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After the liberation, the English were filming everything there. I knew where everything in the camp was, so in the beginning I was walking around with the film crew. Not far from us they set up a place with an intercom. From morning till evening they broadcast in many languages who was looking for whom. It was a whirlpool of nations. They also set up a board, where people would come and pin up notes for family and friends. After the liberation, I got typhus. In the meantime, there were already ambulances driving around the camp, taking away the ill. The English film crew arranged for them to take me right away. I got into a hospital that they'd set up in the barracks left by the Germans. Everyone who got in there had to go through a delousing procedure and a steam bath. At that time I could no longer walk. They left me lying there in the steam for a certain time. From there I was put into a room where three Englishmen were lying. These soldiers took care of me. A lot of English soldiers there also caught typhus. In Bergen-Belsen, several dozens of doctors, nurses and soldiers who'd become infected there even died. In two months they liquidated practically the entire camp, and torched it so that the infectious diseases wouldn't spread any further.
After the liberation, my brother lasted in the blockhouse only a few days longer than I did. Then he got malaria. He basically underwent the same procedure as I did, only they were isolated in a different location. They were in the sector on the edge of the woods. The building looked like a former monastery. I don't know what it could have been before. Everyone else was forbidden to go there. You couldn't get in there at all. When I got a bit better, I began asking what was up with my brother. The building where I was lying was at the very end of the barracks. Under the window was just a tall fence of barbed wire. In front of the fence ran a wide, two-lane paved road that ended here, and after that it was just nature. There was a huge meadow there, and here and there a copse of trees. Military vehicles were arriving on this road. Tanks, heavy machinery, and cannons; people who were capable of walking would come by to have a look. It took about five hours before the last vehicle parked. In the crowd I recognized Mrs. Kollmannova, who was also from Piestany. I shouted to her from the window. She recognized me. She was looking for her son Juraj. She told me where my brother Tomi was. They kept me in the hospital for about a month. Then I returned to the blockhouse, where there were people who'd arrived in the same transport as we had. To be more precise, those lucky ones that had survived. They were women and children. My brother also got well, and in time joined us. Alis was also with us. She was with us from the beginning to the end. Only a handful of us remained. Juraj, whose mother was looking for him, was in such poor health that they had to take him to Sweden. They then took his mother there to join him. They stayed in Sweden for three years. Eventually they returned and lived in Piestany.
After the liberation, my brother lasted in the blockhouse only a few days longer than I did. Then he got malaria. He basically underwent the same procedure as I did, only they were isolated in a different location. They were in the sector on the edge of the woods. The building looked like a former monastery. I don't know what it could have been before. Everyone else was forbidden to go there. You couldn't get in there at all. When I got a bit better, I began asking what was up with my brother. The building where I was lying was at the very end of the barracks. Under the window was just a tall fence of barbed wire. In front of the fence ran a wide, two-lane paved road that ended here, and after that it was just nature. There was a huge meadow there, and here and there a copse of trees. Military vehicles were arriving on this road. Tanks, heavy machinery, and cannons; people who were capable of walking would come by to have a look. It took about five hours before the last vehicle parked. In the crowd I recognized Mrs. Kollmannova, who was also from Piestany. I shouted to her from the window. She recognized me. She was looking for her son Juraj. She told me where my brother Tomi was. They kept me in the hospital for about a month. Then I returned to the blockhouse, where there were people who'd arrived in the same transport as we had. To be more precise, those lucky ones that had survived. They were women and children. My brother also got well, and in time joined us. Alis was also with us. She was with us from the beginning to the end. Only a handful of us remained. Juraj, whose mother was looking for him, was in such poor health that they had to take him to Sweden. They then took his mother there to join him. They stayed in Sweden for three years. Eventually they returned and lived in Piestany.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Ladislav Urban