- First Name
- Chaim Arie (Leon)
- Last Name
- Tug
- Date of birth
- 1909/1910
- Age
- Place of birth
- Warsaw
- Gender
- male
- Profession
- tailor
- Maiden name
- Mother's name
- Szejndla Chmura
- Father's name
- Nuchim
- City
- Kraków
- Transport where from
- Międzyrzec
- Date of transport
- August 1942
- Story
- "We came to the train station, where freight cars were already standing. They started herding people into the wagons. I stayed behind all the time, thinking that maybe there would be no room, maybe I could stay. Finally, we were the last to stay and were forcibly forced into the wagon. There was room for 30-40 people in the carriage, and maybe 150 people were shoved in, so there was nowhere to stand. The door was bolted and the train started. The wagon was locked, and lime was poured inside, so that there was nothing to breathe, and already within half an hour there were casualties.[...] I held the baby in my arms the whole time. Since I was the last to enter the wagon, I had some air through a crack in the door. [...] I was just trying to save the child. Meanwhile, a whole pile of corpses was already lying in the wagon. I climbed over the dead bodies and approached the window, which was closed and boarded up with nails and wire. I tried with all my might and finally managed to open the window. A breath of cold air hit me hard and I lost consciousness. I don't know how long I lay like this, but I saw my wife's sister, Itka, throw herself into the window and jump out. Seeing this, I took my wife, who was already undressed and almost naked, forcibly lifted her and pushed her out the window. I threw her out the way one throws out an apple stub. I didn't look to see if she survived or not. I only heard a shot. Then I heard her voice as she screamed in Polish: 'Child! Baby!' I took the child and leaned out the window with her and threw her as far away from the train as possible so she wouldn't fall close to the wheels. I heard the shot again and fell back into the carriage and passed out again. I don't know how long I lay there, but when I woke up I saw that 90% of the people in the carriage were already dead, and those who were alive were already dying. [...] . I just put on my pants and jumped out. The time was between mincha and maariv prayers. I fell down near the train. When the train passed I didn't get up, but crawled on all fours in the opposite direction to the train's travel, where I had thrown my wife out. I thought that if they shot her, I would find her there, and if I didn't find her, it meant she had gone somewhere. I quenched my thirst with dew from the grass. I chewed the grass like a cattle and absorbed the dew. I crawled on all fours for maybe three or four kilometers. It had already gotten dark, and I didn't meet my wife. I got up and started walking." Tug survived on Aryan papers until the end of the war. After the war, he found his wife and daughter.
- Escape
- from a transport
- Fate
- Yes
- Date of death
- Place of death
Source
- Record ID
- 695
- Insert date
- 02.03.2024
- Update date
- Photo description
- Photo source