Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Lanka Ilkow - October 12, 1991

Family (continued)

So you had an aunt here.

I had--my father had three of 'em here and my mother had two. And a brother she had here. But the brother he did...didn't want to help nothing. One aunt tried to help us, but not too much. And, uh...

What was your grandfather's name, your mother's maiden name?

Mosko...uh, Simskovitch.

Simskovitch.

Yeah.

Your father's family was also from the same town?

No. From another town from Slovakia, you know.

What's the town?

Konus. I have here on a map here.

Where is it near? Let's see the map.

All right. Uh, Humenné where my husband was born. And uh, Novase, but they, they misspelled it. Novase...el uh, ee. Not this here. This is Novaselis. And Konus is...

Here it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah here. Four hours walking over the woods. That's what we walked, you know. I had a grandmother there you know, and I used to walk to her and she loved me. And she baked all the time and she give me that the other children shouldn't see. She always give me. So I have nice memories you know, from that. But uh, here is. Gross Berezny. There was two Berezny's.

Little and great.

Uh, little and big, you know. It was, this was a very, very big city. A lotta Jews. A beautiful city. And that's what I met my--I was married before the war. I was just eighteen when I got married. And uh, but he was a Slovak, so in '41 already they was taking away to Poland, shipping us. So we always hiding, lived.


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