Albert Fein - February 19, 2005
Czechoslovakia During the War
Didn't Beneš want to fight?
He, he would like to fight, only this was impossible because he was not a dumb person. He took over after Masaryk. You, you heard about Masaryk. I see you are very there. See, when Masaryk died, Beneš took over.
Became prime minister but then the British and the French didn't support him.
You see uh, the, the, the Czech they are smart people, and they saw already he cannot stand. First of all, Germany had over 60 million people. They have the army and they was continuously uh, preparing for war. Czechs, you know, they had, they had good manufacturers because Hitler was telling, "If I have Skoda and Opel together, I can fight the whole world." Yeah, to him he was. You wouldn't believe it probably. When we was deported from Uzhorod--in Uzhorod we got by train to the border and from there on American and Ford trucks they was driving us to Kamenetz-Podolsk.
On Ford trucks made in Germany?
No.
Made in the United States?
Yeah. And the whole war--during the whole war, Ford was supplying Germany with, with certain machineries and certain weapon what they was producing here. They were selling it, I don't know, you know, I, I only know this I saw them there. How they get there? I believe took through Switzerland.
So the Hungarians came in. Did they pass any laws against, against the Czechs? Against the Jews?
No.
Nothing.
Nothing.
So nothing really changed, just the...
Only the thing was, you know, they suppressed Jews already. They won't allow them businesses--personal businesses what has monopoly, tobacco, sugar...
Alcohol?
Huh?
Alcohol?
Alcohol, yeah. And those type, you know, this was limited. Even in wholesale it was limited. This was little by little, you know? Then they stopped, stopped, you know, giving uh, permission to Jews to carry restaurants, to, you know, that--you can make, make combinations. They took in like, like a partner--a non-Jew and, you know, the business was going on.
Aryanization.
Yeah.
They had to Aryanize it. Yeah.
This is...
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