Hanna Ramras - January 26, 2008
Returning to Slovakia
So this is your father.
My father. You see, I wasn't aware of that grave until much, much later in my life. When we were in Brazil uh, and the Communists were in Bratislava--they were in Cz...Czechoslovakia--I heard that people could go there from England--from my family because my grandparents are buried in this cemetery but I also knew that uh, certain amount--a certain part of the cemetery was destroyed during the war and a road was built over it and at that time my uncle was still in Bratislava and had not yet been transported to Auschwitz and he was notified as the president of the burial society that if there were any remains that needed to be removed--he was notified by the German representatives there that they should go ahead and do that work very quickly and remove whatever they had to a part of the cemetery which is on a slope--on a hill and not where the road could be built. Where--a part of the cemetery was on level ground and then part was on a hillside. Then I heard that one could go and see that if the graves of those who were left there--the remains--so I wrote a letter to the burial society in Bratislava and I asked them if my father's grave exists or if it isn't in that part that remains. And they still had the ledgers--they kept it--the, the burial society still had representation there during the Communist times and I got a letter back and they said, "Yes, it does exist." But it-- they saw that it existed through what was written in the books that they--the records that they kept so we went to São Paulo to the Czech emb...consulate and we asked if we could come into Slovakia and visit the graves.
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