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Zdjęcia w artykule dzięki uprzejmości Muzeum Reina Sofia
In total, the Germans transferred 24 transports of over 46,000 Jews from the Theresienstadt Ghetto to Auschwitz. About 18,000 of them were placed in a special family camp in section BIIb of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp.
In another shoe, however, we came across documents in Hungarian. 'We already have shoes with such findings in our collections, but these are mainly newspapers, which were often used as insoles or additional insulation. This find is precious and interesting because the documents have been preserved in good condition and they contain dates, names of the persons concerned and handwritten captions. They date back to 1941 and 1942,' added Hanna Kubik.
These documents belonged to people probably living in Munkacs and Budapest. 'Some of them are official documents, a fragment of a brochure and a piece of paper with a name. The names Ackermann, Brávermann and Beinhorn appear in the find. They were probably deported to Auschwitz in the spring or summer of 1944 during the extermination of Hungarian Jews. I hope that more in-depth research will allow us to determine the details of the individuals. The discovered documents will be preserved and sent to the Collection along with the shoe,' emphasised Kubik.
The first transports of Hungarian Jews were sent to Auschwitz on 28 and 29 April 1944 from the Kistarcsa camp near Budapest and the town of Topolya in Vojvodina. The main phase of deportation began on 14 May and lasted until 9 July 1944. During this period, 142 trains arrived at Auschwitz with a total of about 420,000 deportees. If we add to this number the transports from April and some smaller ones in late summer and autumn 1944, then the total number of deportees from Hungary will stand at about 430,000. Shortly upon arrival at Auschwitz, 325,000 to 330,000 people lost their lives in the gas chambers, accounting for over 75% of the deported Jews from Hungary.
Carl Lutz w Budapeszcie. FORTEPAN / Archiv für Zeitgeschichte ETH Zürich / Agnes Hirschi