Forced Labor Identity Tag

Survivor Zalman (Sydney) Schwimmer, born Dovhe (Dolha), Carpathian Ruthenia 1915

Zalman Schwimmer, a resident of the USA since 1948, survived the camps of Wolfsberg and Bergen Belsen, where he was liberated on April 15, 1945. He visited Yad Vashem recently and impressed us all with his boundless energy as he related his Holocaust experiences.

In 1936, Zalman began his medical studies at the University of Brno (Brünn), but when the Nazis entered Czechoslovakia in March 1939, he was expelled together with all the other Jewish students. Towards the end of 1939, after emigration became impossible, he returned to his native town of Dovhe, which was then occupied by the Hungarians.

At that time the Hungarian regime began to impose anti-Jewish laws and established forced labor camps for Jews. Like all Jewish men between the ages of 20-45, Zalman was drafted into a Hungarian forced labor battalion, and worked in the town of Nagykata. After a few months, he was temporarily released under unusual circumstances and returned home to Dovhe.

Cemetery in Dovhe

In 1940-41 Zalman encountered many obstacles in his frequent attempts to flee Hungary. In 1940 the Hungarian regime required all the Jews from the Carpathians to prove their Hungarian citizenship or face deportation. Zalman was actively engaged in securing temporary residence permits for people in his town and surrounding area, in order to avoid deportation.
Throughout 1941, the Fascist Hungarian regime deported Jewish families with children (an estimated 12,000 people) from the Carpathians, because they could not obtain Hungarian citizenship and were regarded as foreigners. They were deported over the border, into German-occupied territory and were murdered by Ukrainians and their collaborators in Kamenetz-Podolsk.

Identity tag issued to Zalman Schwimmer in the Hungarian labor battalion in 1942

Identity tag issued to Zalman Schwimmer in the Hungarian labor battalion in 1942

In early 1942, Zalman, along with thousands of Jewish males was again drafted into one of hundreds of labor camps and was stationed in Vac, near Budapest. From there, he was sent into the Soviet-occupied territories in Ukraine and assigned to slave labor behind the battlefronts. The work was impossibly hard and was done under the watchful eye of the Hungarian guard officers and their collaborators, who were given a free hand in the treatment of the laborers.

After the German and Hungarian withdrawal in 1943, tens of thousands of Jewish forced laborers starved to death, or were murdered by the Hungarian officers and guards.

In March 1944, Zalman's battalion returned from the Soviet-occupied territories and he went home to Dovhe. Shortly afterwards, the Germans entered Hungary and with the collaboration of the Hungarian regime, chased the Jews from their homes, first from the Carpathians and subsequently from the surrounding areas. All the Jews were sent to ghettos. Zalman was in the ghetto of Berehovo (Bereqszasz) and on May 18, 1944 Zalman , his family, and the entire community were deported to Auschwitz.

Jews deported from Carpathian Ruthenia on the ramp in Birkenau, May 1944. Zalman Schwimmer is highlighted

Later Zalman was sent from Auschwitz to the Wolfsberg camp, which was a part of the Gross-Rosen complex. Under terrible conditions and inhumane surroundings, inmates were forced to build roads in the mountains and carry iron tracks on their shoulders.

Zalman remained in Wolfsberg until February 15, 1945 when all the inmates that were able to walk were evacuated. After a death march lasting 2 weeks they arrived at Bergen Belsen, where they were met with the horrifying scene of hundreds of dead bodies strewn outside Block 5.

Block 5, where Zalman was placed, was a small yard, fenced in with barbed wire. A few days before the liberation, several Russian POWs appeared in their torn uniforms not far from the block. They were starving, and gathered around small fires. Outside the fence that was guarded by the SS there was a pile of frozen rotten turnips used to make soup for the inmates. The inmates in Block 5 could see the turnips, but could not reach them. Occasionally, when the wind blew, the turnips were blown next to the fence. In the final days of Bergen Belsen, very few people had enough strength to wait for an opportune moment when the wind would blow a turnip near the fence. When the wind blew a turnip Zalman’s way, he managed to grab it by digging under the wire. It was frozen solid and could not be bitten into.

The knife that Schwimmer exchanged with a Russian P.O.W

When one of the Russian POWs noticed that Zalman had a turnip, which could not be bitten into, he offered to exchange a knife he had in return for half of the turnip. Zalman took the knife and used it to cut the remaining turnip into small pieces. He took the small pieces and ate them slowly to satiate his hunger. He could hardly chew. He does not know how the POW obtained the knife, which is engraved with the inscription OFFIZIERHEIM BERGEN/ (Home of the officers in Bergen).