all Jews over the age of 6 had to wear a ‘Jewish star’.
Finally, by 1 March 1942, 6,720 Jews were banished from Bratislava to the provinces. Those destined for ‘dislokácia’ were barely allowed to take anything with them. Their property was seized and sold and the proceeds used to cover the costs of the deportation.57 The Kornfelds were able to remain in the city but lived ‘in permanent and all-consuming fear’. ‘We didn’t know in the evening what would happen to us the following morning, and in the morning whether we would still be in the city in the evening.’
Robert Büchler was 8 years old, his sister Ruth 6, when the satellite state Slovakia was created ‘by the grace of Germany’ following the declaration of independence on 14 March 1939. Now Topol’čany was also ruled by the chauvinist and antisemitic Hlinka party.
‘We weren’t very afraid. It was a time of deliberation. There were no major antisemitic demonstrations in our town. It was relatively quiet, albeit unsettling.’
In autumn 1939, Minister of the Interior Alexander Mach and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ferdinand Ďurčanský, two leaders of the Nazi government of Slovakia, visited Topol’čany. They addressed a large crowd from the town hall balcony. During the event, they pointed to the Jewish businesses on the market square and predicted: ‘The day is not far off when all this will be in Slovak hands.’58 This was despite the fact that the Jewish families were also Slovak citizens.
In September 1940, Robert, who attended the Jewish primary school, was not allowed to go to the state grammar school. In a decision of 13 June 1939, the Slovak government had effectively banned Jewish pupils from attending state schools.59 The Jewish children were only allowed to attend Jewish primary schools or classes. The Jewish community of Topol’čany decided to enlarge the Jewish primary school to eight classes. But the school building was seized in 1942. Classes stopped but were later resumed, for the few remaining Jewish children spared from the Nazi actions, in the Jewish old people’s home. In 1944, the school closed for good.60
The company where Robert’s father worked was ‘Aryanized’ and taken over by the state. It was transformed into a monopoly called Slovpol. Josef Büchler lost his position as Prokurist (authorized signatory) but was allowed to remain in the company. ‘My father was important for the Slovak economy.’
The family lived outside the town in a rented two-family house. The other family were Christians – the husband, head of the local council.
‘We were always close to this family. My parents organized a New Year’s Eve party and they were naturally invited. And at Christmas there was always a present for my sister and me under the Christmas tree.’ Robert was good friends with the family’s daughter, who was his age. They were together every day, went fishing and even went on holiday together. ‘That might have been an exception, but it nevertheless existed as well.’
In 1940, the Büchlers were evicted from the house. ‘A Slovak simply threw us out. He wanted to live there. It was as simple as that.’ The Büchlers were lucky and found a ‘fine apartment’ in a working-class district.
Gábor Hirsch Persecution of the Jews was in full flow throughout Europe. ‘Our teachers’, says Gábor Hirsch from Békéscsaba in south-eastern Hungary, ‘made antisemitic comments. We Jewish pupils were not allowed to participate in the “levente” paramilitary training. Instead, we were given spades and hoes in preparation for the forced labour. But it was still tolerable.’
He first suspected that ‘there was something threatening in the air’ in March 1938. The 9-year-old heard about the entrance into Austria by German troops, the annexation to the German Reich, and the mass emigration of Austrian Jews. ‘Hildegard, my non-Jewish nanny, was no longer allowed to work for Jews. She had to return to Austria.’
Two months later, at the end of May 1938, Hungary promulgated the first anti-Jewish laws on the German model.61
In the summer holidays, Gábor went practically every day to the lake to swim. A stream flowed through Békéscsaba and fed the pool. The family maid brought the boy his lunch in a multi-level container. ‘I ate my lunch there.’ He was even in the Békéscsaba swimming club, ‘as long as I was allowed as a Jew’.
One summer – ‘it must have been the early 1940s’ – the locals had to share the pool with some members of the Hitler Youth from Germany. ‘They spent their holidays in our region.’ Prior to that, the Hungarian National Socialist Arrow Cross party, founded in 1937, had made a petition to the town. They demanded that Jews be banned from using the lake and steam bath. In 1941, it was rejected by the town of Békéscsaba, which claimed that there was no legal basis for the prohibition.62
Meanwhile, discrimination against the Hungarian Jews continued. In August 1941, the third antisemitic Jewish law entered into force, banning marriages between Jews and non-Jews. Extramarital intimate relationships between Jews and non-Jews with Hungarian nationality were penalized as ‘race defilement’.63
‘Yes, we lived with anti-Jewish laws.’ But the Hirsch family were barely aware of their precarious situation. There were many Jewish refugees in Békéscsaba from Slovakia and Poland. They were invited for lunch on Shabbat by members of the Jewish community, including the Hirsch family. ‘The refugees told of the violence against Jews in their countries. They related terrible stories.’
Gábor’s father was optimistic. As late as 1942, he planned and built a new house on a nearby street. One corner remained incomplete. János Hirsch feared that he might not be able to keep his shop on the high street because he was a Jew. If that was the case, he wanted to turn the corner of the building into a shop, which could be done quite quickly, and to transfer his business there.
Jiří and Zdeněk Steiner ‘On the day the Germans entered Prague, we were at home with my mother’, says Jiří Steiner. ‘German cars with yellow number plates were driving past.’ They looked out onto the street, hidden behind the curtains, ‘so that no one could see us’. ‘Mama began to cry again and we were very afraid.’ Then the lives of the Jewish inhabitants – as in all of the countries annexed by Germany – became more and more restricted and increasingly intolerable. Jiří and Zdeněk were not allowed to attend school. ‘If we had gold or silver, we had to hand it in.’
The looting by the Nazis knew no limits. In the six years of occupation, the National Bank of Bohemia and Moravia alone sent nearly 43 tonnes of pure gold currency to Nazi Germany.64
It is estimated that there were around 55,000 Jews living in Prague in 1939.65 A report for the period from 15 March 1939 to 1 October 1941, presented by the Central Office for Jewish Emigration set up by the Nazis in Prague, stated:
Since the incorporation of the territory of Bohemia and Moravia into Greater Germany, the Jews have been completely excluded from public, economic and social life.… The Jews, who have become unemployed and without means, are increasingly used for labour, particularly in construction, civil and railway engineering, regulatory work and all kinds of unskilled labour on building sites and in factories, and in agriculture and forestry.… Their bank accounts have been frozen and they are only allowed to withdraw a certain amount each month (RM 150.00 per person).66
Pavel Steiner’s business was also liquidated. He was given a job in the Jewish community but earned nothing. The family lived from savings and what Jana Steiner, their mother, earned by selling home-made textile flowers.
One of the most incisive measures was the police regulation of 14 September 1941 stating that henceforth Jewish children, women and men had to wear a ‘Jewish star’. Many other prohibitions rapidly followed: Jews were no longer allowed to enter libraries, swimming pools, cinemas, parks, certain squares and streets, sporting events, theatre and entertainment locales. They were allowed to shop only during strictly controlled hours. There was a general curfew after 8 p.m. They were only permitted to enter certain hospital departments, post offices and tram carriages. The use of boats, rental cars, sleeping and dining cars and even radios was completely