Avraham Brichta

“There are two reasons why the Jews survived, miracles and the good will of other people – I mean Slovak people who were not Jewish. In our case, it was the CEO of Nupod, his name was Dr. Tibor Toth (Roth). My father had an exception and he was in Trnava. He did all he could to save us so he asked Dr. Toth. Dr. Toth had sympathy with us and asked Alexander Mach who served as the ministry of interior at the time and sent a wire to Žilina. We were in the transport and the door was closed. My mother was a great optimist and I got it after her. She said: ‘We are going to get out of the wagon.’ The others were laughing at her. At about five or six o’clock, a soldier came with an official from the Jewish community. They had a document. That was in October 1942. Later I found out that it was the last transport from Slovakia, after that they stopped it.”

“He said that they should let us go. So they called for Melanie Brichtová and Arpád Ivan Brichta, they opened the door for us and we got out. I remembered the first German words I heard: ‘Was ist mit dieses Kind und Frau?’ What’s wrong with this woman and the child? And the Jewish official said: ‘Sie sind irrtümlich genomen.’ They took them by mistake. ‘In Ordnung,’ said the officer. So they let us go and we went to a priest in Topolčany, I think it was a brother of Tibor Toth. We were hiding there for two weeks. We didn’t know the raids were over and that there were no more transports to concentration camps.”

„Když měli přijít Němci, začal vařit brambory, aby se začala tvořit pára. Bylo tam spousta páry. Šli jsme všichni nahoru. Vylezli jsme nahoru po žebříku, zavřeli za sebou stropní dveře a usadili se. Zavřel je za námi, odstranil žebřík a nikdo nepoznal, že je nějaký vchod nahoru. Pak přišli dva esesáci, no možná byli z wehrmachtu, revolvery a pistole. Stal se druhý zázrak, první byl v Žilině, druhý tady. Dívali se okolo, naštěstí se nekoukli nad sebe, nebyli asi tak podezřívaví, pak odešli. Měli jsme podruhé štěstí. V dubnu se přibližovala Rudá armáda a my jsme museli odejít do hor.“