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<p>Cover to <a href="/narrative/8480/en">György Beifeld's album</a>, featuring a road sign with the Hungarian Labor Service company number 109/13 posted in a muddy wasteland. The Jewish labor servicemen were forced to construct roads on these muddy fields to accommodate the advance of the Hungarian 2nd Army toward the Don River.</p>

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Article
Auschwitz Through the Lens of the SS: A Tale of Two Albums
Article
Auschwitz Through the Lens of the SS: The Album
<p>Cover to <a href="/narrative/8480/en">György Beifeld's album</a>, featuring a road sign with the Hungarian Labor Service company number 109/13 posted in a muddy wasteland. The Jewish labor servicemen were forced to construct roads on these muddy fields to accommodate the advance of the Hungarian 2nd Army toward the Don River.</p>
Photo
Beifeld album cover
<p>In a take-off of travel posters advertising peaceful vacation spots, Beifeld draws a picture of a Hungarian military tent pitched next to a tree on which a bird is cheerfully chirping. Next to the tent the artist writes "Peaceful Surroundings" but above, a Soviet bomber releases a bomb aimed at the tent. [Photograph #58022]</p>
Photo
Beifeld album page
<p>(Middle, left and bottom) In the drawing at the middle, left, Hungarian soldiers use an ax to cut up a dead horse in order to get meat to sustain themselves. The image at the bottom, titled "The Long Trip, February 1943," shows a Hungarian soldier walking along a road past a dead horse and an abandoned harrow that is half buried in the snow. [Photograph #58110]</p>
Artifact
Beifeld album page about conditions
<p>(Top) A drawing dated October 1942 depicting the events of August 28 when Beifeld was wounded near the front lines. His caption reads: "I get wounded and manage to get away from the dangerous bend in the [Don] river]." (Bottom left) Skull of a Soviet soldier with the caption 'Keep Smiling.' (Bottom right) Map entitled 'Dangerous Curve' depicting the bend in the Don River where the Soviet army was threatening to break through. [Photograph # 58061]</p>
Artifact
Beifeld album page about events of August 28, 1942
<p>(top) "Watercolor entitled 'Partisan hotel and public house', Krassnolipia, Ukraine, until July 31, 1942"; (middle) "Drawing entitled 'The interrogation of partisans captured by our unit'"; (bottom) "Watercolor entitled 'My lodgings in Krassnolipia'" [Photograph #58040]</p>
Artifact
Beifeld album page about partisans and lodgings
<p>(Bottom) A drawing illustrating the patriotism of the Hungarian Jewish Labor Serviceman. Despite the fact that the Jew is denied the right to wear a military uniform and bear arms, Erno Steiner picks up the abandoned machine gun of First Lieutenant Hevessy of the 4th Infantry Division and starts firing at Soviet troops to fend them off. [Photograph #58015]</p>
Artifact
Beifeld album page about patriotism
<p>(Top and bottom) The image at the top shows Hungarian soldiers abandoning their trenches on the front lines as a Soviet tank overruns the barbed wire fortification separating the two armies. The drawing at the bottom captioned "Alarm," shows Hungarian soldiers running back and forth sounding the alarm of the Soviet counteroffensive. The drawings are dated Jan 11 and 13, 1943. [Photograph #58103]</p>
Artifact
Beifeld album page about Soviet counteroffensive
<p>(Bottom) View of fortifications built at Kalimovka to defend the advancing troops of the 4th Infantry Division of the Hungarian 2nd Army. In the lower right corner of the drawing, men prepare the grave of Jewish Labor Serviceman Nandor Klein, the first fatality of the company. The Hungarian caption reads: The death of our first hero, Nandor Klein, his grave, June 5, 1942." Klein was killed by a stray Soviet bullet on his way back to base. [Photograph #58013]</p>
Artifact
Beifeld album page illustrating fortifications and first fatality
<p>(Top) A map dated August 1942 showing the area of the late summer skirmishes between Hungarian and Soviet forces. It also shows the crucial bend in the Don River near the town of Uryv, where the fateful Soviet breakthrough occurred in January 1943. (Bottom) "Fairy tale nights along the Don River, August 1942." [Photograph #58058]</p>
Artifact
Beifeld album page illustrating military events
<p>A page of drawings illustrating the contribution of Jewish Labor Servicemen to the war effort. At the top: "The different platoons work hard at the battle front and in the no man's land [between the armies]. They actively participate in the fighting. They carry ammunition to the Hungarian soldiers." In the middle: "They defuse land mines. They bury the dead, including those that had been left unburied from the winter campaign. They carry soldiers wounded on the front lines to safety." At the bottom: "For example, [Jewish Labor Serviceman] Herman Brand carried 35 wounded soldiers from the barbed wire barricades and from no man's land on May 30, 1942 during the Afanasyevica skirmish. Among those he carried was Gyula Gercsi-Suta, age 35, a lieutenant, who succumbed to his wounds at the field hospital that evening." [Photograph #58014]</p>
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Beifeld album page outlining the labor service's roles in the war effort
<p>Watercolor depicting Hungarian soldiers from a medical unit moving into a Russian village and setting up operations, April 10, 1943. [Photograph #58122]</p>
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Beifeld album page showing a medical unit
<p>View of the countryside in Csobanka, Hungary, as the Hungarian Labor Service company 109/13 departs on the morning of April 20, 1942. [Photograph #57952]</p>
Artifact
Beifeld album page showing countryside
<p>In a drawing dated April 14, 1942, Beifeld shows houses in Csobanka (Szentendre district), Hungary, where the Hungarian military officers assigned to the labor service company were quartered before their departure for the Ukraine. [Photograph #57949]</p>
Artifact
Beifeld album page showing houses used as officers quarters
<p>(Top) A map showing the progress of the advance of the Hungarian 2nd Army toward the Don River as of July 1942. [Photograph #58034]</p>
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Beifeld album page showing Hungarian army movements

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