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Each year, we organize a bus trip to the Mauthausen concentration camp; the participants are former prisoners, their family members and sympathizers, but recently we've been taking students and history teachers, where I show them right on the spot, as a former prisoner, what concentrations camps were all about. I got this idea because various tours of Auschwitz and I don't know what else are put on. And once I was talking to a friend of mine, the poor guy died recently, Colonel Oto Michalec was his name. He'd been there too, and he said to me: "Oto, why don't we also put together a but tour to Mauthausen, where we'll show people right on the spot, what was there, how it was?" At first we had problems, but the Central Union of Jewish Religious Communities paid for the bus. In the morning, at 6:00 p.m., we left for Mauthausen and in the afternoon, around two or three, back to Bratislava. Then I promoted the whole thing, and I took out an ad in a newspaper named Bojovnik [Fighter] published by the Slovak Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters. I got people to sign up, and now we regularly go to Mauthausen in May, on the anniversary of the liberation.
Right after the war, in 1945, I renewed my membership in the Jewish religious community. Our children always knew about all my activities and about that I was a Jew. They live as atheists, but have a positive relationship to Jews and Jewry. Most of my daughter's girlfriends are even Jewish. Our children are just aware that their father is a Jew, and that they're from a Jewish family.
I retired in 1986. I was 60. At one time I was still working as a retiree, part-time, in cartography. I still have my positions in the various unions. I'm the vice-president of the Central Council of the Slovak Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters. I've been active in this union since 1945. I got in as a former concentration camp prisoner, and a partisan. The entire union represents former resistance fighters, illegal workers, anti-Fascists and their sympathizers. I've been vice-president for 8 years now. That was a matter of course, that my path led to this union, which fights against neo-Nazism, against Fascism. I was always active. At first I was the head of one group. Then I was secretary, then president of the western organization, so I then worked my way up to the position of vice-president of the Central Council. My work in the union entails representing the president in his absence, and I also take care of the entire agenda in cooperation with foreign resistance members in the surrounding countries. I also verify requests for compensation and so on. While we're on the subject of compensation, I also received compensation. I got 15,000 marks from Germany, then I got 40,000 crowns for my participation in the resistance, and finally 117,000 for the uprising, and for having been in a concentration camp [18]. That was from the Slovak government.
As far as religious life in the community is concerned, when they invite me I go, but I don't go to synagogue regularly. I only go when there's some sort of a holiday, remembrance of the dead for example. In my free time, I get together with both Jews and non-Jews. The Jews are relatively few. If people are reputable, I don't distinguish between Jew and Gentile. I take with reserve those people who I know have a negative attitude towards questions of Jews or the uprising. Because there are also those that say that the uprising was a tragedy for the Slovak nation. But as long as a person is decent, I don't care if he's a Jew or not. That's a principle of mine. I was liked for never distinguishing whether someone was a Jew, a Catholic or a Protestant. I always took people as being in the first place human beings. But I'll discuss things with those that don't have a positive attitude towards Jews. I'll either change their mind, or I won't discuss it with them any longer. I'll tell you honestly, the people I meet, they respect me, and I them. For one, they know that I was in a concentration camp, that I was in the uprising, I was in a labor camp, and that I hold high positions. I've got all sorts of foreign awards. I was in Moscow for example, where I met Putin, and so on.
Right after the war, in 1945, I renewed my membership in the Jewish religious community. Our children always knew about all my activities and about that I was a Jew. They live as atheists, but have a positive relationship to Jews and Jewry. Most of my daughter's girlfriends are even Jewish. Our children are just aware that their father is a Jew, and that they're from a Jewish family.
I retired in 1986. I was 60. At one time I was still working as a retiree, part-time, in cartography. I still have my positions in the various unions. I'm the vice-president of the Central Council of the Slovak Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters. I've been active in this union since 1945. I got in as a former concentration camp prisoner, and a partisan. The entire union represents former resistance fighters, illegal workers, anti-Fascists and their sympathizers. I've been vice-president for 8 years now. That was a matter of course, that my path led to this union, which fights against neo-Nazism, against Fascism. I was always active. At first I was the head of one group. Then I was secretary, then president of the western organization, so I then worked my way up to the position of vice-president of the Central Council. My work in the union entails representing the president in his absence, and I also take care of the entire agenda in cooperation with foreign resistance members in the surrounding countries. I also verify requests for compensation and so on. While we're on the subject of compensation, I also received compensation. I got 15,000 marks from Germany, then I got 40,000 crowns for my participation in the resistance, and finally 117,000 for the uprising, and for having been in a concentration camp [18]. That was from the Slovak government.
As far as religious life in the community is concerned, when they invite me I go, but I don't go to synagogue regularly. I only go when there's some sort of a holiday, remembrance of the dead for example. In my free time, I get together with both Jews and non-Jews. The Jews are relatively few. If people are reputable, I don't distinguish between Jew and Gentile. I take with reserve those people who I know have a negative attitude towards questions of Jews or the uprising. Because there are also those that say that the uprising was a tragedy for the Slovak nation. But as long as a person is decent, I don't care if he's a Jew or not. That's a principle of mine. I was liked for never distinguishing whether someone was a Jew, a Catholic or a Protestant. I always took people as being in the first place human beings. But I'll discuss things with those that don't have a positive attitude towards Jews. I'll either change their mind, or I won't discuss it with them any longer. I'll tell you honestly, the people I meet, they respect me, and I them. For one, they know that I was in a concentration camp, that I was in the uprising, I was in a labor camp, and that I hold high positions. I've got all sorts of foreign awards. I was in Moscow for example, where I met Putin, and so on.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Oto Wagner