At first there was lots of work and then increasingly little. And the management decided to take us out for outdoor work, to weed. And at that this the German supervisor, the very nice SS woman said that she needed three prisoners, because she has a lot of goods which she needed to pack up. An old classmate of mine worked beside me. And she said that she needed my mother, me and that girl. So for a long time that’s what we did: there were the grenade heads which had to be packed by 12 into a bakelite box, and then so many of these boxes had to be packed into a wooden crate. And she kept back, I don’t know how many crates, and so that was our work, every morning we opened a crate, poured out all the grenade heads and packed them up until the evening. But we were warm and didn’t have to freeze outside.
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Displaying 31111 - 31140 of 50826 results
Eva Vari
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The Russians took over in Teresien and said that as Teresien belonged to Czechoslovakia naturally they would take the Czechs home first, and those boys who worked in the hospital, and every one could take home two relations too. My cousin came and said that he and another friend, who had nobody, would take both of us and the Miskolc and Hajduszoboszlo women, so we could go home, without waiting, on the special Russian train.
Sometime at the end of June, at the beginning of July, we got home. And we arrived in Pest and everyone raced home to see who was left in the family. We went to my uncle’s where there were only my two aunts, because my uncle had not turned up yet. Then there was some sort of Jewish charity, which gave papers or money, I can’t remember which.
I said thank you and we went down to Miskolc. Apparently everyday they wrote down who had survived on the synagogue walls, and they knew that we were alive. My father had a rented apartment in those days, and my aunt was there and my cousin, and my father had the business. My father had joined up with another, who had a jewelry shop on the main street. So it became an opticians and jewelers, and it was a big business. His partner had a son who was a trained optician, and he had a little shop and workshop behind it. My parents then decided that they would be in the big shop, me running the small one, and the boy working in the workshop. So I had no problem making a living.
A few days after our return we had to go and buy some clothes. I met my husband when we went shopping. They had a textile shop right in the center of town in the Weinich Court, a big shop with double portals. And a gentleman was standing there. They were still called Weitzenfeld then. The girls were born with that name, if I recall we got the papers in Pest with our Magyarized names. We became Vari.
When we got married I was twenty and he was forty. But he was very handsome, a fine figure of a man, and very gentle. My parents wanted nothing to do with it. They always said that he was too old. I had as many suitors as stars in the sky. The Jewish boys, who survived, came home with nothing, no families left. I was a striking girl. I could have had another, but I wanted this one, I wanted a calm, balanced life after the deportations. If I remember we got married that December. We had a Jewish wedding, because as his wife’s body had not been found we couldn’t have a civil one. And then the civil ceremony took place a year later. I would have liked children from the start but for a year I did not get pregnant. When I was pregnant with Zsuzsika I didn’t work.
The girls were not brought up religious, not only because I was not religious but because it was always a principle of mine not to bring children up in two ways. And when they started to go to school then religion was not at issue – which I believe is quite right. Their first encounter with Jewishness was in Miskolc. There was an inner yard where we lived and one of the neighbor’s siblings had a little girl who was the same age as mine, they played together. One day Zsuzsika rushed in crying that what’s-her-name she said I’m Jewish. Is that why you’re crying, I asked. Well, she thought it was a terrible insult. And then I explained that ‘you are a Jew, so is your mother and your father, being Jewish is a religion, but this does not concern us, one man is very like another so don’t cry, it’s not an insult. If they say you are a Jew, then be proud say yes, I am a Jew’.
We always had Christmas. There was always a tree up to the ceiling.
After 12 years of marriage we split up on 5 September 1957. After much discussion we agreed that he would give me 1,000 forints a month for the three children. I definitely wanted to move from Miskolc. I didn’t like it. It is a typical small town. Here was an estate agent in town and I said if they found an apartment exchange in Pest to let me know. Our apartment was nice and in a good place. And they telephoned and said there is someone who would like to swap apartments urgently for a Miskolc one. A young woman came, she loved the apartment and we signed the papers. I said I would like to see what I’m getting. My father came with me. And we came up and I really didn’t like it. The Miskolc one had big French windows and double doors, everything there was small. And my father said: “Now listen, this isn’t a bad apartment. You will never have another chance to swap for free. No matter that your apartment is lovely, the provinces are the provinces and Pest is Pest". I let myself be convinced.
My mother stayed with us, she had a widow’s pension. And I worked a lot, day and night. When we split up I was working in a plastics cooperative, I was only a group manager at that time. I was also a founding member of the cooperative, I knew it all, we worked a lot for export. The manager of the plant was the wife of a bigwig, she had no idea what she was doing. She had to go to a lot of negotiations with export companies, I always went with her. So I got to know people and was able to find another job. I went to Pilismarot as there was a cooperative there, and I had to organize people, to set up a plant.
If I had joined the Party then I might have been the president.
I was never in the Party. Once in the cooperative, the then party secretary said to me, “Evike, you should ask to join the Party”. I said ‘that’s a great honor but no thanks’. He was very surprised ‘Why not?’. I told him that as long as I had to defend my workers against them, I had no need of a little red book. And they realized that I was a Jew and was not willing to enter the Party.
Jozef Seweryn
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I received some reparations from the Germans, but it wasn’t much. Renovating my apartment cost me more than what I got from them.
,
After WW2
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There was no Jewish world in Poland, there were no Jews.
,
After WW2
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My second wife, Henia [Henryka], whom I married in 1981, is also a Catholic.
,
After WW2
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Today, the way I see it, Jewry isn’t as Jewish as before the war. It’s enough to go to a cemetery and compare the old section with the new one. The old tombstones – matzevas, and today? The same tombstones as in a Catholic cemetery. Besides, nowadays Jews are buried in coffins, and before the war it was a shroud and a bag of sand under the head; it was different, because they were buried the Jewish way back then.
,
After WW2
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My children are Catholic. Of course, the children have always known that I’m Jewish. After all, we went to Israel together, but my wife, Jadwiga, was Catholic and she raised them as Catholics.
,
After WW2
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He worked in a factory for many years, I don’t recollect now what kind of a factory it was, but he was the director of some department.
,
After WW2
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Krystyna went to the United States, to New York, after she graduated from college, in 1973.
,
After WW2
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I moved there in 1962 or 1963 from a Jewish metal plant which produced machines. It was a Jewish company, operated by the Jewish community. It was first located on 11 Listopada Street and later on 6 Twarda Street, but I didn’t work there after its move to Twarda Street.
,
After WW2
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We left in 1959; I never went back there afterwards.
,
After WW2
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Our son was sick, respiratory tract problems – he couldn’t live in that climate.
,
After WW2
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I found a job in the aircraft industry as I had worked for the Germans in that field. I had experience from the camp, so when I came they employed me immediately, as a professional. I worked in the aircraft factory in Tel Aviv. There’s an airport there – Ben Gurion.
,
After WW2
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People were leaving for Israel. At that time they would get people from all over Europe, from all over the world, to go to Israel. And in Poland they also suggested for the Jews to move there. So I went to Warsaw, to the embassy and I applied as well. I left in 1956 with my wife and children: 13-year-old Jacek and ten-year-old Krystyna.
We first arrived in Vienna. At first I wanted to stay there, but everyone said, ‘Go to Israel, see what it’s like there.’ I wish I hadn’t gone. I should have stayed in Vienna and asked for reparations from the Germans. But we went.
Israel looked nice in 1956. The state of Israel was created; a good thing that was; the Jews deserved it.
We first arrived in Vienna. At first I wanted to stay there, but everyone said, ‘Go to Israel, see what it’s like there.’ I wish I hadn’t gone. I should have stayed in Vienna and asked for reparations from the Germans. But we went.
Israel looked nice in 1956. The state of Israel was created; a good thing that was; the Jews deserved it.
,
After WW2
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After the war it was a lot worse with anti-Semitism, as if the Poles had learned it from the Germans and the Russians. Jews would be attacked, murdered, persecuted. There’s still some anti-Semitism, but right after the war it was a lot worse.
,
After WW2
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When I came back I was thirty years old already and I had nothing any more. In 1945 I was assigned a job in Jelenia Gora [town 270 km north-west of Cracow by the German and Czech border]. Because after I came back, I reported to the PPS, someone from the PPS was going to Jelenia Gora and took me with him. They employed me in an office, which assigned apartments – I liquidated post-German property.
,
After WW2
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I reached the city in the morning. It was Rostock [today Germany]. I met some of my friends there – those who had also managed to save themselves. We went on our way together, first to Szczecin, then to Poznan, Katowice. We’d sleep two, three nights in doss-houses set up by the Red Cross at train stations.
I finally arrived in Cracow. Straight away, I went to the bookstore, the one where my wife worked and where I had a section in 1942. I found her there and she took me home. Not to the place where we had been living before, but to a new one – in Kazimierz. She had got it when the Jews were being evacuated. Three rooms, one family in each room. She took me there and she started nursing me there.
I finally arrived in Cracow. Straight away, I went to the bookstore, the one where my wife worked and where I had a section in 1942. I found her there and she took me home. Not to the place where we had been living before, but to a new one – in Kazimierz. She had got it when the Jews were being evacuated. Three rooms, one family in each room. She took me there and she started nursing me there.
,
After WW2
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The Russians put us on barges and we sailed somewhere in a northeastern direction, more or less. We sailed into some canal or bay, I don’t remember exactly. Anyway, a German ship attacked us and the barge was blown up. People were drowning, I held onto some log, I wanted to climb onto it, but I couldn’t because the Germans were still shooting. So I swam underneath it. I finally reached the shore. That night was 1st May 1945, going to the 2nd. I found some barn, I undressed, buried myself in the straw and waited until morning like this. I was very sick.
,
During WW2
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Most of the inmates were moved out of that camp on 30th April 1945. We were being led towards some town, when the Russians cut us off. The Germans surrounded us when they saw them approaching and started shooting at us. I survived.
,
During WW2
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In 1944 I was moved to Sachsenhausen [15], from there to Oranienburg [today Germany] and Ravensbruck [16], and finally to a camp in Barth [today Germany]. There was an aircraft factory there, where we all worked. We produced two-engine bombers.