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Then when the Germans arrived, that was worse. We had to escape to Polana. We left Hrinova together with the army and police, heading towards Banska Bystrica. Luckily, on the way we met a group of soldiers somewhere near Banska Bystrica. They said, ‘Don’t go there, the Germans were already there.’ From the time we left Hrinova, we had to hide out. In Polana, at first the mayor himself hid us. People found out about it though; they also found out that my father was a doctor. People started going to the mayor, as he had a doctor there, and it started to get dangerous. So the mayor found us a hiding place with a local farmer, who he rented land to, he gave him a cow, and said, ‘You’ll get this, but you have to hide these people.’ Maybe we were also lucky because people always liked my father very much. They hid us in the mountains, here and there, because there were German patrols. Once we were in a place where only one single wall separated us from the Germans. I was sleeping on one side of the wall and the Germans on the other. When they coughed, I took advantage of it and coughed as well. If the Germans had found out that we were there, God save us...We were liberated in February 1945.
Grandma Schvalbova also hid with us in Hrinova. When we left there for Polana, grandma stayed. Imagine that when the Russians were liberating the village from German occupation, they threw a grenade into the house where my grandmother was hiding. They covered her with a blanket, and left her there, wounded. She was lying there like that for several days. She held on until we arrived. She saw me, kissed me, wept and died.
In the meantime my parents had returned to Presov. At home they found almost nothing. Our windows were broken, because Presov had been bombed. We didn’t find our furniture. During the war, some family from Kosice had been living in our house, from when the Hungarians had occupied Presov. After the war they moved out of our house. We got our house back without any problems, but later, when the Communists came to power, they took it from us. In the year 1948 they won the elections, and that was that. After the war, my father worked as a doctor for a hospital insurance company. My mother stayed at home. My father died in 1968 and is buried in Presov, in the local Jewish cemetery. I think that the Presov cantor Lowy buried him. Each year since, I recite the Kaddish. In the synagogue they announce that it’s the anniversary of his death.
Before the war, there were two Jewish religious communities in Presov, Orthodox and Neolog. After the war there remained only one community. Both communities had their own synagogue. The Germans turned the main, Orthodox one, into a stall for horses. In the other, the Neolog synagogue, the Jews who were still in the town during the war were taken care of. They fed them there, and they could also sleep there.
Grandma Schvalbova also hid with us in Hrinova. When we left there for Polana, grandma stayed. Imagine that when the Russians were liberating the village from German occupation, they threw a grenade into the house where my grandmother was hiding. They covered her with a blanket, and left her there, wounded. She was lying there like that for several days. She held on until we arrived. She saw me, kissed me, wept and died.
In the meantime my parents had returned to Presov. At home they found almost nothing. Our windows were broken, because Presov had been bombed. We didn’t find our furniture. During the war, some family from Kosice had been living in our house, from when the Hungarians had occupied Presov. After the war they moved out of our house. We got our house back without any problems, but later, when the Communists came to power, they took it from us. In the year 1948 they won the elections, and that was that. After the war, my father worked as a doctor for a hospital insurance company. My mother stayed at home. My father died in 1968 and is buried in Presov, in the local Jewish cemetery. I think that the Presov cantor Lowy buried him. Each year since, I recite the Kaddish. In the synagogue they announce that it’s the anniversary of his death.
Before the war, there were two Jewish religious communities in Presov, Orthodox and Neolog. After the war there remained only one community. Both communities had their own synagogue. The Germans turned the main, Orthodox one, into a stall for horses. In the other, the Neolog synagogue, the Jews who were still in the town during the war were taken care of. They fed them there, and they could also sleep there.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Otto Schvalb
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