Freddy Markovits was born on September 3, 1942 in Rotterdam, Holland. His father, Miklós Nico Markovics was a manufacturer and an owner of a saccharin factory in Rotterdam. Miklós was born on December 19, 1908 in Budapest, Hungary and immigrated to the Netherlands, together with his family in 1914.
Freddy’s mother, Julia Hermer Markovics was born on October 5, 1914 in Rotterdam. Her father, who immigrated to Holland from Latvia, was a vice-president of an International Shipment Control Association, where Julia worked in the office.
The saccharin factory “Hollandia” owned by Miklos Markovics was confiscated by the Germans in May 1942 and despite assurances that the Markovics family will not be deported they were taken to Vught (also called KL Herzogenbusch), the site of a minor Nazi camp for Dutch Jewry in the province of Brabant, Holland. Two categories of Jews were interned in Vught: textile and diamond workers, who lost their original status as "privileged" Jews; and those who in April and May 1943 had to leave certain provinces which were being "cleansed" of Jews. Originally, the camp was said to be a labor camp; in reality it functioned, from Jan. 13, 1943 until Sept. 6, 1944, for the transit of Jews who were sent on to extermination camps. Approximately 12,000 Jews passed through Vught. They were put to work in industrial workshops (one of them set up by Philips of Holland, who temporarily succeeded in protecting their Jewish employees) and on forced-labor projects. Most notorious of all the transports from Vught was one that took place via Westerbork to Sobibor on June 5, 1943, consisting of 1,266 children under the age 16.
One month after the imprisonment of the Markovics family in Vught, they were transferred to the Westerbork transit camp. Freddy, who became very sick with dysentery, was hospitalized there. In September 1944 the family was transported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Freddy continued to be sick. In February 1945 the camp German officials asked for volunteers to be exchanged for German POW’s. Miklos volunteered himself, Julia and Freddy. Other prisoners warned him that this is just another one of the traps prepared by the Germans for the Jews, but Miklos felt that he has nothing to loose. On the train taking them to Switzerland, German soldiers gave them bread and cans of sardines and asked them to “tell the Swiss that we were not so bad.” The Markovics family arrived in St. Gallen on February 9, 1945 and then on April 23, 1945 they were transferred to a refugee camp in Adliswil and later in Les Avants. On June 16, 1945 Miklos, Julia and Freddy Markovics returned to Rotterdam. Their daughter, Madleine, was born in 1946. Miklos died on January 29, 1995. Freddy Markovits lives near Rotterdam with his wife and two children.
