Shlomo Klein

My name is Shlomo Klein. I was born in 1928 in Hungary and I am a Holocaust survivor.

I want to tell you a little about what happened to me and my family. I lived in a town called Ungoresh in the region of Transylvania with my parents and six brothers and sisters.

At the end of May 1944 we were deported from our home to the ghetto in the city of Silje Shumolo in Transylvania. The ghetto was on the mountain outside of town. We worked in a brick factory there.

It is difficult to describe how we suffered and what we endured. In June we were sent from the ghetto in freight trains, each car held at least 100 people - men, women and children. We were taken to the Auschwitz - Birkenau extermination camp. The trip lasted several days without food or water in inhumane conditions.

When the train arrived at Auschwitz they opened the doors of the train cars and lined us up. The Germans conducted a selection headed by Dr. Mengele who told us where to go. Some were sent to the right and some to the left. Women with small children and some adults were sent to the left, to the crematoria.

Young men and women who were sent to the right went to forced labor. My father, my two brothers, and I were sent together to the right to the Birkenau camp. They gave us prison clothing and a piece of cloth with a number to sew on the garment. This number became our name.

We lived in barracks that held about 1,000 people. Everyday they humiliated us and arranged us so we could be counted. We had to line up to get our daily food which was filthy water with potato peels. From Auschwitz we were sent to work in the Gross-Rosen concentration camp near the German-Polish border. There we worked hard and got substandard food.

We worked in the stone quarries and dug anti-tank canals, repairing railway tracks that had been bombed by the Russian army. We worked there until January 1945. As the Russian front got closer to the camp, we were transferred to the Plassenburg camp, where we worked in a factory that produced aircraft parts. 

This camp was also an extermination camp, and they had a special selection method. Once every two weeks we were taken to the showers, and when we were naked the Germans would mark our foreheads with an A, B, or C. Those marked with an A or B would continue to work, and the rest were sent to their deaths.

The Russian front continued to get closer, and on April 15th 1945 we were forced to walk on foot in groups of 200 people because trains were no longer running. This was called a "Death March". From my group of 200 people only about 15 survived. The rest fell down exhausted. During the march I saw my father and my two brothers get shot - they were weak and had no strength to keep going. The German also aimed his weapon at me, but apparently there was a malfunction or he ran out of bullets.

This happened just 7 days before the American army liberated Dachau. On April 29, 1945, I had no strength left, and I was transferred by stretcher to a US Army hospital. The doctors there treated me for 3 months until I recovered.

Beacon of Heroism: I immigrated to Israel in 1948 via Germany and France with a group of 400 young men during the War of Independence and I immediately enlisted and served in the IDF from 1948 to 1985. I took part in all the Israeli wars:

1. The War of Independence in 1948

2. The Sinai War in 1956

3. The Six Day War in 1967

4. The War of Attrition in 1968-1969

5. The Yom Kippur War in 1973

6. The Lebanon Way in 1982

In 1952 I married my wife Rachel and we had 2 sons, many grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Thank God, this is our revenge on the Nazis, may their name be erased. 

Our sons and some of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren live in Gush Etzion. One son lives in Kfar Etzion and one lives in Migdal Oz, and that is why we now live in Efrat.