Gerényes
is a small village with some one hundred and twenty houses, the majority of which
were those of Swabian Lutherans (380) while the minority were Roman Catholic
Magyars. The two nationalities took turns in electing a Richter. Each group
maintained their own language and customs.
In October 1944 large numbers of refugees treks passed
through the village consisting primarily of Danube Swabians from the Batschka in
Yugoslavia. Some remained for up to two weeks because there was enough room for
them and their horses. They helped us with the harvest and then were told to move
on. As they left they wept and told their hosts to remain at home and not take to
the roads as they had done, it was something they now regretted. Little did they
know of what was just over the horizon for us.
The leave taking was sad and we no longer considered a
flight. But a few of the villagers joined the evacuation afraid to risk staying.
Some of the youth of the village were taken to Komlö to work in the coalmines. In
this way they were able to avoid recruitment into the Waffen-SS and after the
occupation of Komlö by the Russians they were sent home in December.
Few Russians came to the village because it was of the beaten
track. The village Richter brought any news of the outside world to the
villager’s attention. Accompanied by the Klein Richter they went about the
village streets to the beating of drums to make his announcement and get
everyone’s attention.
When drumbeats were heard on the day after Christmas 1944
everyone realized that it must be something important to interrupt their Christmas
celebrations. All women born in the years from 1914-1926 and all men born from
1900-1927 were ordered to report and register for labour in Sásd. Some were
immediately taken by wagon to the town that was nine kilometres distant. Rumours
spread that they were being taken to Pécs for fourteen days to build an airstrip.
Some, however, smelled a rat and went into hiding (including the writer and her
brother.) They hid in an old abandoned cellar about half an hour away from the
village. Their mother came to them by night and told them that if they did not
report and register their house and barn would be put to the torch. Both of them
refused to go home. On the third morning their mother arrived breathless and in
tears. She reported that their father had been taken in their place and she had
to look after the cattle and farm all by herself. Her brother said they should
return in order to release their father who was an old man and they were younger
and stronger.
As they arrived at the place of assembly, their father and
all women who were pregnant or had a child under the age of three were released
along with the village schoolmaster, Mr. Neubauer, although his daughter was kept
back with the others.
On the same day, it was December 27, 1944 at 19h all of the
assembled people left on foot. They marched four in a row with Russians guards
behind and beside them. Bundles with feather ticks, clothes and food were brought
by wagon. They marched all night until 4h in the morning. They finally rested
outside of Pécs, which meant they had marched for 36 kilometres without a rest.
After an hour’s rest they marched to Lakiscsalaktanya. They were imprisoned in a
stable. Straw was spread on the frozen manure and the men and women were packed
together there for several days. There were about three hundred of them. It was
the assembly camp for the area. They received no food. Families and friends came
and brought them food and drink. They remained there for thirteen days and in to
the new year of 1945 but were not required to do any work. That surprised them.
Each day they were called up for roll call in groups of 40
persons. The guards had noted that there had been some who had escaped and as a
result relatives were no longer allowed to visit or contact them.
On January 10th they were taken to the railway
station in Pécs. The cattle cars were standing waiting for their cargo. This
was goodbye for some forever. There were only Swabians in our group. No Magyars
were deported with us. Our mother had come to bring us more supplies but she was
prevented from doing so. The guards would not allow anyone near the prisoners or
the cattle cars. Most had to return home still bearing the provisions they had
brought. To this day many of the survivors thank God for those women who managed
to get by the guards and handed provisions to those in the cattle cars. Some
bribed the soldiers, but most had to stand back and see their loved ones from a
distance and for the last time.
One woman fainted on board the cattle car and was removed and
able to remain behind. Only later would the others discover that a good friend
had given her a cigarette, which had led to her fainting spell.
Thirty-six persons were packed into each cattle car. The
train passed through Vasarosdombo in the vicinity of Gerényes and they saw it
speed by through the small high windows in the cattle car. They dropped notes out
of the window hoping that their families would get them. None did.
In Dombovár the train halted for the first time. The man in
charge of the car was a good man and left the door open and said, “When the train
starts up and goes slowly jump off here and head for home.” No one dared to do
it. They travelled on to Baja. The women were taken across the Danube by ferry
and the men remained behind. They had already separated the men and women from
Gerényes. They all spent the cold night out of doors on both sides of the Danube.
There were numerous Russian soldiers all around them. They
were able to start a fire to warm themselves. One told them to escape but most
were concerned about male members of their family on the other bank of the
Danube. The night was so cold that the fire did not last and the soldiers took
shelter in their quarters. By morning the women’s dresses were frozen. They
huddled together with one another and their bundles and packs. Early in the
morning the men were ferried across the river. We were then taken to the railway
station in Baja and loaded in cattle cars again. They were packed like herring.
On one end were the women and teenage girls from Gerényes and on the other were
those from Jagolak. The women and girls from Gerényes felt fortunate that they
were able to remain together. There were fifteen of them in all. In the centre
of the car a hole had been drilled to serve as a toilet. There was also a small
stove to take the bite off of the cold. They could no longer leave the car. At
night the train went faster and they were afraid that the stove propped on rocks
would tip over and start a fire. In daytime the train would often stand on a
siding for hours and we hoped that the Russians would get frustrated and turn
around and take us home.
We did not want to believe that the war was lost and that
somehow the German army would rescue us. Our hopes were to be dashed. On our
way, one or two men or women were allowed to get water at stops along the way but
always accompanied by guards. The food they were given was meagre and badly
prepared. People began to share their remaining provisions with one another.
They were separated from the men from Gerényes and had no idea of where they were
in terms of the long line of cattle cars. The train passed through Romania and
when it stood still at sidings, the local Transylvanian Saxon populations would
sneak food to the prisoners. They knew where they were going because their own
young people had already been taken a week before.
The transport arrived in Russia on February 2, 1945 crossing
the border at Nepropetrovskie. The train then went on to Dombas in Ukraine and
reached their ultimate destination there on February 4, 1945.
They were placed in barracks that were warm and empty. They
made up beds on the floor with their feather ticks as they had on the train. They
were relieved that the trip was finally over and they could rest.
There were six large barracks surrounded by a wire fence.
The first barrack was the hospital. Next to it was a women’s barrack, men were in
the third and fourth and then the kitchen and another women’s barrack. Every
barrack had an officer and interpreter.
The women had Anna Müller from Csikostöttös as their
interpreter. The officer was Jerilow and spoke some German. He suffered from a
head wound and was often “not there.” The prisoners were not mistreated or
abused. So everyone anticipated to be passing through this “episode” in his or
her lives.
Their first task was to build bunk beds in all of the
barracks with two above and two below. The Gerényes people bunked together and
pooled all of their food and Anna Zarth did the cooking and all of the others
called her “mother” because she was the oldest. The food from the camp kitchen
offered little nourishment. Only three of the men from Gerényes were in the
camp. The others were somewhere else including the writer’s brother.
On April 15th they all reported for work detail, most of the
men and women were sent to work in the mines. Many of the Gerényes people worked
in the sawmill. They unloaded the timber, had to cut it and had to drag the
filled wagons of logs into the mine. Constant heavy work with little nourishment
became to take its toll. They worked in three shifts, seven days a week. Every
ten days shifts were changed. When loads of logs arrived all of them had to
unload them if it was their shift or not. On the whole the Russians were not bad
to them and encouraged them with promises that they would be going home soon.
But months became years. Rations were poor and in 1946 there
was famine in all of Russia. Then came typhus and the pests of lice, bedbugs
etc. Many died of hunger and typhus. Married women became frightened when their
menstrual flow ceased, but the young teenage girls found the same thing happening
to them.
In May 1946 some of the Gerényes people were assigned to
collective farms and other outside work. The writer was separated from her
brother again and he was just getting over having typhus. She asked for
permission to say goodbye to her brother and after their tearful farewell she was
allowed to remain at the camp.
There was no mail from home. It was only on June 2, 1946
that they heard from their parents for the first time. Her barracks was next to
the hospital and saw the countless numbers of dead being taken out for burial.
The first group of those who were being released was finally
organized. Only those who were sick and starving were eligible. Two of the three
teenage boys from Gerényes were included: the März and Schleier boy. In 1947 the
food provisions were somewhat improved and there were fewer deaths.
In a letter one of the deportees received on August 23, 1946
the survivors from Gerényes learned of their family’s plight at home: the
confiscation of all of their property making them homeless and a loss of
citizenship and in constant fear of deportation to Russia themselves. Gerényes
was no longer their home. There lived strangers there now.
In February 1947 the second transport left Russia including
one of the married women from Gerényes. Many sent letters home with her but she
had to leave her sister behind. They had just learned that their father had
fallen in the war. Meanwhile the writer’s brother was in hospital again. He
could not survive the journey back home. By now TB had set in and there was
simply no medication available. He died on May 16, 1947 and was buried on the
same day.
By the end of 1947 those who had survived were simply skin
and bones and had no strength left.
The following June another a transport of those unable to
work was put together. Four married women and one teenage girl from Gerényes were
included.
On May 11, 1948 the vast majority of the Swabian population
of Gerényes was expelled from Hungary. The author’s parents were included. The
first news she heard was in October 1948 from Germany where her parents awaited
her…some day. At least she had an address.
In 1948 all of those from among the longest surviving
prisoners were released including those who were sick. Three married women from
Gerényes were released at this time. When they arrived in Germany all three women
discovered that their husbands had died as prisoners of war in Russia. Only two
of the men from Gerényes in the other camp had survived and were released. One of
the mothers who remained in the camp died in a mining accident and unknown to her
at the time, her husband had been killed at the front.
In 1949 the camp was dismantled and the inmates were sent to
work in various places. Soon at the end of another year, with the most of the
Gerényes people gone home the days and nights became longer and longer for those
still left in Russia. The young author was sent to the camp in Gorlowka and here
she met a married woman from Gerényes who worked in the kitchen with her.
Five weeks later they were taken to an assembly camp at
Stalino. Cattle cares were stuffed with people and sent across Romania to
Hungary. The married woman was in one of them.
The writer now reports, “In the end of the 11th of November
all of us who had requested to be sent to Germany now had their turn. We were
loaded on board of cattle cars and crossed over into Poland for the Russian Zone
of Germany. We arrived during night of November 19/20 in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder.
The bells of the churches in the city began to ring to announce to the city that
some more late arrivals from Russia had come. All kinds of people came to the
train station to meet us. The Red Cross was there to assist us. Finally we
received our release documents along with 50 East Marks. Now each person could go
and seek to find their family and we did.”
The author requested to remain anonymous.
