Tag #137911 - Interview #78465 (Egon Lovith)

I was called up to forced labor in 1944 into the 110/63 army brigade in Nagybanya. In Kolozsvar we all still had our backpacks and we were marching in our civil clothes but only some people had boots. I didn’t have boots only paper-soled shoes that I got from the Jewish Association before we left, but my feet were hanging out of the shoes. We were in our own clothes but there were also some rich Jewish kids amongst us who were wearing their best clothes; nice textile pants, big boots, down jackets, and some of them even had extra boots with them. Their faces were so puffy from being overweight that their eyes were protruding. They sat down to eat their food but they wouldn’t have shared it with the others. I didn’t even ask for it, just out of pride. This is telling how great the class difference was even among us Jews.