Handwritten testimony by Avigdor Neumann

English translation

My name is Avigdor Neumann. I am a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor living in Israel. I was born in 1931 in the town of Sailish, which was then part of Czechoslovakia and is now in Ukraine. I grew up in a family with seven children; one sister died at home.

In 1944, when we were already under Hungarian rule (since 1939), the Nazi Germans entered. The very first thing they forced us Jews to do was wear a yellow Star of David patch on our clothing. Afterwards, they forced us into a ghetto and, from there, into cattle cars under inhumane conditions. About 100 people—elderly people, children, and infants—were packed together, sitting on the floor, without toilets, without water, and with barely any air coming through a small opening.

After three days, we arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau. My mother and three children were murdered in the gas chambers—the crematorium—on that very day. Although I was only twelve and a half years old, I was sent to work along with my father and my older brother. A few days later, my father and older brother were sent to other camps and were murdered in the Kaufering camp in Germany.

I was left completely alone. I was assigned to work, and the number B-14665 was tattooed on my arm; this served as my identification from then on. We suffered from hunger, humiliation, beatings, cold, and heat, without being able to wash and without even the most basic sanitary conditions.

I survived three selections by Mengele.

In January 1945, we were forced on a three-day death march from Auschwitz through knee-deep snow at temperatures of minus 25 degrees Celsius.

We boarded a train that took us to Mauthausen. The conditions were horrific. We sat on the ground in the mud in the tent camp, hungry, cold, and wet.

From Mauthausen, another death march to Gunskirchen followed, also lasting three days. It was a horrific camp, full of corpses and sick people. In the barracks, we sat on the floor in the mud.

In May 1945, the American army liberated us.

This is a very brief summary of what the Nazi Germans inflicted upon the Jews with animalistic cruelty. They murdered six million Jews, among them a million and a half children, for one reason alone—that they were born Jewish—driven by insane and antisemitic hatred.

Therefore, this generation and all future generations have a duty to do everything possible to ensure that such a thing never, ever happens again—especially now, as antisemitism and Holocaust denial are rearing their heads. We must continually oppose this, without pause.

Avigdor Neumann’s biography