Anton (Meisner) Mason was born in Austria, Hungary (now Romania) in April 1927.
He lived in a town called Sighet with a population of 30000 and about 40 percent of the town was Jewish. His family was well off and very generous to the poor. Of the 40 percent of Jewish people 30 percent were very poor.
He said in 1942 the families’ hopes that the war would pass them by were gone. He had an aunt and uncle that were taken for 3 months to Poland. When they returned they told them that the Nazis were murdering Jews, in horrible ways. The only way they had escaped was that the uncle knew some peasants in the area and he and Anton’s aunt hid out in a barn, unknown to the peasants, until he could find passage back. This was first hand information to confirm the rumors.
In Hungary in January 1944 he started to see the big changes. They were not allowed to travel, slaughter Kosher meat, be in the front of any lines, and they had to be off the street by 7pm. He was still attending school during this period. 2 years previous the Nazis had taken all the radios so they had no news coming in.
In March 1944 they were taken to a ghetto in Sighet where approximately 20000 Jews were crammed into a space that used to hold about 3 to 4000 people. They were allowed 2 beds and 1 suitcase each. The Hungarian authorities took all their valuables and all their money. They had heard rumors about this happening, so they had transferred food to the ghetto earlier. His father’s niece owned the house they were moved into. There were approximately 30 to 40 people living in a 4 person house. There were 12 people in the room that he and his family claimed. They used a time share system to cook and clean. They were there for 6 weeks.
In May of 1944 the Nazis started emptying the ghetto. They now could only take one change of clothing, and food rations for one day of travel. 1500 people left the ghetto one morning, marched to a synagogue and left there overnight. The next morning, after no sleep they were marched to the railroad station and loaded onto cattle cars. He said there were about 70 to 80 people loaded into each cattle car. It was only after about 5-6 hours of travel did they realize they were headed to Poland. Within the cattle car, one side was set up as a section to relieve themselves, and to put bodies of people that had died during the trip. They were held in the car for a little over 72 hours.
The people were taken off the cattle car at about 10 pm and the men were separated from the women and children. His mother and little brother were killed immediately. His father and he were put through a processing center that took about 12 hours. They were stripped, showered, deloused, tattooed and their heads were shaved. Once they were in the barracks they were told that their mother/wife and brother/son were dead. He said they were in Birkenau “Auschwitz 2” for two days and then marched to “Auschwitz 1”. They were sent then to Buna-Monowitz on June 12 1944, “Auschwitz 3”. They woke at 4:30am, were given a piece of bread and a little margarine and some sort of hot black drink made from a root. They would march out to work at 6:30am and they worked until 5:30pm and marched back to camp. At 6:30pm they had soup and then lights out by 8pm, and they did this six and a half days a week. They worked til noon on Sunday and they got their heads shaved on that afternoon and washed and fixed their uniforms for work. Every 4 weeks there were at least 200 dead, and 200 new people would be shipped in.
Anton’s father died after a 100 mile “death march” to Buchenwald in January 1945. In Buchenwald they cut the rations again but they didn’t have to work. The camp was made for only 20000 people but there were about 80000 people there when he arrived. At Buchenwald he said he didn’t only have to worry about the Germans, you had to be careful of other prisoners who would steal your food. During the last 10 days before liberation, in order not to show up to the square, where he feared he would be killed, he hid anywhere he could including a pile of dead bodies. Every morning he would get his bread and crawl under the barracks and stay there or he would stay in the barracks hidden by a Frenchman he had made friends with.
On April 11th the Americans showed up. There were 32000 people left in the camp.
Out of 62 people in his family, only he and his aunt’s husband survived.
“…it was a disaster! But, it’s amazing what people can get used to.”- Anton Mason discussing the time in the ghetto.
“We tried to be civilized to the very last moment.”- Anton Mason speaking about his time spent in the cattle car during his deportation to Auschwitz.
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