Eva Boros - February 11, 1983
Hiding II
This was the little village outside Bratislava.
Pardon?
This was the little village this Nazi son took you to.
Yeah, yeah. The Nazis are everywhere--its a little village. It was because of the bombardment. In smaller places they bombarded much less than such a... Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and they had a huge uh, uh, amount of industry there. There was oil refineries and everything. It's near the Danube and there is plenty. It was really a rich place. So they were bombarding it a huge amount of time. Uh, so that was when we arrived there. And uh, he had a little uh, hole in the wall doing soap, a chemical, whatever. He was uh, making soap. He had, he had actually a degree in chemistry. He was a chemical engineer. So he was pre...he was, that was what, what he was living from. And he took my sister to work with him, just fine. The only problem was that one day when he turned out that there is money, because he said so what now. It turned out that we have money with his father, he said uh, he turn--it turned out that he will uh, he would be interested in the money. So how we get the money without being dirty? Uh, he had a cousin in the same little place, that was family, that's why he went there I imagine. He was also in the Nazi Party, very active. He wasn't active, he just belonged. But that one was active. He was wearing the black uniform and whatever. And uh, he told him to pick up my sister. And one day they just picked her up from the work, from his place, which was in a very small city uh, beside that Nitrianska Streda. It was a city, not a village. So my sister was a very pretty young girl. She was seventeen then, seventeen, I think. And all those guys--young guys, guards, they called the men Hlinka Guard. And uh, she was put there and uh, she was, of course, asked and questioned and whatever. Last thing she said that uh, there is one thing I insist on. Either you shoot me here on the spot or I don't leave this house. It was a big house, I mean, it was like a police station. It's where they lived. So they said, they were a little--no, the thing is a smaller a place is the more you know that person and the less you are able to do this, to shoot her, a young woman. And there she is singled out. So they said, okay, you are going to be the cleaning woman. And she cleaned the toilets and everything. That's what she did. That's why they kept her, luckily. And uh, while she was doing it, she had a continuous guard. They were guarding her twenty-four hours. And not to speak about the possibilities of being raped and so on by these uh, dirty inhuman whatevers. Uh, but it did, nothing happened to her because she was continuously guarded. So uh, one, while she was cleaning, she was cleaning once after a party and they had a big hole there that had several uh, exits to outside. She, she was cleaning and while the guard was talking with somebody else, she found out, she tried all those doors and it was open from the inside. So she kept it in mind and one day at dusk, it wasn't yet night, she just, she was cle...filling up a pail with water and while the guy was talking and the water was running, she just quietly went out. No running, nothing. No coat, no nothing. She just went. And when she, why she was, she walked, she didn't run because she knew the moment she runs it's her end. They would have shot her on the spot. They all were continuously, uh. So uh, she was walking and it was dusk and there came two of them opposite her on the other side of the street. And since she did not run and it was dusk, they did not recognize her. And she just went and she came back to the guy where I--meanwhile, I was sitting there and I know what he did. And he run, what went on behind the scenes in the meantime that she was there, it lasted about two weeks that she was there. And then they told her that tomorrow or in two days we have to take you to the concentration camp, that's, we cannot keep you anymore. They just liked her, that's all. You'll get used to it, Jew or no Jew. So she--that's why she had to escape. She knew if either one or the other. So she escaped and she came there. Meanwhile he went and picked up the money from his father in order to pay for the guards to make her let go, to pay for her, ransom money or whatever you call it. And then he said, but they didn't want to do it. He gave the money and they still didn't let her go. So there we were, no money and uh, my sister was not freed. Now we knew that the guy's full with grenades and whatever. I don't know, he had a shotgun and he had a, a little small handgun and everything. It was always there on top of the whatever, cabinet. That was one of, he was not completely right in his head. He wasn't right but he knew what he wants. And he would have not done such a thing to save us and then to do all these transactions. Meanwhile in the same village, there was another Jewish family whom he knew from childhood. They were uh, together at the university who moved to this little village in order to save themselves. And they moved in there like non-Jews. And they had some uh, papers made up for them as non-Jews. And in the meanwhile my brother was brought there too. And it, all these guarded it. And his name was Fiala. F-i-a-l-a. That was the name of the guy that said...
[interruption in interview]
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