Hugo Gryn (M / Slovakia, 1930), Holocaust survivor
Hugo Gryn (M / Slovakia, 1930), Holocaust survivor
- KEYWORDS : <Auschwitz> <Mauthausen> <Gunskirchen>
Biography
Hugo Gabriel Gryn, born June 25, 1930, describes life in Ruthenia, Czechoslovakia from 1930 to 1938; his family; his education; the relations between Jews and non-Jews before 1938; being a school child in Ruthenian during the Hungarian occupation from 1938 to 1940; the reaction to the Hungarian take-over in November 1938; the previous Hungarian terrorism; the impact of occupation on daily life; the influx of Polish refugees in September 1939; restrictions on his father’s business; anti-Jewish attacks; attending boarding school in Debrecen, Hungary from 1940 to 1943; viewing propaganda films; the work of the Jewish Schoolboy Labor Brigade; self-defense training received from a school teacher; the standard of living in Debrecen; his apprehensiveness about future; his attitude towards Allies and Axis powers; returning to Ruthenia in 1944; his father’s plans to escape to Turkey; the arrest of thirty Jewish civilians and their ransom in March 1944; the confiscation of the family home; moving into the Berehovo Ghetto in April 1944; being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in May 1944; the transport to Auschwitz; lying about his age during the selection process; witnessing new arrivals entering gas chambers; being an inmate in Lieberose concentration camp in 1944; working as a carpenter; his opportunity to write a postcard; rations; working in a hospital; the evacuation of the camp; marching to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in January 1945; being an inmate in Mauthausen concentration camp from Feburary 1945 to April 1945; going to Gunskirchen concentration camp in April 1945 and being liberated by American troops; the physical condition of inmates upon liberation; going to Hersching air base and the death of his father; his religious beliefs; his attitude towards Germans; the behavior of inmates towards each other; executions at Sachsenhausen; marching through Berlin, Germany in December 1944; acts of sabotage in the camps; and the killing of an Ukrainian guard by inmates. See USHMM Oral Interview.