"They are taking us now, we don't know where" - The Spӓt Family’s Last Letter
György, Jolán and Imre Spӓt
Kápolnásnyék is a small village in Western Hungary. In 1941, 2632 people lived here. Only 3.6% of the population were of the Israelite denomination. The local general practitioner, Dr. Imre Spӓt, born in neighbouring Velence, was Jewish. He lived in a nice house with his wife Joli and son György.
Gyuri Spӓt on the left, next to him are his parents, Imre and Joli
After the outbreak of the war, 26 members of the local Jewish community were called up for labour service. They served on the Eastern Front. After the German occupation of Hungary, from April 1944, the Jews of Kápolnásnyek had to display the yellow star and comply with the daily anti-Jewish decrees. Although they did not know it, their home village was part of Deportation Zone III, where the ghettoisation of Jews by the Hungarian interior authorities began in May. This was also the case in Kápolnásnyék: the ghetto was set up and gendarmes appeared to search for hidden property. Jewish men were tortured, and women's lower bodies were brutally searched in Rabbi Fisch Henrik's apartment. On 5 June, 169 Jewish men, women and children were marched to the railway station. Among them was the Spӓt family. In a great hurry, they wrote their last letter to their family in Budapest: “They are taking us now, we don't know where. We say goodbye, perhaps forever. May God be with us all, may faith give us all the strength to endure the ordeal. We kiss your hands and hug and kiss you all with much love, Joly, Imre and Gyuri”
The last letter of the Spӓts to their family in Budapest
They were taken to the Szabó brick factory in Székesfehérvár. Here the authorities concentrated the Jewish population of the surrounding localities and those transferred from the Székesfehérvár ghetto. The Spӓt family, like the others, were searched again and then settled as best they could in the wall-less brick drying huts. They starved a lot in the following days because they received absolutely no food from the Hungarian authorities. Their deportation finally took place on 14 June. 2 kilos of bread and 25 decagrams of margarine were distributed to each of them for the journey. In total, there were 2743 people in the cattle cars, and they crossed the Hungarian-Slovakian border at Kassa (Košice). Three days later they arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The SS doctor who selected them probably put 11-year-old György Spӓt among those unable to work, together with his mother Joli. A few hours later they were murdered in the gas chambers. 46-year-old Imre survived the selection. He spent the next months in Birkenau. On 18 September 1944, the Nazis sent him to the Dachau concentration camp for forced labour.
The Dachau prisoner registry form of Dr Imre Spӓt, indicating his wife’s name (Jolán Weisz) and his prisoner registry number: 108865. (Arolsen Archives ITS)
Imre’s Dachau registry card with the pencil-written note: “Mühldorf” (Arolsen Archives ITS).
A file preserved from Dachau recorded that he performed slave labour in the Mühldorf subcamp complex. He soon fell ill and was hospitalised. After supposedly recovering, he was sent back to work in January 1945. A few days before liberation, on 23 April 1945, he died in the Kaufering subcamp.
