Pavel Sendrei's secondary school diploma

Pavel Sendrei's secondary school diploma issued in Zilina in 1939. After elementary school I enrolled in a secondary school. I didn't have any problems with Slovakian. I graduated on May 25, 1939. I socialized exclusively with Jewish children. In my class in school there were about 40 children, 11 of which were Jews. I was lucky that there were no arguments in my class between the Jewish pupils and the others. We spent 7 years together and were good friends all that time. My best friend, Kornil Verthajn, and I sat on the same bench. We went together to the Makabi Hazair. Kornil was deported together with his parents and returned, but his parents did not survive the Holocaust. After the war I helped him make aliyah from Czechoslovakia through Yugoslavia. I remember that in school every week we had lessons with Rabbi Dr. Fridman. He taught Hebrew language and the history of the Jewish people. After graduation I worked in the drugstore until its ?aryanization.? Then I got fired, and like many Jewish children, I attended an agricultural course in the Jewish community. The course took place on rented agricultural property. We cultivated the land ourselves, and sold everything that grew, and that is how we survived. This lasted about a year. On that farm, we worked for a living, but it wasn't in preparation for aliyah to Israel, only for survival. As a young boy I was a member of the Makabi where we practiced gymnastics and athletics and which was part of the Zionist society Makabi Hazair. The members of this organization went on picnics, and camping trips where we were taught dances, songs, Hebrew language and history. In 1937 I participated in the Makabiada in Zilina and every year I went to the Makabi Hazair camp. After 1940 this was interrupted because of the German occupation of Slovakia.