Mišo Vogel, born 1923, Topol'čany, Slovakia

A man is holding a small portrait in his left hand and his right hand is on his chest, his fingers tucked into his button-down shirt. The man's eyes are closed; a tattooed number is visible on his left arm. Text is written over the lower half of the image, shaped around the man's torso and his arms. It reads: "Mišo Vogel. Born November 29, 1923 Topoľčany Slovakia. Taken prisoner by Nazis. Interred Novaky, Slovakia 1941-1942. Transferred to Auschwitz 1942 – October 1944, Oranienburg October – December 1944. Dachau December 1944 – January 1945. Landsberg January, February, March 1945. Escaped March 1945. All his family murdered in concentration camps. MOTHER: CORNELIA died September 23, 1942. Auschwitz, Age 42. SISTER: MARTA died September 23, 1942, Auschwitz, Age 10. BROTHER: MAXMILLIAN died September 23, 1942, Auschwitz, Age 8. BROTHER: ARPAD killed Lublin Majdanek, May 1942, Age 16. SISTER: ROZSIE died June 1942, Auschwitz, Age 20. FATHER: HEINRICH VGEL died November 1942, Auschwitz, Age 44. Owner of a cattle business in Topoľčany before the war. Of a family of seven, Mišo the sole survivor. Assigned to a work detail at Auschwitz, “ARBEIT MACHT FREI.” He searched belongings of incoming prisoners stunned after days, weeks on the transports-no food-packed in like cattle-awaiting torture, death at the hands of the Nazis. A badly faded photograph shows Mišo catching a bundle of clothes, frozen by a camera in mid-flight at the rail station of Auschwitz. He was just a teenager after escaping from concentration camp deep inside Germany. Mišo joined the U.S. Army on furlough at the end of the war, he returned to his hometown in Slovakia to obtain records (birth certificate, medical history, etc.) needed for U.S. citizenship. The same Slovaks who had stolen his father’s cattle business and family’s home greeted him from the front door of his house. “We thought you were gassed. Thought you were burned like all the rest.” Mišo’s records, all the records of the Jews, were like the Jews themselves gone forever from that part of the world. "