Tag #121788 - Interview #79524 (Beno Ruso)

Then, in 1938, hakhsharah moved to Golenic, in Croatia, near Podravska Slatina [80 kilometers west of Osijek], to a Jewish baron’s estate. He was the major owner of almost all the forests. His name was Gutman. He let the Hashomer Hatzair organization use his entire estate. He didn’t live there. I don’t know when or where he lived, maybe in Austria. I never met him. The organization was there before we came. The facilities had been renovated; maybe there were ten facilities. There were facilities for sleeping, stables, basements and two buildings which were contemporary castles. That is where we were. When we came to Golenic there was already a group of emigrants from Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. They maintained the facilities and the estate before we came. We just joined them. Altogether we were about twenty or thirty people. It was half and half: men to women. The emigrants were adults. They didn’t have children but were mostly couples.