The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-053-05


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-053-05
Last-Modified: 1999/06/04

Q. One further question - my last - Dr. Foeldi. At the time
the Jews were being loaded on to the trains at Uzhgorod, did
you notice, at the time, Germans of the Gestapo or the SS as
well?

A. Yes, they were there at the railway station, between the
rails and the station; they were standing and watching and
actively participated, I would say. They got hold of one who
had not reported, they arrested him in the town and brought
him to the railway station, and one of the Gestapo men beat
him up.

State Attorney Bach:  Thank you very much.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have any questions to
the witness?

Dr. Servatius:  Yes. [To witness] Was the member of the
gendarmerie whom you mentioned a Hauptmann by the name of
Zoeldi?

A. I think so, with the rank of Captain - I think so.

Q. Did I understand correctly that he was the liaison
officer to the Eichmann Kommando?

A. I did not say that. What I said was that I got to know
subsequently that he fled from the Hungarian gendarmerie and
went over to the German army already before the occupation
of Hungary.

Q. Do you know the name Ferenczy?

A. Yes.

Q. Who was he?

A. He was an officer of the Hungarian gendarmerie - the
commander of the gendarmerie.

Q. Did this Captain Zoeldi serve with Ferenczy?

A. I do not know. I cannot know that.

Dr. Servatius:  Thank you. In that case I have no further
questions.

Presiding Judge: Mr. Bach, do you have any questions?

State Attorney Bach:  I do not wish to re-examine the
witness.

Witness Foeldi:  Your Honour, the Presiding Judge, I should
like to add a few remarks.

Presiding Judge: After you have answered all the questions.

Judge Halevi:  You said that, as was well-known, 4,000 Jews
were killed in Sobotica. Perhaps you would tell us about it
briefly, for nevertheless here not everybody knows, in which
year and by whom?

Witness Foeldi:  As far as I know, it was in 1942. The place
was a military zone. Acting on their own, the army and
members of the gendarmerie initiated an operation, rounded
up Jews, killed them and threw them into the Danube.

Q. Was this in Hungary or outside its borders?

A. It was within the borders of Hungary, but without the
government's knowledge. The government intervened only with
difficulty, for they cut all communications with Budapest,
the telephone and telegraph lines, and by the time the
matter had become known in Budapest, several thousands had
already been killed.

Q. Did you say that this Zoeldi took part?

A. He was one of the most active and cruel.

Q. And after that he fled to Germany, you say?

A. So we heard, for they were looking for him and wanted to
bring him to trial. And we heard that he had fled to Germany
and joined the service of the Gestapo.

Q. And you saw him again in the ghetto as an officer of the
Hungarian gendarmerie?

A. No, I said that he was in the uniform of the German army.

Q. You said that there was a Council of Elders, which stayed
outside the ghetto?

A. Yes, all the time, until the very end, for they concerned
themselves with providing food for the people of the ghetto
and, as far as they could, clothing and other articles.
There was a Jewish soup-kitchen there, and every day they
sent in food for the people who were inside the ghetto. They
were outside the ghetto, and we - the three of us together
with a number of others who dealt with matters of
administration - were inside the ghetto.

Q. And finally did they put them, too, into the ghetto?

A. Yes. And subsequently, as far as I remember, all of us
left together with all the members of the Council on the
last transport.

Presiding Judge: The dates were not so clear to me. The date
you gave for the ghettoization - was that after the
occupation of Hungary by the Germans?

Witness Foeldi:  Yes. It was after 19 March 1944.

Q. What was the situation, prior to that, in Carpatho-
Russia?

A. Until that time the position was not bad, relatively,
except for a section of the border where they began the
evacuation a little earlier, but we did not see anything
exceptional in this, since, with the approach of the Russian
army, we thought that the citizens - and first and foremost
the Jews - were afraid and therefore these people were moved
away from the border.

Q. These events that you described - were they at the
beginning of March, 1944?

A. Yes.

Presiding Judge: What did you want to add?

Witness Foeldi:  I wanted to make three additional remarks.

Presiding Judge: Please make them briefly since, generally
speaking, we do not allow this.

Witness Foeldi:  Yes, I understand the position, but in
order to complete the picture, the first question, which, in
fact, Your Honour the Presiding Judge, has already asked,
relates to the fact that the Russian army was on the border
-  100 kilometres from Uzhgorod, and this affected the
morale. We listened practically every day to the Czech radio
which kept on saying: "Stand firm, we are 100 kilometres
away." We thought that the Russians were likely to enter our
zone any morning. That is the first remark.

The second remark: Perhaps the question of revolt can be
raised.

Presiding Judge: We have already heard about that.

Witness Foeldi:  I merely wanted to add that in the ghetto
there were no youths and no men - there were only old
people, above the age of 48 and so on.

My final remark: In connection with the committee whose
function it was to preserve order, as I stated, I related
that in the course of the evacuation, whether intentionally
or not, it was carried out in certain places in such great
haste that people arrived at the ghetto without any personal
effects, and the Council had to take care of them with the
result that when fresh transports entered the ghetto, for
instance in the evening, people fell upon them and deprived
them of all kinds of things which they needed for their
children and themselves. And it was for this reason that it
was necessary to keep order and also see to the fair
distribution of food.

Presiding Judge: Thank you very much, Dr. Foeldi, you have
concluded your testimony.

State Attorney Bach:  We shall still have time for the
evidence of Ze'ev Sapir.

Presiding Judge: [To witness] Do you speak Hebrew?

Witness Sapir:  Yes.

[The witness is sworn.]

Presiding Judge: What is your full name?

Witness: Ze'ev Sapir.

State Attorney Bach:  Where were you born, Mr. Sapir?

Witness Sapir:  I was born in the village of Dobradovo, near
the town of Munkacs, in Carpatho-Russia.

Q. How old were you when the Germans entered Hungary in
March 1944?

A. 20 years old.

Q. Do you remember when you and your family were confined to
the ghetto?

A. Yes.

Presiding Judge: When did the Germans arrive there?

Witness Sapir:  The Germans occupied our zone on 19 or 20
March 1944, I do not remember the exact day.

State Attorney Bach:  At that time did your zone belong to
Hungary?

Witness Sapir:  Yes - from 1939 to 1944, that date I
mentioned, our zone was annexed to Hungary. I well remember
the day on which we were all brought - my family and I and
the members of our community, all of us - into the ghetto of
Munkacs; it was on 17 April 1944.

Q. How many were there in the ghetto?

A. In the ghetto we entered - it was actually a brickyard in
the name of Kalush in the town of Munkacs - we were some
14,000 people. Apart from this ghetto, there was another one
in the same town, the ghetto of Sajovits - I do not remember
the number who were kept there.

Q. Before this, were you living in the town itself or in a
townlet or in a smaller place?

A. On 17 April the Hungarian gendarmerie came to our village
and also to adjoining villages, and we were brought in on
the same day, 17 April, reaching the ghetto towards evening.

Q. How many Jews were you in your village?

A. One hundred and three souls, including children of all
ages.

Q. When you were in the ghetto, do you recall an occasion
when Adolf Eichmann visited this place?

A. Yes - one day the Hungarian gendarmerie informed us that
one of the SS high command was about to visit us; they also
mentioned the name of Adolf Eichmann two weeks before we
entered the ghetto - that was at the beginning of April. And
when the Hungarian gendarmerie announced the visit of Adolf
Eichmann, an order was issued to clean the ghetto area and
to do everything necessary to welcome him. To this end an
instruction was given - perhaps it would be more correct to
say an order - that precisely the older Jews - particularly
those over the age of 50 - should be obliged to perform this
work. Since I was a young man, I did not participate in this
work. But my father did.

Q. How old was your father?

A. My father was then over 50 - he was born in 1895.

Q. Did the name of Eichmann also appear in the local
newspaper at the time?

A. Yes, the day after his visit.

Presiding Judge: Your father was 49 then, to be exact?

Witness Sapir:  Yes. The visit was featured the following
morning in the local Nazi-Fascist press. It expressed its
joy in honour of the visitor, and a pro-Nazi article
appeared there written in an extremely liberal tone -
naturally, when I say "liberal," I mean in quotation marks.

Presiding Judge: Please, do not quote anything in quotation
marks - simply give us the facts.

Witness Sapir:  They said that he was concerned for the
Jews, that he had visited the Jews in the ghetto, and that
was enough for us to know that he was the man who had been
with us the previous day, because he had been there the day
before.

State Attorney Bach:  Was his name also mentioned in the
paper?

Witness Sapir:  Yes, his name was given in the paper on that
day.

Q. And did his picture appear as well?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you see this man at the time of his visit?

A. I also saw this man at the time of his visit. A roll-call
took place in which, I think, everyone over the age of 16
had to participate, and we all took part in this roll-call.

Q. How many officers took part in this visit?

A. It was a fairly large party of about thirty SS officers.

Q. Whereabouts in the party, did this man, who you later
knew to be Eichmann, walk?

A. The following morning, according to what we saw in the
newspaper, it was clear to all of us - at any rate to all
those people who were standing near the newspaper and read
it - that he was the man who walked at the head of this
party.

A. You identified him afterwards, after you had seen the
article and the photograph in the newspaper, you remembered
that this was the man who walked at the head of this party?

A. Yes.

Q. How many days before the commencement of the deportations
did this incident, this visit, take place?

A. Two days in all, two days before the deportations. And,
if I may point this out here, when the deportations began,
it was the talk of the day of everybody in the ghetto, that
it was precisely this man who had visited the ghetto who had
been instrumental in organizing these deportations.

Presiding Judge: We do not want to hear this. What the topic
of conversation was of that day, is of not much value.

State Attorney Bach:  You see the Accused here. Can you
identify him as being the man whom you saw then?

Witness Sapir:  It is hard to compare. After all, 17 years
have elapsed since then.

Q. By the way, that man whom you saw - how was he dressed?

A. In a green uniform.

Q. Of what army?

A. Of the SS.

Q. Do you remember on which date the deportations began?

A. I think that the deportations began on 16 or 17 May 1944.

Q. Were you amongst those deported?

A. Yes.


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