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My brother and I didn’t have a bad childhood. We got along well. I have to say that he was a different type from me. He wasn’t interested in farming, he was more of a fun-loving type. During the summer he was more often at our aunt’s in Hungary, and he attended school, high school, in Bratislava. We got along well, and also survived [the war] together. We of course each survived in a different manner, but we crossed into Hungary together, to Budapest, and there we were saved. We walked from Bratislava. When they were obliterating the rebel territory [2], it was necessary to leave and go somewhere. We couldn’t return home, so we went to Bratislava. In September we were recommended a person who for money would help us cross over. At that time it was around 10,000 crowns [The value of one Slovak crown during the Slovak State (1939 – 1945) was equal to 31.21 mg of pure gold. The rate of exchange between the German mark and the Slovak crown was artificially set at 1:11 – Editor’s note] for both of us. He led us from Bratislava to the other side, to Hungary. In the evening we arrived at the border, and crossed during the night. We crossed on foot. He already knew it there, we crossed over in fields, among corn. He led us nicely to one house, and handed us over to the people in that house, where we slept until morning. In the morning we wanted to take the train, but at that time they were bombing Bratislava, and the trains weren’t running. Then the Hungarian police arrived and checked our ID. We had false papers. Right before the war started, my brother had been taking veterinary medicine in Budapest. But then he had to leave Pest, because Jews couldn’t study there either [9]. When the police left, he said that we couldn’t stay there, because they’d return, as we were suspicious. The people that we were staying with were very decent, and let us stay up in the attic all day. They weren’t Jews, and didn’t ask for anything. In the evening we left and walked 17 kilometers to Gyor. From there we then got to Budapest, and in Budapest we both survived. We returned to Slovakia in May, after the war was over. In Budapest we lived under false names with one lady in an apartment. I was named Tóth János Pál. I’ve still got the papers. My brother had legal papers from that veterinary school. Though they’d thrown him out, he’d kept the papers. He’d met this person there that stamped his papers, so we lived off those papers. We didn’t work because we didn’t have permission. We had a little bit with us, we of course lived in poverty, and ate once a day, but we survived.
The result of the anti-Jewish laws was that 80% of my family ended in the concentration camps. My mother returned, my father didn’t. They took him to Sachsenhausen [10] as an ill man incapable of much movement, where he died immediately after his arrival. From our family, my mother brother and I returned. My mother was in Sachsenhausen and then in Buchenwald [11]. After the war she ended up in Sweden. She didn’t think she was going to live, she had pneumonia and pleurisy, but in Sweden they saved her. When my mother’s health improved a bit, she sent a letter from Sweden to our reeve, for him to deliver to us. So that’s how we established contact with her.
My brother and I didn’t go to a concentration camp, we went into the uprising [2] and from the uprising to Bratislava and to Hungary. In September 1944 we left for Budapest. We were in Budapest when we learned that the war was over. It was liberated in February [the Russian 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian front completed the liberation of Budapest on 13th February 1945 – Editor’s note]. So we were saved, and when Budapest was liberated, we immediately went to the Czechoslovak embassy. Well, and then we knew that the war had ended, that was already common knowledge. We returned home in May 1945. After the war the village looked the same as before the war, nothing had changed, just the Jewish community was no longer. Besides us and one man, virtually no one returned to Vycapy.
The result of the anti-Jewish laws was that 80% of my family ended in the concentration camps. My mother returned, my father didn’t. They took him to Sachsenhausen [10] as an ill man incapable of much movement, where he died immediately after his arrival. From our family, my mother brother and I returned. My mother was in Sachsenhausen and then in Buchenwald [11]. After the war she ended up in Sweden. She didn’t think she was going to live, she had pneumonia and pleurisy, but in Sweden they saved her. When my mother’s health improved a bit, she sent a letter from Sweden to our reeve, for him to deliver to us. So that’s how we established contact with her.
My brother and I didn’t go to a concentration camp, we went into the uprising [2] and from the uprising to Bratislava and to Hungary. In September 1944 we left for Budapest. We were in Budapest when we learned that the war was over. It was liberated in February [the Russian 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian front completed the liberation of Budapest on 13th February 1945 – Editor’s note]. So we were saved, and when Budapest was liberated, we immediately went to the Czechoslovak embassy. Well, and then we knew that the war had ended, that was already common knowledge. We returned home in May 1945. After the war the village looked the same as before the war, nothing had changed, just the Jewish community was no longer. Besides us and one man, virtually no one returned to Vycapy.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Bedrich Hecht