Watch the clip of Ferenc Pohl’s testimony about this period.
Ferenc Pohl was born in 1928, in Pilisszentiván, then he was raised in a Catholic family in Somsálybánya. He had six siblings. His childhood memories at the Levente movement inspired him to start a military career. He moved to Budapest, and started the military academy during World War 2. In third grade he was taken to hospital with liver problems. After his recovery he stayed at the hospital and helped rescue and hide local Jews. In the last year of the war he was drafted, and he participated in the defense of Budapest, and eventually got into a Soviet prisoner of war camp. After the war he became a border guard in the Hungarian Army. The communist regime did not tolerate the military functionaries of the previous system, therefore he had to flee the country in 1946. He lived in Austria till 1961. From 1971 he started to work at the Csepel Automobile factory. He was married twice. His interview was recorded in 2000, in Budapest.