John Woolf was born Julius Wolf on October 31, 1928, in Carei, Romania.
He was raised in Buštino, Czechoslovakia, which became Hungary in 1939. John’s father, Herman, owned and operated a flour mill and electrical generating plant, employing more than 100 residents of their town. John and his family had a happy life in Buštino, surrounded by extended family and spending vacations in Carei with John’s mother’s family.
In 1939, everything changed when the Hungarians came to occupy the region of Carpatho-Ruthenia, which included the town of Buštino. Restrictions on Jewish life began to take hold, and eventually Herman had to give up his business.
In May of 1944, the Jewish residents of Buštino were forced from their homes and required to move into the Mateszalkaghetto in Hungary.
Conditions in the ghetto were horrific, and John and his family were forced to sleep in the local cemetery until they could find housing in an attic in one of the ghetto buildings. The attic was terribly hot, and there was not even enough room to stand up.
In June of 1944, John and his family were forced onto a cattle car and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Upon arrival, a camp prisoner advised him to lie to the SS guards and tell them he was 18 years old, rather than his real age of 15. John and his father were both selected for hard labor, and separated from John’s mother, Kato. Kato was later sent to endure slave labor at Stutthof Concentration Camp.
John and his father stayed together throughout their time in Auschwitz-Birkenau, but were separated in January of 1945 as the Soviets approached. They were both sent on a death march to Gleiwitz, and then placed on trains to Oranienburg, Germany, during which they were separated. Herman later admitted to John that he purposely left him to increase John’s odds of surviving. Miraculously, they both survived and were reunited with Kato after being liberated by the American army in March of 1945.
Most of John’s extended family was murdered in various concentration camps, but John and his parents were eventually able to come to New York to join his uncle who had been living in America since 1939. They arrived in the United States on August 5, 1946.
John knew no English upon coming to the U.S., but his determination and grit helped him achieve at school and eventually become an electrical engineer, traveling all over the world to work on electronic systems in tanks and aircrafts. John’s travels even took him to Germany, where he learned that not all Germans hate Jews, and he even developed a few German friends.
Today, John lives in Massapequa, New York, and participates in Holocaust education programs such as the UJA’s Witness Project. He feels that sharing his experiences with future generations will inspire them to create a more positive and less prejudiced world.
