Tag #138664 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

We were there for almost 35-40 days, approximately. After that the whole group was put on trucks, in chains, and they took us to Pest in prison. This was kind of a gatherer prison, even worse than a regular prison. The prison had enormous buildings, 6 or 7 of them. The girls were in other places. There was a room of 8 meters by 10, and we put some matting on the cement and slept on them. I don't know, we were some 150, 200, but we had no room to sleep on our backs, only sideways, packed like sardines. And if one wanted to turn over, one had to move two or three other people, because otherwise it wasn't possible. There was a toilet there, and one had to wait a quarter of an hour for one's turn. It was horrible. It was light all through the night in order to prevent us from doing anything. The meal was catastrophic, not only for us, but for the population, as well. I think our daily portion of bread was 180 or 200 grams. In the prison we were like in communism, in communities. I had visitors, my brother and my father came to visit me – it was humane from their part to let visitors to come –, they brought me, I don't know, I think 2 pieces of bread and 1 kg of salami, placed in a chest. After I brought it in, we sat around it, just like in a community. Ten of us were from Magyarlapos. Then everyone of us got 50 grams of bread, 1 slice of salami and half of a sugar cube. This was already in the spirit of communism: equality. There were some wealthier guys amongst us, and they shared everything. In addition, we were lucky because there was a Jewish organization called Omzsa. [OMZSA – National Aiding Action of Hungarian Jews]. They used to also bring us one or two plates of food from the Jewish kitchen for us to eat. Probably this kept our spirit alive. I was in that terrible situation for three months.