Selected text
I remember that in school every week we had lessons with Rabbi Dr.
Fridman. He taught Hebrew language and the history of the Jewish people.
After graduation I worked in the drugstore until its "aryanization." Then I
got fired, and like many Jewish children, I attended an agricultural course
in the Jewish community. The course took place on rented agricultural
property. We cultivated the land ourselves, and sold everything that grew,
and that is how we survived. This lasted about a year. On that farm, we
worked for a living, but it wasn't in preparation for aliyah to Israel,
only for survival.
During that time my father, Aleksandar Sendrei, as a former member of
the social democratic party was imprisoned. My father wasn't an active
member of that party. He had a very good friend, who was a secretary in the
social democratic party and he persuaded my father not to register for the
party. So, my father was more like a passive member. From prison he was
taken to a concentration camp where he remained until the Slovakian
uprising in 1944, when he was liberated. After that he joined the
partisans, but quickly in one of the actions he fell into the hands of the
Germans and was deported to Bergen Belsen where he died on March 15, 1945
of typhus.
I was taken into forced labor until September 20, 1944. Then I saw
Jews being taken to the train station for deportation, and I decided to go
into hiding. My mother refused to go with me because she wanted to live in
her apartment and wait for father to come home. However, in October 1944
she was taken to Auschwitz and from there she was taken to a factory where
they made parts for airplanes in Sakis-bat-kudove, and from where she was
liberated on May 8, 1945.
Fridman. He taught Hebrew language and the history of the Jewish people.
After graduation I worked in the drugstore until its "aryanization." Then I
got fired, and like many Jewish children, I attended an agricultural course
in the Jewish community. The course took place on rented agricultural
property. We cultivated the land ourselves, and sold everything that grew,
and that is how we survived. This lasted about a year. On that farm, we
worked for a living, but it wasn't in preparation for aliyah to Israel,
only for survival.
During that time my father, Aleksandar Sendrei, as a former member of
the social democratic party was imprisoned. My father wasn't an active
member of that party. He had a very good friend, who was a secretary in the
social democratic party and he persuaded my father not to register for the
party. So, my father was more like a passive member. From prison he was
taken to a concentration camp where he remained until the Slovakian
uprising in 1944, when he was liberated. After that he joined the
partisans, but quickly in one of the actions he fell into the hands of the
Germans and was deported to Bergen Belsen where he died on March 15, 1945
of typhus.
I was taken into forced labor until September 20, 1944. Then I saw
Jews being taken to the train station for deportation, and I decided to go
into hiding. My mother refused to go with me because she wanted to live in
her apartment and wait for father to come home. However, in October 1944
she was taken to Auschwitz and from there she was taken to a factory where
they made parts for airplanes in Sakis-bat-kudove, and from where she was
liberated on May 8, 1945.
Location
Serbia
Interview
Pavel Sendrei