Holocaust Survivor Testimony: Zohar Arnon

Zohar Arnon was born in Kisvárda, Hungary in 1928. When he was 15, he went to Budapest.

On 19 March 1944, the Nazis occupied Budapest. Zohar went to the offices of the Jewish community of Budapest to inquire about his family members who had stayed in Kisvárda. There he met Efra Agmon, his group leader from Hashomer Hatzair. Agmon asked Zohar, “Are you ready to go on a journey that will end in Eretz Israel?” and gave him instructions to wait across from the train station the next evening. Zohar arrived there at the specified time, but he did not see Agmon. Suddenly a man wearing the uniform of a Hungarian train police officer approached him. Zohar recoiled, but the officer grabbed him and asked, “Don’t you recognize me? It’s me, Efra.”

Agmon was a member of the underground Zionist movement in Budapest, which provided thousands of young Jews with false papers and smuggled them into Romania. He gave Zohar false papers and instructions.

Zohar traveled by train to Nagyvárad, where he met Moshe Alpan, another operative in the smuggling network. Alpan helped smuggle Zohar into Romania. Zohar went through Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. In January 1945, he arrived Eretz Israel. His parents and two of his sisters were murdered in the Holocaust.

Zohar fought in the War of Independence. Zohar and his wife Ahuva have two daughters.

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