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Back then my father did what was probably the most genial thing he’d ever accomplished. Thanks to the fact that he knew how to deal with people, and that he had certain financial resources at his disposal. Through the regional government office and via his friend Mr. Vojtech Cajchan from Hnuste, who held an important position at the Regional Office, they made up this situation that our parents were going to be tried in Slovakia for smuggling minors into Hungary. In order for them to be prosecuted, the children had to be in Slovakia as the corpus delicti during the trial. This is how Mr. Cajchan arranged it with the mayor of Rimavska Sobota, Dr. Ev. Hungarian policemen took my brother and me from the ghetto. My aunt and uncle stayed, alas.
We were taken to Rimavska Bana, on the border between Hungary and Slovakia. In Rimavska Bana a Slovak soldier, a border guard, took charge of us, and drove us to the Regional Office in Hnuste, where our father was already waiting for us. My mother always used to say that that night, before they brought us to Hnuste, our father turned gray. When I returned home, I didn’t know even a word of Slovak. To prevent any problems, we couldn’t go to Utekac right away, so they took my brother and me to our grandma’s place in Muranska Lehota. There we waited until the beginning of the Slovak National Uprising. That was the first phase of our life during the Holocaust.
In August 1944, we returned to Utekac, where our parents were living. The second phase was characterized by the fact that the Germans started occupying Slovakia, and in October 1944 the uprising was suppressed. On exactly 22nd October 1944, my father loaded our family into a truck. Also with us were the children and wife of his brother Jozef, and another of my father’s sisters-in-law, Elena, who’d in the meantime returned from Budapest. We rode the truck up into central Slovakia.
Overall, it was quite a hard trip. Right the first night, we ran into some rebel soldiers, who were also retreating. They wanted to take my father’s truck, and the commanding officer even drew his pistol on my father. It got smoothed over. The second day we went a little further on. We got to Kysuc. That day, 23rd October, the Germans were already moving along the road from Hrinov to Cierny Balog. We were in a farmhouse where several German shells landed, because the house wasn’t far from the road. Right the same day we went into the forest. My father was a woodsman, and was very good at getting by in the woods. We made a shelter out of branches, and slept in the woods.
We were taken to Rimavska Bana, on the border between Hungary and Slovakia. In Rimavska Bana a Slovak soldier, a border guard, took charge of us, and drove us to the Regional Office in Hnuste, where our father was already waiting for us. My mother always used to say that that night, before they brought us to Hnuste, our father turned gray. When I returned home, I didn’t know even a word of Slovak. To prevent any problems, we couldn’t go to Utekac right away, so they took my brother and me to our grandma’s place in Muranska Lehota. There we waited until the beginning of the Slovak National Uprising. That was the first phase of our life during the Holocaust.
In August 1944, we returned to Utekac, where our parents were living. The second phase was characterized by the fact that the Germans started occupying Slovakia, and in October 1944 the uprising was suppressed. On exactly 22nd October 1944, my father loaded our family into a truck. Also with us were the children and wife of his brother Jozef, and another of my father’s sisters-in-law, Elena, who’d in the meantime returned from Budapest. We rode the truck up into central Slovakia.
Overall, it was quite a hard trip. Right the first night, we ran into some rebel soldiers, who were also retreating. They wanted to take my father’s truck, and the commanding officer even drew his pistol on my father. It got smoothed over. The second day we went a little further on. We got to Kysuc. That day, 23rd October, the Germans were already moving along the road from Hrinov to Cierny Balog. We were in a farmhouse where several German shells landed, because the house wasn’t far from the road. Right the same day we went into the forest. My father was a woodsman, and was very good at getting by in the woods. We made a shelter out of branches, and slept in the woods.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Tibor Engel