László Hacsek

László Hacsek was born on 14 September 1938 in Szentes, Hungary, into a Jewish family. His parents, József and Rózsa, made and sold bags and suitcases. His mother designed the products, while his father manufactured them. Their family life was shattered by the persecution and deportation of Hungary’s Jews in 1944.

That June, five-year-old László and his parents were taken to the Szeged ghetto. His father, who had been subjected to Hungarian labour service, managed to rejoin the family before their deportation. Together, they were transported in cattle wagons to Strasshof, near Vienna, and subsequently transferred to Wiener Neustadt, where they were held at an airfield. His mother was pregnant with his younger sister.

László later recalled that overcrowding initially prevented their group from entering the camp, leaving them waiting in woodland. Adults were assigned to forced labour, including work in a gas-mask factory. His pregnant mother cleaned the barracks and looked after children.

On 6 September 1944, his sister Zsuzsanna was born in a hospital in Vienna, after their mother was taken there from the camp. László recalled that the hospital was struck during an air raid shortly afterwards. His mother and the newborn returned to captivity, where keeping the baby alive became another struggle for the family.

László, his parents and his sister survived and returned to Hungary in 1945. They settled in Hódmezővásárhely, where his grandparents had lived before their deportation. The grandparents never returned.

Decades later, László helped recover a missing piece of his sister’s history. The family had brought her home without birth documents. After he described their experiences to a member of Vienna’s Jewish community in the late 1990s, her Austrian birth record was located.

László pursued a career in engineering, married in 1961 and had two children.