She Wrote So We Would Remember

A Holocaust Memoir by Tova “Gizy” Shared in Her Own Words

This is the Holocaust story of my father’s aunt Tova, also known as “Gizzy.” When my father was visiting her in Cleveland, Ohio, near the end of her life, he photographed pages from her memoir written in English, her second language. What you’re about to read is a transcription that stays as true as possible to her original words. Tova said she wrote this so that we would remember. And that’s exactly why I’m sharing it now, to honor her wish to keep her story alive and that of all the people whose story was never told.

I am Tova “Gizy” and this is my World War II story.

In April 1944, Germany invaded Kasha which was Košice till 1938 and belonged to Czechoslovakia but was given along with other eastern Slovakian cities to Hungary. I was 14 at the time. It was a terrible sight and a frightening feeling watching the German army march through our town because we knew that nothing good will come out of this. It was the saddest Passover we ever had.

The Germans did not waste any time. After about 2 weeks, we were ordered to wear yellow badges and a curfew was imposed. By 7:00 p.m., no Jew could be on the street. The radios from the Jews were confiscated and a few days later, the order came. Every Jew must leave his home. taking nothing with him. Soldiers came to the house making sure that we didn’t have even a wedding or engagement ring with us. Whatever valuable they saw, they took.

Part of the Jewish population went to the brick factory. The other part, which was our family, along with others went to the ghetto. They made the ghetto from a few apartment houses in a strictly Jewish neighborhood. They relocated the gentile population, and each family got one room, and two families shared a kitchen and a bathroom. They told us to take some simple raw material for cooking like potatoes, onions, carrots, enough for one week. The ghetto was surrounded by a wall and an armed Hungarian soldier was standing guard with a rifle on his shoulders.

There were four of us, my parents, my brother Michael, and myself. In the other bedroom, there was a family of five. In the meanwhile, we saw the kettle carts being prepared, and we knew what they were for. My parents looked around in the house, seeking a hiding place for when the time came. They found along with a young man a solution. They built a wall between the roof and the ceiling.

In the meantime, I went for a walk inside the ghetto walls and saw a man with a horse in a carriage. On the carriage, there were huge pots of steaming food. I asked him where he was going and he said that he is delivering food to Jewish prisoners outside the ghetto and asked me if I would be willing to come along to help him. I immediately said yes and hopped on the carriage. The guard by the gate did not write my name. He only wrote that the man delivering the food took a girl with him, which meant that a girl had to return.

As we left the ghetto, we saw a girl about my age walking. She was wearing a white badge, which indicated that one of her parents is gentile, and because of that, she had more privileges. She can come and go freely to and from the ghetto. We asked her where she was going, and she said just to get an ice cream. We suggested that she come for a ride and she accepted. Then she asked, “When you came out the gate, did the guard write your name?” I said, “No, only that one girl left.” Then she said, “If so, you go where you can. I will go back instead of you because I’m going back anyway.”

I thanked her and went to my father’s business associate who took over our wine business when Jews were not allowed to have any businesses. He received me very nicely and said that I can stay as long as I want it, but I knew that this is not possible because he had a 5-year-old son and children talk. His mother-in-law was there and she said that she knew a young man who for a price is willing to take me across the border to Slovakia. Kasha was a border town. My only problem was getting the money.

Then I remembered that my father told me that he left money with a friend who was a war hero and for that reason they did not take him to the ghetto. Later on they took him along with other privileged people. I went there and got the money that I needed.

We were going through forest the whole night. It was pitch dark and I was scared. After 3 hours of walking in the forest, the young man told me that he is lost and he must light a match. At this point, I didn’t care what would happen. He lit the match and jumped for jewelry. The tree where he leaned upon carried his carved initials so he knew where we were. In 5 minutes, we were in a Slovak village. The young man took me in a farmhouse. I paid him, then he paid the farmer and left.

My sister Margaret lived in a Slovak town which was about 200 miles away. In the meantime, I sent word to the nearest Jewish congregation where I am and that they should notify my sister. The next day, my brother-in-law came to get me. We went by train to the town where my sister was, and it was a very tearful reunion, not knowing what had happened to mother, father, and Michael.

But in a few weeks they also arrived and we learned that they went into the place they built in the attic. They crawled in when they deported everybody from the ghetto. There were 16 of them. Among them two children and a pregnant woman. Michael crawled out at night twice a week through the attic window and returned the next night with a sack full of bread and some water which he got from a gentile friend, a baker. Then one night he went looking for me and found out how I got to Slovakia which at that time was not German occupied. He got in touch with a young man who led me through the forest and they set a date when they will come for them.

We were together at last but the joy did not last for long because the German occupied Slovakia. We were in the western part of the country. In the eastern part of the country in Prešov, lived a cousin who married a Catholic school principal. He was a very good man and offered his wife’s parents, brothers, and sisters that he will hide them. He said jokingly, “I have a wife to hide anyway.” But her family disowned her and chose to die rather than be saved by them.

That man, whose name was Leopold, came to us and asked how he can help. My brother Michael chose to go with him. We stayed, but not in the city. We found it safer to move to a nearby village. The people of this village along with people from other towns were resisting the Germans. The resistance was not lasting long and in a few days it fell. But the freedom fighters, the partisans still fought the Germans any way they could with all kinds of sabotage acts.

We saw that it is not safe anymore in the village. So we moved with the help of the villagers to the mountains to a cave. It was cold and we ran out of food in a few days. The date was October 1944.

When we ran out of food, we knew that we had to get some. But how? By the foot of the mountain stood the German guards. We had to figure out how to avoid them. There were 14 of us. Among us, an eight-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy whose parents escaped from Poland, and he spent all his 5 years in hiding. I went down one night for food and came back the next night. In the meantime, everybody cried because they thought the Germans got me. The water problem was solved because we built fire and melted snow.

In the meantime, the war went on. The Russians were pushing the Germans back and we saw the battle from the top of the mountain. We were out of food. We had not eaten for three days and decided to leave the mountain. We gambled. If we fall in German hands, we are dead. If we fall in Russian hands, we are liberated.

We just kept going through a war zone, through the cannon fire, and suddenly we saw armed people dressed in white. We still didn’t know who they are because both Germans and Russians were wearing white for camouflage. They saw us, pointed their rifles towards us, and yelled in Russian, “Give us your watches.” We were happy to oblige. They wanted only our watches, not our lives.

It was the end of February 1945. It was hard to believe we were liberated. Even the hunger was more bearable. We don’t have to hide anymore. No more fear for our lives. All we have to do now is search for some food, which we started immediately. And when some good-hearted people gave us a loaf of bread, we really felt very lucky.

On the same day, my brother Michael, who was already liberated 2 weeks earlier, found us. He knew that many Jews were hiding around that town. There were at least 30 villages around that town. But by fate or instinct, he chose the village where we were, and we were reunited the same day. For us, the war ended.

It took us long days to get back to Košice, hitchhiking on army trucks. We went to our house but could not stay there because it was empty. Everything was taken from there. We learned that one of my cousins who was an officer in the British brigade is in town. We found him and with his help we got a furnished apartment.

Life started to get back to normal. Slowly day after day friends came home. Some from hiding, some from concentration camps. Soon our cousins arrived. It was a bittersweet reunion because we all knew that their parents and brothers perished in concentration camps. We were lucky because nobody in our immediate family perished in the war. But the memories remain till this day. I still dream about German soldiers chasing me. But when I wake up, I say to myself how lucky we are compared to others who lost their loved ones. I promise to tell the story to my children because the only way it will never happen again is to remember his goal.

She was my father’s aunt, my great aunt, and a living testament to resilience. The war ended, but the responsibility did not. To remember is not passive. It is an act of defiance against hatred and forgetting. I share her words so that her voice continues to echo long after all of us are gone and are a much needed reminder throughout the world today.

Shalom,

Inbal

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Originally published at https://hebrewbyinbal.substack.com.