A systematic regime of brutality which in nine months reduced a Jewish forced labor company in the Hungarian army from 210 to eight men was described here today by Ludwing Hartman, a Jewish conscript who was captured by the Red Army on the Voronezh front.
This is Hartman’s story as told to the Red Army officers who questioned him : “In April of 1942 Ober-Lieut. Murois before sending Labor Battalion 101, to which my company was attached, to the front, addressed the subordinate officers, telling them that they had 210 Jews, each, under their command and that ‘you must not give them any rest, day or night. Anyone who comes back with more than ten men will be considered a good-for-nothing.’ During the following months we were literally driven from place to place and forced to construct fortifications. The food was vile and the only reason we ate it was ate it was because we had been reduced to a state of starvation and the slop was warm.
“Finally we were sent to Archangelskoye. Here we were worked frequently from three in the morning until midnight. During the two-and-a-half months we were there, dozens of men died from typhoid fever, dysentery and pneumonia. There was no medical assistance or medicine of any kind. It was during this period that most of our men succumbed. Thirty-two between the ages of 23 and 26 were listed by the officers as having died ‘from old age.’ Many men froze to death. When the Russians forced the Hungarian troops to retreat, there were only eight of us left.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
