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There wasn’t a play, not one premiere, that we missed. I always loved going to the theater. There was television. Here in Bratislava you could watch Vienna [channel], whereas in Nitra you could get Pest [Budapest TV]. When we got back to Bratislava, the television was an absolutely satisfying thing, but we went to the theater regularly. After every lunch, the Vecernik [evening news] came out. There was nobody from Bratislava who didn’t buy the Vecernik. At one time, we got Pravda also, and we considered that a real well-informed newspaper. Then they dropped the Pravda, but the Vecernik was a daily newspaper, for sure.
I went abroad regularly, mostly to Pest [Budapest]. I went to Pest because my father’s two brothers and three sisters were there, everybody remained alive – they didn’t live here in Czechoslovakia, only my father did.
So I immediately made contact, when I got home and every other month I went down to Pest for at least a couple days to stay with my cousins, sometimes even a week. Our passports were no problem, we got them easily.
When my daughter got a little bigger, I was at the Balaton with her once or twice. I went with my husband twice. In general, he always had a lot to do and so we couldn’t go [together]. We could go on vacation to the Tatras, we went there a couple times, too, but nowhere else.
That particular married couple, our friends who settled in Vienna, they were very diligent and their business went well. I wrote to them; she was a good lady friend of mine. He husband got seriously ill and died.
She called then, saying that her husband had died, the funeral was such-and-such and she’d be expecting me. I said, ‘Well, you know, to come see you I don’t only need a passport, but also permission to travel out of the country.’ She said, ‘Yes, I know that, and that’s why I’m sending a written invitation.’ That was the only stipulation, but just to go to the West. I handed in the request and the written invitation.
At the time, the way it worked, they sent a kind of policeman who interviewed the person. I was at home, and he came over in civilian clothes and told me why he was here. I took him into the living room, we sat down next to each other, and I even made some coffee for him.
We started talking, he asked everything, it was all there on the request form. In the little box next to the names of my parents, I put a little cross next to my father and my mother. He asked me, ‘What does this mean?’ I said, ‘They are no longer alive, they perished in Auschwitz at this and this time.’ I told him the exact date. He looked at me with a little smile, ‘Anybody can say that, maybe in the meantime, they’re living in America, and things are going great there for them.’ That hurt me so unfathomably, that without a thought I stood up, looked at him and said, ‘Get out!
Anyone who speaks like that with me about my parents, who died martyr deaths, has no business here, get out!’ He got so frightened, he thought I might beat him up or I don’t know what, so he left. He left his hat in the front room, I threw that after him, he caught it.
My husband came home in the evening, I told him about what had happened and said, ‘I don’t know, I might get a refusal tomorrow.’ We waited, waited, but I didn’t get a refusal, nothing. But I didn’t get a passport for Austria either, so I didn’t go anywhere.
I went abroad regularly, mostly to Pest [Budapest]. I went to Pest because my father’s two brothers and three sisters were there, everybody remained alive – they didn’t live here in Czechoslovakia, only my father did.
So I immediately made contact, when I got home and every other month I went down to Pest for at least a couple days to stay with my cousins, sometimes even a week. Our passports were no problem, we got them easily.
When my daughter got a little bigger, I was at the Balaton with her once or twice. I went with my husband twice. In general, he always had a lot to do and so we couldn’t go [together]. We could go on vacation to the Tatras, we went there a couple times, too, but nowhere else.
That particular married couple, our friends who settled in Vienna, they were very diligent and their business went well. I wrote to them; she was a good lady friend of mine. He husband got seriously ill and died.
She called then, saying that her husband had died, the funeral was such-and-such and she’d be expecting me. I said, ‘Well, you know, to come see you I don’t only need a passport, but also permission to travel out of the country.’ She said, ‘Yes, I know that, and that’s why I’m sending a written invitation.’ That was the only stipulation, but just to go to the West. I handed in the request and the written invitation.
At the time, the way it worked, they sent a kind of policeman who interviewed the person. I was at home, and he came over in civilian clothes and told me why he was here. I took him into the living room, we sat down next to each other, and I even made some coffee for him.
We started talking, he asked everything, it was all there on the request form. In the little box next to the names of my parents, I put a little cross next to my father and my mother. He asked me, ‘What does this mean?’ I said, ‘They are no longer alive, they perished in Auschwitz at this and this time.’ I told him the exact date. He looked at me with a little smile, ‘Anybody can say that, maybe in the meantime, they’re living in America, and things are going great there for them.’ That hurt me so unfathomably, that without a thought I stood up, looked at him and said, ‘Get out!
Anyone who speaks like that with me about my parents, who died martyr deaths, has no business here, get out!’ He got so frightened, he thought I might beat him up or I don’t know what, so he left. He left his hat in the front room, I threw that after him, he caught it.
My husband came home in the evening, I told him about what had happened and said, ‘I don’t know, I might get a refusal tomorrow.’ We waited, waited, but I didn’t get a refusal, nothing. But I didn’t get a passport for Austria either, so I didn’t go anywhere.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Katarina Löfflerova