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Oral history interview with Emrich Gonczi

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1272.321 | RG Number: RG-50.120.0321

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    Oral history interview with Emrich Gonczi

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Emrich Gonczi, born in 1925 in Ivanka Pri Nitre, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia), discusses being one of two children; cordial relations with non-Jews; attending a local elementary school; high school in Nitra; anti-Jewish laws in March 1939, resulting in school expulsion; training as a dental assistant; confiscation of the family business; deportation by Hlinka guard to Sered in March 1942, then a week later to Majdanek; slave labor building a camp; arrival of his uncle, then his father in April; arranging to be together; observing an officer smothering his uncle in mud; having to sing the “camp song” while marching (he sings it); volunteering with his father and other relatives for transport elsewhere; a prisoner assisting him upon arrival at Auschwitz; slave labor excavating land; an SS guard shooting his father; having to carry his body back to camp; losing his will to live; a cousin encouraging him; deciding to live to take revenge; a privileged assignment in the carpentry shop in summer 1942; assistance from a Polish political prisoner; Slovak women throwing extra food over the fence; sharing it with his relatives; injuring his hand; assistance from a German guard; hospitalization; selection for death; being exempted after Emil De Martini, a German prisoner, notified Dr. Eduard Wirths of his “medical” training; assignment as a medical assistant; improved food and living conditions; learning all his relatives had “disappeared”; increased responsibilities, including assisting in surgeries by mid-1943; transporting prisoners from surgical castrations by Dr. Wladyslaw Dering; saving a friend by switching his registration card with a dead person's; transporting bodies of two hundred Polish officers who were shot in early 1943; having to bring patients to Josef Klehr for killing by injection (he testified against him after the war); envisioning his father's killing which strengthened his resolve to survive despite constant exposure to killings and corpses; distributing smuggled medications; transfer to a laboratory in Rajsko supervised by Dr. Bruno Weber; discovering that shipments of animal meat from which he created cultures was human flesh; a beating for leaving a faucet open resulting in a flood; providing morphine to a German addict in exchange for food for his unit; burning all the files as ordered prior to the January 1945 death march to open train cars; posing as a non-Jew upon arrival at Mauthausen; transfer two weeks later to Ebensee; slave labor building tunnels; volunteering as a medical assistant; learning all prisoners were to be killed in the tunnels; spreading this information so no one entered the tunnels; abandonment by the guards; impromptu killings for revenge; liberation by United States troops the next day; traveling to Bratislava; retrieving a hidden Jewish boy; reunions with relatives; returning to Nitra; reporting the Hlinka guard who put him on a transport (he was not punished); moving to Teplice; marriage in 1945; training as a dentist; testifying at the Frankfurt war crime trials; immigration to Israel in 1963; the many individuals connected with medical facilities in Auschwitz and Rajsko; sharing his experience in Czechoslovakia after the war and the disinterest in it in Israel; and the continuing painful memories and nightmares.
    Interviewee
    Emrich Gonczi
    Date
    interview:  1997 January 16
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation

    Physical Details

    Language
    Hebrew
    Genre/Form
    Music.
    Extent
    13 videocassettes (U-Matic) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Topical Term
    Concentration camp inmates--Medical care. Concentration camp inmates--Selection process. Concentration camps--Psychological aspects. Concentration camps--Sociological aspects. Concentration camps--Songs and music. Construction workers. Death marches. Families. Fathers and sons. Forced labor. Gossip. Holocaust survivors--Israel--Interviews. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Public opinion. Human experimentation in medicine. Jewish children in the Holocaust. Jews--Legal status, laws, etc.--Czechoslovakia. Nightmares. Passing (Identity) Public opinion--Israel. Revenge. War crime trials--Germany--Frankfurt am Main. World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities. World War, 1939-1945--Children. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Czechoslovakia. World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Jewish. World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements. Men--Personal narratives.

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Nathan Beyrak conducted the interview with Emrich Gonczi in Israel on January 16, 1997. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview on December 3, 1997, as an accretion to the original collection of Israel Documentation Project interviews received by transfer in February 1995.
    Funding Note
    The production of this interview was made possible by Jeff and Toby Herr.
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:16:11
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn503229

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