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Rezso, Rudolf, they called Cigi, because he was like a gypsy, completely black [from Cigan, the Slovak word for Gypsy]. I've got this impression that Grandma Cili must have had him with some Gypsy [the interviewee said it as a joke - Editor's note]. He was an amazing guy! He was very intelligent. In fact, during the war he saved me. My family, the Simkos - that is, my grandma, brother, father, mother and I, were in a camp in Vyhne. Before Vyhne we were in the Zilina collection camp. Rezso was still free. He made us a fake baptism certificate. So that we'd been converted [to Christianity] before 1938. I'd never in my life seen a priest, and neither had my family. Anyways, those who'd had themselves converted before 1938 were supposed to go to the Vyhne camp [10]. It was for those in mixed marriages and Jews who'd converted before 1938. And Rezso brought a piece of paper to Zilina, that my father had been converted in 1938, so they didn't send us to the gas in the Auschwitz concentration camp, but to Vyhne. Basically, he saved us. He himself didn't manage to save himself. They then caught him in the second batch [11] and in 1944 he died.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
otto simko