"Zichronot Me-ha-Shoah, 1944-1945"

Identifier
irn500010
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2000.105
Dates
1 Jan 1999 - 31 Dec 1999
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • German
  • Hebrew
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

folders

2

Creator(s)

Biographical History

Israel Laszlo Lazar (Israel László Lázár) was born on January 25, 1930 in Oradea, Romania (Oradea-Mare, Transylvania, Romania) to Rozalia (1905-1944, née Braun) and Jeno (1897-1945) Lazar. He had a younger brother, Aharon Tibor Lazar (1932-1944). During the war, they lived in Nagyvárad until Hungary was invaded by the Germans. When Lazar was 14 years old, he and his family were taken to the Nagyvárad ghetto until they were transported to Auschwitz in late May 1944. At the suggestion of a sonderkommando, or a Jewish prisoner forced to work at gas chambers and crematoria, Lazar stated that he was sixteen, instead of fourteen years old, marking his birth date in records as March 15, 1928. His mother, brother, grandfather Mort, and many other relatives perished in the gas chambers. Lazar and his father were selected for work and were taken to Buchenwald in June 1944. Between 1944 and 1945, Lazar, his father, and uncle were forced to work in a factory called Brabag making synthetic petroleum in Rehmsdorf at the Wille forced labor camp, a subcamp of Buchenwald. In January 1945, Lazar was sent to a crematorium in Buchenwald where he was eventually liberated by the American army in April. Following his liberation from Buchenwald in 1945 and his recovery from typhus, Lazar was repatriated and reunited with his uncle in Oradea, where he learned of his father’s death. He lived with his uncle until 1951 and then immigrated to Israel where he married and had four children. He served in the Israeli Air Force for 31 years and retired as a sergeant major.

Archival History

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Acquisition

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received this material from Israel Lazar on Mar. 29, 2000.

Scope and Content

Contains Israel (Laszlo) Lazar's 125-page memoir in Hebrew entitled "Zichronot Me-ha-Shoah,1944-1945" (Memoirs about the Holocaust, 1944-1945). He describes his deportation from the ghetto in Oradea (Nagyvarad), Romania, to Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Rehmsdorf-Troeglitz concentration camps, and his liberation in Buchenwald. He also describes his visit to Oradea in 1998. Survivor Israel Lazar's eyewitness testimonies complete with photocopies of documents, pieces of correspondence, and black and white photos.

People

Subjects

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.