Typescript “An account of persecution. As a Hungarian political refugee in Switzerland” by Stefan Presser, 1954

Typescript of an account by Stefan Presser of the period during which he was persecuted by the Nazi regime and by the Communist Party in Hungary. Following the arrival of the Wehrmacht in Budapest, Stefan Presser was arrested by the Gestapo on 17 April 1944 as a Social Democrat and deported to Mauthausen concentration camp. Writing about his time in the concentration camp, Stefan Presser reports carrying blocks of granite up the “Stairs of Death” and acts of violence by SS soldiers. After the liberation of Mauthausen concentration camp by US troops, Stefan Presser returned to Budapest on 1 June 1945. That same year he worked as  central secretariat of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party. After the Communist Party’s victory in spring 1948, Stefan Presser fled from Austria to Switzerland in July, where he was granted asylum as a social democratic political refugee.

Date: 1954

Accession: Donation, 2020