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Now back to Levoca, where I worked as a teacher. From there I got to Bratislava as a functionary of the Hashomer Hatzair movement. At that time several Jewish organizations were headquartered at 3 Venturska Street in Bratislava. A Zionist one was among them as well. Back then Hashomer was supposed to nominate one of its members for the position of head of the Office for emigration of Jewish young people to what was then the Palestine, the youth Aliyah. As I was a teacher and had a relationship to young people, they nominated me for this position, even despite my youth. Besides me, there was one more shomer, who looked like an Ethiopian, and so we called him Negush. Besides us there was Dr. Schlessinger, who was responsible for contacts with the Slovak State civil service. The Slovak civil service had very corrupt people working for it, and he knew how to deal with them. Back then Jews were still allowed to emigrate. Almost every Jew wanted permission to emigrate. The Damocles’ sword of Hitler hung above us. In our positions we tried to justly evaluate all requests. I personally never took a bribe, not one crown. So it happened that during 1939/40 I managed to get about 200 young people from all of Slovakia to the Palestine. Later I met many of them again.
One day while I was working in that office, a poor, scruffy, shabbily dressed person came to see us. He was a poor tailor from Tesin in Poland. He had gotten onto Slovak territory thanks to Slovak border guards, who didn’t sympathize with the Fascist state. For sure they were also aware of the situation in Poland, where the Germans were shooting people en masse. That man came in and said: “You’re sitting here, holding office, you’re sending children to the Palestine, and there they’re killing our people. They’re being driven into the forests, killed. One Polack, a Catholic, has taken in a small group of children and is sheltering those children in a sod hut not far from Polish Tesin. The children have to be saved.” I think that there were fourteen of them. The youngest one was 5, and the oldest, a very pretty girl, Brona, was 16. I told the Hashomer Hatzair leadership that we were going to Poland to go get those children. So it happened that thanks to the Slovak border guards the tailor and I got over to the other side, into Polish Tesin. We walked across hills and valleys for six hours, in December. Eventually we came to a pub where there was a large picture of the Führer. We were completely exhausted. The tailor connected me with a certain lawyer. With him I was supposed to go to Berlin, to the Youth Aliyah headquarters, where they already knew me through correspondence. Luckily I managed to get to Berlin without any papers whatsoever, and received the necessary money from our headquarters. The Polack finally handed the children over to me after I gave him a password that I had from the tailor. I set out with the children for the Slovak border. The Polack that had been hiding them and I alternated carrying the smallest one. They say that the Polish are genetically afflicted by anti-Semitism, but as you can see, you can find good people everywhere. He was a good person. Finally we and the children got to Slovakia. There we divided them up amongst poor Jewish families. What happened to them after that? To this day I’m still looking for them, especially the youngest one. If he’s alive, he’s about 70 years old.
One day while I was working in that office, a poor, scruffy, shabbily dressed person came to see us. He was a poor tailor from Tesin in Poland. He had gotten onto Slovak territory thanks to Slovak border guards, who didn’t sympathize with the Fascist state. For sure they were also aware of the situation in Poland, where the Germans were shooting people en masse. That man came in and said: “You’re sitting here, holding office, you’re sending children to the Palestine, and there they’re killing our people. They’re being driven into the forests, killed. One Polack, a Catholic, has taken in a small group of children and is sheltering those children in a sod hut not far from Polish Tesin. The children have to be saved.” I think that there were fourteen of them. The youngest one was 5, and the oldest, a very pretty girl, Brona, was 16. I told the Hashomer Hatzair leadership that we were going to Poland to go get those children. So it happened that thanks to the Slovak border guards the tailor and I got over to the other side, into Polish Tesin. We walked across hills and valleys for six hours, in December. Eventually we came to a pub where there was a large picture of the Führer. We were completely exhausted. The tailor connected me with a certain lawyer. With him I was supposed to go to Berlin, to the Youth Aliyah headquarters, where they already knew me through correspondence. Luckily I managed to get to Berlin without any papers whatsoever, and received the necessary money from our headquarters. The Polack finally handed the children over to me after I gave him a password that I had from the tailor. I set out with the children for the Slovak border. The Polack that had been hiding them and I alternated carrying the smallest one. They say that the Polish are genetically afflicted by anti-Semitism, but as you can see, you can find good people everywhere. He was a good person. Finally we and the children got to Slovakia. There we divided them up amongst poor Jewish families. What happened to them after that? To this day I’m still looking for them, especially the youngest one. If he’s alive, he’s about 70 years old.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Jozef W.