
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Courtesy of Israel Efrati (Zoltan Deblinger), Givatayim



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Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Courtesy of Israel Efrati (Zoltan Deblinger), Givatayim
Seventeen-year-old Zoltan Deblinger was deported together with his family from their home in Transylvania to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944. From Auschwitz he was sent to Dachau and transferred to the Kaufering sub-camp. Towards the end of the war he was sent on a death march, which he survived. He was liberated at the Dachau-Allach camp on 29 April 1945 by American troops.
On the day of liberation, on venturing out of Allach, he dismantled a pair of binoculars that were attached to an abandoned German Army anti-aircraft cannon, and kept them as a souvenir.
On his return to Romania, he discovered that his mother, Fani, and his sister, Jolan, had been murdered at Auschwitz but that his father and sister Eva had survived. He joined the Zionist Youth movement "Hanoar Hazioni" and prepared to immigrate with members of the movement to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine). They boarded ships bound for Eretz Israel, but the ships were intercepted by British Mandate forces and Zoltan, along with the other Ma'apilim (illegal immigrants), was sent to detention camps in Cyprus. At the entrance to the camp the British police tried to confiscate the binoculars but Zoltan managed to hold on to them. After a short time in Cyprus, Zoltan was released and reached Eretz Israel, bringing his binoculars with him. He attached a plaque to them, inscribed with the day of his liberation and his camp prisoner number.
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Courtesy of Israel Efrati (Zoltan Deblinger), Givatayim
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