Tag #155346 - Interview #103735 (Nikolay Schwartz Biography)

When fascists occupied Czecoslovakia, I knew I had to leave. [Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia] [8] I knew that Subcarpathia became Hungarian [Hungarian troops occupied Subcarpathia in March 1939. The western part where Vinogradov is was attached to Hungary as early as the 2nd November 1938, together with Southern Slovakia as a result of the First Vienna Decesion.] and that Jewish oppression began there. I didn’t want to go back there. I was looking for other opportunities. Slovakia became a separate state. [After the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia the Nazi satellite Slovakia came into existence in March 14th 1939.] My friend from Tyachev [125 km from Uzhgorod, 615 km from Kiev] in Subcarpathia, started on our way to Slovakia. We managed to leave for Bratislava. After Prague was invaded, everybody had to go to the German commandant office where they issued passports with the capital letter ‘J’, Jude, typed on its cover. We obtained those passports and went to a tourist company in Prague where we got 3-month visas to Slovakia. So we took a train to Slovakia and traveled legally to Bratislava. At the border there was a luggage check. A German soldier came into our compartment and ordered us to open our suitcases. He asked us where we were heading and hearing our reply ‘To Bratislava’ he said: ‘I know you would like to go to Palestine, but we will go there, too.’

We hoped to get a job and stay in Bratislava, but there were Slovak fascists there. Persecution of Jews began in Slovakia. Jews were taken to work camps.