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Sometime in 1939, NSDAP [Die Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or Nazi Party] and Hitlerjugend headquarters were set up on the corner of Venturska Street, where we were living at the time. The headquarters of the Hlinka Guard were located in the building of today’s University library, not far from the Michalska Gate, and the Hlinka Youth, which regularly met in the evenings, was also there. Their drums and horns thundered through the streets of Bratislava. All you heard was boom, boom, boom, the Hitlerjugend was marching. Boom, boom, boom, the Hlinka Youth was marching. They sang songs and shouted. They for example sang Kamarati Na Straz! [Friends, On Guard!]. Like Slovenska Pospolitost [11] does today. They marched around with their arms in the air. Then they smashed windows and storefronts. They carried daggers with them. After dispersing, it ended with them catching someone and stabbing them with one of those daggers, or beating them to death. That’s why we used to run away from them over those courtyard galleries.
Slowly it happened that my father’s good, old customers stopped coming to the store. Then came vile graffiti, swastikas and Jewish stars that were painted on stores. We also had our shutters painted many times. That’s how it slowly started, until many friends turned away as well. Luckily not everyone renounced us. There were also people that helped. At the beginning I already mentioned the butcher, Mr. Burian, and his brother-in-law. Mr. Dobos, who had a bakery, also helped us. So we always had a bit more bread and meat than others. But gradually even these connections stopped working. Because even these people also gradually had less and less. Finally, in 1942, one woman from Vienna, Karolina D., who wanted to have a store too, came to see us. She told my father to give her the keys and cash register, that she’s the new owner of the store. She was our Aryanizer [Aryanization: the transfer of Jewish stores, companies, factories, etc. into the ownership of another person (the Aryanizer) – Editor’s note]. Subsequently they put us in the Patronka collection camp. Luckily the Aryanizer didn’t know how to run the store, and arranged for us to return from there. My father worked in the store, because she didn’t know how to order goods. As I’ve already mentioned, Karolina D. was from Vienna, and was only staying in Bratislava.
Father got some sort of exception [12]. There was a huge number of exceptions. According to me, there might have been at least fifty kinds. In the morning a yellow ID card was valid, by evening it was a green one, then a white one, then there was a seal from the Hlinka Guard, from the ministry, the president... So that what was valid in the morning, they didn’t have to accept in the evening. You had to pay for everything, of course. It was extortion.
Slowly it happened that my father’s good, old customers stopped coming to the store. Then came vile graffiti, swastikas and Jewish stars that were painted on stores. We also had our shutters painted many times. That’s how it slowly started, until many friends turned away as well. Luckily not everyone renounced us. There were also people that helped. At the beginning I already mentioned the butcher, Mr. Burian, and his brother-in-law. Mr. Dobos, who had a bakery, also helped us. So we always had a bit more bread and meat than others. But gradually even these connections stopped working. Because even these people also gradually had less and less. Finally, in 1942, one woman from Vienna, Karolina D., who wanted to have a store too, came to see us. She told my father to give her the keys and cash register, that she’s the new owner of the store. She was our Aryanizer [Aryanization: the transfer of Jewish stores, companies, factories, etc. into the ownership of another person (the Aryanizer) – Editor’s note]. Subsequently they put us in the Patronka collection camp. Luckily the Aryanizer didn’t know how to run the store, and arranged for us to return from there. My father worked in the store, because she didn’t know how to order goods. As I’ve already mentioned, Karolina D. was from Vienna, and was only staying in Bratislava.
Father got some sort of exception [12]. There was a huge number of exceptions. According to me, there might have been at least fifty kinds. In the morning a yellow ID card was valid, by evening it was a green one, then a white one, then there was a seal from the Hlinka Guard, from the ministry, the president... So that what was valid in the morning, they didn’t have to accept in the evening. You had to pay for everything, of course. It was extortion.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Henrich F.