Adele Sandel - [n.d.]
Avoiding Second Transport
So, it--about two or three months didn't go away and these really came that they were calling in all the people, all the rabbi's, the doctors, the lawyers, everybody, the children, the families, they all, all had to go. So, like I told you my father was a big shot in that city and there was a law that, that a few had to be remain because--wirtschaftlich wichtige Juden they called them, they even got white, white papers like that they are very important. It's like VIPs, you know, that they are very important for the city or for the business or something. So, my father was between those--I don't even remember ten or twelve families remained in that city. One was a builder, one was a--I don't know. Really just ten or twelve families remained in that city. The rest went including--there were about three, four Jewish doctors, about three, four lawyer and two pharmacists. The rabbi--we had such a fine rabbi you had to, you had to uh, shave. He had such a long beard. You had to shave his beard. I remember when my father went to say goodbye to him--there was a transport, you know, they made from forty or fifty people, as many people you can put them into a wagon, and they made a transport from these people. There were all very religious Jewish people, and he was in front with his family, the rabbi, and my father was there in the bank in the door and he went and he, he fell down and he kissed his hand. He loved our rabbi and he stood and he bentshed him. You know, he bentshed him. And they all went--he had about seven or eight children and they all were burned there. Nobody came back.
Wait, so your father was on a Jewish council that he was on...
He wasn't on a council but like I said that he was like um, I don't know, you don't, you don't understand German at all?
Yeah, I understand a little Yiddish, yeah.
Wirtschaftlich wi...wichtige. Wichtige is "important." Wirtschaftlich is, uh...
Were they important for the Jewish people or important...
No.
...for the Gentiles?
Of course.
Oh, important for the Gentiles.
Of course, it was--you just don't close a bank because the bank had to go. People had money there and they made business so he thought this um, this um, I don't know the word that he can remain...
Yeah
...just for a while there, you know, like--but it was uh, a terrible life there, you know. There were about 200 families and you remain about ten and you don't know what is going to be with you. You know we just lived, not day to day but hour to hour, like. My sister wasn't with us--just the four of us. We, we had absolutely no luxury. We couldn't have our maid. We couldn't have--it's not--you don't understand how it was in Europe. Here a maid is a big luxury, but over there was a necessity. We didn't have water in the house. She had to schlep from the, the well. The, the things would have to scrub. The kitchen floor had to be scrubbed, the parquet floor had to be um, we didn't have a vacuum cleaner, no carpeting wall to wall--it was very hard work. And without a maid, it was all-day work so that's what we did. My mother and me just worked and worked and, and worked. You just couldn't hire a maid any more.
Your sister, who lived in uh...
My sister was in Bratislava there, you know?
Did she have her own apartment or did she live with others?
No, she had her own apartment.
Own apartment...
Under this name--that Mary Pavlova, you know.
Yeah.
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