Selected text
Since Fascism took our lives away, I thought, the only possible change left was Communism. Naturally, we didn’t know – I think, there was hardly anyone who could have known – who this Stalin guy actually was. My mother had a girlfriend who was in hiding with her family and miraculously stayed alive.
They were all party members. Her son was a doctor, who said, ‘Kato, your place is in the Party. Join up, please!’ He even brought me the questionnaire. I filled out the form and one fine day went down to hand it in. I lived in Old Town [Stare mesto], the Communist party center was in the Town Hall of Old Town.
I went to the Town Hall, and it was written there which office you had to go to. I opened the door, well, there were a lot of people there. Desks in a semi-circle, there was quite a lot of smoke, because after the war everyone smoked heavily. On the right side, a young man was sitting, he saw me and called out: ‘Finally, you’ve come, this is the place for you, too!’ I looked at him, and he was the young German resident of Zuckermandel, whom I had always been scared of.
Bratislava wasn’t such a big city, that you wouldn’t know someone at least by sight. I knew that he’d harassed Jews, and I also knew that he was horribly dangerous. Uncountable times I’d wanted to leave home – and often tried without the star – but if I saw him, I always stopped and waited until he disappeared. And this figure was sitting there in the Party, as some functionary.
I looked at him without a word. I turned around, and went out into the Old Town Town Hall courtyard, ripped up the form and left. I never again considered joining the Party, where that kind of thing was possible. It was a very good thing, because much, much later I heard what had actually happened in the Soviet Union.
In the 1940s and 1950s, you only heard about the party directors everywhere. The press, the radio continually encouraged you to work, which the simple people contributed to by ‘building the country.’ The real events in the background, which happened behind the political coolie-sack [sic], were never spoken of. In 1952, in the Slansky period [see Slansky Trial] [33] we sat by the radio, and just listened and I think we got the same thing most of the citizens did.
When we first listened to the transmission, we thought: ‘Oh my God, is this possible, that’s really horrible, what are people capable of?!’ The accusers’ manner of speaking started to get suspicious, we sat and listened, but somehow my husband and I kept feeling, God save us if they find out I listen to London radio. But when the local interrogations happened, they condemned them with such a strange psycho mode, you heard such soulless sentences.
It was somehow displeasing. We tried to learn something more, from some other sources. When the time for the arrests came, among those whom we knew were the world’s most honorable people, that was terrible.
When these show trials went on, then both of us thought for the first time, that seriously, it wasn’t possible to stay in this country – meanwhile the Rajk trial [34] went on in Hungary – that somehow, we had to get over to Austria. But that was only a plan.
They were all party members. Her son was a doctor, who said, ‘Kato, your place is in the Party. Join up, please!’ He even brought me the questionnaire. I filled out the form and one fine day went down to hand it in. I lived in Old Town [Stare mesto], the Communist party center was in the Town Hall of Old Town.
I went to the Town Hall, and it was written there which office you had to go to. I opened the door, well, there were a lot of people there. Desks in a semi-circle, there was quite a lot of smoke, because after the war everyone smoked heavily. On the right side, a young man was sitting, he saw me and called out: ‘Finally, you’ve come, this is the place for you, too!’ I looked at him, and he was the young German resident of Zuckermandel, whom I had always been scared of.
Bratislava wasn’t such a big city, that you wouldn’t know someone at least by sight. I knew that he’d harassed Jews, and I also knew that he was horribly dangerous. Uncountable times I’d wanted to leave home – and often tried without the star – but if I saw him, I always stopped and waited until he disappeared. And this figure was sitting there in the Party, as some functionary.
I looked at him without a word. I turned around, and went out into the Old Town Town Hall courtyard, ripped up the form and left. I never again considered joining the Party, where that kind of thing was possible. It was a very good thing, because much, much later I heard what had actually happened in the Soviet Union.
In the 1940s and 1950s, you only heard about the party directors everywhere. The press, the radio continually encouraged you to work, which the simple people contributed to by ‘building the country.’ The real events in the background, which happened behind the political coolie-sack [sic], were never spoken of. In 1952, in the Slansky period [see Slansky Trial] [33] we sat by the radio, and just listened and I think we got the same thing most of the citizens did.
When we first listened to the transmission, we thought: ‘Oh my God, is this possible, that’s really horrible, what are people capable of?!’ The accusers’ manner of speaking started to get suspicious, we sat and listened, but somehow my husband and I kept feeling, God save us if they find out I listen to London radio. But when the local interrogations happened, they condemned them with such a strange psycho mode, you heard such soulless sentences.
It was somehow displeasing. We tried to learn something more, from some other sources. When the time for the arrests came, among those whom we knew were the world’s most honorable people, that was terrible.
When these show trials went on, then both of us thought for the first time, that seriously, it wasn’t possible to stay in this country – meanwhile the Rajk trial [34] went on in Hungary – that somehow, we had to get over to Austria. But that was only a plan.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Katarina Löfflerova