A- A+

TRANSPORT

DEPORTATIONS OF HUNGARIAN JEWS TO AUSCHWITZ

TRANSPORT

Coordination of the deportation of Jews from Hungary was the responsibility of SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Novak. He had at his disposal around 700 rail freight cars, which were used to transport deportees from smaller ghettos to larger ones as well as to form transports directly bound for Auschwitz. At a conference held between representatives of Eichmann’s Sondereinsatzkommando, the gendarmerie, Hungarian, Slovak and German railway officials as well as the Wehrmacht it was decided that four transports, each including three thousand Jewish deportees, would be dispatched from Hungary every day. The main route was along peripheral railway lines running through Košice, Prešov, Plaveč, Muszyna and Nowy Sącz to Tarnów, and thence to Krakow-Plaszow and Auschwitz. On account of the difficult mountainous terrain they would have to cross, the 45-waggon trains were to be pulled by two locomotives. Hungary was divided into six evacuation zones. First to be deported were Jews from zones that Hungary had recently annexed at the expense of Slovakia and Romania. The next deportations would be from zones III‒V (that is territories within Hungary’s pre-war borders) and finally from zone VI (Budapest). Adopting this plan was to guarantee deportations from eastern Hungary would be completed before the arrival of the Red Army and at the same time sufficiently give the impression that the deportations only concerned Jews from Transcarpathia and Transylvania.

A column of Jews from Košice walking down the street led by Hungarian gendarmerie. The people in the picture are carrying suitcases, bundles.

Source: Yad Vashem Photo Archive, Jerusalem, Ref. arch. 4613/355.

Hungarian gendarmes leading Košice Jews to a ghetto. 4 July, 1944.

Railway station. Freight carriages - one of them has an open door, inside are Jews being deported to Auschwitz.

Source: Yad Vashem Photo Archive, Jerusalem, Ref. arch. 1655/3

Košice, Hungary. Jews deported by the Hungarian Army.

Excerpt from the account of Karol Drzyzgiewicz:

During the occupation I worked in the so-called Ostbahn. I knew some German and that is why the so-called Fahrdienstleiter (train dispatcher) at Krakow-Plaszow repeatedly had me drive trains to the Third Reich. … On many occasions I drove trains linked-up at Tarnów and bound for the Auschwitz/Oświęcim station. These trains arrived at Tarnów from the border in Muszyna. … Every one of them had 50‒60 cars. People were crammed into these cars and part of their luggage was transported in separate cars. Such transports travelled under armed guard. The transport commander was an SS functionary, most often a Ukrainian, who would not allow anyone approach the train. … When checking the brake pads, I had to pass the cars. The people inside were begging for water. One of the women in the transport begging for water threw out a purse. With kicks, the Ukrainian guarding the train chased me away from car, and then himself picked up the purse.

… The trains with Hungarian Jews I most often took over at Krakow-Plaszow. I also often took the trains over at Tarnów station. The route of these trains always ran from Tarnów via Kraków-Plaszow, Skawina, Spytkowice, to the marshalling yard at Oświęcim/Auschwitz. At the marshalling yard the train was taken over by a shunting team, who rolled the train to the railway ramp in Birkenau. Such a train was rolled to the ramp through the gate, and the shunting (locomotive switching) team got off the train at the gate. The locomotive also remained outside the gate, with the cars remaining in the camp, where they were taken over by a shunting team of inmates. Before they were returned from the railway ramp messages, names and initials were removed from the freight car walls. This writing was wiped off, scratched off or painted over with oil paint. But some of the more concealed inscriptions remained.

Various freight cars were used to transport Hungarian Jews. French and Dutch cars were the most common since they had grated windows that were easy to close. The windows in Polish freight cars had to have barbed wire nets. …

Source: Karol Drzyzgiewicz, A-BSM Archives, Testimonies Fonds, vol. 8, pp. 1115‒1117.

Deportation centres for Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz, together with the number of people deported from them.

Source: A-BSMA

Fragment of German railway map. 1944. Marked red are the routes along which Jews were deported from Hungary to Auschwitz concentration camp: eastern (via Muszyna: 137 trains, 401,000 persons), central (via Zwardoń: 2 trains, 5,500 persons) and western (via Zebrzydowice: 7 trains, 17,000 persons).