Номер объектаM2013/014:002
ОписаниеDiary written by Rabbi Dr Andrew Kampfner (Andor Kaempfner) immediately after the war, undated. It records his experiences during the Holocaust to "lay his ghosts", according to the donor Avril Symon, who was his wife.
In the introduction, he writes: “I have to write about it. People not there wouldn’t believe me and those who were there didn’t want to talk about it. What I am trying to do now is almost impossible. Because for a stranger it is impossible to form even an approximate idea what it was like in reality in a German lager (camp)”...“And still I have to write about it. I have to, because the world has to know once, how terrible, degrading, evil, mean can a human be”.
Dr Andor Kaempfner was born 23 September 1918 in Ersekujvar (originally part of Hungary, but under the Treaty of Versailles it became part of Czechoslovakia). According to one of his educational records, the name of his father was Mark. He had two sisters. Andor went to school in Ersekujvar and matriculated at the Pazmany Peter secondary school in 1936. He enrolled in the Faculty of Arts of the Pazmany Peter University in Budapest in the same year but actually started his studies in Prague at the German University. He was there until 1938.
There is no record of his studies between 1938 and 1941 when he was enrolled in Budapest again. It is possible that he was studying in the rabbinic seminary in Budapest. He was ordained a rabbi perhaps in 1947. His father died of natural causes on the day the Germans occupied Hungary, 19 March 1944.
Soon after, together with his mother and sisters he had to move into the ghetto in Ersekujvar and then had to move again when the area of the ghetto was reduced. From there he and his family as well as the rest of the Jewish population was herded into the local brick factory where they were joined by the population of other nearby ghettos until they were put into wagons and taken to Auschwitz. His mother was gassed within hours of arriving there and one his sisters was killed there too. His other sister survived. In Auschwitz he worked in the Bathhouse at first and then at Monowitz. In January he was on the death March to Buchenwald. In Buchenwald after a while he ended up in the hospital and he was there when the American Army liberated the camp. He returned to Hungary soon after the war – by June 1945 he was in Budapest tracing his academic records.
He immediately joined the Zionist movement and worked for the establishment of a Jewish homeland as well urging Jews to make Aliyah. By 1947 he was working as a rabbi in Levice, a town in Czechoslovakia. In 1948 he went to Israel and he taught at an agricultural secondary school. At the request of the Jewish Agency he went to London in 1959 to establish the Hebrew language department at the Jewish Free School. Three years later he met Avril at the school and they married in 1964. He died in 1978 and Avril took his body to Jerusalem for burial. Among other things, he had a phenomenal capacity for languages. In addition to Hungarian, he spoke Slovak, German, Hebrew and English at a very high level.
The key items of the collection are two notebooks. The first one contains his testimony up until approximately August 1944. One half of the second notebook (the undamaged half) starts around the 18th or 19th of January, on the death march and ends with the liberation of the camp. The other, damaged half, of the notebook contains his speeches for the Zionist movement in Hungarian, Slovak and Hebrew, his thoughts about the Jewish fate, some poetry and, likely, some sermons.
There must have been a third notebook chronicling what happened between August / September 1944 and the death march. That must have been totally destroyed when the other book got damaged. This occurred when his effects were shipped from Israel to London and the chest got water damage.
In the introduction, he writes: “I have to write about it. People not there wouldn’t believe me and those who were there didn’t want to talk about it. What I am trying to do now is almost impossible. Because for a stranger it is impossible to form even an approximate idea what it was like in reality in a German lager (camp)”...“And still I have to write about it. I have to, because the world has to know once, how terrible, degrading, evil, mean can a human be”.
Dr Andor Kaempfner was born 23 September 1918 in Ersekujvar (originally part of Hungary, but under the Treaty of Versailles it became part of Czechoslovakia). According to one of his educational records, the name of his father was Mark. He had two sisters. Andor went to school in Ersekujvar and matriculated at the Pazmany Peter secondary school in 1936. He enrolled in the Faculty of Arts of the Pazmany Peter University in Budapest in the same year but actually started his studies in Prague at the German University. He was there until 1938.
There is no record of his studies between 1938 and 1941 when he was enrolled in Budapest again. It is possible that he was studying in the rabbinic seminary in Budapest. He was ordained a rabbi perhaps in 1947. His father died of natural causes on the day the Germans occupied Hungary, 19 March 1944.
Soon after, together with his mother and sisters he had to move into the ghetto in Ersekujvar and then had to move again when the area of the ghetto was reduced. From there he and his family as well as the rest of the Jewish population was herded into the local brick factory where they were joined by the population of other nearby ghettos until they were put into wagons and taken to Auschwitz. His mother was gassed within hours of arriving there and one his sisters was killed there too. His other sister survived. In Auschwitz he worked in the Bathhouse at first and then at Monowitz. In January he was on the death March to Buchenwald. In Buchenwald after a while he ended up in the hospital and he was there when the American Army liberated the camp. He returned to Hungary soon after the war – by June 1945 he was in Budapest tracing his academic records.
He immediately joined the Zionist movement and worked for the establishment of a Jewish homeland as well urging Jews to make Aliyah. By 1947 he was working as a rabbi in Levice, a town in Czechoslovakia. In 1948 he went to Israel and he taught at an agricultural secondary school. At the request of the Jewish Agency he went to London in 1959 to establish the Hebrew language department at the Jewish Free School. Three years later he met Avril at the school and they married in 1964. He died in 1978 and Avril took his body to Jerusalem for burial. Among other things, he had a phenomenal capacity for languages. In addition to Hungarian, he spoke Slovak, German, Hebrew and English at a very high level.
The key items of the collection are two notebooks. The first one contains his testimony up until approximately August 1944. One half of the second notebook (the undamaged half) starts around the 18th or 19th of January, on the death march and ends with the liberation of the camp. The other, damaged half, of the notebook contains his speeches for the Zionist movement in Hungarian, Slovak and Hebrew, his thoughts about the Jewish fate, some poetry and, likely, some sermons.
There must have been a third notebook chronicling what happened between August / September 1944 and the death march. That must have been totally destroyed when the other book got damaged. This occurred when his effects were shipped from Israel to London and the chest got water damage.
Дата 1945 - 1945
Темаtestimonies, memoirs, survivors
Наименованиеjournals
Материалpaper
Размерность
- width: 165.00 mm
height: 205.00 mm
Язык
- Hungarian see External Material M2013.014.002
Кредитная линияSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Avril Symon