Afterwards, it wasn't possible to go out to work, so me and my mom started hiding in attics. Among the young people of Lodz, there was a kind of resistance organization, which was structured in such a way that its members only knew the closest people involved. The main idea was for everybody to try and hold out for as long as possible. Later, my mom said that she couldn't stay in hiding any longer. Naturally, I didn't want to leave her alone, so we were deported together to the concentration camp Auschwitz.
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viera slesingerova
On 11th August 1944 I stayed behind at work, as usual, because I was having a chat with my friends. Suddenly my mom appeared and to this day I can still hear her voice, as she said to me, 'Viera, something terrible has happened, your dad has committed suicide.' After putting his cover to one side so as not to stain it with blood, my dad had slit his veins. He left a letter in which he wrote that he did it because he would have been in our way when the time came to escape.
This part was then surrounded, people had to get out of their apartments and appear before the SS-men who then selected who to leave and who to take. I can remember two such displacements. Once there was complete silence in the house as everybody had run away, and I told my dad that we, too, should get away. But dad didn't want to, as he thought it wasn't possible to escape, when the order was given to stay where we were. Later on, my mom and I managed to persuade him. In this instance, however, it was in fact impossible for us to escape, so we had to go down to the street. It was always said that the Germans mostly went for gray-haired people with glasses. My dad was 58 years old, had gray hair and wore a beard and glasses. So, I blackened his beard and hair with something and I went first, followed by mom with dad behind. I can remember a moment when I turned round and saw them stand behind me, which meant that we had managed to go through the Sperre. So, we managed to survive until 1944.
I was the only Czech among them, so I learnt to speak Polish very well. We were great idealists in those terrible conditions, for we often spoke about what the world would be like in the future. We helped each other out a lot. It was a matter of course that we shared things with whoever fell sick.
My mom also managed to find work for us all. Having work meant having some hope of survival. I worked at the 'Leder und Sattler Ressort' [German for 'Leather and Saddlery section'], which was involved in saddle-making. My mom also worked there, but in a different building. She was in the storeroom, while I worked on a trestle, where I sewed together small pieces of leather. I have fond memories of the time I spent there, because I made some wonderful friends. They were young Polish Jews, mostly around my age. It was thanks to them that I regained my purpose in life, which I had completely lost before.
The second thing that mom managed to do was to get us a room of our own in a house on Mlynarska Street. The house was obviously without a sewage system and the toilets were outside. Our room was on the first floor. There was a kitchen and two plank beds, as well as our cases and a stove. An elderly couple lived in the kitchen and I can remember the shock when the lady brushed the bugs off the bed in the morning. Whenever something like that happened for the first time, you always felt it couldn't happen to you.
Ordinary people who were alone did not have the strength to struggle on. I can remember a young, very pretty girl who came on our transport train. She couldn't endure such a life from the very outset, when we were living in the shared billet, so she threw herself into a wire fence and was shot. Another thing I can never forget is the public execution of two people who had been caught trying to escape. It was in the winter, and we all had to gather on Baluty Square to witness the execution.
Among them was my dad's cousin, Dr. Emil Benes, who was with us on the transport train from Prague. He couldn't bear the oppressiveness and horror of the ghetto - in general, men found it harder to endure everything. He voluntarily put his name forward for deportation in 1942. He was a very sensitive and educated person who loved Prague and Czech literature. I can remember him in the ghetto showing me a folded piece of paper that had turned yellow with age and on which was typewritten Petr Bezruc's poem 'Only Once'.
So, various people lived in one heap. The living conditions were dire and there was no sign of things getting better. The news that went around among the inmates only increased their fears. Hunger led to animosity and mutual incriminations. A huge advantage of mine was that I had never been a big eater, so with my frail physique, I didn't suffer from hunger as much as my mom and dad.
The ghetto was established in the suburbs of Lodz, in the area known as Baluty. According to my Polish friends, it was originally inhabited by the Lumpenproletariat. They said that wherever a thief was caught in the past, he probably came from Baluta. There was no sewerage system there. A tram went through the middle of the ghetto. It was quite common for a person to work in one part of the ghetto and live in the other. In certain areas there were guards who opened gates at crossing points when people gathered together to get from one side to the other. There was also a wooden bridge over the road for the trams. We were given minimum rations. People cooked for themselves, but the problem was a lack of food and coal, which was why there were common places where people went to heat up their water or to cook.
I can remember arriving in the ghetto at Lodz, which was a completely different world. Later on, I would often say that it was clear that they sent people to die there but incomprehensible that people lived there.
In September 1941 we were moved out of our apartment in Vinohrady to Rybna Street. I can remember there being a bar downstairs in the house. We were moved into an apartment together with four other Jewish families.
I then attended a yearly English language course at the Modern Language Institute, where the classes were separated to Jewish and non-Jewish, which was very pleasant for me as we were among ourselves there and felt that nobody would turn up their nose at us.
We toyed with the idea of emigrating. My parents put in an application for a US visa, but unfortunately our relatives abroad were not wealthy enough to speed things up in any way. My parents wanted to send me away. I know that they made arrangements with someone in England and that they wanted to send me off to do a nursing course. But when the war broke out in September, my mom was to have an operation and I didn't want to leave her on her own, and after that it wasn't possible to go anywhere.
Otherwise I didn't encounter any specific manifestation of anti-Semitism directed against me before the war. All I can remember is an incident on a train when I was traveling with my mom from Zilina to see my grandparents in Kosice. We were sitting in a compartment with a man who was calling Jews names. He talked about how young Jewish women were all made up and such like. He then said to my mom who, as I mentioned earlier, spoke Czech without an accent, 'You, dear lady, look like a modest Czech woman.' In reply, mom said, 'Yes, and I am Jewish.' The man then stood up and went straight out of the compartment.
In our free time we often went for walks, as we didn't have a car. When my dad got into fishing, we would go to the river and then eat trout, if he caught any. My dad had four weeks off, so we also went on vacation.
The apartments in which we lived were set aside for the heads of revenue offices, so they were all very nice. In Presov we lived in an old palace. The dining area was in a huge room, but we didn't use it very much because it was hard to keep warm. We had a wood-burning stove, as there was plenty of wood in Slovakia, and it created a beautiful, pure heat with a nice scent. We always had a maid at home, and in Presov an assistant at dad's office, Mr. Borodac, helped out by bringing wood and doing whatever was necessary.
I then went to a high school in Zilina, which I attended until the start of the third year.
My first memories are of Bratislava, where I started to go to elementary school. The school was known as a training school, as teacher trainees did their teaching practice there. I can remember one teacher, Mr. Musil, who introduced what was then known as the global method, and even wrote some books about it. According to this method we learned to read words straight away, instead of reading by syllables. My dad was very unhappy about that, because he was convinced that you could never learn to read like that.
On Friday mom lit candles, but we went to the synagogue only on the high holidays. On Yom Kippur we fasted and on Pesach I always went with my mom to my grandparents in Kosice. I can remember, as the youngest, saying the mah nishtanah, and I translated it into Slovak as I had learnt it in religion lessons. This made the rest of the family laugh a lot. I can also remember how I stood in a sukkah during Sukkot and started whistling to myself, whereupon my grandfather got very angry and told me that whistling wasn't allowed in a sukkah. I have a horrifying recollection of Yom Kippur. On the eve of the holiday, I had to pray with a hen in my hand, and with mom's help I swung it over my head in order to sacrifice it for my sins.
We didn't eat kosher food at home, as we had Hungarian-Czech cuisine, such as dumplings, stuffed peppers, gnocchi with sheep's cheese and plum dumplings. Festive meals were held on Sunday, because dad worked on Saturdays.
My uncle was held in a labor camp for non- Jewish partners of Jewish women. Aunt Hermina stayed in their small house, which they sublet to a young woman who was having an affair with a Gestapo man and who later informed on my aunt for listening to foreign radio stations. Hermina was then incarcerated in the Small Fortress [5] at Terezin.
My mom was a housewife. She did the shopping and cooking, as dad came home for lunch. She always had a maid to help her out. In the afternoons she would knit, crochet and make covers, which she enjoyed doing. She also enjoyed having company, visiting friends and going to cafes with dad.
Shortly afterwards, mom was then invited to Klatovy and when she came, there was a great reception. When they were walking along the street, my grandfather said to her, 'Helena, either you will speak Czech or you will be quiet.' Later on, mom actually learnt to speak Czech very well. She made spelling mistakes, but spoke with such a good accent that she was considered to be Czech.
My parents met in Kosice. They spoke German together, for dad didn't speak Hungarian and mom didn't speak Czech or Slovak.
She had a secondary school education, probably with a focus on commerce. My mom was a nice, pretty woman. In her youth she had one great love, whowhich was called Arpad. He came from a Jewish family, which was probably wealthier than my mom's, because his parents weren't in favor of their relationship, even though it was a great love. Arpad had to promise his father on his death bed that he wouldn't marry her, so they had to break up. My mom spoke about him from time to time and used to say that the nicest thing about their relationship was that it would never end, because it had never been fulfilled.
My dad went to the synagogue on the high holidays, but he wasn't devout. His mother tongue was Czech and he came from a large assimilated Czech Jewish family, so my grandfather was not too happy when my dad fell in love with my mum, a poor Hungarian Jewess.
Both grandparents were very religious. They kept a kosher household and my grandmother wore a wig, but they were tolerant towards my parents. Although the food was not kosher in our house, they still ate it and slept over whenever they came for a visit.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
agi sofferova
My mother of course lived in a religious manner, she observed the kashrut, everything, and attended synagogue during the High Holidays. But women didn't attend synagogue very much, and what's more, they sat separately.
Her mother tongue was Hungarian, and her education was most likely elementary. She didn't work, she was a housewife.