My cousin Hersi. The photograph is from 1943, from Giraltovce.
There were three of us that went together. A girlfriend of mine originally from Bardejov, my cousin Hersi [Hersl (Herschel)] and I. No one else. At first we hid out in a hayloft up above Selce for six days. From there we set out for a nearby village, Nemce. Not directly for the village, but up above the village there was this shelter built by shepherds, and that's where we stayed. Well, and I had with me my own ID for one, and my Party ID for another. I thought that it would be best to get rid of them, which is also what I did. I said to myself: "Where am I, what am I? I don't know. So I'd rather not have any papers." Finally we went down to the village. We were already sure that there were no Germans or Hungarians there. I stayed there with the Kabanov family up until 25th March 1945, when Banska Bystrica was liberated by Soviet and Romanian soldiers.
