I didn’t join the party – I didn’t care about it, especially that they had meetings of all kinds and other activities. I am not a public person.
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Displaying 48901 - 48930 of 49944 results
Sholom Rondin Biography
But I was respectable and didn’t face any anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. I don’t see any anti-Semitism now. I believe if one is a decent person nobody would dare to hurt one’s dignity.
Ladislav Roth Biography
There was one Jewish employee there and they could employ me. I worked in a big hall. One of newly appointed officials, a fascist, often came for dinner there and he always demanded to be waited on by a non-Jew sending me away. There was another hall for Jews in the Korona restaurant. It used to be a banquet hall, but when persecution of Jews began they made it a hall for Jewish visitors to avoid conflicts. There was one Jew working there. His name was Borukh Leibush and when there were too many visitors, it was difficult to wait on all of them. There were complaints. I had hard feeling after each visit of this official and asked senior waiter to let me work with Borukh in the hall for Jewish visitors. This hall was 4-5 times smaller than the others, but it brought ten times more income.
Jews had a feeling that there was nothing good for them to expect and spent their money lavishly. The Jewish hall was always full, they ordered expensive dishes and gave big tips. It turned out that it was very profitable to work in the Jewish hall.
Jews had a feeling that there was nothing good for them to expect and spent their money lavishly. The Jewish hall was always full, they ordered expensive dishes and gave big tips. It turned out that it was very profitable to work in the Jewish hall.
My younger brother and sister couldn’t continue their studies after finishing school. When Hungarians came to power in 1939, Jews were not to be admitted to higher educational institutions. My sister became an apprentice of a hairdresser. She began to work a year after she started her training. My brother became an apprentice in a women’s clothes shop. The owner of the shop was a Jewish man whose surname was Hertzog and his wife was a Christian. Hertzog officially transferred his saloon to his wife and continued to manage it as he did before.
We never came to borrowing money to buy something. My mother only cooked kosher food at home and watched it that we didn’t bring home non-kosher products. My brother, sister and I didn’t follow kashrut outside of our home. We worked nearby. At lunch I went to a small store in the shopping center where they sold ham and delicious homemade sausage where I bought some for myself, my brother and sister that I took to their work. My mother would not probably be happy about this kind of meal, but we never mentioned it to her.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
We never came to borrowing money to buy something. My mother only cooked kosher food at home and watched it that we didn’t bring home non-kosher products. My brother, sister and I didn’t follow kashrut outside of our home. We worked nearby. At lunch I went to a small store in the shopping center where they sold ham and delicious homemade sausage where I bought some for myself, my brother and sister that I took to their work. My mother would not probably be happy about this kind of meal, but we never mentioned it to her.
In the first year of Hungarian rule there were no persecutions of Jews or attacks on synagogues, but in 1940 Jews began to fear going to synagogues. Young men with sticks waited for them in front of synagogues to beat them. Thank God, there were no bombs, but they beat Jews with sticks until they started bleeding. Then Jewish young men began to unite in groups. Before a sermon in the synagogue they also stood there with sticks and didn’t allow hooligans to come near. There were also attacks on passers by with typical Semitic looks. They were particularly mad seeing a Jewish man with a Christian woman, but I continued to see Maria. I didn’t look like a Jew, I was more like a Slavic type of man and we didn’t get in any incidents.
It went on until 1942 when I was recruited to a work battalion. Jews were only recruited to work battalions. Guys of 1922 year of birth got together at the railway station where we boarded a train and headed to the frontier with Austria. Then we were separated into groups of 20 men in a battalion. In my battalion there were 10 men from Subcarpathia and 10 from Budapest. From there we were taken to Koszeg, a frontier town. We were accommodated in barracks. There were no beds or plank beds. We slept on straw on the floor. It was October. There were 40 of us in the barrack and there was only one iron stove and they didn’t allow stoking it, though it was already cold. We threw away straw since there were many bugs in it and we slept on our coats on the ground floor. We didn’t get any uniforms and wore what we brought from home. After breakfast we went to work. Our battalion worked clearing up a forest.
We cut dry trees, removed branches and trunks making a road. In the afternoon we had a lunch break. They delivered a meal from the camp. We went back to the barrack before dinnertime. Hungarians supervised this camp. We got sufficient food. In the morning we got a cup of coffee and had a loaf of bread each for the rest of the day. At lunch we had thick soup with meat and meat with rice and beans for a second course. In the evening we got a piece of sausage and tea. Nobody was hungry.
We cut dry trees, removed branches and trunks making a road. In the afternoon we had a lunch break. They delivered a meal from the camp. We went back to the barrack before dinnertime. Hungarians supervised this camp. We got sufficient food. In the morning we got a cup of coffee and had a loaf of bread each for the rest of the day. At lunch we had thick soup with meat and meat with rice and beans for a second course. In the evening we got a piece of sausage and tea. Nobody was hungry.
We were not allowed to correspond with our families. We didn’t know whether they were alive or not. Local residents told us that in 1944 all Jews in Subcarpathia were ordered to wear yellow stars on their clothes [editors note: yellow stars – hexagonal star of David, a Jewish symbol. Fascists forced Jews to wear these stars for Jewish identification in all ghettos and concentration camps]. We didn’t wear yellow stars, but in February 1944 we were ordered to wear yellow armbands. There were Neologs and more religious Jews among us, but we were not allowed to observe any Jewish traditions or celebrate holidays. Our Hungarian guards didn’t even allow us to speak Yiddish. It wasn’t a problem for me since I was used to speaking Hungarian at home. Many Jews, particularly those from villages, preferred to speak Yiddish.
In April 1944 local farmers told us that all Uzhgorod Jews were taken to a brick factory and then to concentration camps in Poland. I asked Maria to let me know about my family and she said that had been taken to a concentration camp a long time before. Nobody knew those were death camps. We thought they were work camps.
We walked from morning till night. One day American planes flew by. We came to Mauthausen concentration camp. We stayed there few days. The Soviet army was advancing on one side and American troops were coming from the other. Groups of 500 people began to be taken to Gunskirchen concentration camp. It was in the woods. There 6 or 7 barracks for 800 hundred inmates, but they forced about 1500 of us in them. It’s hard to imagine now how two of us fit on plank beds for one. I made friends with a guy from Mukachevo and another one from Budapest. We were the same age. We were in the same barrack and tried to stick together. Once a day we were given some junk food consisting of some slop water and rotten beetroots. Sometimes there was a piece of cabbage. We were given one loaf of bread for ten of us for a day. I don’t know whether there was flour in this bread, but there was sawdust for sure. It didn’t cut, but crumbled. We were allowed to leave barracks at certain time. There were containers with water outside. It was dangerous to drink this water: almost all who dank it fell ill with enteric fever.
There was a toilet for 10-15 people, but all inmates of a barrack were taken to the toilet at the same time. It even happened that some inmates dirtied their clothes failing to wait until it was their turn. It was not allowed to step aside or leave barracks at unscheduled time. The camp was surrounded with towers with guards with weapons on them. They started shooting if they saw an inmate coming out of a barrack at the wrong time. This was not all: there were also patrol dogs in the camp running across the camp watching that inmates didn’t leave their barracks. 5-6 attacked a person like wolves pushing him down. We were so weak that we couldn’t fight back, but I don’t think that even a healthy man would be able to do something. Through the windows we saw dogs tearing people apart. It was scary. They dropped corpses into a swamp near the camp. If somebody died inside a barrack we pushed a corps out through the window and then they took it away from the yard. It’s hard to say how many corpses there were in this swamp. Maybe more than water.
There was a toilet for 10-15 people, but all inmates of a barrack were taken to the toilet at the same time. It even happened that some inmates dirtied their clothes failing to wait until it was their turn. It was not allowed to step aside or leave barracks at unscheduled time. The camp was surrounded with towers with guards with weapons on them. They started shooting if they saw an inmate coming out of a barrack at the wrong time. This was not all: there were also patrol dogs in the camp running across the camp watching that inmates didn’t leave their barracks. 5-6 attacked a person like wolves pushing him down. We were so weak that we couldn’t fight back, but I don’t think that even a healthy man would be able to do something. Through the windows we saw dogs tearing people apart. It was scary. They dropped corpses into a swamp near the camp. If somebody died inside a barrack we pushed a corps out through the window and then they took it away from the yard. It’s hard to say how many corpses there were in this swamp. Maybe more than water.
Finally the morning of 6th May 1945 came when we woke up in the morning and didn’t hear any guards’ voices or dogs barking. It was unusually quiet in the camp. Few hours later American soldiers came to the camp. We ran out of barracks and began to hug them. Now I understand that such passionate welcome was an ordeal for Americans: we hadn’t washed or changed underwear or clothes for a long time, but we didn’t think about it at that time. Our rescue came. Americans told us that the war was over and that fascist Germany capitulated.
I went to the railway station. I saw my sister in the square in front of the railway station. It was hard to recognize her so thin and exhausted she was. We embraced each other. She didn’t know anything about our parents or brother. They were separated in Auschwitz. Ella was sent to Bergen Belsen work camp along with many other girls from Uzhgorod.
I kept telling my sister to stay with our aunt in Bratislava and I decided to come back to Bratislava after I found my parents, brother, Maria and Stepan Baksa in Uzhgorod. We agreed on this and on the day of my departure Ella came to the railways station with me. All of a sudden she said that she was going with me. We didn’t know then that we would never be able to come back to Bratislava. We went home together. The bridge across the Uzh River was destroyed and we had to cross the river. There were other tenants in our house. We stayed with our acquaintances looking for our family. Some Jews had come back from concentration camps. My cousin Vojceh Klein, my mother’s sister’s, Ilona’s son, was home. From Auschwitz he was sent to a camp somewhere in Yugoslavia where they mined for lead. Vojceh survived, but he was very ill. He was lead poisoned and died of it in 1950. He told us that my parents and Ilona and her younger daughter perished in gas chambers in Auschwitz.
Of course, I met with Maria as soon as I arrived in Uzhgorod. She was waiting for me through these three years. We got married in July 1945. It goes without saying that we didn’t have a Jewish wedding. We Reginastered our marriage in a Reginastry office and invited our friends to dinner in the evening in Maria parents’ home.
She worked as a cook in the former Bercsenyi restaurant that was now called ‘Ruta’ [means rue]. I went to work there as a waiter.
When we returned to Uzhgorod my sister and I went to our home. There were other tenants there: a husband and wife. We had documents proving our ownership, but they were in the house and we couldn’t get in. I didn’t know Soviet laws and I didn’t know that I could claim for our apartment and belongings. I went to an executive office [Ispolkom] 10 where they told me that this new tenant man was a partisan and they were not going to make him move out of there. My father’s acquaintance who knew me when I was a child gave me a room in his apartment. My wife came to live with me there after the wedding. When I went to work in the Ruta restaurant a waiter from there suggested that I move into his apartment. 11 There was one room and a kitchen. He got married and moved in his wife’s flat, and I stayed in his flat. I didn’t have anything: no furniture or household things. We had to start from scratch. Our children were born and grew up in this apartment.
At home my wife and I speak Russian or Slovak and my children, grandchildren and even my great grandson have a good conduct of Hungarian. I like speaking Hungarian in my family. When hearing the sounds of the language of my childhood I recall my childhood and my family. It is very sad, but pleasant.
I worked in the Ruta restaurant for a few months. There was my resume in the human resource department where I mentioned that I studied in a trade school. The district Party committee offered me a position of director of a ‘stolovaya’ [canteen] for governmental officials: employees of the Reginaonal Party committee and directors of plants, about 200 high level officials in total. Of course, it’s hard to explain now what it was like, but in the USSR there were many such canteens. There were no outside visitors allowed: visitors needed special permits and there were guards at the entrance.
These canteens were funded separately and delicacies that were often not to be found in expensive restaurants cost very inexpensive there. My wife went to work there as a cook and I became its director. Maria was a senior cook and had two assistants under her supervision.
These canteens were funded separately and delicacies that were often not to be found in expensive restaurants cost very inexpensive there. My wife went to work there as a cook and I became its director. Maria was a senior cook and had two assistants under her supervision.
When I worked as director in 1949 I was recommended to join the party. In those years it always had a great importance, particularly for high positioned officials. I submitted an application for admission to the district Party committee. There was a meeting where I told about my biography. They approved my documents. After my candidateship term was over I asked the district committee when they were going to admit me and an official replied that the secretary of the district Party committee didn’t like something in my biography and he was against my admission. I didn’t insist or try to prove anything.
Some time later my management notified me that I was working very well and the diner improved, but there was another person to replace me as director. He had higher education and was a member of the Party. Of course, besides not being a member of the Party, perhaps, my Jewish nationality mattered here as well, but nobody pronounced it. But they did mention that the new director was a member of the party. They offered me the position of administrator in the diner, but I refused. There were many new cafes opened at that time. I was offered a facility that they authorized me to refurbish for a café. My wife and I decided to work together: she would work in the kitchen and I would take care of the bar. We had cold snacks, cakes and coffee on the menu.
My wife and I had few friends. We were friends before the war and we made some new friends too. Most of them were Jews and there were some Hungarians and Slovaks. Maria and I had bikes. On weekends we went out of town or to the riverbank with friends. We also liked going to theaters and to the cinema. In winter we went skiing.
Shortly after my son was born I got a job offer to work in the biggest and most prestigious restaurant and hotel in Uzhgorod: Verkhovina [high hill area]. At first I worked there as a waiter and then I became an administrator. I didn’t like this administration job and I went to work as bartender. There were few other employees working in Verkhovina before the war when it was called Korona [Hungarian: Crown]. My colleagues treated me with respect. I worked there until I retired in 1990. Although I wasn’t a Party member, in 1955 I became chairman of the trade union unit of the Verkhovina hotel and I held this position till I retired. There were over 200 employees there.
I remember how they grieved after Stalin in 1953. It was strange for me to see grown up men crying in the street and that they were not ashamed of their tears. I didn’t care about anything else. This was not my life.
Only 2 events stirred me up destroying my indifference. This were the intervention of Soviet troops to Hungary in 1956 13 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 [Prague Spring] 14. I was agitated, confused and upset. Probably then I lost all illusions about the USSR. In my opinion, this was real aggression like Hitler’s attack. Every country had the right to choose its own ways.
I didn’t care about Soviet holidays. We had to celebrate them at work. On 1 May and 7 November [October Revolution Day] 15 my wife and I went to parades in the morning with employees of the Verkhovina restaurant. After the parade there was a banquet for employees in the restaurant. Of course, my wife and I took part in all mandatory ceremonies, but we didn’t celebrate Soviet holidays at home. Those who were born and grew up in the USSR celebrated them, but for us they were days off that we could spend with children and friends. Only Victory Day, on 9 May 16 was my holiday. On this day American soldiers liberated us from concentration camp and on this day this horrible war that had taken away so many lives of my dear ones was over. In the morning our colleagues and we went to the ceremonial meeting and in the evening my wife made dinner and we recalled our dear ones and those who were lost to this war.
After Subcarpathia came under the Soviet rule I didn’t observe Jewish traditions. Soviet authorities were intolerant to any religions. Of course, some people continued going to the synagogue when it still operated and celebrated Jewish holidays, but they were older people who had nothing to be afraid of. Those who worked couldn’t afford it. They could fire or demote to a lower position, even if a person wasn't a Party member.
My children grew up atheists like other Soviet children. They studied in Soviet school and were young octobrists 17, pioneers and Komsomol members 18. Of course, I understood that anti-Semitism came to Subcarpathia at the time of the Soviet rule. I didn’t face it: I didn’t look like a Jew, but the others told me about prejudiced attitudes toward Jews. Therefore, we chose for our children to be Slovaks like their mother. It was written in their passports. We wanted to keep them safe of routine state-level anti-Semitism and make their future life easier.
Whenever I had free time I tried to spend it with my family. We liked walking in Uzhgorod and going to the park, spending time on the outskirts of Uzhgorod and hiking in the mountains. I also spent summer vacations with my family. We went to the Crimea, Caucasus and the Black Sea. We enjoy spending time together. Even when the children grew up and had their own families they went on vacations with us.
After finishing school my older daughter Yudita entered a Communication College. After finishing it she worked at the post office, at the communication department.