Escapes from the Oradea ghettos, while they existed in May/June 1944, were few and far between. Over the years we have tried to piece together these stories by talking with some of the people who were involved with those escapes. Sadly, several of those people are no longer with us, but they have previously spoken with us and some have had their stories published. We have used these materials to put together this section of our website.
The fake typhus epidemic
One event stands out for its ingenuity, daring and organisation. The extraordinary plan was to generate a call for the quarantine of the entire ghetto (situated in the heart of the town) so that up to 20,000 Jews in that ghetto would not be deported in order to prevent the spreading of a potentially highly contagious disease to the thousands of Christian inhabitants surrounding the ghetto and to whatever places the Jews were due to be taken.
In the event the creation of this “fake” typhus epidemic did not save the 20,000 but it did enable over 30 people who were moved to a derelict building called the “typhus hospital” inside the ghetto to escape, generally into Romania.
The account below is largely the work of Marta Elian (nee Steiner, who was one of those 30+ people) and Daniel Lowy, whose research is referenced at the end of this article. It focuses upon the humanity shown by a number of gentiles who took great risks to help save the lives of those in the ghetto.
Dr Kupfer Miksa, a Jewish Consultant Gynaecologist (and author of several historical novels) was one of those taken to the ghetto with his family and he was made responsible for public health issues inside the ghetto.
Dr Kupfer Miksa
It was he, together with medical colleagues, who had the brilliant idea to establish the existence of an active tyhus epidemic within the ghetto in order for the whole ghetto to be put under quarantine. They tried to do this by taking blood samples from men who had recovered from Typhus Exantematicus (popular name Flecktyphus) which they had contracted while in forced labour camps in the Ukraine. Antibodies in the blood can still be found in these ex-patients after recovery. But they had a battle against time as the deportations from the ghetto had started.
This plan also required the co-operation of a senior medical man outside the ghetto. That man was Dr.Konrád Beöthy.
Dr.Konrád Beöthy
Dr. Beöthy, a longtime colleague of Dr Kupfer, was Head of Pathology in the Municipal Hospital and he agreed to confirm, falsely, that blood samples from ghetto “patients” contained active typhus. Blood samples were not accepted as "active" by the authorities until the majority of deportations had taken place.
The ghetto authorities decided not to halt the final deportations, but they did agree to establish an “isolation hospital” in a remote corner of the ghetto and initially 7 patients, their families and hospital “staff” were transferred there.
Marta Steiner (aged 15) her younger brother and parents were a day away from deportation when Marta’s father, László Steiner managed to see the ghetto Deputy Commander who was a frequent customer of László’s bakery. László had previously helped him with some personal issues. He was also one of those with typhus immunity and it was agreed that he could become cook for the hospital and was transferred there with his immediate family i.e. wife and two children, but not parents nor sisters, who subsequently were murdered in the death camps.
Further transfers were made to the hospital so that the eventual headcount appears to be:
The Steiner Family
Laszlo Steiner
Magda Steiner (his wife)
Robert (son)
Marta (daughter)
The Kupfer Family
Dr Miksa Kupfer
Dr Erzsebet Czeisler (his wife)
Rozalia (Kupfer’s mother)
Rafael (younger son)
The Schwarz Family
Erno Schwarz
Wife
Jancsi Schwartz (son)
The Zsolt Family
Bela Zsolt (formerly Steiner)
Agnes Zsolt (formerly Heyman (Racz) and mother of Eva Heyman)
The Balint Family
Dr Sandor Balint
His wife (pretending to be a nurse)
Wife’s sister
Emil Waldman (nephew)
The Leimsieder Family
Husband (assistant Rabbi at Kolomea)
Wife
Seven children (according to Zsolt in his subsequent book)
The Katz Family
Chaim Katz
Cita Seidenfrau (his wife)
The Halberstein Family
Rabbi Halberstein
His daughter
Ignac Deutsch, Bubi Pisztiner (teenager), Bobover Rebbe and two Polish and Bukovina refugees.
Once the mass deportations in cattle wagons to Auschwitz had taken place the "isolation hospital" was left under the more relaxed responsibility of the local police.
To escape from the hospital needed assistance from one of those local policemen and, at great personal risk, one offered help to the inmates. Gyula Ladi (“Uncle Gyula” as the children called him) was on duty in the ghetto. He was one of the rare righteous gentiles around who, although aware of the danger, knew that if caught he would be court-martialled with very serious consequences. He offered his messenger services for purely humane, perhaps religious reasons, not accepting a penny in return. Even after the war when he lived in complete destitution in Budapest he continued to refuse any help or reward.
After three weeks Dr Kupfer was alerted by Gyula Ladi that everyone would shortly be deported and a range of escape plans were devised with help from Gyula Ladi and local people.
The Steiner family were smuggled out of the hospital, after bribing the guards, and made their way to a school dormitory which had been made available by Gheorghe Mangra, the Romanian administrative head of the Greek-Catholic school. Mangra did this at extreme personal risk as there were German soldiers also billeted at the same school.
Gheorghe Mangra
In the morning, the parents and the children separated and made their way towards Romania, accompanied by local peasants as guides. The two children had various adventures before slipping through the woods into the relative safety of Romania and after an anxious time (including being arrested) they eventually met up with their parents in Bucharest.
Amongst other "patients" was Béla Zsolt, a well known journalist, author and aspiring Hungarian politician. In 1949 he recorded the atrocities of the ghetto and his escape in his book “Nine Suitcases” (English edition, translated by Professor Ladislaus Lob). He was married to Eva Heyman's mother Agnes and after the War she authored a book called "Eva- My Daughter" which contained extracts of the diary of her daughter, which covered the period February 1944 until the deportation.
Reuven Tsur (Robi Steiner) published his account of the escape “Escape from the Ghetto” in Hebrew and in Hungarian. His sister, Marta Elian (nee Steiner) finished her account in 2016 and her book "Don't Enter the Wagons" was published shortly after her death.
Finally, we have been helped enormously by research undertaken by Dániel Lőwy who produced a detailed summary of the escape which has been kindly translated into English from its original Hungarian by Professor Ladislaus Lob. We are very grateful to them both for allowing us to reproduce this translation which can be seen by clicking on the star below.
Escape by Rezső Kasztner train
Rezső Kasztner
Rezső Kasztner was a Hungarian-Jewish journalist and lawyer who was born in Kolozsvár (Cluj) in Transylvania.
Kasztner was one of the leaders of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee, which smuggled Jewish refugees into Hungary during World War II, then helped them escape from Hungary when in March 1944 the Nazis occupied that country too.
Between May and July 1944, Hungary's Jews were deported, mainly to Auschwitz, at the rate of 12,000 people a day. Kasztner negotiated with Eichmann and others, to allow a significant number of Jews to leave to a neutral country, on what became known as the Kasztner train, in exchange for money and supplies. The Kasztner train left from Budapest on 30 June 1944, but things were not to be straightforward.
The actual number who left Budapest was close to 1,700, but how these particular Jews were chosen was not transparent. The choice of most people was made by a small committee which included Kasztner and members of the Jewish Council in Budapest (including Fülöp Freudiger, a leader of the Orthodox Jewish community). Among those to be spared were 150 wealthy people who were able to pay the ransom for their own places and also for others who had not a such possibility. These included prominent religious figures, people who contributed significantly to Jewish life including leaders of Jewish communities, Zionists, and "ordinary" people. However, Rezső Kasztner had a significant influence over the choice. It transpired that some 388 people from Kolozsvár (his home town) were to be included in the train (including a friend of Asociatia Tikvah, the author Professor Ladislaus Lob. Professor Lob wrote the authoritative account of the Kasztner story "Rezso Kasztner. The Daring Rescue of Hungarian Jews: A Survivor's Account").
Ladislaub Lob aged 11 having arrived in Switzerland
The 388 rescued from Kolozsvár contrasts with the situation in Oradea. Just 6 people from the Oradea ghetto were chosen to be given the chance of freedom.
Alexander Leitner was the leader of the Orthodox Jewish community in Oradea so he and his family were within the scope of the agreement settled in Budapest by Kasztner and the Jewish Council. Not that the Leitner family were aware of the state of negotiations in Budapest as they were confined in the Ullmann Palace, part of the ghetto, with hundreds of others.
In testimony to Yad Vashem, Alexander's daughter Marianne Leitner (who was 20 at the time) explained how they were segregated from others in the ghetto:
"Suddenly we were told that we have got to leave our place in the ghetto apartment and go to a different apartment. We didn't know why. It was a small empty, unfurnished place. My father was still locked away, but he was soon released and then we were in the tiny flat with Mrs Ullmann and her boy. We didn't know why, we didn't understand it".
Marianne giving testimony
Marta Elian (see the earlier escape story) recalls speaking with Marianne before they were segregated:
"Later, when one was not allowed to leave the building without an official certificate, I took pleasure in meeting the many interesting people in the enormous Ullmann Palace. I remember I got very friendly with an older girl from the conservatoire, Marianne Leitner, who taught me about music: what sonatas are and how a symphony is constructed. For me this was manna from heaven, as the only time I ever felt despondent was when I was afraid that my education might be delayed or that I might lose out on it altogether. I wrote down everything she told me on a piece of paper. For months afterwards, I would carry this bit of paper in my pocket, occasionally taking it out to read, quite proud of my tiny bit of music education."
Ullmann Palace
The Leitner family were subsequently escorted to the station by soldiers who took them to Budapest. On 30 June they boarded the Kasztner train not to immediate freedom but to a holding compound in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Unlike the vast majority of prisoners held in Bergen-Belsen they received favoured treatment, for example they retained their own clothes and were not required to work.
There were 318 Jews released from Bergen-Belsen who arrived in Switzerland on 21 August 1944. The Leitner family were part of a further 1,368 that remained there until 6/7 December before they left for Switzerland and freedom.
Extract from the passenger list from Bergen-Belsen
There were two other people who accompanied the Leitner family and who also had been kept separated from others within the ghetto. These were the widow Gisella Ullmann and her son, Alfred. The Ullmanns were relatives of Fülöp Freudiger (who was on the selection commitee). In Budapest, Gisella Ullmann was also joined by her other son who had left Oradea before the ghettoization, so that three of the Ullmann family got on the Kasztner train.
In the previous escape from the ghetto story we saw that Agi and Bela Zsolt were able to escape to Budapest and once there they were also able to get themselves onto the Kasztner train and along with the Leitner and Ullmann families eventually reached Switzerland in December 1944.
Escape from the soap factory
In the early 1900s a soap factory, Johanna, was founded by Adolf Ede Rothbart and later was managed by his son, after Adolf retired.
When the main ghetto was set up in Oradea the soap factory was on the southern boundary of that ghetto.
When the laws were introduced in 1944 that Jews were not allowed to own commercial enterprises Kalman Appan a lieutenant in the Hungarian gendarmerie, who had been one of the more humane overseers of Jewish forced labour, was nominated to be the owner of the factory in “partnership” with the Rothbarts.
The Rothbart family were incarcerated in the ghetto and the younger members searched for places to hide in order to avoid the mass deportations. Adolf Rothbart declined to join his son and would later be deported to Auschwitz where he perished.
Meanwhile, Adolf’s son agreed with Appan that his family (himself, wife and four year old daughter Rivka and her older brother) could hide in the small loft at the top of the soap factory. Appan’s wife Maria would provide food for 4 people.
It did not take long before they were joined by Yankel Schreiber, his wife and six children. Appan was not informed of the addition. Nor was he when Dayan Yitzchak Yaakov Weiss found out about the hiding place from Rivka’s mother and he came with his wife (Rebbetzin Rivkah) and child (Berisch).
Shortly after, widow Fuchs arrived with her two children.
More came until there were 28 people in the loft. Appan did not come into the loft and Rothbart went into the factory at night to get water and empty the toilet bucket. Rothbart or his wife collected the food for four people. This food was shared amongst all the people in the loft.
Everyone laid down so as to minimise any noise and children were made to cry into cushions.
A small number of factory workers were allowed to know that the family of four were hiding and were offered cash or property at the end of the war.
The factory still operated as it was owned now by non-Jews.
They were there for 6 weeks during which time the ghetto had been emptied by the deportations to Auschwitz and the local police had the subsequent job of monitoring the ghetto.
One of the men in the loft, Reb Moshe Leib Friedman Mendlovitz, on his own initiative went out at night to try to contact an underground network which smuggled Jews across the border into Romania. He was successful and gradually a few at a time left dressed in peasant’s clothing. The Rothbarts family had ginger hair and Appan supplied black boot polish for their hair.
Sadly, Reb Mendlovitz was caught and murdered by the Nazis on one of his missions.
The Weiss family, disguised in farmers’ clothing were transported by car to the spa town of Felix, where Rebbetzin’s brother lived, pretending to be a Christian. From there guides escorted the family over the border to Romania.
After the war ended the Rothbart family returned and reclaimed ownership of the factory. Appan continued to manage it. The workers who helped then received the properties that they were promised. After two years and with the communists in power the family left and eventually found a new life in Manchester, England.
Appan and his wife were recognised by Yad Vashem under their Righteous Among Nations Project.
This account has been produced after reading the testimonies of family members of the Rothbart and Weiss families, together with our own research.