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After the war, my brother Juraj and I settled in Prague. Before the war we spoke Hungarian, and so our parents had named him Gyula, familiarly Gyuszika. In Czech he changed his name to Jiri, and in Slovakia they called him Juraj. After the war both of us wanted to study. I applied for medicine, and got in, too, but fell ill. At that time Joint [19] was working. We were getting a terribly small amount of support. They didn’t even put us up in a dormitory, we had to rent from someone. One support payment went right for rent, and we hadn’t even eaten yet. It was necessary to decide who’d study, I or my brother. We decided for my brother. I said to myself that I’d get married. My future husband, Juraj Fischer, was already courting me. So I got married. We supported my brother, and he also graduated.
My husband, Juraj Fischer, was from Lucenec, from a prominent Jewish family. They owned a wholesale business that sold steel, paints, stoves and gasoline. His parents were named Gyula Fischer and Sara Fischer, née Sacher. Sara died very young, when my husband was still a small child. My husband had another two brothers; Zigmund [Zsigmond] and Juraj [Gyula]. One of the brothers, who was a lawyer, had his little daughter die on him. He lost his mind as a result. He used to go to her grave every Sunday. Once the Nyilasites caught him. They said to him that they were going to take him in. He answered them: ‘Don’t take me in yet, I don’t have an umbrella! I’ll go home for an umbrella, and I’ll return, on my honor.’ He returned.
My husband left the country as a nineteen-year-old when the persecution of Jews [20] was just beginning. In later years, he gave only one longer interview, in 2004, to the weekly Domino forum [a weekly Slovak magazine featuring political and social issues]. In it he described his life story. The story of the escape of a Jewish boy at the start of the war from his hometown of Lucenec, the story of a journey filled with hardships through the Balkans and the Middle East to France, where he took part in Operation Dynamo by the French harbor town of Dunkerque [21]. From there he went to England, where he joined the Czechoslovak Army. After the landing at Normandy, on 6th June 1944 he took part in Operation Overlord. [Operation Overlord: the name of the landing in Normandy on 6th June 1944. It was one of the largest military operations of World War II.
My husband, Juraj Fischer, was from Lucenec, from a prominent Jewish family. They owned a wholesale business that sold steel, paints, stoves and gasoline. His parents were named Gyula Fischer and Sara Fischer, née Sacher. Sara died very young, when my husband was still a small child. My husband had another two brothers; Zigmund [Zsigmond] and Juraj [Gyula]. One of the brothers, who was a lawyer, had his little daughter die on him. He lost his mind as a result. He used to go to her grave every Sunday. Once the Nyilasites caught him. They said to him that they were going to take him in. He answered them: ‘Don’t take me in yet, I don’t have an umbrella! I’ll go home for an umbrella, and I’ll return, on my honor.’ He returned.
My husband left the country as a nineteen-year-old when the persecution of Jews [20] was just beginning. In later years, he gave only one longer interview, in 2004, to the weekly Domino forum [a weekly Slovak magazine featuring political and social issues]. In it he described his life story. The story of the escape of a Jewish boy at the start of the war from his hometown of Lucenec, the story of a journey filled with hardships through the Balkans and the Middle East to France, where he took part in Operation Dynamo by the French harbor town of Dunkerque [21]. From there he went to England, where he joined the Czechoslovak Army. After the landing at Normandy, on 6th June 1944 he took part in Operation Overlord. [Operation Overlord: the name of the landing in Normandy on 6th June 1944. It was one of the largest military operations of World War II.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Viola Rozalia Fischerova
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