The hakhsharah building in Prievidza

This is a picture of the Prievidza hakhsharah building on Kosovska road. The house belonged to the Carpathia Company. The photo was taken in 1939. During wartime I was also in hakhsharah for a short time, which they had opened in Prievidza in 1939. At that time I had already finished my schooling, but couldn't take my final exams. As a journeyman I didn't get any work, and our printing shop was already more or less Aryanized, so I left for hakhsharah. First to the Heumans' brick factory, where we worked either directly in the factory or with various merchants. There were eleven of us, of which one was a girl. We didn't study much in Prievidza, but mostly worked in companies like Carpathia. On hakhsharah in Letanovce we studied agriculture, because it was a farm. From there we would also go to Novy Majer by Budmerice, where we also did farm work and worked in the stables. It was a Jewish farm that had an exception from President Tiso. We were ten boys and one girl. Rachel Hoffmanova, by coincidence from Prievidza. A very hard-working girl. She was from a poor family, and unfortunately didn't survive the war. In hakhsharah there were often various lectures on Zionism and Judaism. I especially remember a lecture by Dr. Oskar Neumann, because I have notes from his lecture to this day. I knew only one person who moved to Palestine, which was my cousin Emil Steiner. He left in 1939 in the first wave of emigrants, which was organized by Hechalutz.