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After that I told Anicka: “We’re not staying here, we’ll return to Slovakia.” We knew that Slovakia wasn’t deporting [deportations from the territory of the Slovak State were stopped in October 1942 – Editor’s note. See also [10]]. That was in March 1944, and somehow we suspected that something horrible was being readied in Hungary [on 5th April 1944, Horthy agreed to the deportation of 700,000 Hungarian Jews – Editor’s note]. So we went to the station, Keleti Palyaudvar [train station in Budapest – Editor’s note], and there we watched which trains were leaving, how they were checking people and so on. We found out that both Hungarians and Germans were performing the checks. Hungarian cops were checking citizenship cards, and Germans the Fahrschein [travel permit]. I had learned to make false stamps, and so I forged us some documents. But I didn’t know how to forge a Fahrschein, I didn’t have a sample and so Anicka and I decided that we’d fold an ordinary piece of paper and just hold it in our hands. The departure plan was as follows. We went separately, as if we didn’t know each other. We had only light bags. We arrived at the station a few seconds before the train’s departure. So we just quickly waved the papers at the inspectors. They asked: “Hova, hova?” Hungarian: “Where, where?” Anicka answered “Kassaba.” “To Kosice.” The Hungarian cop yelled: “Hamar, hamar”. In translation from Hungarian: “Quickly, quickly”. So we jumped on the train. At that moment you could have cut me to the quick and not found blood. It was horrible. You can imagine it, when a person escapes death. At each station we were stood in fear and watched the police. We jumped back and forth from one wagon another as needed to avoid them. Finally we arrived in Kosice.
Anicka had a cousin in Kosice. She was married to a tradesman, an electrician. Both were Jews. I had a friend there, a shomer. I knew his address. He got me a form. Because it wasn’t possible to get into the city center without papers, and we needed to get to the other side, to Eperjesi Utca. I made false papers for Anicka and myself. Her cousin and her husband joined us, but they already had papers. We again decided to separate. The women dressed up in local costumes and took a different route from us. A German and Hungarian checked our identification. They examined our papers for a very long time, and finally told us that we could go. When we were a couple of steps away from them, I whispered: “And now he’ll shoot. And now he’ll shoot.” He didn’t shoot. We rounded the corner and got to our railwayman, who I already talked about. Right away he took us in, fed us, and in dialect told us: “You’ll go to Budzimir” He meant the village of Budimir [Kosice region]. I don’t know why not to Rozhanovce, where we’d already been before. Apparently there they also knew Anicka’s father, Dr. Rosenfeld. His son led us to Budimir. There he knocked on someone’s window: “I’m bringing you Jews”. They gave us buttermilk and bread. Then they sent us to the barn behind the house. It was cold; we got a blanket and hid in the hay.
We stayed there only a short time. As we were already on Slovak territory, we needed to obtain false Slovak papers as soon as possible. In what manner we managed to get to Bratislava, that I don’t know any more today. In Bratislava I had an interesting meeting with a former classmate from Presov, Vojtech Andreansky. He hailed me on the street: “Jozka, what’re you doing here? Are you crazy?” He took us to his place and advised me: “Try going to the notary office, maybe you’ll somehow manage to get some sort of birth certificate.” Luckily at that time there were only two people at the notary, and the birth register was opened like this [the interviewee indicates an open book]. A person ahead of me was receiving a birth certificate. That person was born in 1916, and so was I. Unnoticed I glanced into the register, and saw that some Vladimir Buchta had been born in 1916. My turn came up: “What would you like?” “A birth certificate”. “What’s your name?” “Vladimir Buchta”. “When were you born?” I told them, paid a fee and had a birth certificate. Though Anicka didn’t have a birth certificate, we did mange to get travel papers once again.
Anicka had a cousin in Kosice. She was married to a tradesman, an electrician. Both were Jews. I had a friend there, a shomer. I knew his address. He got me a form. Because it wasn’t possible to get into the city center without papers, and we needed to get to the other side, to Eperjesi Utca. I made false papers for Anicka and myself. Her cousin and her husband joined us, but they already had papers. We again decided to separate. The women dressed up in local costumes and took a different route from us. A German and Hungarian checked our identification. They examined our papers for a very long time, and finally told us that we could go. When we were a couple of steps away from them, I whispered: “And now he’ll shoot. And now he’ll shoot.” He didn’t shoot. We rounded the corner and got to our railwayman, who I already talked about. Right away he took us in, fed us, and in dialect told us: “You’ll go to Budzimir” He meant the village of Budimir [Kosice region]. I don’t know why not to Rozhanovce, where we’d already been before. Apparently there they also knew Anicka’s father, Dr. Rosenfeld. His son led us to Budimir. There he knocked on someone’s window: “I’m bringing you Jews”. They gave us buttermilk and bread. Then they sent us to the barn behind the house. It was cold; we got a blanket and hid in the hay.
We stayed there only a short time. As we were already on Slovak territory, we needed to obtain false Slovak papers as soon as possible. In what manner we managed to get to Bratislava, that I don’t know any more today. In Bratislava I had an interesting meeting with a former classmate from Presov, Vojtech Andreansky. He hailed me on the street: “Jozka, what’re you doing here? Are you crazy?” He took us to his place and advised me: “Try going to the notary office, maybe you’ll somehow manage to get some sort of birth certificate.” Luckily at that time there were only two people at the notary, and the birth register was opened like this [the interviewee indicates an open book]. A person ahead of me was receiving a birth certificate. That person was born in 1916, and so was I. Unnoticed I glanced into the register, and saw that some Vladimir Buchta had been born in 1916. My turn came up: “What would you like?” “A birth certificate”. “What’s your name?” “Vladimir Buchta”. “When were you born?” I told them, paid a fee and had a birth certificate. Though Anicka didn’t have a birth certificate, we did mange to get travel papers once again.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Jozef W.