Vladislav Rothbart’s brother

Vladislav Rothbart’s brother

This is Pavel (Paja), Vladislav’s brother in Opatija [Abbazia before attached to Yugoslavia], Italy in 1930.

Paja, before the war, attended secondary school, he was very intelligent and capable, he was considered to be an excellent student and a good Jew. He was religious exceptionally observed all Jewish holidays and customs. He spent a lot of his time in the synagogue, it was partially his profession. Every morning before the school he would lay tefillin and pray to God. 

Paja had been until the war attending secondary school in Novi Sad. Vlada attended the School of Queen Maria. Officially it wasn't a Jewish school but more than half of the kids were Jewish here, so it was almost like a Jewish school. 

During the massacre [Novi Sad massacre] 11 they were very lucky since the military police didn't come to them, only a police patrol came the third day. They were not that notorious as the military police. Brother Paja told him that their mother had kept, since the first day of the massacre, a huge pot with hot water on the fire. When the police entered the house, she immediately asked them, 'Would you gentlemen, drink a hot tea'? The temperature outside was minus 32 degrees centigrade. The policemen happily accepted it, drank themselves fill with tea, stood up and left.

In the Novi Sad massacre nobody, from Vlada's relatives, was killed even though he had only few relatives. After the massacre Vlada's family fled to Pest, more exactly to Ujpest where they rented an apartment. Paja there didn't continue the school but stayed at a locksmith where he studied locksmith trade.

When it was necessary to buy coats for the children, he would always suggest buying for elderly son Paja a new coat and that for the younger son Vlada we should turn the old father's coat and sew from it. Mother never allowed that and managed to persuade the husband to buy for Vlada as well as for Paja identical new coats.

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