A. Yes. When the deportations began, a Gestapo officer said to me - I will use his actual words in German: "Ihr lebt ja hier wie die Schweine, Ihr werdet nach Deutschland ueberfuehrt, wo Ihr in normalen Verhaeltnissen leben werdet mit Euren Familien." (You are indeed living here like pigs; you will be transferred to Germany, and there you will lead a normal life; you will be transferred with your families). And then he said: "Ihr werdet dort arbeiten" (You will work there).

Q. Can you tell the Court about a false order which appeared to show some concern for Jewish education?

A. Yes. Once we received a letter from the Gestapo. The Ghetto Committee received the letter through the Council, which stated that it was not good for the children to be wandering about the ghetto area without studying the Torah or receiving an appropriate religious education. Therefore they gave us an order to see to it that the children studied. I was given the letter for my attention. I did not understand - and I was unable to understand - the purpose of the letter.

Presiding Judge: In what capacity did you receive this letter?

Witness Foeldi: I was one of three former officers of the Austro-Hungarian and Czech army, and the three of us were charged with organizing and attending to the fair distribution of food, etc., and also with keeping order, as far as it was in our power. I received this letter and I did not understand the Gestapo's concern for the Jewish education of the children.

But, anyhow, I asked the Rabbis who were in the ghetto to attend a meeting. There I read out the letter. The senior Rabbi suggested that we send our thanks to the Gestapo for its concern and request authority to send a number of men to the synagogue where we could take out the books which would enable us to provide for education and studies. We never received any reply or reaction.

State Attorney Bach: Did you ever see in this place, in Uzhgorod, the officer Marton Zoeldi?

Witness Foeldi: Yes.

Q. Perhaps you would tell the Court, who was Marton Zoeldi?

A. He was an officer of the Hungarian gendarmerie. In 1942, when there were the riots in Subotica, and it became known throughout the world that 4,000 Jews were killed there, he was the prime mover of this whole operation. Subsequently, when an end was put to this whole campaign in Subotica, he fled to Germany and joined the Gestapo. On one occasion we heard in the Uzhgorod Ghetto that Marton Zoeldi would be coming. I was alone in the office when he walked in and moved around. Suddenly he asked me: "What is your name?" I told him: Martin Foeldi." He gave me a slap in the face and said: "How dare you have such a name when there is a difference of only one letter between my name and yours - my name is Marton Zoeldi and you are Martin Foeldi?" That is how it began. This was the first time my face was slapped since I became an adult.

Q. How did the presence of Zoeldi affect the manner of the deportations?

A. It had an adverse effect. Even prior to this the arrangements were not good, and no deportation was carried out without acts of cruelty. But after he had been there a day or two, everybody was afraid of him, including the officers of the Hungarian Police. We felt that they feared him.

Q. Do you know anything about Zoeldi's function within the Gestapo?

A. No.

Q. In what office, in what place did he work as a rule?

A. It was only after the War that I got to know that he was Eichmann's right-hand man.

Presiding Judge: You said earlier that he had been in the Hungarian Gendarmerie?

Witness Foeldi: Yes, but he fled after the riots.

State Attorney Bach: He added that he subsequently joined the Gestapo.

Presiding Judge: Was he in uniform?

Witness Foeldi: Yes.

Q. In what uniform?

A. In the uniform of the German army.

State Attorney Bach: When did the deportations in Uzhgorod begin?

Witness Foeldi: Approximately on 14 April 1944, or 20 April.

Q. Did the "ghettoization" of the transports begin then?

A. The deportations from the ghetto began then.

Q. Where to?

A. At that time we did not know the destination - merely that the deportations had begun.

Q. Are you sure it was in April?

A. No, I made a mistake, it was in May.

Presiding Judge: In what year?

Witness Foeldi: 1944.

State Attorney Bach: In what manner were these deportations carried out?

Witness Foeldi: We received a notice from the Council, for the members of the Council were not inside the ghetto. We received this notice to the Ghetto Committee that we were to draw up a list of people - as far as I remember, of 1,500 to 2,000 persons. Inside the ghetto there was a loudspeaker and we requested those persons who wished to leave together to come to the office to register. Whole families reported, or one member of a family who gave us a list of all the members of the family, their relatives and friends. There was an official there, he was also a Jew and in fact one of us, who recorded and drew up the list. On the following day there was a roll-call and all the people were divided into sections of 50 or 52 persons - approximately 1,500 to 2,000 people in all.

Q. Was there any distinction at all made between men, women and children?

A. No, no distinction.

Q. All of them were taken?

A. Yes, they were all taken. Old men and women, women and men.

Q. In what kind of trains were they transported?

A. In freight trains. We saw the trains from inside the ghetto. Although it was far away, one could see the trains.

Q. How many people were there in each freight-car?

A. Seventy to eighty persons.

Q. At what rate were these deportations carried out?

A. Almost every day or two days.

Q. Almost every day or two days a train left with 1,500 people?

A. Yes. Every two days would be more accurate.

Q. When did you go?

A. I left with the last transport.

Q. Which members of your family went with you?

A. All my family. And apart from that, we three officers who had been on the committee.

Q. Were you officers in the Austro--Hungarian army?

A. Yes, and we were on the Ghetto Committee.

Q. Who were the members of your close family?

A. My wife, son, daughter, father-in-law, mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, his wife and little girl.

Q. Where were you transported to?

A. We went via Csap and Kosice. At Kosice we knew that we were on the border between Slovakia and Hungary. And we knew that from that point onwards we would know that if we went to the right after Kosice this would mean that we were going to the east, to Poland. If we continued in a straight line we believed we would remain inside Czechoslovakian territory.

Q. In fact, where did you go?

A. We travelled to Auschwitz via Obysovce-Presov.

Q. When you arrived at Auschwitz, did someone in a certain conversation want to tell you what was happening in Auschwitz?

A. When I arrived?

A. Yes, or shortly before that. I am referring to a particular encounter when someone wanted to tell you what was happening there.

A. The moment we reached Auschwitz some people came in - we did not know who they were for we had never seen uniforms such as theirs. We were given an order to get down, but quickly, and to leave all our effects and belongings inside the freight-car.

We alighted and it was in such a hurried manner and at such a fast pace that we did not realize what was happening. They said to us that the men should stand on the right side with children over the age of 14, and the women on the left with the young boys and girls. They, the women began walking while we were still standing, and suddenly they were almost completely out of view.

I stood there with my son who was only 12 years old. After we had started walking forward, I suddenly came up to a certain man. I did not know who he was. He was dressed in a uniform of the German army, elegant, and he asked me what my profession was. I knew that being a lawyer by profession would not be very helpful and, therefore, told him that I was a former officer. He looked at me and asked: "How old is the boy?" At that moment I could not lie, and I told him: 12 years old. And then he said: "Wo ist die Mutti?" (And where is your mother?) I answered: "She went to the left." Then he said to my son: "Run after your mother."

After that I went on walking to the right and I saw how the boy was running. I wondered to myself how would he be able to find his mother there? After all, there were so many women and men, but I caught sight of my wife. How did I recognize her? My little girl was wearing some kind of a red coat. The red spot was a sign that my wife was near there. The red spot was getting smaller and smaller. I walked to the right and never saw them again.

Q. Did they take all the women with the children to that side?

A. I noticed that also amongst the women they made some kind of division. The younger women were walking separately without boys or girls, and the older women walked in a separate group. After the event we heard of a case where "Haeftlinge" (detainees) the old hands, if I may call them that, came along. It happened occasionally that one of them would say to a young woman: "Give the child to granny and you go to work." There were individual instances of this kind - a cousin of mine also handed over her boy and girl to a grandmother and went to work, but she was killed there.

Q. Dr. Foeldi, how long were you in Auschwitz?

A. I was in Auschwitz for only ten days.

Q. While you were there, can you tell the Court something about the postcards which you were obliged to write?

A. Yes. It was during the first days that we were given an order - we received a postcard and a pencil and they dictated to us the wording of the postcard.

Q. Who dictated?

A. He was some kind of Kapo or SS man. I do not remember exactly any longer - we were standing against a wall, writing, and from behind they dictated to us the contents of the postcard.

Q. What did they tell you to write on this postcard?

A. I do not remember it word for word, but it was more or less as follows: "I am at my ease and I am going out to work. I am feeling well." I do not remember the postcard exactly, but I subsequently found in my sister's possession the card I had sent her in Budapest.

Q. Did they tell you to write the name of the place where you were?

A. Yes. Waldsee. I must add that, while we were still in the ghetto we had already received such a postcard from the first transports.

Q. You received a postcard from Waldsee. What did you think of that?

A. We began searching for the place and found some resort place by that name in Austria.

Q. How did the receipt of these postcards at the time effect you?

A. That put our minds at ease. We thought, at any rate, that they were well and, secondly, that this was a wonderful place in Austria - so we thought.

Q. Dr. Foeldi, can you identify this postcard? [Hands a postcard to the witness].

A. Yes. It says here: "I have arrived safely. I am fit and in good spirits, and feel fine." And here is my first name and that of my wife. I added my wife's first name in order to give a hint that I was together with her.

Q. Is it written in your handwriting?

A. Yes.

Q. And to whom did you send this postcard?

A. To my sister in Budapest.

Q. And afterwards did she return this postcard to you, and is that why you have it in your possession?

A. Yes.

Presiding Judge: Are you producing this postcard in evidence?

State Attorney Bach: Yes.

Presiding Judge: Again, we shall hand the postcard back to the witness - we have a copy here. The postcard is marked T/1151.

What name did you sign?

Witness Foeldi: The first name and surname we used within the family - Martin is Marcel and Bizi - Elizabeth.

State Attorney Bach: Did they dictate the contents of this word by word or merely the general content?

Witness Foeldi: Word by word.

[ Previous | Index | Next ]

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor