Tag #157080 - Interview #79440 (Leo Luster)

My father went back to his job with the Jewish community. As the deportations began, my father was able to get a two-room apartment for us on Floss-Gasse. We no longer had to live in the basement apartment for our last year in Vienna. At this time my sister was already gone. In 1940 my father had the possibility – through the Jewish community – to put her on an illegal transport to Palestine. You had to pay money for it, people had to buy into it. She left Vienna in the autumn of 1940. She needed a passport and a visa. Then she went to Bratislava. In Bratislava she met her Czech husband, Israel Mayerowicz, a carpenter. They were married in Bratislava. My sister needed my father’s approval for the marriage, since she wasn’t yet 18. After some time the ship went from Bratislava, through Romania, to Palestine. That was a horrible odyssey until she, after many weeks, reached the port of Haifa. The ship was in a terrible state. The passengers were asked to transfer to the ship Patria, which was next to them in port. The Hagana [paramilitary collective] later blew up the Patria in port, so that the British couldn’t send the refugees on to Mauritius. Only the ship was supposed to be damaged, but many refugees were killed. Luckily my sister survived.