Biographical essay about Janos Strauss, 2014

Janos Strauss Janos Strauss was born in Hungary in December, 1928. Prior to the Nazi invasion his family had only heard rumors about the way Jews were treated elsewhere in Europe but the Hungarians found these rumors unbelievable. For Janos the Holocaust began March, 1944 with the Nazi invasion. He was an apprentice with a small motor bike manufacturer. Once the Nazis arrived, Jews started getting picked up off the street. He was picked up once and forced to do physical labor. Then he was ordered by the Hungarian government to work in the fields on a farm. While he was at the farm a ghetto was formed and he was moved there. In June 1944 he was shipped to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was only 15 but prisoners in the camp got word to him to lie about his age and say he was 17. He did and that saved his life. While in Birkenau he was told to volunteer to get sent out. One time when he volunteered he was sent to clean out rows of barracks that had housed Czech families who had just been killed. Another time he volunteered and was sent to Muldorf, a camp in Germany. He was there from August 1944 until he was shipped out to be killed but his transport was liberated by the Americans instead on May 1, 1945.