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The effect of the Jewish laws was that I couldn't go to school. Secondly, my Grandma Lina in Melcice couldn't have a servant, so they sent me there to help her. We had to move out of our apartment, because policemen from the part of the republic that had fallen under Hungary came to live there. We got a substitute apartment, of course considerably worse than the one we'd had. During that time I was partly living at the hakhsharah with Mr. Fussmann by Hlohovec. It was called Panónia. There were boys working in various areas there. They had vineyards, grain, poppies and also cattle. We girls took care of the household. After the dissolution of the hakhsharah, I was in Melcice. People from Hashomer Hatzair alerted me that deportations [16] were going to take place, for me to escape. So I escaped to Hungary, and there my family took me in, my father's brother Laci and my father's sisters Anika and Tekla.
I got to Budapest with my mother's help. My mother found a driver who was willing to drive me across the border between Slovakia and Hungary. At that time it cost only a thousand crowns. [Editor's note: The value of one Slovak crown during the Slovak State (1939 - 1945) was equal to 31.21 mg of gold. The exchange rate between the German mark and the Slovak crown was artificially set at a ration of 1:11.] Later it cost horrendous sums. Because I spoke Hungarian, one Jewish family on the other side of the border took me in, and the next day they put me on a train. That's how I got to Budapest, and I was there until 1944.
In Hungary, the period from 1942 to 1944 was relatively mild from the standpoint of persecution of Jews. I had one piece of paper on which I lived. It was a police registration. At that time they didn't want to see any papers at the police. I arrived there, filled out a form, and instead of resident of Bratislava I put Stúrovo. [Editor's note: Bratislava and Stúrovo (in Hungarian Párkány) belonged to the First Czechoslovak Republic. After the First Vienna Decision [17], Stúrovo fell to Hungary.] They stamped it for me, and I lived on this document.
I got to Budapest with my mother's help. My mother found a driver who was willing to drive me across the border between Slovakia and Hungary. At that time it cost only a thousand crowns. [Editor's note: The value of one Slovak crown during the Slovak State (1939 - 1945) was equal to 31.21 mg of gold. The exchange rate between the German mark and the Slovak crown was artificially set at a ration of 1:11.] Later it cost horrendous sums. Because I spoke Hungarian, one Jewish family on the other side of the border took me in, and the next day they put me on a train. That's how I got to Budapest, and I was there until 1944.
In Hungary, the period from 1942 to 1944 was relatively mild from the standpoint of persecution of Jews. I had one piece of paper on which I lived. It was a police registration. At that time they didn't want to see any papers at the police. I arrived there, filled out a form, and instead of resident of Bratislava I put Stúrovo. [Editor's note: Bratislava and Stúrovo (in Hungarian Párkány) belonged to the First Czechoslovak Republic. After the First Vienna Decision [17], Stúrovo fell to Hungary.] They stamped it for me, and I lived on this document.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
gertrúda milchová