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Today I don’t exactly know if it was before, or after the May 1st celebrations in 1945 that a tall, badly dressed man with a huge head rang at the gate. He had a shaved head, sad eyes and was very skinny. He asked whether the Pagac family lived there. I said that yes, they did. At that point he said my name, Harry. I recognized that it was my father, who I hadn’t seen for a long time. We fell into each other’s arms and cried together. He told us about what had happened when my mother and brother had returned from the harbor, how they’d deported them to Birkenau, how they’d separated them and led them off to the “showers”.
My father was in truly horrible condition. Two meters tall, he weighed only 45 kilos [6’ 6.5” and 99 lbs.]. In Poland he’d ended up in a coal mine. The conditions there had been horrendous. They worked in inhuman conditions, and suffered from hunger. When they were very hungry, they ate coal dust, so that they’d have something in their stomachs. That same dust also got into their lungs. He had open sores from the wooden shoes they wore. When the front was approaching, they rounded them all up from the surrounding camps onto a march [15] into the interior. They marched, hungry and exhausted. Those that died were left where they fell. The Germans were always asking those that couldn’t go on anymore to stand aside. My father stood aside, along with another about 90 fellow prisoners. They were mostly from Bratislava, and were keeping together. They didn’t shoot them on the spot, but loaded them onto a truck and drove them back to Birkenau; when they unloaded them from the truck, the Russians started firing. The Germans took fright, ran away and left them there, and so they were liberated by the Russian army. From there, together with the others that had been saved, he set out for home. They went by train, hitchhiked, and on foot. He returned home in a roundabout fashion. From Poland, through Kosice and Budapest, to Bratislava. He was spurred on by the desire to find me, as he knew that I hadn’t been in a transport.
The Pagac family didn’t want anything for concealing me and risking their lives. On the contrary, if my father wouldn’t have returned, they were intent on adopting me. We remained in a very close, literally family relationship with them. We visited and brought them gifts at every opportunity, to show our great thanks. We lost contact with them in 1968, when they left for Germany to be with their children. Their sons had already emigrated earlier on.
My father was in truly horrible condition. Two meters tall, he weighed only 45 kilos [6’ 6.5” and 99 lbs.]. In Poland he’d ended up in a coal mine. The conditions there had been horrendous. They worked in inhuman conditions, and suffered from hunger. When they were very hungry, they ate coal dust, so that they’d have something in their stomachs. That same dust also got into their lungs. He had open sores from the wooden shoes they wore. When the front was approaching, they rounded them all up from the surrounding camps onto a march [15] into the interior. They marched, hungry and exhausted. Those that died were left where they fell. The Germans were always asking those that couldn’t go on anymore to stand aside. My father stood aside, along with another about 90 fellow prisoners. They were mostly from Bratislava, and were keeping together. They didn’t shoot them on the spot, but loaded them onto a truck and drove them back to Birkenau; when they unloaded them from the truck, the Russians started firing. The Germans took fright, ran away and left them there, and so they were liberated by the Russian army. From there, together with the others that had been saved, he set out for home. They went by train, hitchhiked, and on foot. He returned home in a roundabout fashion. From Poland, through Kosice and Budapest, to Bratislava. He was spurred on by the desire to find me, as he knew that I hadn’t been in a transport.
The Pagac family didn’t want anything for concealing me and risking their lives. On the contrary, if my father wouldn’t have returned, they were intent on adopting me. We remained in a very close, literally family relationship with them. We visited and brought them gifts at every opportunity, to show our great thanks. We lost contact with them in 1968, when they left for Germany to be with their children. Their sons had already emigrated earlier on.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Henrich F.