Bernard Knezo Schönbrun and his wife with friends

This photograph was taken in Bratislava, during the post-war years. From right to left it shows me, my wife Anna, Mrs. Gavorova and her husband Pavol Gavora. Gavora was from Kosice and changed his name from Gyarmati. Pavol and I worked for SPROV. He took part in fighting during the Slovak National Uprising. We were both big anti-Fascists. Right after the end of the war I began, among other things, to look for a place from where I could avenge the deaths of my nearest and dearest, my mother, sisters and their husbands and children and all the others. All told about 80-90 relatives. For this was the resolution I had made that Saturday night when I had gone home on the sly from the labor camp, from Presov, due to Psenicka not wanting to give me leave. I had found that my mother was no longer at home, she had gone to 'work,' helpless... They trampled her, poor thing, in the wagon on the way to Auschwitz. The police were located on Ceskoslovenskej armady Street, and the chief was a certain Major Colak. He was a reputable, mature person that one could talk to reasonably. After a detailed conversation about where I was from, what I had experienced, what brought me to consider working for the police, it came out that he was also from Michalovce. His brother had been my professor at the Michalovce high school, whom I had gotten along well with. I had even worked for him in his office. When we got to the evaluation, he told me exactly this: 'My dear countrymen, they should forget about the police. That's not for them, for their temperament. They won't be able to stand it, to root around in muck, in the dirt, believe me...' Those were his expressions, which I've remembered my whole life. After considering all the pros and cons, I listened to him and didn't join the police. I admitted that I didn't suit them and they didn't suit me. In the end the times confirmed this. All Jewish guys that joined the police ended up worse than catastrophically. They threw them all in jail. I didn't end up all that great either, but not as badly as those that were with the police.