn, but they come in the barn; I was down in the hay. And I hid there but two days, and finally the lady the house there, they yelling, “Joe, Joe,” and I know who was Joe, and he said, “I’m in the barn.” And I said, “well this is time to get out.” I know who it is. I got so scarred, but right away I look most pretty bad shape, and he want to know how long I’d been there, and I said, “two days,” and the only thing, I reached out at night to get some icicles, snow, I watered my mouth, and then I told him don’t tell his mother, because I don’t what she to come out, and she’s very sensitive, and his father wasn’t home. And I told him, I am very hungry, and he brought me some bread and milk, saved me. And I told him, when his father come home, send him out; I would like to talk to him.
He did come out, and he told me, I can’t bring you in the house, because the Germans have some soldiers around. And evening, I was there for a week, and they couldn’t keep me any more, because it’s very dangerous, if they catch me there, they shoot me, and shoot them. And, I has to get on the road again. In the snow, and I went in the big city, and I saw Rubert. The warfare’s, were working on the railroad, and I went in there, and I joined them. But I couldn’t stay there too long, because they were counting them, I couldn’t go in their place, because they’re in there anyways, and they kill me.
So I’d given up again, and I went out and join up again, in the group, when they go back to Austria. The different place, they were doing the same thing, digging ditches. That was close to New Years, already, ‘44 going to '45. [117] I work in the kitchen in the Hungarian soldiers place, for a while, they couldn’t keep me there too long. So then I had to go back to Austria again, and I ended up there for about a couple of months.
I ended up to about 95 pounds, skin and bone; I don’t even know when the Russians liberated that place. It was about 600 of us in that barn. And about three hundred, they walk, towards Germany, deeper in Austria, towards a bigger camp. I couldn’t go, because I was lying there. But 300 of us stayed there, and the same night, the Russian came in and suppose to liberate us, but Russian took who could walk, took them up to Siberia, load them up put them in a camp again. I can’t do anything, I couldn’t walk, and I got recuperated but three, four days. We got some food, and we start crawling back to Hungary. It was about fifteen miles from Hungarian border. And my hometown was but fifty miles from there, I wasn’t too far.
And three, four days, we walk and two of us go over Hungarian border. We walk back, and the Germans already they were running, because practically they were running with their gasoline. And my house, when I got to my village, now that my parents, they
carried everything off. The Germans take used the house for a storage room, so these people took me in. Brought me back up, and I recuperated; I didn’t even really go to a doctor. All I could walk; I couldn’t even walk when I was liberated.
And it took me a few months, I had three brothers, and two sisters, my mother had six children. I was liberated, and but three months later, I had a brother, about five years over, he came home, and we finally picked up some pictures, and stuff, and we move back into the old house. We fixed under the bed, and we were there for about a year, and I make it short as I can. In 1947, I left Hungary, I went to Paris. This is going to get me out of there, and it wasn’t that easy, I went to Paris, and first get to be in France. I get to sign a contract for the salt mine that was after the war, I was there for six months. Then after six months, I finally got to Paris, and I registered there. The American counsel, every month, they ask me some question, after five years, I finally I got my visa. And I came to the United States, I came to New York, and Malcolm let me into New York. He want me after a week to go to Indianapolis. That’s where I started. If you have any questions go ahead.
LM: What did your family do as a profession in Hungary?
AS: My father had a grocery, and my grandfather owned some land and farm, farming quite a bit. My father was in the grocery. And the market was a good, small groceries.
LM: How old were you, when the Nazis came to power?
AS: I was about twelve years old, my father passed away, at about the same time.
[188]
LM: Did celebrating the Sabbath change, when the Nazis came to power, for you?
AS: It changed quite a bit, but we practiced quite a bit, my parents were very orthodox.
They observe the Sabbath, my mother light the candle on Friday night. Sometimes, the Hungarian Nazis were worst than the Germans. They took everything, they close the store, they can have a personal thing, and that’s one reason when the Germans came in, the Hungarian Nazis took everything from the store. For person clothes and they took everything else. They think that the Jewish have everything. When I was twelve years old, I had to go in the big city, that’s where I went to war school. I use to go home, and my mother would bath my clothes, and get my food, I live with my brother, who I lost also. He was picking a mine in front of the German army, and he blew up. Started rather in Russia, and he brought me out, he was seven years older than I am, he took care of me.
I lost my father when I was twelve, I signed a contract with the electrical company, they had to let me empty the school, and I worked as the electrician the rest of the time. After four years, soon as I finished up, I had to go see my mom in the ghetto. I was the fifth child, and after eight years, my little sister was born. She was only nine years old, when they took her and my mother.
My grandparents was different time. [243] My grandmother was seventy-eight, my grandfather was eighty. Pack them up, and put them on a train, but I heard, that they didn’t make it out to Auschwitz, that laid them out by the railroads, and a worker, made them dig the massacred and they burry them, right out by the railroads. And I had a cousin in the same ghetto, wasn’t married said she is the one that went to my mother and her mother. And her mother had the same aged child as my sister, my little sister. She went on the left side, and she survived, she still living she came back. She’s the one who saw me. Her mother she had a little daughter, the same age as my sister, nine years old. I lost about a hundred and fifty of my family. This uncle, who lived here, brother of my mother he came out there and first took over in 1915 he, is the one that I worked for.
LM: Did you ever have your bar mitzvah, since you were only twelve?
AS: Well, during the war, in 1939, my grandfather built, a very orthodox temple, and I didn’t and my mother didn’t we made arrangement to go up to the torah, and say the brocha, it was it. My mother couldn’t even come, because it was far away, my godmothers and my sister, I had an older sister, and that came, and my grandpa. It was my bar mitzvah I was the only reason, because my grandfather belonged to the temple he arranged it, otherwise, they won’t let me. Compared to what they do here and my mother couldn’t afford a train there. They were very limited anyhow that’s the reason; I could not get my education, because Jews couldn’t get into any colleges or anything, in the 1940’s. I was lucky, in France too, because I had a train, and I worked. I couldn’t stay in Paris, France. I worked in Paris for five years, as an electrician, the only way I survived; only I got my visa and went to the United States. And I haven’t a desire to go back but my grandson want to go back with me.
LM: Were any of your friends affected, by the holocaust at all?
AS: when I came back one time from Hungary, he was in the same group, but he left, but a week earlier, but I bump into him in Hungary. And he wanted to go to Budapest, and he didn’t have any money, so I gave him some money. He went to Budapest, his name was Joe Schneider, we were in of a 150, who had trained, and we were suppose to be trained, but we didn’t, out of 150, he and I are alive. When I got to Paris, again, on the street,
small world I bumped into him again. He worked in Paris, as a tailor, and when I left Paris, he left, and went to Australia. And his wife did also, and he wrote a letter here, I was here only for six months asking for money, and he want to go back to Paris, and I sent him some money, and he came back to Paris. And he met lady who he married. Her parents come from Israel, and he finally went back to Israel.
But forty years later, about a year and a half ago, I went back and visited him in Israel, he lives in Israel. His son in law is a doctor, about a third generation, but he didn’t recognize me, he still had red hair, red curly hair. He didn’t change in forty years, but I did, I was blonde, and my hair is turning white. And I am very proud of it, because I didn’t think I could come anywhere else, but the United States. Small world and he still lives in Israel.
I could talk for a whole day, about what had happened during my years escape, back and forth but I left out half of,[359] I really escaped, twice from Hungarian, and twice from Germans. They couldn’t take me, in Hungary and Austria, they had about four-mile strip they call them no man land. That’s where we were working and every time they pack us up, they want to take us to bigger group I left, I ran on one of the militias trains, German militias train. I got on there, and I could not speak German, I was Hungarian, the guard was an SS guard from Eukria. I took my yellow star, and yellow band out, they didn’t know that I was Jewish. They just thought that I was a Hungarian, they let me go he would have shot me right there, and one of the Germans. When I went into the military corps, there was a Hungarian corneal, and two German corneal. The Hungarian corneal knew my father way back, he was a lawyer. And he told me Hungarian he knew, exactly where I had come from, back from Austria, don’t you tell them you escaped from Austria, tell them you are running from the Russians, and you see, they let me go.
There was a jail, six by six room you can’t lay down, there as about twelve of us in there. Just terrible conditions, no food, miracle, somebody was watching over me. [Laughing] I think back, and I don’t think how I made it. There was a four foot snow through the field, and ice on the top, and one place would sink down, and another place and I was by the haystack, and never went through there. It was that time already, and a month later, that year; in 1945 the snow was somewhere else, really hard.
We were digging snow up to make paths up for the German and the Hungarian army. So no snow could get stuck, we had to dig way down but sometimes I wonder, I couldn’t believe in myself, I was hungry. Takes quite a bit to know, right, every month they check on the American counsel they ask me twenty question, and they check on me, and one month, Mr. Dayton grad school said how come you told us this, I’m sorry. It helped, because in Paris, you can stay if you have work.
[431]
LM: Do you remember which camps you were sent to?
AS: Well, I wasn’t in the big camp; we were in smaller camp the small town of Wisenheimer. There was about 600 of us, and every time they want to pack me up to go to bigger camp, I get out, that’s what’s saved me.
LM: How did you escape, did you just like go to a different train?
[440]
AS: I just walked away, just like I stay out of working place where digging ditches, by the railroad and they would lie by the railroad, and a train came at four o’clock and in the morning, and I jumped on the train. For a while, there were about ten of us that were
going to go on the train, because we were told by they had some banning, and I jumped on the train. For a while, there were about ten of us that were going to go on the train, because we were told by they had some battalions and Yugoslavians SS, and they had some twelve year old machine gun hanging Germans they told us that if one leave, they going to shoot ten. They couldn’t count us exactly and morning it was all a mess. And none of those boys, except Joe one out of 150 grouped together.
First they grouped us in Hungary, and from there, send us off different places. We suppose to go to factory, and we end up on farm. And we work on the farm all summer of 1944. Then they start take us to eastern part of Hungary. And I saw, when we went by train at a certain point, and the train went by the highway, we in Austria, Budapest, and I saw children, Jewish, and mothers, and parents, walking through on the highway to go through Austria camp, big camps. And once inside the German with the rifle, and the other side, the Hungarian with the bayonet. They were walking with the children, and the parents and the elderly, who they couldn’t use. If you were eighteen and forty-two, they took a man outland put them in the working camp and the rest of them, they walk to Budapest.
We were in Budapest; traveling back and forth I guess we were lucky there. To some old Hungarian, one time I escaped from the Hungarian soldier I took the rifle away from him, I tore the rifle away, I couldn’t shoot him and I start running. I mean he was just taking me from one jail to another jail, just by himself and I did not hurt him, I just took the rifle away from him, hustled away. I mean, if I knew what had happened to my brother and my sister, I don’t know what I would do. He didn’t mean to hurt me, I don’t think so, but I just run away. And I went on, I couldn’t have anything else, I have a bag and stuff with me, I left, and the first time I escaped I left my tefillin, you know as a tradition. You do not carry your tefillin.
[524]
LM: So were you separated completely from your family, or was somebody else with you?
AS: No, when I get out of ghetto, they took my mother and my little sister to Auschwitz. From then on, I was with the group when the group had left, they picked us all 150 of us. Put of thousands and thousands of people. I remember, I was eighteen that’s the only reason I was saved well maybe picked, well if seventeen or sixteen, and strong enough, the Germans picked you out, and put them in the back.
LM: Do you remember what first went through your head, when you arrived at the working camps?
AS: they were so bad, when they transferred us from one place to the next, the train went through the same place where my mother was in the ghetto, and I was going to get out and go and go back to the ghetto. The other fellows in the wagon about sixty of us, they took my shoes and my clothes away because they told us that they were going to shoot ten again, they won’t let me go. But I don’t know what I would have done, I know some person went out and took mother and her sister out, took somebody out. Very few and we didn’t have any guards when transferred us the first time, later on we had some guards. The Germans and the Hungarians would walk us and there was a hay wagon passed by with horses, and I jumped out of the group and I go in there. Then, I was on my own. I was really, you know, hopping to see my mother and my sister and my brothers. I was the first one to home. My father, he was in the first war and he was, it was four years, on four fronts. It was very hard, and that is the reason that he passed away. He was fifty-nine and I was only twelve years old. My father was a very strong Hungarian. He was first Hungarian, then Jew, he kept all the Jewish Sabbath and everything, but that is more modern orthodox. And my mother had a little different time, and they were very orthodox. My mother had nine sisters and brothers; only one of them survived the war, Esther. In Hungary, not too many Jews survived the war. All the Jews were in Budapest.
Flip side [624]
LM: How did the soldiers treat you at the camps?
AS: Well, as long as you worked, I don’t know.
LM: Were you ever able to relocate your family?
AS: I do not understand.
[637]
LM: Were you able to find your family after the war?
AS: No, because my mother went to Auschwitz and my sister went to Auschwitz, I was there first and finally, one of my brothers; he was six years older than I am. He came home, and later on my older brother, and my sister, she wasn’t married and a horrible survivor after the war.
LM: Did you keep a personal journal during the war?
AS: No.
LM: Did your religion affect your decisions, from what you did at all?
AS: Yes.
[616]
LM: How did they affect the decisions that you made?
AS: After war, I would wonder because, I lost my parents, I lost my grandparents, I lost my brother, my little sister, and I wonder, where is God? And you will really have to forgive me; I did not practice religion at all, after war. I came back here, I talk to some person about everybody else, and I didn’t get the answer. It’s like God wanted me to see me lucky from here. It was an answer for me, but I came back, and I realized, I would like to start over. Make sure everyone gets a chance to read the torah. I came long way, took me quite a bit to come back. And you know I came to the United States and perish the Hungary practice. I cannot wait; I realize, make sure that every Mondays and Thursdays I take the torah out. God must be looking after me. I lived past eighty now, this is our year. And I’m very close too much over, that helped quite a bit.
LM: Do you have any final comments?
AS: It’s like I told you, I did not accomplish anything any where in the world, like I accomplished in the United States. Is very, very good to me. The older I get, I think of what happened here sixty years ago. It’s pretty hard; I hope it never happens again.
End [684]
[Not on tape]
My Hungarian name is Sandor, which translates into Alexander. My father’s name was Csillag Jeno, which translates into Star. My mother’s maiden name was Aranka Singe, and my nine-year-old sister’s name was Piroska. When I was in Paris, I just translated my name. My two brother’s names were Louie, who was twenty-four years old, and my other brother’s name was Paul, and he is one of the survivors in my family. Only four out of six of the people in my family (brothers and sisters) survived
