Sam Farkas
1928-1995
“I couldn’t see anything and I didn’t know when the car will tilt over to empty itself, so one of my hands was pressed when the car tilted – it was pressed against the ceiling and it cut me completely there, three fingers” – Sam Farkas
Sam was born in Teresva, Czech Republic on July 14, 1928. His father worked in the timber industry, and Sam and his five siblings lived a comfortable life.
After his town was invaded by Nazi-collaborating Hungarians in 1939, even teachers would tell Sam and the other Jewish kids, “Hitler will get you.” His father, believing no one would harm them, refused many offers from non-Jewish friends to hide the family. In January 1944, Sam and his family were deported to the Mateszalka ghetto in Hungary, where they were routinely abused and overworked. One month later, the Nazis forcibly sent the family to Auschwitz.
At the end of the war, Sam returned home to find out that only his eldest brother had survived. He met his future wife Ruth in a tuberculosis ward in 1946. They married in 1949 and settled in Seattle in 1951, where Sam volunteered at many Jewish organizations and food banks. Sam passed away in 1995.
