Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Olga Adler - July 26, 1982

So, he said, "No way we can stay in this country, I don't want to live in Russia and I don't want to live under any Russian government. We are going to go away." He said, I'm going to go out to practice because he, he finished uh, law in, in Prague, he went to Prague University. We are going to go to Czechoslovakia, we are going to be in Prague and then I'm going to apply for a visa in Prague and we are going away then. So, he left me at home because he went off to Prague to, to find an apartment and find something to take me some, there. And then all of a sudden, the whole city said that Ernie Adler left his wife, run away. And I'm sitting out on the patio one day—it was summertime already—and all of a sudden, I look back and I see a huge truck with my carpets and with my furniture and everything in it. And I go there and I say, "What's happening, what happened, why, what are you doing to me?" He said, "Go to the mayor, and it's none of your business." And they took my whole furniture. I was outside sunning myself. I didn't because they came in the front entrance. I didn't know what's going on, I didn't hear nothing. So, I go there and I tell him that Mr. So and So while I was sitting there, they took the furniture away from the house. What, what happened, what is it? Well your husband run away and he left you here, he's not going to come back for you. I said, "What are you talking about? My husband, I said, my husband has a sister in Prague and he went to see if his sister is alive, he's coming back." So, they brought the furniture back. They did bring the furniture back and my husband arrived back, but he met somebody on the station and he said, "Ernie, I think you should go back, some back way because there is something against you and then, and then there is something against you when the Russians came in, then there is something against you" because they took a lot of Jewish boys away after the war already into uh, into Russia, and they are still in Russia today.

Yeah.

So, he didn't, he wanted to avoid that. So, he came back, we were lucky in this, in this way too. He came back and uh, we left one evening with my uncle, came back too, to my hometown, this only uncle that I had. And we said goodbye there to him and we went to Prague, but before we went to Prague they had some discussions on the station, some interrogation or something there. I don't know how or what his department... He knows it better. And we went up to Prague and, and I had a cousin... Such, such interesting things. I had a cousin in Beresak, a young lawyer. And he was a little bit um, you know, his boss was a communist. They had some kind of fancy communist there, some professors from high school and from ??? So, he became a little bit pink and when the Hungarians came in he got scared and he went to London. And he started working in a glass factory in London. And the boss came in and he said, you know, you are not the type of a worker, I think I can take, take you into the office and you'll help me in the office. And in the office he met the daughter of the owner of the factory and married that girl. But that was, I didn't know anything about it, I was just a youngster when he left. And we are standing at the station, the way to go to Prague in the Tartar Mountains and all of a sudden, I see a English soldier jumping out the window and I tell my husband, this looks like my cousin Bela. And I look up and this was my cousin Bela who jumped out of the window there. He was coming from another train.

Uh-huh.

And the two trains stopped. He was going back to my hometown to see if his parents stayed alive or his sister or somebody. He came home and we went to, we went up to Prague. And we met there. As a matter of fact, I just got a letter from him last week. He lives in uh, near London. So, I haven't seen him in ages. I would never think, I just saw, I told my husband I saw an English soldier jumping out of the window, it looked like my cousin. We got off the train and because this train stopped there for about two hours, and we went into a restaurant and it was a most beautiful experience after all this time. We went up to Prague and my husband uh, found, he was a... Oh my God, I lose words, you know, from my mind.

Yeah.