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On August 29, 1944, the Slovak National Uprising broke out, and young Jewish guys from Novaky and from Sered [11] joined together and volunteered for the uprising. In Novaky there was also something along the lines of illegal gunrunning, but I wasn't involved. I knew about it, but wasn't directly involved. But I do know that they used to get guns for people. After leaving Novaky, we got a crash battle course in Kostolany, because some of us hadn't ever in their life held a weapon in their hands.
I was 19, and so I got a gun; they showed me how to use a submachine gun, a machine gun, and I got a couple of grenades and they sent us to Batovany. The German army was approaching, and we were supposed to hold the positions there. A very strong German army, fresh reinforcements from Bratislava, and many of the partisans ran away from there, or returned to the villages they'd come from. The Jewish guys who'd arrived there didn't have any home. They had no place to run away to. So it's fair to say that 80% of those that fell at Batovany were Jewish. They held their positions. Gradually we retreated all the way back to Banska Bystrica.
When the Germans occupied Banska Bystrica, we retreated into the mountains. I was the commander of a recon unit in the Jegorov-Stalin 9th Battalion. My group had between five and ten guys. We then retreated along with the entire brigade up to Prasiva. From there we organized ambushes and sabotage; we'd blow up railway tracks, and attack certain villages, where we knew there was a weak German or Guardist garrison [12]. In December 1944, a commando unit of the Hlinka Guard surrounded us during one attack. There were five of us, and out task was to find out where the Germans were, and beg for food from the villagers. But we were captured. Those that tried to escape were shot. The rest were captured. I had the luck that there were also some German soldiers among them, but they were Austrian soldiers, from Vienna. Because I was able to communicate with them perfectly, and I spoke with an Austrian accent, the Guardists and those German soldiers decided to not hand us over to the SS, as they'd have shot us on the spot.
They handed us over to Slovak authorities. Just then there was one transport to Bratislava ready to go. So we went on this transport in January 1945 to Bratislava, to the regional court jail. From Dolna Lhota, by Brezna, or from someplace around there, we went by transport to Bratislava, to the regional court jail, where there were political prisoners, partisans and illegals. We were jailed there up until February 1945. During February, the Gestapo took over the jail. They transferred those of us that were there, around 280 of us, to a jail on the third floor, for political prisoners and enemies of the state, and the other prisoners, criminals, were on the ground floor and on the first and second floors.
We were on the third floor until 19th February 1945, when at 5:00 a.m. they prepared a transport, five German trucks covered with canvas. We had to get onto these trucks. In each truck here were around 50 prisoners plus two SS soldiers in the back with submachine guns. In this way, on 19th February 1945, they took us to the Mauthausen concentration camp [13]. We passed through Vienna, and when we were in Melk, about 80 km from Vienna, an air-raid alarm sounded. The leader of the convoy of trucks didn't react to the alert, and didn't give orders for the trucks to stop. We kept going. The English-American fighters, thinking that it was a German transport, as they were German trucks covered in canvas, began attacking us. At that point the trucks stopped.
The SS jumped into the ditches and took cover. We of course also wanted to jump out, but they were shouting "Züruck oder schiesse" – back, or I'll shoot. So we had to climb back on those trucks and I could already see the fighters approaching our trucks. So I hit the deck of the truck along with the rest of the others. At that moment they began firing. Five times they repeated that horrible barrage. Four trucks were partly demolished. Luckily, I wasn't wounded. In the meantime, Germans from Melk had arrived. There was a concentration camp in Melk too [Melk: a subsidiary camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp – Editor's note]. Those who were only lightly wounded, or not at all, had to load the dead or seriously wounded onto trucks. They took the wounded and dead to Melk, and later we found out that they'd shut them up into one room there, and let them bleed to death. Those of us that had remained alive, or were only lightly wounded, were dragged off to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Upper Austria. We were in Mauthausen until 5th May 1945, when we were freed by the American army. Mauthausen was the second worst camp after Auschwitz.
I was 19, and so I got a gun; they showed me how to use a submachine gun, a machine gun, and I got a couple of grenades and they sent us to Batovany. The German army was approaching, and we were supposed to hold the positions there. A very strong German army, fresh reinforcements from Bratislava, and many of the partisans ran away from there, or returned to the villages they'd come from. The Jewish guys who'd arrived there didn't have any home. They had no place to run away to. So it's fair to say that 80% of those that fell at Batovany were Jewish. They held their positions. Gradually we retreated all the way back to Banska Bystrica.
When the Germans occupied Banska Bystrica, we retreated into the mountains. I was the commander of a recon unit in the Jegorov-Stalin 9th Battalion. My group had between five and ten guys. We then retreated along with the entire brigade up to Prasiva. From there we organized ambushes and sabotage; we'd blow up railway tracks, and attack certain villages, where we knew there was a weak German or Guardist garrison [12]. In December 1944, a commando unit of the Hlinka Guard surrounded us during one attack. There were five of us, and out task was to find out where the Germans were, and beg for food from the villagers. But we were captured. Those that tried to escape were shot. The rest were captured. I had the luck that there were also some German soldiers among them, but they were Austrian soldiers, from Vienna. Because I was able to communicate with them perfectly, and I spoke with an Austrian accent, the Guardists and those German soldiers decided to not hand us over to the SS, as they'd have shot us on the spot.
They handed us over to Slovak authorities. Just then there was one transport to Bratislava ready to go. So we went on this transport in January 1945 to Bratislava, to the regional court jail. From Dolna Lhota, by Brezna, or from someplace around there, we went by transport to Bratislava, to the regional court jail, where there were political prisoners, partisans and illegals. We were jailed there up until February 1945. During February, the Gestapo took over the jail. They transferred those of us that were there, around 280 of us, to a jail on the third floor, for political prisoners and enemies of the state, and the other prisoners, criminals, were on the ground floor and on the first and second floors.
We were on the third floor until 19th February 1945, when at 5:00 a.m. they prepared a transport, five German trucks covered with canvas. We had to get onto these trucks. In each truck here were around 50 prisoners plus two SS soldiers in the back with submachine guns. In this way, on 19th February 1945, they took us to the Mauthausen concentration camp [13]. We passed through Vienna, and when we were in Melk, about 80 km from Vienna, an air-raid alarm sounded. The leader of the convoy of trucks didn't react to the alert, and didn't give orders for the trucks to stop. We kept going. The English-American fighters, thinking that it was a German transport, as they were German trucks covered in canvas, began attacking us. At that point the trucks stopped.
The SS jumped into the ditches and took cover. We of course also wanted to jump out, but they were shouting "Züruck oder schiesse" – back, or I'll shoot. So we had to climb back on those trucks and I could already see the fighters approaching our trucks. So I hit the deck of the truck along with the rest of the others. At that moment they began firing. Five times they repeated that horrible barrage. Four trucks were partly demolished. Luckily, I wasn't wounded. In the meantime, Germans from Melk had arrived. There was a concentration camp in Melk too [Melk: a subsidiary camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp – Editor's note]. Those who were only lightly wounded, or not at all, had to load the dead or seriously wounded onto trucks. They took the wounded and dead to Melk, and later we found out that they'd shut them up into one room there, and let them bleed to death. Those of us that had remained alive, or were only lightly wounded, were dragged off to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Upper Austria. We were in Mauthausen until 5th May 1945, when we were freed by the American army. Mauthausen was the second worst camp after Auschwitz.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Oto Wagner