Full Name: Sasha Meizlick
Interviewer: Sahar Schwartzberg, Shahar Nof Agam.
Full Name/s
Email: sahar_s_4@hotmail.com
ICQ:344018449
Messenger: sahar_s_4@hotmail.com
Adress: Matan, 5 Shoshan St. Israel 45858
Survivor:
Code: RelatioNet SAS ME 25 IR HU
Family Name: Meizlick First Name: Sasha
Birth Date: 1925
Town In Holocaust: Irshava Country In Holocaust: Hungary
Sasha’s Story
Solomon Miezlick, or since 1st grade, Sasha, was born in a small town with a population of approximately twelve thousand citizens, five thousand of whom were Jewish, and ninety five religious people. He was the youngest among his seven brothers and sisters. Religion was always important, but after a few years living in Irshava, anti-Semitism became stronger, and the Jewish religion started to fade away more that ever, and relying on the religion was more difficult. Sasha had many friends during his childhood. They all had a pretty typical lifestyle. They enjoyed going out to the forests to eat some berries. In fact, poverty struck the area so bad, that they had to go to the forests. However, poverty was not the worst thing that could happen to Sasha’s family. His father lost his shop, probably because of his debts. As a child, Sasha was very short, and he used to be ridiculed often. “Today”, he says, “I got my life experience thanks to suffering”. That helped him in the war.
In 1934 Sasha started to feel that something fishy was going on behind the Jews’ back, and people started to look at tem differently. In 1935, right after Passover, the Hungarians surrounded the area of Sasha’s town. The police broke into their modest house wildly. Police with guns told the family they had 10 minutes to pack some important items, clothing, and leave with them.
After a while, it was clear to them that the police turned the neighborhood into a ghetto. 10 people had to stay in a house big enough for 3. after two long weeks, they were taken to Munkatch ghetto, and there they got physically beaten a lot. From there, they were taken to Auschwitz, and there was the last time he saw his family.
Time passed, they moved to other ghettoes, and the struggle continued. Sasha was lucky because he used his humor to avoid conflicts with the Nazis. He would always laugh with them, even though he knew what could be the consequences.
He wanted to survive. He wanted to live. Perhaps because of his exaggerated will to survive he had this huge amount of luck. On the last death march, a few hundred people were taken out. Sasha heard that they were taken to a place near Germany. The Jews looked like living skeletons. It was snowing, and the thought that he wouldn’t make it. They weren’t given any food. They ate mud off the snowy paths. If they were lucky, little bugs appeared in their handful of “meal”. At night time, people dug holes in the snow to sleep, because that would keep their bodies a little warmer. Whoever didn’t wake up in the morning, was left behind.
They walked in a row. Sasha was last. An S.S soldier hit him with his cold metal gun. In the dark, they began to cross a bridge. Without thinking twice, he jumped off the bridge, clueless of what could happen. On the following morning, a farmer found him unconscious. The farmer took Sasha, who weighed 32 kilos, and hid him in his shed. Four days later, the war ended.
Fortunately, after a long search, Sasha found 2 of his brothers, and one of his sisters. In June of 1946, Sasha, and 500 other young men sailed to Israel. The voyage was terrible, but their hopes were so high, that nobody cared anymore. Sasha, alone, bravely, started a new life in Israel, by himself. He was always optimistic about life, and he tried to see the best in everything.
The city – Irshava
Irshava is a city of about ten thousand people in the western foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. The population is made up of Slovaks, Hungarians, Rusyns, Russians and Ukrainians. The city is laid out in approximately straight line along the Irshava River and the main road that parallels it.
It is located in the west of Ukraine and can be found in the province of Zakarpattya. The Zakarpattya oblast is well known for its medicinal clinics which attracts thousands of tourists to the region.
The Austrian-Hungarian Empire
The Austro – Hungarian Empire, also known as the dual Monarchy, was a dual monarchist union which worked for 51 years from 1867 to 1918, dissolved at the end of the World War 1.
The dual monarchy was the successor of the Austrian empire on the same territory, originating in the Austro – Hungarian compromise of 1867 between the ruling Habsburg dynasty and the Hungarians. This period of time of the empire is known as the former Austro – Hungarian empire, which was spread over a large part of Central Europe comprising the present countries of Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia as well as parts of Poland, Romania, Italy, Ukraine, Moldova and Yugoslavia.
Austro – Hungarian Monarchy 1895
The Jewish community in Hungary
In the years before WW2, the Hungarian government got diplomatically closer with Nazi Germany. They had the same political goals and ideology. In 1938 with the influence of the Nazis, the first law against the Jews was legislated, and that meant that in addition to many other laws, Kosher food was forbidden. There was another law, which described the definition of who was Jewish. If one of the parents was Jewish, then the child must be Jewish as well.
This was the first time in Hungary that Jews were hunted and humiliated because of their race and not because of their religion. In 1941 the third law against the Jews was legislated, which was aimed at preventing mixed marriage. Equal rights were taken away. In the first years of the Second World War the conditions of the Hungarian Jews were better than other Jews across Europe (Germany for example). Their rights were taken but their lives weren’t in danger.
