The book Sándor never got to write

When Farkas Pungur was a small boy in Hungary, his mother would dress him and his brother in their best clothes, as if they were off to a celebrity party. Their destination was a modest studio apartment in Debrecen, lined floor to ceiling with books, and a man who greeted them with survival stories told in a soft, calm voice.

That man was Sándor Schwarcz, a Hungarian Jew who survived five concentration camps and a death march. Pungur’s mother had befriended him while queuing for special edition stamps outside the post office, and introduced her sons. The boys kept visiting for years, often bringing his favourite grape soft drink, Traubi-Szoda. His apartment window looked out on the train station from which he had been deported in the summer of 1944, and his front door, never locked, carried both his name and the number tattooed on his forearm at Auschwitz.

On top of his bookshelves sat volumes bound in black and red, the colours of the Nazi flag. Schwarcz had made 30 copies of his life story and gave them away, one by one, to the young people who came to listen.

Decades later, after emigrating to Australia in 2004, Pungur has finished the full biography Schwarcz never managed to publish. Auschwitz 5.0 – The Empire of Hell is the result.

“I wanted to ensure Sándor’s story would never be forgotten,” the Brisbane-based writer told The AJN.