Naftali Fürst

Naftali (Juraj) Fürst (M / Slovakia, 1933), Holocaust survivor.

• KEYWORDS : <Auschwitz> <Buchenwald (Block 66)> <Liberation of Buchenwald>

Biography

Naftali Fürst was born in 1933 as Juraj Fürst into the family of Petržalka’s carpenter. He had one older brother Peter. After the Slovak State was declared, the family had to hide until the father’s decision to voluntarily enter the camp in Sereď. There he worked as the head of cabinetmaking workshops. Before the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising they decided to run away from Sereď. When the German Army came, the family members were arrested and separated. They met together yet in Sereď camp under the command of Alois Brunner. From this camp the family was deported to Auschwitz, where again the children were separated from their parents. Juraj and his brother got to the sub-camp of Budy, from where they later managed to survive the death march to Buchenwald. Juraj got ill there and waited to see the liberation in brothel of Buchenwald’s camp. After the war the family gathered together and Juraj emigrated to Israel.