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After the Aryanization came the transports, which was the most horrible thing I’ve ever experienced. I was 13 at the time, and was attending school. There were gradually less and less of my classmates at their desks. There were less and less teachers, too.
We had a couple of teachers who were single. Those they took first. I’ve talked about how they came for my grandma. She was so fright-stricken that she left for the Jewish school, where they were gathering people for the transport, in only her nightshirt and slippers.
They yanked us out of our sleep at around 3am. My mom told me to wrap up some essentials for her and take them to the school. I met there our needlework teacher. The poor thing. Because they’d written that everyone should bring some tools with them, she took her knitting and crochet needles with her.
I’m sure it was in vain, I’m sure that she went straight into the gas. The school superintendent, who was there, made faces at her behind her back, snickered and was entertained. She was a primitive, disgusting anti-Semite. Her name was Tonková. She was all glad to see the Jews gathering in the schoolyard.
There were more people gathering around the school. They were jammed against the school gates, were laughing, and for them it was a big show. I saw it all on other occasions as well, as I wanted to help by at least letting know those that didn’t know about it, and could help those that had been afflicted.
Finally we got Grandma out of there, to my uncle’s place in Prievidza. She stayed with him until 1944. After the Slovak National Uprising broke out, my uncle left for rebel territory with his family, and found a hiding place for her in Bojnice. There were three women there.
My grandmother, my uncle’s mother-in-law, so Aunt Edita’s mother, plus another lady their age. The third one somehow lost her nerve, left the hiding place and went out onto the street. Thus she gave away the others as well. They took them all at the end of 1944. She ended up in Auschwitz, in one of the last gassings! Horrible!
They used to come for us every little while. They would, of course, always be given something so that they’d leave and leave us be. I remember one time, when two of them came. Dobrovodsky, a city cop, and the gendarme Sládek. Sládek’s wife was also an Aryanizer.
We had a couple of teachers who were single. Those they took first. I’ve talked about how they came for my grandma. She was so fright-stricken that she left for the Jewish school, where they were gathering people for the transport, in only her nightshirt and slippers.
They yanked us out of our sleep at around 3am. My mom told me to wrap up some essentials for her and take them to the school. I met there our needlework teacher. The poor thing. Because they’d written that everyone should bring some tools with them, she took her knitting and crochet needles with her.
I’m sure it was in vain, I’m sure that she went straight into the gas. The school superintendent, who was there, made faces at her behind her back, snickered and was entertained. She was a primitive, disgusting anti-Semite. Her name was Tonková. She was all glad to see the Jews gathering in the schoolyard.
There were more people gathering around the school. They were jammed against the school gates, were laughing, and for them it was a big show. I saw it all on other occasions as well, as I wanted to help by at least letting know those that didn’t know about it, and could help those that had been afflicted.
Finally we got Grandma out of there, to my uncle’s place in Prievidza. She stayed with him until 1944. After the Slovak National Uprising broke out, my uncle left for rebel territory with his family, and found a hiding place for her in Bojnice. There were three women there.
My grandmother, my uncle’s mother-in-law, so Aunt Edita’s mother, plus another lady their age. The third one somehow lost her nerve, left the hiding place and went out onto the street. Thus she gave away the others as well. They took them all at the end of 1944. She ended up in Auschwitz, in one of the last gassings! Horrible!
They used to come for us every little while. They would, of course, always be given something so that they’d leave and leave us be. I remember one time, when two of them came. Dobrovodsky, a city cop, and the gendarme Sládek. Sládek’s wife was also an Aryanizer.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Ruzena R.