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My husband worked in the munitions factory during the Holocaust which belonged to Buchenwald. After he got home, he stayed alone. None of his relatives came home for him, though he had two sisters, and they had children, too.
When I got married, like newlyweds we bought double of every kitchen utensil. My husband and I agreed to keep a kosher household, in spite of the fact that my husband had already eaten treyf, but I hadn’t. I kept kosher until 1960. I don’t remember on what occasion I ate treyf the first time. I was at work, I ate in the company kitchen, so it was impossible to follow the obligations of a kosher kitchen there. I don’t even have separate dishes for Pesach, anymore. On Pesach, I don’t consume leavened bread, flour and yeast either, I just eat matzah for eight days. My menu at that time usually consists of blintzes, various vegetables and meat. Nowadays in Galanta, I only know two people who keep kosher, Mrs. Muller and Mrs. Lowinger.
Almost all of our friends emigrated by 1948. Most of them went to Palestine. They went home. I’m not even sure there was a Palestine then. Everybody left. My husband and I also got ready to leave, but I stayed, pregnant. Pali was born in 1949. Since he had already started to sprout a little, we couldn’t leave. So we stayed here, but we really would have liked to leave. We even packed for it, I labeled the crates. In the end, we stayed anyway. That was really painful for me, I would have gone.
We were very glad about the formation of the Israeli state in 1948. We got together and talked about it, and were glad about it. Even today, if we sing the Israeli anthem [Hatikvah] [16], my tears start gushing. We also sing it, if there’s an occasion calls for it, for example in the prayer house, for the unveiling of memorials…etc.
My husband was the general manager of a pharmacy for thirty years. He worked in one place all the way to his retirement. I worked with him, but it wasn’t long before the regulation came out, that husband and wife couldn’t work together in the same place. So I looked for another position. I found one in the service industry, as a manager, then I worked in another business, likewise as a general manager. I retired to a reduced pension quite early for health reasons, because of my spine.
After we returned [from the war], it was hard to make heads nor tails of politics, in the new system. Communism didn’t sit well with me. That’s probably why I kept my religion, because the Communist system didn’t appreciate such activities. The Communists took power in 1948 and by the early 1950s, we felt it. They searched our house more than once. They just came in with a paper, ‘Uh… we’re searching your house.’. My husband and Kalisch had a jewelry store, so they thought, I don’t know, we’re so rich. During these house searches, they would turn everything over starting with the cellar, and we had kids by then. They even searched the children’s beds so there wasn’t any gold or something hidden away.
It was very displeasing for my husband. He said, when the Slansky Trial [Slansky Trial] [17] was going on, that it wasn’t Slansky speaking, it was doll. It’s possible that Slansky just spit in some [Communist] party member’s face. They turned my husband in for saying those words. True, he was very lucky that his good friends overturned the letter reporting him. If they hadn’t, he would have sat [in jail] for a good couple years. They repeated the house searches a good couple more times. That’s when we felt there really is anti-Semitism. We heard on the radio about those Russian doctors, Jewish doctors [Doctor’s Plot] [18] , in Romania and Bulgaria also, it was just Jews who were persecuted. We were really sorry then that we didn’t leave for Israel. We were really scared then, that they would put us in prison. I was scared that they would lock us up innocently, because they locked up a lot of people like that. It was enough to just say somebody was a Zionist, and they were locked up. Nobody among our immediate friends and relatives were locked up then. Jancsi [from Janos – John] Kalisch, however, was locked up, he was put away for five or six years. They imprisoned him because he wanted to go to Israel on an airplane.
I only took part in the Socialist holidays at work as much as I had to. I was a member of the union, it was obligatory, but I didn’t join the Communist Party. In 1968, we just worked.[Prague Spring] [19]. We were glad about what happened, however both our children were in the hospital in Pozsony [Bratislava] at the time. We thought a lot about leaving [emigrating] then, but my husband was afraid. He didn’t want to depart for Germany, that is to say, he didn’t want to live with the Germans. We could have gone to America or Israel, but he said he was too old to start life over. I think we made a mistake then, that we stayed here. After 1968, a lot of people left Galanta.
When I got married, like newlyweds we bought double of every kitchen utensil. My husband and I agreed to keep a kosher household, in spite of the fact that my husband had already eaten treyf, but I hadn’t. I kept kosher until 1960. I don’t remember on what occasion I ate treyf the first time. I was at work, I ate in the company kitchen, so it was impossible to follow the obligations of a kosher kitchen there. I don’t even have separate dishes for Pesach, anymore. On Pesach, I don’t consume leavened bread, flour and yeast either, I just eat matzah for eight days. My menu at that time usually consists of blintzes, various vegetables and meat. Nowadays in Galanta, I only know two people who keep kosher, Mrs. Muller and Mrs. Lowinger.
Almost all of our friends emigrated by 1948. Most of them went to Palestine. They went home. I’m not even sure there was a Palestine then. Everybody left. My husband and I also got ready to leave, but I stayed, pregnant. Pali was born in 1949. Since he had already started to sprout a little, we couldn’t leave. So we stayed here, but we really would have liked to leave. We even packed for it, I labeled the crates. In the end, we stayed anyway. That was really painful for me, I would have gone.
We were very glad about the formation of the Israeli state in 1948. We got together and talked about it, and were glad about it. Even today, if we sing the Israeli anthem [Hatikvah] [16], my tears start gushing. We also sing it, if there’s an occasion calls for it, for example in the prayer house, for the unveiling of memorials…etc.
My husband was the general manager of a pharmacy for thirty years. He worked in one place all the way to his retirement. I worked with him, but it wasn’t long before the regulation came out, that husband and wife couldn’t work together in the same place. So I looked for another position. I found one in the service industry, as a manager, then I worked in another business, likewise as a general manager. I retired to a reduced pension quite early for health reasons, because of my spine.
After we returned [from the war], it was hard to make heads nor tails of politics, in the new system. Communism didn’t sit well with me. That’s probably why I kept my religion, because the Communist system didn’t appreciate such activities. The Communists took power in 1948 and by the early 1950s, we felt it. They searched our house more than once. They just came in with a paper, ‘Uh… we’re searching your house.’. My husband and Kalisch had a jewelry store, so they thought, I don’t know, we’re so rich. During these house searches, they would turn everything over starting with the cellar, and we had kids by then. They even searched the children’s beds so there wasn’t any gold or something hidden away.
It was very displeasing for my husband. He said, when the Slansky Trial [Slansky Trial] [17] was going on, that it wasn’t Slansky speaking, it was doll. It’s possible that Slansky just spit in some [Communist] party member’s face. They turned my husband in for saying those words. True, he was very lucky that his good friends overturned the letter reporting him. If they hadn’t, he would have sat [in jail] for a good couple years. They repeated the house searches a good couple more times. That’s when we felt there really is anti-Semitism. We heard on the radio about those Russian doctors, Jewish doctors [Doctor’s Plot] [18] , in Romania and Bulgaria also, it was just Jews who were persecuted. We were really sorry then that we didn’t leave for Israel. We were really scared then, that they would put us in prison. I was scared that they would lock us up innocently, because they locked up a lot of people like that. It was enough to just say somebody was a Zionist, and they were locked up. Nobody among our immediate friends and relatives were locked up then. Jancsi [from Janos – John] Kalisch, however, was locked up, he was put away for five or six years. They imprisoned him because he wanted to go to Israel on an airplane.
I only took part in the Socialist holidays at work as much as I had to. I was a member of the union, it was obligatory, but I didn’t join the Communist Party. In 1968, we just worked.[Prague Spring] [19]. We were glad about what happened, however both our children were in the hospital in Pozsony [Bratislava] at the time. We thought a lot about leaving [emigrating] then, but my husband was afraid. He didn’t want to depart for Germany, that is to say, he didn’t want to live with the Germans. We could have gone to America or Israel, but he said he was too old to start life over. I think we made a mistake then, that we stayed here. After 1968, a lot of people left Galanta.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Ruzena Deutschova