Selected text
After the unification of the Third Reich
in 1938 (editor's note: this is how the respondent refers to the German
takeover of Austria), many Jews arrived in Banja Luka from Austria. My
uncle Salomon Levi took in one of these families. They left all of their
property behind in Vienna. I was still too young to fully understand their
situation. But, unfortunately, the hard times soon befell me too. For the
1940-41 school year I was enrolled in Prijedor. During this school year I
started to have problems because my history professor was a fascist
sympathizer and he always humiliated and insulted me in front of the whole
grade. I cried after almost every class with him. My three school friends:
Sveta Popovic, Joca Stefanovic and Milan Markovic were a great consolation
to me. They would tell me: "Don't give in to him, hold your head up high,
proudly, high, you are not going to let one fascist make you suffer." I
listened to them. Numerus Klausus, a law which restricted the number of
Jewish children who were able to go to school, had already been enacted.
They carried this out especially rigorously with those boys and girls who
were supposed to enroll in the higher grades of the gymnasium. At the
teacher's meeting the director of my school insisted that I be thrown out,
but I was lucky and my physics, geography and literature professors lobbied
for me to stay. Their argument was that it would be better to dismiss a
younger student who had time to transfer to some trade school rather than
me. In the end they did not throw me out. I learned about this incident
during the war when I met one my professors.
in 1938 (editor's note: this is how the respondent refers to the German
takeover of Austria), many Jews arrived in Banja Luka from Austria. My
uncle Salomon Levi took in one of these families. They left all of their
property behind in Vienna. I was still too young to fully understand their
situation. But, unfortunately, the hard times soon befell me too. For the
1940-41 school year I was enrolled in Prijedor. During this school year I
started to have problems because my history professor was a fascist
sympathizer and he always humiliated and insulted me in front of the whole
grade. I cried after almost every class with him. My three school friends:
Sveta Popovic, Joca Stefanovic and Milan Markovic were a great consolation
to me. They would tell me: "Don't give in to him, hold your head up high,
proudly, high, you are not going to let one fascist make you suffer." I
listened to them. Numerus Klausus, a law which restricted the number of
Jewish children who were able to go to school, had already been enacted.
They carried this out especially rigorously with those boys and girls who
were supposed to enroll in the higher grades of the gymnasium. At the
teacher's meeting the director of my school insisted that I be thrown out,
but I was lucky and my physics, geography and literature professors lobbied
for me to stay. Their argument was that it would be better to dismiss a
younger student who had time to transfer to some trade school rather than
me. In the end they did not throw me out. I learned about this incident
during the war when I met one my professors.
Year
1941
Location
Banja Luka
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Interview
Rahela Perisic