Laslow Lester Schonstal

SCHONSTAL: I was born in Budapest in Hungary, and I was raised and went to school there. I have been very fortunate to survive the Holocaust even though it was an arduous task at the time. I was a very happy young boy like everybody else at that age. Nothing to worry about, carefree and happy. All we did was play and enjoy ourselves. This was a nice life because I had a wonderful father and mother. We had a wonderful family life, and I was never aware of the fact that I was Jewish, or that I was any different than any other kid that I was associated with.

But in 1944, the Germans came in to occupy Hungary. Even though the war was on, I was not aware of what was going on outside of Budapest. Hungarians were allies to the Germans, and so it was not necessary for the German army to come into Hungary until they were forced to face the Russians’ advanced army. In 1944, early in January or February, 60-some years ago, everything turned upside down. All at once in school I was segregated from all the other boys. I was never allowed to join other kids to play because of my religion. It was devastating. Almost on a daily basis, things got worse.

My father had to go to a forced labor camp. I was unable to attend school anymore, so it became a very difficult time in my life. First we had to wear a yellow star to identify ourselves that we were Jewish, and then we were restricted to how much time we could spend on a public street. Curfew was very much enforced, and it was mandatory for Jewish people, who were by that time kept in designated buildings that had a yellow Star of David sign on the outside showing that all Jews were inside. They were given approximately one hour a day on the street. By that time I was 15½, 16 years old, and it became obvious to me that I was in imminent danger all of the time. In order to avoid being deported and prosecuted like everybody else at the time, I had to find a different way to resist arrest. 

We were a few boys about my age who were emulating by buying a khaki coverall, putting on a Red Cross on our hats and on our armbands, making believe we were Red Cross workers, because that way I was able to walk on the street. Otherwise we took a chance that they might stop us. We got a position in one of the hospitals, about 20 of us kids, to help the sick during air raids, which were constant by that time. Either the Americans or the Russians were flying over the airspace in Hungary. So we had to help the sick in the hospital to be carried down to the shelters. I operated an elevator. The boys would bring those who could not walk on a stretcher down to the elevator. Me and the other boys would put the patients into the elevator and carry them [inaudible]. It was a constant job; day or night we had to be there. It was a place where we were, you might say, hiding from the Germans because we were looked upon as Red Cross workers. 

But someone had blown a whistle on the boys in the hospital, and one day the Hungarian Nazis, which was the Arrow Cross Party — they had a swastika with an arrowhead on each end of the swastika — came in and rounded us up, and they took us all out —that was in October of 1944 — into a building, and a few days later we were all herded into boxcars. The boxcar that I was in had 96 people in it, men and women, and we were in there for 14 days. Living conditions in there were treacherous. It was cold, but the heat was almost unbearable because of the people [inaudible]. There was no place to sit. Half of them had to sit; the other half had to stand. Anyway, we ended up in Buchenwald.

When we walked through the gate of Buchenwald, frankly, I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t even know there was a concentration camp. I’d heard about it. They were all rumors. People were telling one another, mouth to mouth, that there are such places. The propaganda machine in Hungary, like in Germany, would cover this all up, and the only thing it would air was how successful the Germans were in winning the war. So when I got into Buchenwald, some inmates who were already in there told me where I was. 

In Buchenwald, the first thing before we got in there, they separated the women from the men. We had to strip down to the nude, and we had to walk through in single file. Right in front of me was a huge barrel like a wine barrel, and there was a little stool step in front of it. You had to get up on that stool step and step into the barrel. Before we got to that point, everybody’s hair was cut. Anyplace you had hair on your body was cut, shaved. Not shaved with a razor, but with a hand cutter. Then you had to get into this water, and there was all kinds of crummy stuff oozing on top of it from other people, but it was supposed to be some kind of disinfectant and you had to duck under the water. After that you were given this prison garb with wooden shoes and a cap. Striped shoes like [inaudible word], and had a number on. This number: 12,846. That was me. I had to learn to listen to that in German, which was [says it in German]. That’s the way I think you say it.

Edith Schonstal: That’s the way they called your name.

SCHONSTAL: They don’t say your name. You had only numbers. But in Auschwitz, where Leslie was in Birkenau, the way they did the prisoners was put numbers. I think it was the German rationale to exterminate people by the numbers, so when your number come up, you went. But in this other camp, Buchenwald, it was on your uniform. 

One other thing in Buchenwald, when they ordered you out to go to a latrine, so to speak — I tell you, you never saw anything like it, Chris. It was a huge, uncovered building with a big circle. It was probably 70-80 feet in diameter with a small railing. When you had to go potty, you just sat on the side of that and did your stuff. There was no way to wash, no way to wipe yourself, nothing. 

Every once in a while in Buchenwald you had to go through a line; I tried to avoid it every time. A couple of times I managed to sneak through without getting it. These guys were coming with what looked like a revolver kind of a hypodermic needle that they would stick into your chest and give you a shot. Whatever it was for, I don’t know. It was to keep you from getting sick, or keep you alive, or kill you slowly. Whatever it was, I don’t know what it was for. I only got that once. The rest of the time, I was a little guy and managed to sneak by without getting it. 

But that thing in the morning when they’d come in — it was just the break of daylight or even dark outside — they’d come with the sticks and hit people in the legs as they laid: “Get out. Get out.” Every single day. Every single day. If it wasn’t for Herman, I probably wouldn’t be alive because so many people were sending to the gas chambers and then the crematorium in Buchenwald, [inaudible, name of crematorium?] crematorium. When you stand in the appellplatz, which is the roll call, originally it took hours because the Germans were smoking cigarettes and drinking, and then finally, after three, four, five hours of standing there, they couldn’t get a number to agree on. They went and got a couple of corpses and threw them at the end of the line, and they called it, “We got them all.” That’s how they finally settled on the roll call. 

The most difficult thing that I experienced in Buchenwald was the cold and the hunger. It is very, very hard to describe or put it into the proper perspective, to tell you what it’s like to be cold. The only thing I remember is that I felt like my whole body was being stuck with little needles all over, everywhere, and so that was a very, very difficult time. The other time that was most remembered in my mind was the trip in the boxcars to Buchenwald. I can’t describe the difference between hunger and thirst, but the most difficult pain to endure is thirst. When you feel thirsty and hungry, the one that hurts more is the one you feel. And I hope that no one ever, ever has to experience being thirsty to that extent. A lot of people perished. We had four corpses in our car by the time we got to Buchenwald.

The cold was so severe in Buchenwald. You had to stand roll call for hours. Your clothes were like pajamas with stripes. No shorts, no T-shirts, just that and a cap. So the prisoners would huddle close and move like this to rub their bodies together and then change places. The closer you were to the center, the warmer it got. Buchenwald was so bad that if you spat on the floor, by the time you hit the ground it was ice. I don’t know how cold it was, but I know that when they brought that green liquid in these metal containers, sometimes it would spill over a little bit, and it would freeze as soon as it hit the ground. 

By the time December rolled around, the Germans were going to these newcomers that were in fairly good shape compared to prisoners that had been in there for a number of years, looking for people that could do some useful work to help their war efforts. My father was a tool and die maker, and I used to help him as a boy in his shop — no credit to what I know, but I knew what the tools looked like and what their names were. I had a good friend, a Jewish boy from Czechoslovakia, who had witnessed the murder of his whole family. He spoke fluent German. He helped me to get through an examination where I was able to measure a piece of steel with a micrometer. He gave the right answer to the Germans, and fortunately for me, I was able to leave Buchenwald for another concentration camp called Neubrandenburg. 

I arrived there somewhere in December of 1944, and it was a smaller camp, only about 6,000-7,000 prisoners. They had to do some work on different machines, mostly Russian and French prisoners in that camp. We had a very, very difficult time there because the Germans were always singling out people to make an example, to discipline the others. The Russian and French prisoners were harder to control unless they showed some force. We worked 12-hour shifts in this machine place, and every day we got one cup of liquid green something that was supposed to be soup that was nothing that you could bite into or chew. It was just plain green liquid. 

At night we were given eight men to a bread. We stood in line, and they counted, “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.” The eighth man was given a bread, which was the size of a standard brick. The bread was very crumbly and dry. For eight starving inmates, it was difficult to divide a piece of bread that small eight equal ways, so some of the older guys in the group devised a little homemade scale. I made a replica of that. It looked like an old twig with two little twigs on the end. We broke the bread in two places and stuck each end into the bread. If one side tipped this way, we’d have to take some off the heavy side and stick it on, or press it on to the other side until the scale became even. After that, each four men did the same thing, divided the bread again, took two pieces, and then the quarter was divided between two individuals, and by the time you got your bread, it was nothing more than a mouthful.

Neubrandenburg was a bad place because the Russian prisoners were working in an area where they were drilling holes into some brass parts, and they would sabotage the thing. After the first inspection, they would use a slightly larger drill than was specified. Before they found out that the holes were bigger than needed, thousands of parts were useless, and the Germans were so short of raw material that they would confiscate doorknobs and anything made out of brass from private homes to make whatever they needed to make out of it, bullets. They couldn’t finger anybody who did it, and as a result they would just take people at random and beat them to death right there in front of everybody. 

That was Neubrandenburg. I remember the logo: WVN, Mechanische Werkstatt Neubrandenburg [Mechanical Workshop Neubrandenburg]. That was the name of the place. It was a concentration camp, but not on the level of Buchenwald or Ravensbruck. So that was the life in Neubrandenburg. 

One night around the first part of March the Germans came and in German shouted: “Alles Juden, aufstehen!” We were sleeping four, five decks high in these little cubbyholes. “All the Jews, get up!” When we did, they ordered us into trucks, and we were transferred a whole day’s drive to another camp called Ravensbruck.

Ravensbruck was an awful place. It looked deserted. I found out after the war that this camp was actually a prison camp for women, although we didn’t see anybody there. We were in Ravensbruck for about three weeks. I tell you, the only way we could drink water was when it rained. We stood on the side of the barracks, and you catch the water in your hand because if you drank water from anywhere else, that would be the end of you, [inaudible] bad water. 

By the first part of April we were sent to another camp called Wöbbelin near Schwerin in the north part of Germany, and that was an awful place. There were no barracks; it was just a place to accumulate prisoners from other camps. We slept in the mud and in the dirt. Every day we had to stand roll call, which the Germans call “appell,” and the roll call place was called the “appellplatz.” Everybody had a little cap, and the [inaudible word] say, “[Mit zen aus?]” or [Mit zen bak?]” all the time. To this day I don’t understand the reason for that, why they have us taking our caps off and putting them back on our heads I don’t know how many times a day.

And then one day the Germans with their dogs came and herded everybody out to the adjacent railroad tracks and put everybody back into the boxcars. We didn’t know why this was done; we were in there for two or three days. We heard nothing. All of a sudden the door swung open, and American GIs stood outside the door, and they told us we were free. They all ran from us because we were dirty and contaminated. Lice, dirt, filth. The GIs all got back on their trucks. 

This is a time that I cannot forget because all the prisoners that were still living — and there were hundreds, if not thousands of dead bodies everywhere because the ones who couldn’t move either died or were mowed down, killed — the prisoners from every denomination, every country, Jewish or otherwise, they all sang, first the American national anthem, then the national anthem of the old countries, which was five or six. After that the GIs came with trucks and they were throwing food to the prisoners, and luckily some of the older, more experienced prisoners kept me from eating it because the rich food that you are not accustomed to caused what was called dysentery, and a lot of people passed away because of that.

One of the boys among us, his name is Yakob Moshe. He lives in Israel right now. He is a few years older than me, and he was an auto mechanic, or learned to be. Well, the war wasn’t over yet because I was liberated on the second of May, and the war wasn’t over for Germany until the 8th of May. For four or five days we were just roaming, walking down a paved highway. It was an experience to be able to walk on solid ground. My friend Moshe found a Red Cross German truck that ran into a tree. He got in there and somehow managed to start up the engine. We siphoned some gasoline from other vehicles that were shut down, and we started on the road, about four or five of us. 

We didn’t go much, maybe ten miles, and we had a blowout. On both sides of the street were German prisoners walking with an American GI with a rifle, walking these Germans whose hands were up behind their backs like this. Here comes this African-American, huge GI, and he stopped with the four prisoners that he was marching. One guy, [inaudible name], he spoke a little English. He told this GI why we stopped. The four of us got a little hand pump but had not enough strength in our bodies to pump air into the tire, so he got one of the Germans to do that for us. Not only that, when he saw the wooden slippers that I was wearing, like they wear in Holland, he told this German to take off his leather boots and gave it to me. So he had to march on with these [laughs], and that was very satisfying to us at the time. 

Interviewer:  Justice.
SCHONSTAL: Then we drove into a little village that was practically deserted because the Germans were still hiding, and the Americans came and took the truck away from us. At that point we were all taken to a displaced persons camp. The first one I was in was Landsberg in July of 1945. Then from Landsberg I went to [sounds like Hagenau] and from there I went to Bergen-Belsen, and from Bergen-Belsen I immigrated to the United States. 

In conclusion, I just want to say that the elation, the euphoria that I had experienced, being given the opportunity to come to the United States when I passed the Statue of Liberty the first time. God bless his soul, President Harry S. Truman, who made it possible for orphans under 18 years to be admitted to the United States. It’s inexplicable; it’s something I cannot express in words, what that feeling was like. To this day I am very, very grateful to be given the opportunity to be in the United States and to be a citizen of the United States, and I just want to add that I think we’re all human beings, regardless of your race, your color, your nationality or religion. People are all people. 

I love everybody, and I just want to tell people to love one another. It’s important that you find something nice in every human being because people are nice; basically everybody is nice. I hope that this testimony I’ve given here will shed a little light on how important it is to be alert and not to be persuaded in the wrong way by propaganda or any rumors because it’s wrong. People should love one another. And to this date as an individual I detest hunger because I have experienced it to the fullest, and I don’t have much, but I am always giving to any organization that asks for help for hungry people. God bless America, and thank you for being part of this beautiful country. Thank you.

[Recording stops and then resumes]

And these cattle cars are the first time people were let out. I don’t know where we were, on some sidetrack. Let the people out to eliminate their waste. When it was not available, someone had dug a hole some way in the wooden floor of the cattle car, and people had to make their way over there and try to do the best you can. But the stench and the heat!

I want to tell you something that happened when we were first herded into these cattle cars in Hungary. We were on the tracks. That’s why I said that the trip took 14 days, but the first three days we didn’t move at all. The doors were shut closed, and all of a sudden — there was a boy, his name was Laslow Fisher. By the way, my real Hungarian name is Laslow; it was changed to Lester. Laslow Fisher and I were adjacent to each other in the cattle car. I just met him, and he was telling me that he was a Roman Catholic. He said, “I don’t know why they took me. I am not Jewish. I don’t know one thing about the Jewish religion. Nothing.” He says, “My mother is Catholic. She raised me. My father is Jewish.” And that’s why he ended up in the car. 

But the punch line is that the second or third day in the box car, still in Hungary, not moving, we heard this voice, a woman’s voice screaming: “Latsikan! Latsikan! Laslow! Laslow!” And he said, “That’s my mother!” So they let him get close to the door, and we started to bang on the door with our fists, and the mother, who was on the outside, persuaded the guard to open the door just enough for her to see that that’s her son in there. She told him in a convincing way that she is not Jewish and her son shouldn’t be in there, either. She said, “I just want to give him this basket.” It was a big basket, and he allowed that. 

I’ll tell you what was in that basket. Have you seen those three-gallon jars this tall? Melted hog’s lard in all three of them and four huge bread this big. And that’s what saved the people on that boxcar because what they did with that, the older people took control of this food and rationed it out with just a little piece of bread with a little lard on it. A mouthful for everybody kept you alive. That’s what happened. It’s ironic. I don’t know if he made it or not, Laslow Fisher. I don’t know if he survived. Perseverance was something that everybody wanted to achieve. They just didn’t know how because danger was imminent all the time. 

Interviewer: Everywhere.
SCHONSTAL: All the time. That’s what happened to him.

Interviewer: I remember when I did the little five-minute tape up at the memorial. Initially I just did the narrative so we’d have an idea of what we were going to say. I remember being corrected on a few things, how I pronounced it incorrectly, like I said “Chelmo.” I mentioned about being put into boxcars. They made a point to correct me on that and change that to cattle cars. It’s an interesting distinction, though, and it’s a very important distinction. Being forced into cattle cars and being sent to concentration camps from which many never returned. And that’s where I was corrected, too. As they pointed out to me, it wasn’t many, it was most. 
Edith Schonstal: Most, that’s right.

Interviewer: And I thought again, that’s a real distinction. 
SCHONSTAL: Also, there were two sizes of cattle cars, six horses or eight. One was a little longer than the others. That’s what they found. Anyway, these cattle cars are the first time people were let out. I don’t know where we were, on some sidetrack. They let the people out to eliminate their waste. When it was not available, someone had dug a hole some way in the wooden floor of the cattle car. People had to make their way over there and try to do the best you can. But the stench and the heat.

Interviewer: By concentration camp they’re talking about keeping people in prison, so to speak, but also working for . . .
SCHONSTAL: Neubrandenburg was definitely a working place, a 12-hour shift place. Some of the things I didn’t go into, or didn’t elaborate on some things that happened in that camp because I didn’t think that was significant enough to mention, but it was a bad situation, because of the food, and because the sicknesses and the punishment of the prisoners were very severe. You just lived in fear all the time.

Interviewer: This was at all of these? Were all the camps pretty much the same that you were in, or is there one that really stands out?
SCHONSTAL: The one that really stands out is Buchenwald, and Neubrandenburg. Ravensbruck was very close to the end of the war, but we didn’t know. The reason we . . .

Interviewer: I see, March and April.
SCHONSTAL: Actually, when we got into Ravensbruck it was a compound with a lot of prisoners jammed in. In Ravensbruck we were given a Red Cross package that was already ransacked. There was no chocolate or cigarettes. Some kind of a biscuit. You couldn’t use the milk powder unless you licked it because there was no water to mix it with. But we knew that the Germans were probably doing something because it’s near the end of the war. 

The other thing I want to tell you about being herded into boxcars at Wöbbelin where I was liberated, the reason this was done, that I found out later, is that the perpetrators, the German guards and the bad guys, locked everybody out so they could get away because if the prisoners had a way to get at them, they would probably tear them apart. Whatever it takes. By locking everybody up into boxcars, they disappeared, and by the time the boxcars were opened, the Americans were there and the German guards were gone. That was the reason for that, just like it says on here.

And also Wöbbelin (spells out). Those are some more remote concentration camp places.

Interviewer: So the idea was to keep you moving from one place to another.
SCHONSTAL: I think that what happened in Neubrandenburg, when they told all the Jews to get up and they put us in trucks, is that they had orders to take and execute the Jews. They only took the Jews. In Ravensbruck there were only Jewish prisoners. But again, something happened there. The Americans were getting too close; they didn’t bother anymore with executions. So they took us from Ravensbruck to even farther north, to Wöbbelin, and again, I think we were there to be done away with eventually, but it was too late for the Germans to carry out the execution. We were lucky. 

Interviewer: That’s when they put you in boxcars. 
SCHONSTAL: They put us in boxcars for the reason so they could escape. 

When I was in Bergen-Belsen, I belonged to a kibbutz, a Hagibor kibbutz, which was a sports kind of thing [sports club established in DP camp]. I think this was already probably in June or July of 1945, or maybe later, August, I don’t remember. Anyway, I mentioned to you before that this boy and his father had to punch each other in the face. One of them recognized the kapo. Do you know what a kapo is?

Interviewer: Kapo? Yes.
SCHONSTAL: A kapo is not a German. It may be a prisoner, not necessarily Jewish, but he’s given the rank to be a supervisor. They were sometimes worse than the Germans.

Interviewer: Yes, I’ve heard that too.
SCHONSTAL: This was the guy that made this boy hit his father and back. We recognized him, all of us. So they went off and said somebody wants to talk to you, and they lowered him into a building and really took care of him. They didn’t kill him; they were just short of killing him. They called the American MPs in, told them what happened, and they took him away, and I don’t know what happened with that. You know what these kapos and even Germans did? They were apprehended because most of us in the DP camp, the first thing they did to us was give the white powder, the DDT, under arms and in the hair to kill lice and everything. 

So some of these Germans, when they raised they hands, they were tattooed with the SS mark underneath there, under the arm, and so that was a dead giveaway that they were bad guys. 

Interviewer: Yes, that I know.
SCHONSTAL: They got a few that way, because you had to raise your arm.

Interviewer: Now you mentioned the father and son. When you were in any of these camps, did you meet anyone you knew? 
SCHONSTAL: Yes, in Buchenwald there was a — my mother comes from a very religious background in a small town, and my mother had 14 brothers and sisters. Eight of them were half brothers and sisters because Grandfather, my mother’s father, from his first marriage had eight kids and from the second marriage had six more. So I had, if I remember right, at one time 41 first cousins [Edith laughs]. One of these second cousins, his name was [Wallish Waltiski?]. 

I was in Buchenwald in this barrack, and the guys were jammed in there, and they improvised making a chess game. They had little pieces of paper, and they just put on them that this is a pawn, this is a rook, this is a queen. And they scratched on a piece of wood the chess. I’m looking there and this guy is playing, I don’t know what they call it in English, they called [piez lusche?] in Hungarian. When he could turn his back to the chessboard and call his moves without making a mistake, and keeping his hand on the opponent’s moves. I think you’re allowed two or three mistakes. If you make more than that, you lose the game. It looked so interesting to me because I only knew one guy who was a chess master in my family, [Wallish Waltiski?] We were all shaved and had like this all the time. It was him. I met him. I don’t think he made it back; he perished.

Interviewer: Do you know how many family members you lost?
SCHONSTAL: Me?

Interviewer: You.
SCHONSTAL: Oh, my God. Well, number one is my father. I met somebody in Buchenwald. I don’t know who he was, but he knew my father, and he said that he knows that my father was in a camp called Flossenburg concentration camp. At the time he saw him, he was OK. But my father never came back; he died. Other family members, yes. I had several uncles and aunts and some older cousins that were all killed by the Germans. Yes, not too many people made it.

Interviewer: You got here the year before I was born.
SCHONSTAL: Really?

Interviewer: I was born in January ’48. Thank you so much.
SCHONSTAL: My pleasure. I hope that it will do some good, and it will be obvious from the pictures they took of me why maybe somebody else that will see it will understand why I have a hard time talking because I feel that — you know, I’m not helpless when I’m around people who are hurt in the arm or anyplace. I can stand to watch blood. I can see a broken, exposed bone in the arm. What I can’t stand is when I hear you moan and groan with pain because I feel that. That I can’t take, because I feel your pain. I’m not good around people who are letting you know how badly they are hurt. If you keep quiet, I can help.

Edith Schonstal: I cannot complain to him [laughs].

SCHONSTAL: No, you can complain. You can complain to me. Anyway, thank you very much for the interview.

Interviewer: I really appreciate it.