Ilona and Dezso-Erno Hacker, Suzana Petrovic’s parents

Photo of my parents Ilona and Dezso-Erno Hacker. Photo was taken in Novi Sad, 1939.  My parents met in Arad, Romania.  My father had seen her on the street and followed her home.  At first, both parents were against it, but they got used to it.

They had two children, my bother Ivan and me.  They lived in several cities and settled in Novi Sad in 1934.

My father was taken in 1942 to a work battalion, Munkasi they were called then, to the Russian front from where he wrote the last time in January 1943.  We never heard from him again. 

When they moved from Skoplje to Novi Sad he had a big office and again he worked distributing big turbines and machines. Right when the war broke out one of the turbines which was very valuable was at the Split port and remained there. When they took him away my mother tried as much as she was able to continue his work until April 1944 when all the Jews of Novi Sad were deported. Luckily she was not deported to Auschwitz, rather she was taken to Austria where she was put in a forced labor camp where they dug irrigation canals. Then she was taken to Theresienstadt where she endured and where we were reunited.