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And These are Their Names... Identifying the Death March Victims Buried in a Mass Grave in Poland
Yad Vashem And These are Their Names... Identifying the Death March Victims Buried in a Mass Grave in Poland

Bela Polgar Magen David

Auschwitz no. 6050 B

German soldiers supervising the deportation of Jews, Hungary, 1944 Deportation of Jews from the town Koszeg, Hungary, 1944 Jews accompanied by Hungarian gendarmes before boarding the transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Soltvadkert, Hungary, June 1944 Jews accompanied by Hungarian gendarmes before boarding the transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Soltvadkert, Hungary, June 1944 Jews boarding a transport, Dunaszerdahely, Hungary, 1944

Bela Polgar was born on the 31st of August 1893 in Szekszard in southern Hungary. He lived in the town of Paks and was married to Julia (née Grunfeld). They were both doctors. Polgar was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on a transport that departed the Kistarcsa transit camp in Hungary on the 14th of July 1944. On arrival, he passed the selection, received the number 6050B and became an inmate of the camp. This was the final transport from Hungary that Adolf Eichmann sent of his own initiative. Among the deportees on this transport were many doctors whose deportation had been delayed until the last moment in order to take advantage of their services.

Polgar was transferred to the zinc and lead mine Trzebionka, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. Camp documents contain a record referring to Polgar from the 24th of August 1944.

The Transport
On the 7th of July 1944, Admiral Miklos Horthy, Regent of Hungary, stopped the deportation of Jews from Hungary. Adolf Eichmann, who was furious at Horthy's interference, tried to send an additional transport of 1,500 Jews on the 15th of July. According to the information received by Horthy from Istvan Vasdenyei, Commandant of the Hungarian camp Kistarcsa, the transport was returned to Kistarcsa before leaving Hungarian territory.

On the 19th of July 1944, Eichmann sent his aide Franz Novak and a team of specialists in the deportation of Jews to Kistarcsa. That morning all members of the central committee for the Jews in Budapest were summoned to a meeting in the SS offices. They were there from 10 am and they were forbidden from making telephone calls; that day the final transport departed from Kistarcsa with 1,200 Jews aboard. Only in the evening, once the transport had already left Hungarian territory on its way to Auschwitz-Birkenau, were the committee members released to go home.

On the 14th of August 1944 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, 350 Hungarian Jews received the numbers 5860B – 6209B and became inmates of the camp. These were the prisoners who had left Kistarcsa in July.  

Do you have any additional information about this person? Contact Yad Vashem.