Anton Mason - Survivor Testimony

            Anton Mason was born in Sighet, Romania on April 21^st 1927 to two parents, Maximillian and Sarah Meisner. He was born Anton Meisner. During the time of the interview he was 71. He did say that he remembers his maternal grandparents, but did not remember his paternal grandparents. Growing up he recalled that they lived very Jewish lives, his grandparents were hard workers, and they were concerned about the Jewish community.

            He had one little brother born in 1933. He died in Auschwitz with his mother. They spoke Hungarian and Yiddish. His father was a fur merchant growing up, his business was in town in a house and he also traveled a lot for his job. In his classes, he was made very aware that he was Jewish, and that he was different. There was no violence but the words are what stuck with him

            Once the Germans started taking control, the yellow stars were issued to everyone, curfews were put into place, and they were strict curfews too. They were all placed under supervision for a long time. Anton was still allowed to go to school and all his normal activities. Jobs got harder and harder to find. At this point, the Jews knew they were going to be in trouble. The Germans also took away all their radios, so they did not have any idea what was going on in the outside world.

            In 1944 the Sighet ghetto was created. Everyone was forced to leave their homes and made to live in the ghettos. Anton described it as one large room that housed eight Jews. After living in these ghettos for about 3 months, the Germans liquidated them and Anton and his family were forced to move to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest concentration camp. Anton was only seventeen when they made this trip. For a transition of moving from the ghetto to the concentration camp, they were kept in synagogues until the move. Once it was time for the move to Auschwitz, they were placed into cattle cars.

            The whole trip inside the cattle cars, there were people all trying to decide geographically where the car was headed. A lot of the assumed they were headed to Poland to drop them off there. After a long while, there was doubt that there were headed home and everyone knew that was going to be the end. Immediately after Anton and his family arrived in Auschwitz, there was a station set up for separation, women and children, and another section for men. His mother and only brother were taken straight to the gas chambers. Since Anton and his father were the only survivors from his family, they were forced a few days after arrival to be forced labor workers.

            During his time as a labor worker, he ran into his friend Elie Weisel for a very short period of time. In 1944 Anton and his father were once again forced to move to another camp, but during his trip, his father became weak and died. Anton was devastated to lose all his family. He worked until the camps were liberated, and he ended up meeting back up with is friend Elie, and they both went to France along with other survivors. He mentioned that in Paris he was given an identity card and he lived in Paris for two year.  “I woke up after entering Auschwitz, and I thought and was hoping that I was hallucinating”