János Szerednyei

János Szerednyei (26 May 1920, Szerencs, Hungary-26 July 1948 Voroshilovka, USSR) Hungarian catholic priest who voluntarily joint a group of his parishioners from Tarcal set to be deported to USSR in 1945. He died in an accident in the coal mine, where he was working.

János Szerednyei was ordained in Kosice on 11 June 1944. After ordination he was sent to Tarcal as vicar with the local parish.

After the arrival of the Red Army, on 24 January 1945 the Soviets began to round up people in Tarcal for deportations to work in the USSR. The church rector and the vicar went to the Soviet authorities to request that the group is let go, or at least the women and children are excluded. (According to some sources they wanted to buy the people out with wine – Tarcal is a part of the Tokaj wine region.) They managed to achieve freedom for some of the women and one couple on condition that János Szerednyei goes instead of them. He agreed to do so and went to the vicarage to collect a few necessary belongings. The group was supposed to work for just three days.

The deportation was a part of the practice of what the Hungarians called the "málenykij robot" (from "small work" in Russian). It involved taking people by force to do work ranging from half-a-day cleaning of rubbles to deportation to the gulag, which one could never return from.

After a few days of waiting and then a month-long trip the group finally arrived at their destination: camp number 7144/1223 in Voroshilovka, Voroshilovgrad Oblast, Uspenskij rayon in the Donetsk coal basin. They were to work in the nearby Voroshilov coal mine. Szerendnyei worked as a miner 400 meters under the surface. His camp number was 542.

...
Wikipedia