to pick you up at the exact hour and minute you specify.
Then we arrived on time and then I saw Karol's head
in this hole in the wall, yes, that he made with his hands and let down a rope tied together
from the linens. I sent up my ropes and the operation began. The
first was Karol and he received instructions from somewhere that he should come down without shoes
and he threw his shoes out through the hole and then I got a shoe
on the nose. So the whole operation took 10 to 15 minutes. I waited on the
corner with two taxis to take people away. Manus and Pinek brought two people
out and I waited until everything was ready. Karol was the last one to
come out. I accompanied him to the taxi and I went with Manus to
another taxi and drove to the bunker in the Roja Dome.
Yes, that's how far we went.
When escaping to Romania, new tricks had to be constantly invented.
I and four other boys were dressed as tennis players.
We drove in an open Maibach and we were supposed to represent a German tennis union team.
Whenever we were stopped for a check, the Hungarian driver grilled the police officers.
Do you even know who you stopped?
That is mostly the German Union and you want to inspect them.
Do you want to be arrested by the Gestapo tomorrow?
So we made it to the border without any problems.
On July 1, 1944, I had to leave Budapest because I was in danger.
We put a group of ten people together, three Poles, including a bishop, and seven Jews.
We went to Szeged and the mayor of Szeged accompanied us to the Romanian border from there.
When we arrived at the meeting point where the smuggler was supposed to be waiting for us, he was not there.
We wanted to hide in the forest or go east, illegally, to Romania without smugglers.
Then he said, no, I'm the boss here, we're going back, going to the pub here
and we'll have a drink and then go out again in half an hour, maybe he'll be there then.
And so it was.
We went out, walked toward the meeting point and saw a man waiting there.
At the same moment, two gendarmes in rigid hats and feather plumes appeared behind us.
We stopped and they asked, what are you doing here?
We said nothing in response.
And the mayor said we were a group of nature lovers, Poles,
and he brought us here to show us the beautiful area.
and that he was the mayor.
They said, okay, please come with us to the train station.
We called Szeged, and when all of that was true, then everything was fine.
We went to the train station, waited 10 minutes, 20 minutes, almost half an hour.
I started to feel uneasy and hid my revolver in the bushes.
After about half an hour, two genders with spiked bayonets suddenly appeared from each of the four
directions, that's what these gendarmes
were called in Hungarian.
We didn't deal much with them or anyone else, then they put us on a small truck and
took us to the nearest police station.
They immediately started to interrogate one of us there.
He received blows on the soles of his feet because that was their specialty.
Then one of the interrogators opened the door and said, well, it's almost
over now because the Gestapo are coming.
Indeed, the Gestapo was there after a minute.
They greeted the mayor, because he had already said beforehand that everything would be fine if the Gestapo came, that they were his friends.
and went into the interrogation room with the Hungarians.
After a short time, they came out and said,
Skolteti, this will cost you your head.
You smuggled Jews here.
Two days later, when I was arrested at the Romanian border,
someone denounced me, and I was arrested
and brought here to this prison, to Scharbenberg.
They gave me a quick examination and took everything from my pockets away.
Luckily for me, I didn't have my revolver with me; I left it at home.
An officer and a soldier accompanied me to the cell and asked me in the corridor,
are you actually a criminal and a Jew?
I said, I am neither a Jew nor a criminal.
I noticed that he didn't like the way I contradicted him.
And then he stood up and the keys suddenly fell from his hand onto the floor.
Then he told me, damn it, pick them up quickly.
Then I let myself down and he hit me in the face with his knee
as if it was an accident and then I was covered in blood and fell.
The soldier ran over quickly and brought a bucket of water
and poured it over my head.
Then I got up again and they took me to a cell
where over 20 people were already inside and threw me down on the floor.
After a short time, I came to my senses and
I saw different people, I didn't know anyone there except a Jew from Poland, from Krakow.
And that was after an aggravation of the investigation
and breaking the hands, the feet, the legs, everything.
There were also two Slovaks among the prisoners, strong,
and they were involved in some kind of smuggling or something
and they were brought here too.
They briefly told me, you know what, you have to get out of here before you get beaten.
I say, yes, that's true.
So we want that too and we can take you with us too, we see that you are a strong man.
There is a grate that you can break out of.
Two hours later, the two Slovaks were taken away for investigation and they never came back.
Then I decided that night that I would break out the grate on my own.
And when I started, it was already eleven o'clock at night, maybe twelve, and it was completely quiet.
The guard watch was only at the front of the house and I only saw forest and fields behind it.
I began and it took about two hours.
Then I broke open a hole so that my head could come through and
then I turned around and got out.
I learned to my surprise that nine other people left too.
But I didn't know that then. I ran straight down to the forest.
And when I was a few hundred meters away, the alarm went off
and the cars started driving through the paths because I was running through a field.
And then I came to a church.
So that was already far away from there, probably two to three kilometers.
And I lay down on the ground in the church garden.
As the sun rose early, I heard a tram passing not far from me.
Then I slowly went out and I got on the first tram and rode away
and changed trams again to Manus' apartment.
I got there and stayed with him.
I did not feel that well.
When they brought me here, they immediately took me one floor down to an interrogation room.
The first question was, what is your name?
And after I didn't answer Leon Blatt, but gave my false name,
he said, then lie down.
Then there was a rubber truncheon, quite long, with notches cut into it.
I had to take off my pants and then it started. Once, twice, three times.
Then I was allowed to get up again. What's your name?
I didn't admit it. Then there were three more times.
I thought I was at the end.
But strangely enough, I didn't feel the next hits at all.
Everything was completely shattered.
And so it went on for several hours.
My head was pushed into a water bucket
until I almost drown. Two, three, four times.
And after all,
they only wanted me to admit that I was Leon Blatt.
And I knew that this couldn't be good.
I was afraid that the old stories that existed before we came to Hungary had already been leaked.
I got beaten almost non-stop until five in the evening.
Then one of those who were there said,
hey you, bring the others in, otherwise we'll kill him and find out nothing.
They put me facing the wall and said if you turn around, we'll shoot.
Then I heard the door open and people came in.
I didn't know how many and turned around really fast.
There was a woman and a man there.
And they asked, do you know him? The answer was yes.
What's his name? Leon Blatt.
Then they closed the door. Turn around.
I turned back around.
Then they told me, you don't have to admit that you are Leon Blatt.
We'll bring you 50 more people tomorrow who will say that.
For each one, you'll get a beaten ass.
And that was the end of the devastation.
And they took me back to the prison cell on the Felser.
The next day, I was interrogated again.
They were polite to me and said, hello, Mr. Blatt.
Please take a seat.
And when he noticed that I could not sit, that he could hardly move me,
he said, if you would rather stand, then stay standing.
Once I stood still, he said, no, sit down.
And then suddenly, completely irrelevant questions were asked.
I preferred to think about questions about what happened before, and I was afraid of that.
And then they asked me, did you smuggle Jews into Romania?
Yes, was my answer.
And then they asked, how many?
I said, between 35 and 40.
When they heard that, they were suddenly amazed.
They hadn't imagined that there would be so many.
They then asked me their names, how tall they were or how old they were.
I gave names of people who I knew had already gone to Israel.
Several who had remained in Upper Silesia and were no longer alive.
At least the names where I knew exactly what they looked like and approximately how old they were.
On the last day of the interrogation, the interrogation lasted four days, then
they repeated to me, they asked me the names in order or randomly,
and how old the people were and so on.
Since everything was right, they said, that's it, you could have saved yourself the beating.
And sent me back to the cell and I stayed there for several days,
almost two weeks, in fact, until they sent me to Auschwitz.
Three young comrades from our group, the youngest in the group,
were arrested for conspiratorial activity and sentenced to death.
They were my brother Alex Gatmon, Emil Brick, who was later honored as a national hero in Israel, and a girl named Danka Gilboa.
They were imprisoned at a very strict penitentiary and survived brutal and sadistic torture.
They wanted to force them to reveal the names of other members of the group in this way.
Despite the torment and suffering, they did not say a word.
On the other hand, comrades in Budapest tried the whole time to free the three friends, but unfortunately, it was too complicated.
One day, the guys came up with a great plan, a plan to escape.
But someone would have to go into the prison to give the inmates this plan.
It was decided that I would go to Pecs and try to get into the prison.
At that time, I had a credential, a document from the Red Cross where it was written that I was a delegate of the Red Cross.
Some of our people still had such a pass and I took advantage of this credential.
I went into the prison and I was very tense, I was very scared.
The visit was very dramatic, a guard was in the same room the whole time.
I spoke to each one separately and we talked to each other like strangers, even so with my brother.
Everyone received a packet of sweets and there was the escape plan underneath it.
The escape did not occur, but after the Red Cross visited, the torture stopped and I, as a Red Cross worker, was permitted to send lunch to our friends every day.
The escape did not take place, but...
Two hours before the execution, a miracle happened and our three friends were freed by the Russian army.
12,000 people were still burned in the crematoria every day.
I came to Auschwitz at the end of October 1944
That was certain death for me.
I experienced another selection,
but I hid to avoid going to the place where I was selected to go.
On November 8, the gas chambers stopped operating.
And as if by a miracle, I stayed alive.
If 12,000 Jews had continued to be gassed every day until the liquidation of Auschwitz in January 1945,
not a single persecutee would have survived.
This also applies to the 130,000 Jews from Bergen-Belsen to Mordhausen.
And it applies to the additional 300,000 Jews in Budapest.
They all owe their lives to the courage of the rescue committee led by Rege Kastner.
The memorial at the Budapest Synagogue reads
A person who saves only one soul is treated
as if they had saved all of humanity.