Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Bernard Hirsch - June 29, 1982

Getting Help from Teacher

Did the teacher know that you were in town also?

The teacher, yeah. He was plenty scared. I didn't finish with the story--with the teacher's story on the end. The teacher when I became free, he was still a teacher. And he retired. He was a democrat. He was a--I could say--I wouldn't say that he was a communist. Or uh, when everybody was grabbing, he was grabbing too, you know. He was the one man--an educated man in town, the rest, this. So one day after when I was uh, already free uh, yeah free, my friend that was my wife's cousin what--he went to live to Koŝice to where my wife is coming--and one day I'm going on the train and I met him--the teacher--on the train and coming home and he was coming home too. And he called me uh, "Sit down here to me." He wanted to be friendly. He said, "I know you so many years already since you are a kid. And I know what happened with your, with your family, with you and everything. I'm very sorry. Why you are staying in a small town? Why you are not coming in a big town to live?" he told me. He said, "Come on to Koŝice from where my wife is. I have, I have uh, a lot of--I knew a lot of people in case you wanted papers for a business. I'm going to make yo...I'm going..." because it was hard to get a business...

Mm-hm.

...special in textile. So I was telling my friend, her cousin this and her cousin said, "All right." Uh, he said, "You are uh, when he wants to give you that you can open a business it's a very good business." So then I called him up or I stopped in his house and he made me, he made me papers I should get license for a business. Because was very hard particular type of business. This was the best business after the war, textile. So I got uh, I had a business uh, he--through him. He, he made it, this. He wanted to wash his face. Or this was already maybe, maybe a year, a year and a half after the war when he offered me this opportunity I should come to, to town--to a big...a bigger town.


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