The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1983 (10. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1983-04-01 / 4. szám

AFFIDAVIT

The name of the individual who signed this affidavit under oath on September 24, 1982 in Menlo Park, California must be kept confidential in order to protect relatives still waiting in Rumania for permission to emmigrate into Israel.

I, the undersigned P.S., a Hungarian Jew from Transylvania, declare that after WW II the Rumanian Government, according to previously established anti-semeitic plan, urged Transylvanians and in general all Jews to emigrate from Rumania. The Rumanian Government prepared a so-called “Emigration List” of those who wished to emigrate. To obtain exit permits, however, these people had to donate all of their possessions to the Rumanian State and declare their voluntary willingness to do so.

After I surrendered my house, personal affects and tangible belongings, my wife’s wedding ring and granddaughter’s necklace were confiscated.

I assert that after I declared my intention to emigrate in 1950,1 was ordered to work as a maintenance controller in the so-called Danube Canal Project, which was composed of several forced labor camps housing more than

200,000 Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Bulgarians and Rumanians, many of them families with small children. These prisoners, in majority simple peasants, were accused of being Kulaks, class-aliens, priests, intellectuals, and in the case of Jews, merchants.

Approximately 70% of these forced laborers were Hungarian; only 5% were Rumanian, among whom only a few were classified as class-aliens, the majority being criminals and even murders. The camp commanders selected from these elements the so-called auxiliary police force. These individuals perpetrated the most despicable crimes against both male and female prisoners without the threat of punishment.

Those who were ill or made weak because of inhumane treatment and insufficient nutrition were forced to make adobe (sundried bricks); children had to perform cleaning and other household chores. Those who could not accomplish the inhumanely demanding tasks received less food or no food at all, thus increasing the number of deaths due to starvation. Deaths due to influenza were also very high, as prisoners were clad in rags and

wore only wood-soled boots even in the rain and snow. Since no medicines were available for the sick, illness usually meant certain death.

The camps were surrounded by barbedwire fences and guard towers housing armed soldiers. The general purpose of these labor camps was not the completion of the canal, but the annihilation of the prisoners, particularly those who were Hungarian. At the initiation of the internment process it was a general slogan the Hungarians be sent to Portea Alba and Cinci Culmea (both labor camps) to learn the Rumanian language. I know of cases when 30 or 40 Hungarians were forced to dig their own graves in the night, and then machine-gunned into them by the secret police.

In November, 1956, the Rumanian authorities arrested me under the false pretense of spying for the Americans. With approximately 200 other prisoners, I was sent to Cinci Culmea to work day and night on the repair of the previously abandoned labor camp, whose prisoners were the students, soldiers, men and women of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. Thousands of Hungarians wer guarded by Rumanian soldiers and officers. They slept on straw-covered floors as the icy November rain dripped through the roof. We later learned that all of the Hungarian prisoners were executed by the Rumanians.

With this declaration I wish to serve the cause of humanism, justice and legality, and the memory of my parents perished in Dachau and Auswitz.

September 24, 1982

Illegible Signature

To inform your Representatives and Senators about the true situation in Transylvania, send this magazine to them or send their names and addresses to us and we will send them a copy.

The Transylvanian Quarterlyis a supplement to the Eighth Tribe bi-lingual monthly magazine. Subscription is $10.00 per year — $12.00 in Canada, payable in U.S.A. funds. Eighth Tribe, P.0. Box 637, Ligonier, Pennsylvania 15658.

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THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY