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Oral history interview with János Hangya

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2011.288.83 | RG Number: RG-50.670.0083

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    Oral history interview with János Hangya

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    János Hangya, born October 30, 1925 in Szakcs, Hungary, describes moving with his family to Budapest, Hungary when he was 10 years old; not being religious; his father’s work for the Jewish Congregation of Faith beginning in 1940; spending a lot of time with Jewish families; attending a school comprised mostly of Jewish boys (there were only 4 Christian boys in his class) and feeling immediately accepted even though he was a boy from the country; working at a factory on Fehérvári street during the war; knowing most of the people who worked at the congregation on Síp street; hearing about the deportation of Jews two weeks after it had begun; Miksa Domokos taking over the leadership of the Jewish community some time around April 1944 and Rabbi Sándor Berendt also appearing at this time; the arrival of the Germans in Hungary; the widespread disbelief of the rumors about the conditions in Auschwitz; having to leave the ghetto with his family by December 1, 1944; moving into the flat of a Jewish family they knew; his father’s ID from the Gestapo, allowing him to enter the ghetto; bringing blankets to lagers in Aszód (near the neighborhood Csepel in Budapest); conditions in the lagers; being asked by Miksa Domonkos (the head of the Jewish congregation) to witness and report about the conditions at the round-ups and deportations in the countryside, which included several villages: Szakcs, Kocsola, Döbrököz, Dombóvár, Kurd, and Kurdcsibrák; going to Szakcs, Kocsola (where his mother was born), and Törökkopány to pick up his mother's and his father's birth certificates and their marriage papers from the local authorities; the Jewish families he knew in Szakcs and Kocsola, whom he saw deported; the transfer of Jews from Kurd and Kurdcsibrák to the ghetto in Dombóvár; being back about 10 copies of his parents' marriage certificate and giving them to Jewish friends and acquaintances to use; the Jewish congregation’s attempts to help the Jewry in the countryside; hearing that Rezső Kasztner freed some people from confinement at the synagogue on Rumbach street; getting a Swiss Schutzpass for someone from the synagogue on Rumbach street; meeting Wallenberg three times; having to report for military service at a military base and staying for three days in a brick factory in Kőbánya before returning home; taking a Swedish Schutzpass to the Reisz family, all of whom survived the war; staying in the basement of the Reisz house during the bombings; and the trial of Béla Berend (a former rabbi from Maramures) after the war.
    Interviewee
    János Hangya
    Interviewer
    Borbála Kriza
    Date
    interview:  2014 September 24
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation

    Physical Details

    Language
    Hungarian
    Extent
    1 digital file : MPEG-4.

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Corporate Name
    Nyilaskeresztes Párt.

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    This is a witness interview of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Witnesses: The Jeff and Toby Herr Testimony Initiative, a multi-year project to record the testimonies of non-Jewish witnesses to the Holocaust. The interview was directed and supervised by Nathan Beyrak.
    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 09:22:14
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn87885

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