Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Zwi Steiger - March 27, 1982

So you went to Cluj after that.

I stayed in Cluj for about ten months and then I went to Prague to continue studies.

That was still while...

No, the war was over...

The war was over.

The war was over in May, I mean, the European war. And there were some in Cluj was--there were some shootings. People--there were some frictions between the Hungarians and the Romanians.

What--you started medical school in Cluj?

In Cluj, yeah. Hungarians.

And that was in what month?

In uh, December.

Of '44.

Forty-four.

You stayed there ten months?

I stayed there 'til uh, September--'til end, end of August I think of uh, August I think--no, in September. It was September--end of September. And then I uh, made my way to Prague. It was still extremely difficult to, to commute, I mean to uh, to travel. By that time I made contact with my brother who was in Italy in the, the British army.

He was fighting with the British army?

Yeah, he was with the British army.

Part of the Jewish Brigade?

Yeah. He--I sent him a letter to Jerusalem, to the Hebrew University, I knew he, he enlisted to the university when he came out. And uh, eventually I found out that they posted his letter, they pinned it on a bulletin board. And somebody picked it up and mailed it to him to uh, to Italy where he was. And from Italy he sent me a letter to Cluj and before I had a chance to answer him I went to Prague. This, you know, took months to get a letter. I went to Prague and from Prague I let him know that he--that I'm in Prague. And again, to get to Prague was extremely difficult. I had to cross the Romanian and Hungarian border and then the Hungarian and the, and the Czech border. I didn't have any documents. Our part of Czechoslovakia was by that time almost--not officially, but unofficially annexed to the Soviet Union. So I, I had no uh, at, no documents to, to let me into Czechoslovakia. But when--while I was in, eventually I got to Prague. I, I let him know that I'm in Prague and he came to see me from--he took off from his unit AWOL and came to see me. And while I was uh, going to Czechoslovakia I stopped in Budapest. I tried to get there uh, uh, some document to go to Czechoslovakia so I don't have to pay a ???.