Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Emerich Grinbaum - October 3, 2000 & January 8, 2001

What did you remember about the Anschluß?

I remember that everybody was, was uh, uh, my parents, I didn't--at that time was vague, vague, vague. Uh, uh, I remember that they were very, very uh, upset that you know, they coming closer to, to, to...

To Hungary.

...to Hungary and all that stuff you know, to Hungary, to Czechoslovakia. And then the C...the uh, they Czecho...they conquered Czechoslovakia, the Sudeten and everything.

In 1938.

Right '38, right.

So what was, what was...

Anschluß was 1938.

Right. What about the experience with Beneš, did you...

Uh, I really uh, I, I...

But when they took Czechoslovakia, they took the Sudeten.

The Sudeten and then they conquered uh, Czechoslovakia and they gave back uh, the, the part of Czechoslovakia to Hungary among our area because we belonged to, to Czechoslovakia.

And were you aware of what was going on and all that?

Uh, yeah. Some, some. N...not much you know, I'm a eight, eight year old child.

Yeah.

But you know, I was very much active. Not everybody was active. We had to be active because you know, we, we were afraid that uh, '38, the Hungarian--no. You know, the--when Hungarian came in, in November '38. We--my father was uh, you know, he never learned to speak Czech. And he was Hungarian. He thought that those Hungar...these are the H...those Hungarians before the war. And there was in Franz Josef's time, there was very liberal,

Yeah.

You know, at that time. He thought that was.

Yeah.

He could know, but he didn't, they didn't want to know. And a lot of Hungarian Jews, including my--they, they welcomed coming the Hungarians.

Is that ???

But the next day, the next day already we saw that that's not the one.