Selected text
My wife and I met in Moscow. As a student she occasionally helped out at the radio station. She was a friend of my first wife. My second wife is also a Jewess. But to be honest, that wasn’t at all why I married her. We had a civil wedding. My wife and I didn’t observe any religious rules at home, and neither did we observe holidays. I only go to synagogue during the High Holidays. One daughter came of our marriage.
I’d like to tell one story, perhaps an educational one, but in those days certainly not an unusual one. I didn’t tell my son that I was a Jew. When he was 14 or 15 years old, we were on vacation by the Cerveny Kamen castle. There was a well-preserved Jewish cemetery. My son and I sat down and I began to read the writing on the tombstones. My son said: “You can read it?” To which I replied: “Yes, I’m a Jew.” At that point I told him everything, that his mother had also been, and so was he. He began shaking and said: “Why didn’t you tell me? Why?” After this experience we decided it would be better to tell our daughter everything right away.
In 1968 our son met his wife-to-be. She was studying art restoration. In 1969, on the anniversary of the August 21 occupation [31] they were on SNP [Slovak National Uprising] Square and were witnesses to a cop beating some woman. This was one of the reasons they decided to leave Czechoslovakia. They got to Italy, to Rome. They went with their child in arms. In Rome they found out that a charitable Jewish organization was helping Jews. With the help of this organization they got to New York. Up to 1973 we had no information about them. In 1973 we got a letter from our son, where he wrote about what all they had gone through. From that time onwards we’ve kept in touch. He and his wife settled permanently in the USA. They had a pair of twins there.
As far as my friends are concerned, I’ve got to say that I don’t seek out only Jewish company. I’ve got friends both among Jews and non-Jews. I don’t differentiate between them.
In closing I’d like to say a few words. We, who survived the Holocaust, often ask ourselves, why and how? To this day we can’t understand why the Nazi regime picked Jews as victims of the slaughter. The SS were worse than predators. They considered it an honor to cleanse their race by exterminating us. Sometimes, while talking about what we lived through and how we lived through it, we stop and ask, was it possible? Is it true? How was it possible? If I have to sum it up, it was possible only thanks to the fact that there were good people to be found, who helped us. Sometimes they were people that were grateful to our parents for something, or to our grandparents. Friends helped us, former classmates. Very often what helped us was lightning-quick wit and resourcefulness, which took those murderers by surprise. And when we weren’t afraid to risk in a given situation, we survived. First we survived the day, then another and finally the entire Third Reich. Another thing I’d like to say is that totalitarian regimes are regimes that murder. The Nazi regime picked the Jewish race. I don’t believe that there is such a thing as the Jewish race. Because many Jews are descendants of crossbreeding, just like the “Aryans”. So the Nazis picked a race that they had made up. The Stalinists also murdered millions. They, however, didn’t make up a race, but so-called enemies of the people, and arbitrarily destroyed and murdered even their nearest and dearest. Basically, even today it’s horrible. In this democratically oriented system, people are afraid to express resistance to neo-Nazism and terrorism. I’m coming to the conclusion that a completely just society doesn’t exist. Either the regime destroys people, or in a freer society, people destroy each other. Everything depends on the responsibility and conscience of the individual.
I’d like to tell one story, perhaps an educational one, but in those days certainly not an unusual one. I didn’t tell my son that I was a Jew. When he was 14 or 15 years old, we were on vacation by the Cerveny Kamen castle. There was a well-preserved Jewish cemetery. My son and I sat down and I began to read the writing on the tombstones. My son said: “You can read it?” To which I replied: “Yes, I’m a Jew.” At that point I told him everything, that his mother had also been, and so was he. He began shaking and said: “Why didn’t you tell me? Why?” After this experience we decided it would be better to tell our daughter everything right away.
In 1968 our son met his wife-to-be. She was studying art restoration. In 1969, on the anniversary of the August 21 occupation [31] they were on SNP [Slovak National Uprising] Square and were witnesses to a cop beating some woman. This was one of the reasons they decided to leave Czechoslovakia. They got to Italy, to Rome. They went with their child in arms. In Rome they found out that a charitable Jewish organization was helping Jews. With the help of this organization they got to New York. Up to 1973 we had no information about them. In 1973 we got a letter from our son, where he wrote about what all they had gone through. From that time onwards we’ve kept in touch. He and his wife settled permanently in the USA. They had a pair of twins there.
As far as my friends are concerned, I’ve got to say that I don’t seek out only Jewish company. I’ve got friends both among Jews and non-Jews. I don’t differentiate between them.
In closing I’d like to say a few words. We, who survived the Holocaust, often ask ourselves, why and how? To this day we can’t understand why the Nazi regime picked Jews as victims of the slaughter. The SS were worse than predators. They considered it an honor to cleanse their race by exterminating us. Sometimes, while talking about what we lived through and how we lived through it, we stop and ask, was it possible? Is it true? How was it possible? If I have to sum it up, it was possible only thanks to the fact that there were good people to be found, who helped us. Sometimes they were people that were grateful to our parents for something, or to our grandparents. Friends helped us, former classmates. Very often what helped us was lightning-quick wit and resourcefulness, which took those murderers by surprise. And when we weren’t afraid to risk in a given situation, we survived. First we survived the day, then another and finally the entire Third Reich. Another thing I’d like to say is that totalitarian regimes are regimes that murder. The Nazi regime picked the Jewish race. I don’t believe that there is such a thing as the Jewish race. Because many Jews are descendants of crossbreeding, just like the “Aryans”. So the Nazis picked a race that they had made up. The Stalinists also murdered millions. They, however, didn’t make up a race, but so-called enemies of the people, and arbitrarily destroyed and murdered even their nearest and dearest. Basically, even today it’s horrible. In this democratically oriented system, people are afraid to express resistance to neo-Nazism and terrorism. I’m coming to the conclusion that a completely just society doesn’t exist. Either the regime destroys people, or in a freer society, people destroy each other. Everything depends on the responsibility and conscience of the individual.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Jozef W.