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How did the anti-Jewish laws affect me? At that age I didn't understand them yet. In the first place, we had to move out of our villa and return to the house in the city, where we'd lived before. But by then we were only living in the rear part of the house, because the architect Alfred Perl from Vienna and his wife had moved into the front part, which faced the park. He was an Austrian, and wore a swastika pinned to his suit. He had his studio in Vienna, where he'd sometimes disappear, but in two or three days he'd be back. We got along well with him. They used to have my brother and I over. I think that was sometime in 1941. We had only one room that had windows facing the park. There all the men in our family would meet. My father had a Lorenz brand radio, which he hadn't turned in, and there they'd illegally listen to broadcasts. I later used this same radio too, when I was a university student in Bratislava.
The Aryanizer [Aryanization: the transfer of Jewish stores, businesses, companies, etc. to the ownership of another, non-Jewish person – the Aryanizer – Editor’s note] of my father's store was a young German woman. Her name was Lea Klostemann. She might have been about 24 years old. She was a woman of lighter morals. The Germans had garages nearby, and already in the morning she'd be sitting around there with them. Benko's Garages they were called. These days there's a shopping arcade there. There were still Jewish salesmen working there [in the store]. Those that my father had employed. There were two women in the office. In the front, in the store, there were two or three men. One of them was named Oskar Stern. Alis [Alica Urbanova, née Haasova], who my father married after the war, worked there too. Alis worked for us as a helper. She cleaned, brought the mail, basically whatever. After the war, when they returned the store to us, she worked at the till. When the store was being Aryanized, my father tried to hide some of the goods. He had a lot of ready-made clothes, and so he and my cousin, Lulo Urban, "stole" it and walled it up at the rear of the attic. The made an entrance through the roof. You had to prop up a ladder, and that's how you got in. There was a large quantity of clothes there, coats, but also textiles and similar goods. Later part of these goods was distributed to partisans. The rest stayed there, and when we returned from the concentration camp, my father quickly got the store running again. It was painted, cleaned up, and these hidden goods formed the foundation of the newly opened store. After the war my father also bought a truck, which he used to drive to Brno to get goods.
The Aryanizer [Aryanization: the transfer of Jewish stores, businesses, companies, etc. to the ownership of another, non-Jewish person – the Aryanizer – Editor’s note] of my father's store was a young German woman. Her name was Lea Klostemann. She might have been about 24 years old. She was a woman of lighter morals. The Germans had garages nearby, and already in the morning she'd be sitting around there with them. Benko's Garages they were called. These days there's a shopping arcade there. There were still Jewish salesmen working there [in the store]. Those that my father had employed. There were two women in the office. In the front, in the store, there were two or three men. One of them was named Oskar Stern. Alis [Alica Urbanova, née Haasova], who my father married after the war, worked there too. Alis worked for us as a helper. She cleaned, brought the mail, basically whatever. After the war, when they returned the store to us, she worked at the till. When the store was being Aryanized, my father tried to hide some of the goods. He had a lot of ready-made clothes, and so he and my cousin, Lulo Urban, "stole" it and walled it up at the rear of the attic. The made an entrance through the roof. You had to prop up a ladder, and that's how you got in. There was a large quantity of clothes there, coats, but also textiles and similar goods. Later part of these goods was distributed to partisans. The rest stayed there, and when we returned from the concentration camp, my father quickly got the store running again. It was painted, cleaned up, and these hidden goods formed the foundation of the newly opened store. After the war my father also bought a truck, which he used to drive to Brno to get goods.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Ladislav Urban