A chance encounter

The second time that Maurice Vegh met a member of the 87th Infantry Division, it was at a Bristal Assisted Living Community in North Woodmere at a barbecue in September when he ran into Harold “Hank” Rosen.

Bristal was hosting the barbecue and had invited the Jewish War Veterans of Oceanside Chwatsky Farber Post 717, of which Vegh is a member. Rosen, who lives nearby, was invited by a friend and was there with his wife, Joyce.

With a tray of food in his hands, Vegh sat down at Rosen’s table and, being the sociable person he is, started up a conversation with Rosen. Through their conversation, Vegh learned that Rosen had fought in Europe during World War II. And that’s when the two learned the first time Vegh had encountered someone from the 87th Infantry.

It was 66 years earlier, on April 11, 1945. That day, the 87th Infantry Division marched into the Buchenwald concentration camp, where a 15-year-old Vegh was a prisoner, and liberated it from Nazi control.

Life in Hell

Vegh grew up in the small town of Rachova in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). In 1941, Czechoslovakia was invaded and occupied by Hungary, and Vegh’s town became Raho and he started going to a Hungarian school.
In 1943, when Vegh was just 13 years old, Vegh, his parents and his 11-year-old sister were rounded up and taken to Auschwitz. Within four hours of their arrival, Vegh’s mother and sister were killed in the gas chambers because his mother would not give her up. He was separated from his father and never saw him again.
“Every day I woke up starving and I went to bed starving,” Vegh recounted. “We marched four miles to the coal mine, we worked 10 hours in the mine, and then came back. Got another piece of black bread and coffee and went to bed hungry. In the morning, we got another black coffee and a piece of black bread, and we marched to the coal mine again. Week after week, until we went on the death march.”