Bernard Hirsch - June 29, 1982
Learning of Parent's Fate
There was a rabbi in Nitra, in Slovakia. In Nitra, or in, in Nitra, that's what I know. And he uh, the, the boys--I was not by myself there that the parents they were in concentration. So we were talking about our parents every uh, together the boys. And they said that it's in Nitra rabbi that he knows everything what's going on with them. So I wrote him a letter--a card he should let me know what happened with the--with my parents. That's all what he--"I cannot give you exactly that they--where they are, or that they are in Auschwitz." That's all on a postcard. I wish I woulda kept this postcard. Or I, I didn't kept it. I didn't want nothing to keep something in case sometimes I would go in hiding or running that they should find it in mine wallet or with me something Jewish uh, things. This what made me to go through when the army stopped me in, in Preŝov. I had that book from Russia front what the--they were selling it in our--and I bought it and I put on the back page--in the front page was a, a page, mark on your name and address from where you are. And I had my name marked--not my original name but the name what the guy died in the front and he gave me his birth certificate and I had this name and this what happened. When they opened this book and they saw it that my name is not Hirsch, that my name Michael uh, ???, because he was Michael ??? so they let me go. Otherwise they woulda right away, or they saw it something that I have from the army--from Gentile, from--not from the Jewish, didn't have nothing from Jewish--that they should something find it in my wallet.
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