- Headline
-
Tells Murder of 5 Million Jews
- Sub-Headline
- Ex-Hungarian Leader Says Victims Gassed. Cremated At Nazi Death Factory.
- Publication Date
- Wednesday, April 11, 1945
- Historical Event
-
Eisenhower Asks Congress and Press to Witness Nazi Horrors
This database includes 1,688 articles about this event - Article Type
- Location
- Page Section and Number
- 1
- Author/Byline
- AP
- Article Text
- NEAR ERFURT, Germany—(AP)—Dr. Bela Fabian, president of the dissolved Hungarian Independent Democratic party, said in an interview today that 5,000,000 Jews had been gassed and cremated at a murder factory at Auschwitz, in Upper Silesia.
Fabian said he was taken to Auschwitz 10 months ago with 500,000 other Hungarian Jews and that 400,000 were gassed and cremated in the first two months and that only 1,000 remained alive.
With Lieut. Theodore Gutman of Los Angeles, and Sergt. Siegmund Fuld, New York City, acting as translators. Fabian told a story so horrible as to be almost unbelievable.
Unnerved by Ordeal
Fabian said he could speak English but that he was so unnerved by the ordeal of his detention that he preferred to give the interview in German.
Fabian said the 5,000,000 murdered at Auschwitz included Jews from Belgium, Holland, France, Poland, Russia, Hungary and Greece.
Fabian said he spent four months at Auschwitz and then was moved last October 26 to Oranienburg near Berlin because the Germans feared the Russians would overrun the murder plant.
After two weeks at Oranienburg, Fabian was shifted to Ohrdruf, south of Gotha, where he remained until he was liberated by the Americans.
Called Miracle
Three others liberated from the concentration camp were Heinz Meyer, 22, a Hungarian violinist. Desider Kohlmann, 34-year-old Bratislavan, and Sam Ezratty, 28-year-old Greek medical student.
They said it was a miracle that Fabian survived.
All Jews over 50 were automatically gassed and cremated, but the Germans believed Fabian when he insisted he was only 46.
Fabian, who asked that his friend, Rep. Sol Bloom (D., N. Y.) be notified of his safety, explained that his party of approximately 60,000 members was dissolved by the Hungarian government at the insistence of the Germans three years ago.
An author as well as a politician—he wrote "Six Horses and 40 Men" and "1,000 Men Without a Woman"—Fabian said the Auschwitz butchery was run by an officer who, with a dramatic flourish of a hand, would order entire groups or parts of groups gassed or cremated without questioning or examining any of them. - History Unfolded Contributor
- Margaret L.
- Location of Research
- Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)
Learn More about this Historical Event: Eisenhower Asks Congress and Press to Witness Nazi Horrors
- Ohrdruf (Encyclopedia Article)
- Liberation of Nazi Camps (Encyclopedia Article)
- 4th Armored Division (Encyclopedia Article)
Bibliography
Abzug, Robert H. GIs Remember: Liberating the Concentration Camps. Washington, DC: National Museum of American Jewish History, 1994.
Abzug, Robert H. Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Bridgman, Jon. End of the Holocaust: The Liberation of the Camps. Portland, OR: Areopagitica Press, 1990.
Chamberlin, Brewster S., and Marcia Feldman, editors. The Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945: Eyewitness Accounts of the Liberators. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 1987.
Goodell, Stephen, and Kevin Mahoney. 1945: The Year of Liberation. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1995.
Goodell, Stephen, and Susan D. Bachrach. Liberation 1945. Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1995.
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