Mgr. Peter Sviták

* 1946

  • "And I almost returned from Zurich to Budapest and from there to Košice and Prešov, when something else told me that I was supposed to meet my parents in Cluj. So I went from Zurich via Bucharest up to Cluj. And imagine that, I really met my parents in tears, and my grandmother, who was flying to Zurich all the time. Peter, what you did to us, we'll go crazy. Don't you know we were supposed to meet? I apologised to them. And they told me, in our EMB, at the speed of 80 km/hour, with closed windows, they whispered, Peter, we want to leave to Israel."

  • "As for the father - he told me they were supposed to kill them by the work and the absurdity of what they were doing. He told me, of course in the morning there was an appeal, they were standing in the snow, barefoot, sometimes for hours, only in the prisoners clothing, when the Blockteste- that means the person who was responsible for the block, in which the lived, drove them away.If he or she did not drive them out, they would kill him or her. After that, when they counted the prisoners, whether no one escaped, the work started. They ate a slice of bread and something, which resembled a soup. They were supposed to carry rock from point A to point B, and when they finished, to carry them bck to point A. The meaninglessness and hardship of this works were supposed to kill them."

  • "Well, let's go back to our parents. In the fall of 1944, I think it was already November, they both left by the transport from Zilina to the concentration camp. "Do you know exactly which one?" "I know, I know. But here the Germans and not the Slovaks were deciding, so they left for the transport. At the beginning, when they were leaving from Zilina, they said at six after war at the hospital. I don't know whether they read Svejk, but there Vodicka and Svejk shout at each other, when this war ends, at six at Kalich. They paraphrased it. After the war at six at the hospital in Zilina. They left together to the female concentration camp Ravensbruck."

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    Levice, 21.02.2020

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His parents survived concentration camps, Peter returned after years from izrael to Slovakia

Peter Sviták was born on April 24, 1946 in the village of Česká Lípa. His parents, both Jewish, were deported to Nazi concentration camps during the war. Both of them managed to survive and met again at home in Žilina. In 1945, they left for Česká Lípa, where they were given a house after the Sudeten Germans were evicted. After Peter‘s birth, the family moved to Prešov. In 1969, all together managed to emigrate to Israel. Peter returned to Slovakia only in 2009. Since 2019 he lives in Levice.