Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Zoltan Rubin - January 12, 1983

Possibilities of Leaving

But after the Slovaks took over.

After the Slovaks, still there was possibilities from the beginning, but it was, it was...still it was possible but people still didn't believe it. We didn't believe what's happening in Poland. Polish people started to run. They came to Slovakia. We didn't believe what's happening in Poland. And when my nephew run away to Budapest, his own uncle didn't believe that this is happening in, in Slovakia. And I, I couldn't blame the people in Hungary that they didn't believe the Slovaks. First of all, there was always animosity between the Slovak people, the Slovak people, and the Hungarian people, and Slovak people and Polish people. This was, this was the animosity...

You mean Polish Jews and Slovak Jews?

It will always. This remains, and it's still here, and so all over the world the Polack calls a hunky an hunky...So, so that when the Polish people are coming to our house, we didn't believe it. That's impossible. It's impossible. And so the Hungarian when we start to run, they didn't believe that it's impossible. That, that it's happening. So that was the biggest, that was one of the problems. The other problem was that the Germans had a very good system. First thing, they took away the kids. That's thirteen, fourteen because we didn't...They said they are going to work for two or three months, they are going to work there. Okay? Like, for instance, my brother was a single man. He, they told him... They took away his fiancée, and he went voluntarily because he wanted to be with her together for three months. For three months we'll be together. We'll come back. So they had a very good system, they took the youngsters. The parents didn't mind, because, they mind, but they didn't feel that it was going to be so terrible when they go for three months. Then they took them in the second time, the second shift. Older, eighteen, nineteen, singles. They took away the kinder the strongest people, the people who could do anything and, and then they took away uh, without children, and then so they had a good system.


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