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Several months later, the filth began. Communists were leeching off it, nationalists were rearing their heads, mainly descendents of the wartime Slovak State, and once again history began to be rewritten.
In 1991 this one funny thing happened to me. My cousin from Israel and his wife were at my place visiting. On the street I met the wife of one of my colleagues, who we called ‘Emil the Communist.’ In his time he used to threaten me that my comments could have dire consequences for me. With great satisfaction I said to his wife: ‘Right now I’ve got relatives from Israel visiting me, whom I kept a secret from the Communists for 40 years.’
The revolution in 1989 influenced our daily life, starting with being able to find the basic necessities of life. I say to people that I’m no longer able to imagine how we used to shop back then, because every day on the way home from work, I’d go stand in a queue to buy something – whatever they had right then.
The store was up on the first floor, and the queue used to stretch down to the ground floor. There I stood and waited, to see what I’d get that day.
Today I spend my spare time at the computer; I send emails and also look around on the internet a bit. I recently found the address for Yad Vashem [33] and I’m upset over the lists of those that perished, whom I’d known and who for me aren’t an abstract concept. I correspond with friends, I talk to some of them on the phone regularly, and sometimes I watch TV, on the rare occasion that there’s something interesting on.
I’m glad that research of this type is being carried out, so that what went on during that bloody 20th century will be recorded, and I consider it my duty to leave the facts about my life for those that will come after us. Though I’m not very convinced that it’ll be of interest to anyone.
In 1991 this one funny thing happened to me. My cousin from Israel and his wife were at my place visiting. On the street I met the wife of one of my colleagues, who we called ‘Emil the Communist.’ In his time he used to threaten me that my comments could have dire consequences for me. With great satisfaction I said to his wife: ‘Right now I’ve got relatives from Israel visiting me, whom I kept a secret from the Communists for 40 years.’
The revolution in 1989 influenced our daily life, starting with being able to find the basic necessities of life. I say to people that I’m no longer able to imagine how we used to shop back then, because every day on the way home from work, I’d go stand in a queue to buy something – whatever they had right then.
The store was up on the first floor, and the queue used to stretch down to the ground floor. There I stood and waited, to see what I’d get that day.
Today I spend my spare time at the computer; I send emails and also look around on the internet a bit. I recently found the address for Yad Vashem [33] and I’m upset over the lists of those that perished, whom I’d known and who for me aren’t an abstract concept. I correspond with friends, I talk to some of them on the phone regularly, and sometimes I watch TV, on the rare occasion that there’s something interesting on.
I’m glad that research of this type is being carried out, so that what went on during that bloody 20th century will be recorded, and I consider it my duty to leave the facts about my life for those that will come after us. Though I’m not very convinced that it’ll be of interest to anyone.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Ruzena R.