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The first anti-Semitic problem occurred, as far as I'm concerned, in March of 1939, with the fact that I couldn't finish school. Other conflicts didn't occur until I entered the Sixth labor camp [14]. That was in February 1940. We got old uniforms, still from World War I, uniforms that had belonged to members of the Austro-Hungarian Navy that had been dyed a different color. Instead of normal army caps we got round navy caps. It was necessary to distinguish us from all the other soldiers. For example Gypsies, they were members of the work detail, and they were less discriminated than we were. When we were reporting to a higher military rank, we had to identify ourselves as - 'worker Jew.' And then it changed to 'laborer Jew', with the justification that work is an honor, and labor is mandatory. And so we had to identify ourselves as 'laborer Jew.' I got around this work detail fairly well, as I was teaching those Gypsies for some time, then I worked in more places.
After Presov I worked in a quarry in Svaty Petr, where they were building an airfield for the Minister of National Defense, Catlos [15]. From there we were transferred to Oremov Laz. There the work was hard, and there was no communication. From Oremov Laz we then went to Svaty Jura. There I basically had a good work detail, I only had to take care of distributing construction tools to other guys that did the digging. I distributed uniforms. I was this little center of illegal activity, because I had hidden green uniforms, normal army uniforms. And the guys that were sneaking away from the camp would come to me, I had this house, a shack. They'd take off their blue uniforms and put on a green one so that they wouldn't be noticed, and like normal soldiers went to Bratislava, to visit their families. That was already during the time of the deportations [16]. My work detail lasted until June of 1942.
After Presov I worked in a quarry in Svaty Petr, where they were building an airfield for the Minister of National Defense, Catlos [15]. From there we were transferred to Oremov Laz. There the work was hard, and there was no communication. From Oremov Laz we then went to Svaty Jura. There I basically had a good work detail, I only had to take care of distributing construction tools to other guys that did the digging. I distributed uniforms. I was this little center of illegal activity, because I had hidden green uniforms, normal army uniforms. And the guys that were sneaking away from the camp would come to me, I had this house, a shack. They'd take off their blue uniforms and put on a green one so that they wouldn't be noticed, and like normal soldiers went to Bratislava, to visit their families. That was already during the time of the deportations [16]. My work detail lasted until June of 1942.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Alexander Bachnar