Tag #138680 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

In those days there were around 17,000 Jews, including very rich ones. When the local Jews saw us with yellow arm-bands [Editor's note: because some of us have been summoned there from forced labor] – we didn't have uniforms yet, we were in civil clothes – and everybody asked us: 'What are these guys doing here? Why are they taken to the courthouse?' One Sunday morning we went to the headquarters, escorted, of course. When we entered, one of the sergeants said to us: 'Wait until the colonel calls you.' The local commander was a colonel in the Hungarian army. 10 minutes later they called us and when we walked in we almost fell prat. The colonel sat at a small table having coffee with a bearded Jew wearing kippah, theeing each other. Oh God, what's this? Then he said: 'So, you good for nothing communists, you're lucky with my friend Mr. Freund here.' The Jew was called Freund, he was the president of the Jewish community. This Freund family was very wealthy, now the whole family is in America. He was on good terms with this local colonel, and he arranged for us to get rid of the arm-bands and to go to the court by ourselves in the morning, without escort. He guaranteed that we would not flee. I was sentenced to one and a half years in prison, being charged with the fact that with the money I raised I helped the communists from Northern Transylvania.