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Of course, they took the Jews to work. [Paragraph 22 of the Jewish Codex said Jews between the ages of 16 and 60 were required to work. This paragraph became symbolic in the later Jewish tragedy, the Slovak government used it as well, citing exactly that paragraph, in March 1942 to begin the deportations of Jewish residents from Slovakia.] The three men, my sister’s husband, my husband and my father, who was fifty-some years old, were taken to Ilava. There they built an electricity dam.
My father and the two other men were active in the hydrocentrala [hydro-electric power plant]. This happened in about 1942. My mother, my younger sister and I, and others who were relatives, had a special identification which said that while they worked there, we had protected status.
The city police headquarters was in today’s old City Hall. Its commander was Konzinka. Kozinka, who would just out of habit send cops out to chase Jews, had them taken to camps, or for interrogation. During the time that our men weren’t at home, the police brought us in 11 times.
He’d look at our ID, then announce that everything was in order, and send us home. While people are young, they aren’t so scared, but I really wasn’t a coward, so one night – this was the eleventh inspection – I told them, ‘Look here, we’re not allowed to go out on the street until six in the morning.
We’re going home, but not alone. Please have us escorted.’ He really gave us a policeman, who escorted us home, but they never brought us back down at night. Whether it was because of what I said or not, I don’t know, but it’s enough that it happened.
One of the young ladies, whose husband was likewise in Ilava, came over to our house and said she’d just gotten notified that they’d taken our husbands away to Zilina to the camp and were deporting them from there. [There were many collection camps in Slovakian territory, but all trains going from Zilina went to Auschwitz.]
Again I needed a good connection and a thousand koruna for that; it was a terribly large amount of money. Within an hour, I got a travel permit from the foreign ministry. I got on a train, and went to Zilina – the first time in my life I saw Zilina. There in Zilina, again I ran into a judge with humane characteristics, who dealt with these things. I told him what the situation was.
I won’t tell all the details, but I successfully got a permission and got into the Lager [German for ‘camp’], where they were keeping my father. As an older person, there was nothing he could do. I got a permission with his name on it, so he could get out of the camp. My father told me meanwhile, where my husband and my brother-in-law were working and that they would come back from work at five. Father was the oldest, I had to save him first.
I got myself together, went in, Father was very glad, packed up whatever he had, rucksack on his shoulder and we start to leave. On the road, I gave my father the permission. Father reads it, stops and says, ‘This isn’t in my name, I’m not going. I never did a false thing in my life, I won’t now either.’
Of course that it was false ID, it was in the name of someone that was no longer alive. I pinched him in the shoulder so that’s he’d be quiet, and dragged him away from there. Finally we got out of the camp, and I said, ‘Father, for the love of God, it’s like this...’ And I explained to him how things were. My father was saved. I still had to arrange things for our sons.
In Zilina, there was a hotel close to the station, the so-called Grand Hotel. You could rent rooms there by the hour. I went in and asked for a room. As soon as the porter saw a young woman with an older man, I got the key right away, I took my father up and locked the door.
I gave him a newspaper, and said to him, ‘You sit here, and read. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Don’t leave, don’t answer any knock at the door, nothing. I’m taking the key, so they don’t open the door on you, and so you can’t either. I’m going to arrange things for the boys.
I left. The porter looked at me, I said we weren’t going to, just like that, I’m going to buy some wine. I left and luck was really with me – and my connections, of course – I arranged to have the two younger men sent on the train which went to Novaky [labor camp] [26], not the one going to Auschwitz.
When this was worked out, I went back to my father who was waiting for me in the hotel, and we left. The porter said, ‘I’m not surprised you finished so fast, you’re a pretty young woman, and still you go with such an old man.’
We went to the train, got on the Tatra express, which was forbidden for Jews to ride on. I went into the dining car, which was even more forbidden for Jews. I ordered dinner, Father couldn’t swallow one bite from nervousness. We got home.
The next day, I asked for another travel permit, to go to Novaky to see whether the boys had arrived. Well, that’s how I saved my immediate family in 1942, none of them were outside the country’s borders. As we know, the deportations stopped in 1943.
We moved four times during the war. There was always a new decree about which streets we could live on, and which not. Among others, one said we couldn’t even live in a house built after 1938, or one where there was central heating.
To this point, many had arranged to go into hiding – we called this ‘into the bunker.’ We started to be a little optimistic, that maybe it was possible to survive this. That’s how we spent the year 1944. We breathed a little easier in 1944.
I listened to London radio at our Christian acquaintances’ house and found out what was happening, what was the news. In 1944, there was an invasion on the beaches.
[Editor’s note: on 6th June 1944, the Americans and British started the invasion at the beaches of Normandy, whose goal was the capture of the English channel, and securing a military bridge into the northwest coast of France, from the German troops directed by Rommel.]
The happiness was inexplicable, we cried with joy at home. We thought now, one-two, the whole thing will be over. On 20th August 1944, the Slovak National Uprising broke out. It would still have been possible then to successfully get away from here, but now it was impossible, because both the train stations were totally shut down, not just with police, but with [Hlinka] guards, too. Bratislava was inside the zone of the Uprising.
In September, the weather was very, very warm and comfortable. A few friends and I would have liked to go out to the water and swim once. My mother – she was still relatively young – and three of my friends and I went.
There was a small bay toward Devin, where nobody went, so we went there to swim. We swam once, then came back. My mother was still swimming. Suddenly, we were horrified to realize, that a few meters away, Kozinka, the old town director of the police headquarters was getting undressed and heading straight for the water. Kozinka turned toward my mother who was swimming there, they stopped, he said something, and my mother got out. Kozinka kept swimming.
My father and the two other men were active in the hydrocentrala [hydro-electric power plant]. This happened in about 1942. My mother, my younger sister and I, and others who were relatives, had a special identification which said that while they worked there, we had protected status.
The city police headquarters was in today’s old City Hall. Its commander was Konzinka. Kozinka, who would just out of habit send cops out to chase Jews, had them taken to camps, or for interrogation. During the time that our men weren’t at home, the police brought us in 11 times.
He’d look at our ID, then announce that everything was in order, and send us home. While people are young, they aren’t so scared, but I really wasn’t a coward, so one night – this was the eleventh inspection – I told them, ‘Look here, we’re not allowed to go out on the street until six in the morning.
We’re going home, but not alone. Please have us escorted.’ He really gave us a policeman, who escorted us home, but they never brought us back down at night. Whether it was because of what I said or not, I don’t know, but it’s enough that it happened.
One of the young ladies, whose husband was likewise in Ilava, came over to our house and said she’d just gotten notified that they’d taken our husbands away to Zilina to the camp and were deporting them from there. [There were many collection camps in Slovakian territory, but all trains going from Zilina went to Auschwitz.]
Again I needed a good connection and a thousand koruna for that; it was a terribly large amount of money. Within an hour, I got a travel permit from the foreign ministry. I got on a train, and went to Zilina – the first time in my life I saw Zilina. There in Zilina, again I ran into a judge with humane characteristics, who dealt with these things. I told him what the situation was.
I won’t tell all the details, but I successfully got a permission and got into the Lager [German for ‘camp’], where they were keeping my father. As an older person, there was nothing he could do. I got a permission with his name on it, so he could get out of the camp. My father told me meanwhile, where my husband and my brother-in-law were working and that they would come back from work at five. Father was the oldest, I had to save him first.
I got myself together, went in, Father was very glad, packed up whatever he had, rucksack on his shoulder and we start to leave. On the road, I gave my father the permission. Father reads it, stops and says, ‘This isn’t in my name, I’m not going. I never did a false thing in my life, I won’t now either.’
Of course that it was false ID, it was in the name of someone that was no longer alive. I pinched him in the shoulder so that’s he’d be quiet, and dragged him away from there. Finally we got out of the camp, and I said, ‘Father, for the love of God, it’s like this...’ And I explained to him how things were. My father was saved. I still had to arrange things for our sons.
In Zilina, there was a hotel close to the station, the so-called Grand Hotel. You could rent rooms there by the hour. I went in and asked for a room. As soon as the porter saw a young woman with an older man, I got the key right away, I took my father up and locked the door.
I gave him a newspaper, and said to him, ‘You sit here, and read. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Don’t leave, don’t answer any knock at the door, nothing. I’m taking the key, so they don’t open the door on you, and so you can’t either. I’m going to arrange things for the boys.
I left. The porter looked at me, I said we weren’t going to, just like that, I’m going to buy some wine. I left and luck was really with me – and my connections, of course – I arranged to have the two younger men sent on the train which went to Novaky [labor camp] [26], not the one going to Auschwitz.
When this was worked out, I went back to my father who was waiting for me in the hotel, and we left. The porter said, ‘I’m not surprised you finished so fast, you’re a pretty young woman, and still you go with such an old man.’
We went to the train, got on the Tatra express, which was forbidden for Jews to ride on. I went into the dining car, which was even more forbidden for Jews. I ordered dinner, Father couldn’t swallow one bite from nervousness. We got home.
The next day, I asked for another travel permit, to go to Novaky to see whether the boys had arrived. Well, that’s how I saved my immediate family in 1942, none of them were outside the country’s borders. As we know, the deportations stopped in 1943.
We moved four times during the war. There was always a new decree about which streets we could live on, and which not. Among others, one said we couldn’t even live in a house built after 1938, or one where there was central heating.
To this point, many had arranged to go into hiding – we called this ‘into the bunker.’ We started to be a little optimistic, that maybe it was possible to survive this. That’s how we spent the year 1944. We breathed a little easier in 1944.
I listened to London radio at our Christian acquaintances’ house and found out what was happening, what was the news. In 1944, there was an invasion on the beaches.
[Editor’s note: on 6th June 1944, the Americans and British started the invasion at the beaches of Normandy, whose goal was the capture of the English channel, and securing a military bridge into the northwest coast of France, from the German troops directed by Rommel.]
The happiness was inexplicable, we cried with joy at home. We thought now, one-two, the whole thing will be over. On 20th August 1944, the Slovak National Uprising broke out. It would still have been possible then to successfully get away from here, but now it was impossible, because both the train stations were totally shut down, not just with police, but with [Hlinka] guards, too. Bratislava was inside the zone of the Uprising.
In September, the weather was very, very warm and comfortable. A few friends and I would have liked to go out to the water and swim once. My mother – she was still relatively young – and three of my friends and I went.
There was a small bay toward Devin, where nobody went, so we went there to swim. We swam once, then came back. My mother was still swimming. Suddenly, we were horrified to realize, that a few meters away, Kozinka, the old town director of the police headquarters was getting undressed and heading straight for the water. Kozinka turned toward my mother who was swimming there, they stopped, he said something, and my mother got out. Kozinka kept swimming.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Katarina Löfflerova