Lisa Kallai - January 28, 2008
Being Sent to Czechoslovakia
Um, do you remember when, when the Germans marched into Vienna?
I remember but I didn't see much of it because I wasn't allowed out of the house.
Three quarters...
We didn't have television in those days of course so I didn't see much of it.
Three quarters of a million people lined the streets...
Yes, but...
...so, you must've heard something.
Yes, but we lived on the side street and like I said, I wasn't allowed out of the house at that time.
And was it immediately thereafter that your parents decided to, to leave Vienna?
No, my parents had not decided to leave Vienna and they didn't leave. Like I said, my parents remained.
Oh, they stayed but they sent you.
They sent me. My father decided immediately but my mother wasn't so convinced but my father insisted and so the first thing they did was to send me to, to Czechoslovakia in the summer.
They put you on a train?
Not exactly. I had a friend whose father was Jewish and the mother was non-Jewish and they had a Czech...the father had a Czech passport and he crossed the border and the mother first took the daughter and left her in Czechoslovakia then came back and took me on the same passport because the was no passport...no picture. We were the same age so she just did it twice.
She took a chance then.
She took a chance, she certainly did. This was just altruistic.
Do you remember what it felt like leaving your parents?
Um, not very clearly. For quite a long time I, I just couldn't remember the, you know, the actual leaving. I couldn't remember how it happened. I knew they couldn't come to the station because, because it had to be done discreetly and I couldn't remember where I last saw them. It came back eventually but I can't remember the feelings really.
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