from the 17 Sept. up to the 2. Oct. I spent some days including a few

days of the High Holidays in Hungary in a thermalbath in Gyula. Gyula is
quite near to my birth town of Bekescsaba and it has also the archive of
the county Bekes. As in many years I spent some time in the archive and
I could transcibe about 139 names declared death >from 1949 to 1951. The
change to the earlier entries was that in the years 1946 - 1949 the date
and place where given in the majority as 26. June 1944 and Auschwitz the
arrival date of the Ghetto of Csaba to Auschwitz, in 1949 in about the
middle of the year the date changed to 15. July 1944, and even later it
was only this date and in remark "Biroi megallapitas (judge's
statement)", what was the reason of the change, I can't say. In 1951
there was no record of the religion, so I am unsure of the correctness
of this part of the list.

Neither in Bekescsaba nor in Gyule where services helt, I wanted to go
to Szeged, but the bus and train services were too complicated, the last
train left Szeged at 7 pm, so I kept the fast in Gyula. I was somewhat
disappointed as in the Summer the new Synagogue near the neolog cemetery
in Bekescsaba was nearly finished, the commemoration ceremony was held
there so I hoped that it will be open on the High Holidays, but it is
sad, they doesn't have enough Jews.

In this days they put up a memorial tablett on the neolog and orthodox
synagogue, I became aware of it >from a mail of Sweden (and not by the
local newspaper). A few days later I went to see it, it was donated >from
P. J. Herczeg of Montreal. I made some pictures of the cemetery >from
outside, the newly built synagogue as well as the old ones (the neolog
as a furniture store, the orthodox as storeroom for electrical appliances).

To an earlier theme in the forum, it seems that both candidates try to
make use of the "Gold Train" an almost forgotten issue of the past as
the abstract >from "The Hill" demonstrates.

In a statement issued Friday the 06.102004, Kerry urged Bush to
settle “quickly and fairly the Hungarian Gold Train case.” Meanwhile,
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) has written presidential adviser
Karl Rove urging him to encourage President Bush to do the same. . .
. . .If a settlement is reached, it would mark the first time the
United States has compensated Holocaust survivors.

from "The Hill" Newspaper for and about the U.S. Congress on

2004.10.06

Best regards
Gabor Hirsch