Tibor Spitz

“At first, they took all our property and jobs and expelled our children from schools. Gradually we became hungry and cold because they took away all our clothes and sheepskins and suddenly the life was really poor. We weren´t allowed to talk to anyone, others couldn´t speak with us and so we had nothing to live off. We didn´t have any food, neither we had firewood, so we needed to go and pick some in the forest, but majority of people didn´t have such an opportunity. Then all of a sudden the government said: ‘Why should you live here amongst people who don´t like you? We don´t want you here, therefore we take you to another country where you will live together. You can learn different crafts, build houses and work, and we all will be happy.’ So this is how psychologically they made us to say: ‘Great! Why should we live straggling when nobody likes us here? There we will live together.’”

“There was such an agreement that we would have gone with the last transport when there hadn´t been any Jews left. In the villages and towns of Slovakia there was a contest with a great award declared. That town where no Jews would be living anymore, they called it “Judenrein”, would have won this contest and the mayor, the town, would get the award. And when there wouldn´t had been any Jew in Orava to be buried, then we would have gone with the last transport away.”

“We eschewed deportations also because already in summer of 1942 (deportations began in the spring) we had found out where were the deportees taken. The first information was very interesting. Few weeks after the first transport we started to receive [postcards], not us in particular though, because our relatives didn´t probably know our address, but many people were receiving these postcards. It firstly began by transporting young people and then also the whole families followed, so the postcards contained such lines as: ‘To all our relatives, friends, and neighbors… We like it here very much. It is exactly like what they told us. We are building the life together and don´t worry, come here too. We are looking forward to see you! With love…’ And such postcards began to come from Poland or Ukraine, where these people were transported. However, the postcards did not come at once, but every week somebody got one or two… People believed that was true and they were quite contented.”

“We looked like just the same. Among Jews there were many blue-eyed and blond-hair people like I was or my parents and grandparents were. Citizens of Dolný Kubín were in majority brown-eyed and having dark hair. So there could be nothing said about the race and actually, it all was just fabricated. The whole Aryanization thing was not according to race, but according to religion.”

“That Secret Police or also the Police went and searched in parish registers who was when being baptized. And this way the normal man being his whole life Catholic, going to church as well as his parents who never heard anything about their grandparents having the Jewish origin, because they also used to go to church, suddenly found out they all were actually Jews. They came to know that their property would be confiscated and that they would be sent to some settlements to the East. There, they were said to be living in their own state until the end of the war. If the Germans won the war, afterwards we would see what would happen with us. We supposed we would work for the German Reich as manual workers, help the war efforts and so on. Nobody told us: ‘You Jews will be taken to some concentration camp and there we kill you.’ If they had told us, great panic would have probably arisen. No one knew this until the very last moment; until the time when they took the people into that [room] telling them they would be disinfected after the long journey, ordering them to get undressed and be washed. And instead of the shower they were poisoned by some gas.”