Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Zoltan Rubin - January 12, 1983

Landowner.

Landowner, he was considered as a farmer even if he didn't work on a farm. He was considered, and he had exemption. Now who was under this exemption usually it was a father, mother uh, husband and wife, and the, the youngest son, the people who are working for him, minors, plus people who are working. And in our case it was my father, mother, grandmother, my older brother, and me. My older brother was away already. This time, my brother, he was the first one went voluntarily, he was away already. So, we remained. And my grandmother was also away. They took her away already. So we were actually protected in 1941, '42, we were protected by this paper. By this yellow, it's called yellow paper, at this time. And so we were taken the first time and uh, we were taken in like anybody else because the paper wasn't shown yet and we were taken to Prešov and in, in shul hall in, in, in the backyard of shul we were sitting there, the first thing what they did is cut off the beard. My father's beard. They did it to everybody else. Everybody had a beard, the first thing what they did was cut it off, shaved off the beard, and the next day the paper was shown. We, we produced the paper and they let us back.

Do you want to show me the paper?

Yes.

This is a special exemption for economic reasons?

This was an exemption for, yes, for economic reasons because you were important to the country. Now after this year, after this paper, you...there comes...came a time, I think, later on, they started to weed again because more Jews were going out. So, they took, took away people what were not important anymore. So some...so you had to receive another paper. A white paper. White paper was good for the, for the converts. A converted Jew had a white paper, he was not to be deported. And very important people again could be...So very important people, very important...All these papers could be obtainable if there were, if there were connections, for money. As a matter of fact, there was lots of Jewish people who they were in-between guys. Uh, and the in-between guys could, could uh, make up, make, get your paper. And, uh...so, when this paper was eliminated, then they took my parents, the second time.