Erno Grosz
Ernő Grosz (later Ernest Gross) was born in Nyírbogát, Hungary, on November 11, 1928, one of seven children of Devorah (née Lorber) and Kalman Grosz. The family lived in Munkacs (now Mukachevo in Ukraine), which was part of Czechoslovakia from 1920, following the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I. In November 1938, when Nazi-allied Hungary seized the territory back, it ushered in a new era for the community’s Jews. Hungarian officials swiftly instituted Antisemitic measures and, the following year, began conscripting Jewish men into forced labor, among them Ernő’s father. Although the circumstances of his death are not known, the family never saw him again.
Despite these hardships, Hungary remained a relative haven for Jews until March 1944, when Germany invaded Hungary. At the time, the family was living in nearby Beregszász (now Berehove), where 12,000 Jews from the area were placed in a makeshift ghetto in a brick factory the following month, on the last day of Passover. From May 15-19, the ghetto was liquidated, its inhabitants crammed into cattle cars and transported to Auschwitz. Ernő’s mother and four younger siblings – Fischl, Hirsch, Sarah, and Gitl – were gassed immediately upon their arrival, but he and his older brother, Jenő (later known as Eugene), were selected for work. (Having been instructed that being skilled in a trade would be beneficial, they lied and said that they were electricians.)
Ernő and Jenő stayed together, surviving five different concentration camps. After just a few days in Auschwitz, they were transferred to Oberwüstegiersdorf, a subcamp of Gross-Rosen, where they performed hard labor under terrible conditions until January 1945. They were then taken to Flossenbürg, first marching by foot for several days and then being crammed onto wagons, with many prisoners dying on the journey. Several weeks later, they were evacuated to outrun the advancing allies, moving from one German town to another, again marching and then placed on a wagon that, this time, was struck by an air raid. Chased from the car and forced to continue walking, the prisoners were finally liberated by French officers.
The brothers returned home and were reunited with one of their sisters, Magda, who also survived Auschwitz, but the Jewish community of Beregszász was devastated by the Holocaust. Ernő and Jenő subsequently stayed at the Föhrenwald Displaced Persons camp near Munich, in the American Zone of Germany, until they could go to the United States, where they were sponsored by their maternal uncle Nendel Polacsek. Their sister had returned to Hungary so that she could emigrate with her fiancé, but they were trapped there when the country fell under Communist rule and the Iron Curtain cut off ties between the Soviet Bloc and the West. They were finally reunited in the early 1970s, when Magda and her family emigrated to the United States.
Ernő met his Viennese wife, Michaela, in 1949 at a Passover program at Grossingers, the Catskills resort. She was there on vacation with her parents, who were born in Poland but had moved to Vienna, Austria, before emigrating to then-Palestine in 1933. Michaela returned to Vienna but married Ernő, and they had one daughter, Daniella, who lived with them between New York and Vienna. Although he had a very limited secular education, Ernő did go on to receive electrical training, and later owned a successful heat-sealing company. He passed away, from glioblastoma, on December 6, 1981.
Daniella and her ex-husband, Mickey Schlisser, are the parents of Heschel graduates Emanuel (Mani) ‘11, Isabel ‘14, and Simeon ‘20 (Simi).
Not long after his liberation, Ernő Grosz shared details of his ordeal with representatives of Deportáltakat Gondozó Országos Bizottság (the National Relief Committee for Deportees), also known as DEGOB. In addition to helping survivors return home and providing support services, this Hungarian Jewish organization documented the experiences of some 5,000 survivors, forming one of the largest collections of early witness accounts. This is the testimony Ernő gave them in their Budapest office on July 2, 1945:
“We were transferred from the ghetto in the middle of May. After a few days we arrived to Auschwitz. The journey took a heavy toll on my parents and on my young siblings, because we rarely got water and we had little food. We were exhausted by the heat. I see still vividly before my eyes the overcrowded wagons and the wailing of the sick. In such a state of mind we arrived to Auschwitz. We were chased out with sticks from the wagons, we had to leave all our luggages behind. When I looked around, the only family member I could see standing besides me at the right side was my brother. We were assigned to work. We were led into a bath, where we were disinfected, got all our body hairs removed, they took my remaining clothes and shoes, and instead I got wooden clogs and striped clothes.
After a few days I got to Oberwüstegiersdorf with a transport. We were 500 people, we were each given 500 g bread, 20 g butter and “Wurst” [sausage]. We lived in tents, the Lagerführer, the SS soldier Otto Weingartner, hit and beat us a lot. We suffered a lot from him. We worked on a station building, we worked 12 hours a day. They demanded that we did a lot of heavy work. There was no opportunity for washing ourselves at all, which caused that we got lice. The food was very poor: the daily ration was turnip soup with 200 g bread, and very rarely we got some black coffee. Many people died due to insufficient nutrition. 8 months passed in this way. I was able to cope with the work quite well, both physically and mentally. In the middle of January, we were set to march on foot to Flossenburg.
We arrived after 10 days. We got 400 g bread and a little honey for 5 days of march. We finished this little food already on the first day, we marched on the following four days with empty stomach. We ate snow on the way, those who fell behind were shot in the back of the head, they died on the road. On the fifth day we were put on train wagons, 120 people in one wagon, and the doors were locked. We suffered unspeakably much in these days: we thought that we would never get out alive. When they opened the doors, there were always at least 30 dead in the wagons. They were thrown out, and we were glad that there were fewer of us, because we lost all our feelings, everyone just wanted to save his own life.
We spent 5 weeks in Flossenburg. There were 1,000 people in each barrack, five people shared one bed, we did not work, but this was even more terrible. The Kapos beat the exhausted people until they died, and if some of them had a gold tooth, they broke it out from his mouth. We arrived to a penal camp, every day at least 30 - 40 people died due to various tortures. We got soup and 150 g bread every day. From here we were transferred to Offenburg.
We did not spend much time here, we were transferred to Donaueistlingen with a transport. Our sufferings continued here. Those who could not work were killed with poison. The poor ones got a petrol injection. Many who were still alive were thrown into the latrine where they drowned. We were cleaning ruins, with shaking legs, because we had no more strength left. Many died of typhoid fever. We were transferred from here again, first marching on foot, later in wagons. It was already early April. Our locomotive was hit at an air raid at Immendingen, it was completely destroyed. We were chased out from the wagons and had to continue to march, probably they had the intention of executing us at the last minute. The plan did not work as the French liberated us in the woods, a few hours after the air raid.
Now I want to return home, maybe someone also has returned from my family. In any case we will emigrate to Palestine.”
Accompanying notes indicate that Ernő was in Auschwitz for 3 days; at Oberwüstegiersdorf from May 28 through January 15; Flossenburg from January 15 - February 2; Offenburg through the end of February; and Donaueislingen, through March 30.
