Selected text
When the first deportations started in 1942, I was rounded up as a young
girl, the first one of my family. I was deported on 22nd March 1942 with
the first transport. I remember the despair of my parents when they learned
that I had to go; I packed my suitcase, my brother harnessed two horses,
and, along with my father and a policeman, I left. I still remember those
painful first moments in the assembly center in Poprad.
We were on the train for several days, and my first impression of Auschwitz
was that I had arrived in hell. I managed to stay alive for three years in
Auschwitz. I survived several selections and experienced Dr. Mengele's
periodic inspections. Toward the end of the war, I was forced out of the
camp and on to a death march. We went through several other concentration
camps. Until now, I have never returned to Auschwitz.
While still in Auschwitz, I learned from my neighbor, who was deported
later on, that my parents paid 4,000 Slovak crowns in order to obtain an
exception as economically important Jews because they had a big farm.
However, the very next day Slovak guards [1] came to pick up my parents. So
it seems the bribe they paid did them no good.
Many members of my family didn't survive the Holocaust. My father Aron and
my brothers Emil and Max were killed in Auschwitz. My sister Tonci, along
with her three little children, of whom one was only a baby, and her
husband Berkovic were all killed in Auschwitz, too, probably in 1942. My
mother Ester died in Majdanek concentration camp [2] in 1942.
Two of my brothers - Emil, who was 27 year old and already married, and
Max, who was 22 - didn't want to leave our parents and went with them to
the concentration camp. Max had served in the Czechoslovak army, so we have
a lovely picture of him in his uniform.
I remember my cousin Kosen Goldman, who was born in Ladomirov in 1907.
Before World War II he was a businessman. During the Holocaust he was taken
to Auschwitz, and killed there.
My brother Adolf and I survived together. My other brother, Iosef, also
survived because he had been in a forced labor brigade attached to the
army, and that's how he made his escape. And, of course, Irving, who had
left for America in the 1920s, also survived.
girl, the first one of my family. I was deported on 22nd March 1942 with
the first transport. I remember the despair of my parents when they learned
that I had to go; I packed my suitcase, my brother harnessed two horses,
and, along with my father and a policeman, I left. I still remember those
painful first moments in the assembly center in Poprad.
We were on the train for several days, and my first impression of Auschwitz
was that I had arrived in hell. I managed to stay alive for three years in
Auschwitz. I survived several selections and experienced Dr. Mengele's
periodic inspections. Toward the end of the war, I was forced out of the
camp and on to a death march. We went through several other concentration
camps. Until now, I have never returned to Auschwitz.
While still in Auschwitz, I learned from my neighbor, who was deported
later on, that my parents paid 4,000 Slovak crowns in order to obtain an
exception as economically important Jews because they had a big farm.
However, the very next day Slovak guards [1] came to pick up my parents. So
it seems the bribe they paid did them no good.
Many members of my family didn't survive the Holocaust. My father Aron and
my brothers Emil and Max were killed in Auschwitz. My sister Tonci, along
with her three little children, of whom one was only a baby, and her
husband Berkovic were all killed in Auschwitz, too, probably in 1942. My
mother Ester died in Majdanek concentration camp [2] in 1942.
Two of my brothers - Emil, who was 27 year old and already married, and
Max, who was 22 - didn't want to leave our parents and went with them to
the concentration camp. Max had served in the Czechoslovak army, so we have
a lovely picture of him in his uniform.
I remember my cousin Kosen Goldman, who was born in Ladomirov in 1907.
Before World War II he was a businessman. During the Holocaust he was taken
to Auschwitz, and killed there.
My brother Adolf and I survived together. My other brother, Iosef, also
survived because he had been in a forced labor brigade attached to the
army, and that's how he made his escape. And, of course, Irving, who had
left for America in the 1920s, also survived.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Ruzena Guttmannova