Margita Horáková

“This we had to wear on our clothes - up there was a name of the concentration camp - in this case the KL Dachau. Then below that, there was a number. I have a number tattooed, but it was done in Auschwitz… and underneath there was a red triangle. We were very happy when we got that red triangle. Previously, we had a yellow belt, and then we became political. I don´t know what the T and Y stand for. We sew it on our clothes by ourselves. One had a small needle and we pulled out the thread from blankets we had. A man becomes very practical once being in need.”

“Then Germans came. We got along well in the village. My dad used to even go for a walk with a Catholic priest every evening and they used to talk about politics. We did not feel any open hostility in the village. As the saying goes: an anti-Semite is someone, who hates Jews more than it is necessary. But I didn´t meet with explicit anti-Semitism. When Germans came, we had to wear a star. I think it was in March, when Germans came to Hungary. I had a cousin from Győr, who wanted to travel home on that day when Germans arrived to Budapest. She was at the station when they caught her and deported her. After a while we got a card from her, which was sent from Waltsee. We immediately looked up that city in a map. It was in Austria, so we were glad. We thought there were no more transports to Poland already. I´ll tell you later, why I have mentioned this story. .... Now, when we were in our barrack, we were given a pink card and we were told to write to our relatives and family. But people reminded us, that we shouldn´t write it to Jewish addresses, because in this way they would catch more people. So we wrote the miller. And it was also sent from Waltsee. That´s how we knew that even our cousin was here as too.”

“One evening they took us again to the bath and we thought we were going to the gas. There was a hallway and stairs up on which we were supposed to sit down. And there we thought this was our end. For the whole time, I must say, there were about 20 girls from Šamorín and we always sided with each other. There was a great solidarity among us. During each roll call we held together. We wished that the fate of one may also be the fate of all and this helped us through everything. There we were put in the bath, it was in June, and after the bath they sent us out to the railroad. It was evening and it was raining. It was still terribly cold outside and we stood there during the whole night. Then the wagons came and they loaded us into them. Few of us were in one wagon, we slouched in one corner, and we were warming up each other. We had nothing, not even underwear, just gray dress made of burlap with short sleeves, and we were hairless. However, even though we weren´t toughened up at all, luckily, none of us caught even a cold. This way we came to Krakow, to Płaszow. This camp in Płaszow was the worst camp for me ever.”

“We had a backpack with us - me and my sister had one and mom and dad had one as well. From the beginning we did not expect we would stay together with my mom. Throughout the whole way we didn´t eat anything. In Košice Hungarians passed us to Germans. Since we were really hungry, each of us ate one pastry from mom´s backpack, although, we reproached us for that later on, since she had even less stuff to eat. When we arrived through the lattice we saw the barracks, large premises. As soon as we got off the train, they told us that the baggage had to stay there. There were prisoners and SS members with dogs, great tumult, it was terrible. One had lost his mind and could not think about what was going on around him. There was a selection; we came in front of Mengele. My sister and I held our mom´s hands as she was in the middle. He sent my mom to the other side. I asked him why, since she didn’t have any small children. He formally asked her how old she was. She said 49. He insisted on her going to the other side and told me, we would meet together that evening. And I had believed him in that moment. However, as we walked a few steps further, seeing such large area, I started thinking about how would it be possible to meet there. It was impossible. I can still recall the memories of my mom - she stopped there and told me: ʻI'm not worried about you, but please, never leave Truda. Those were her last words; she probably sensed what her destiny was.ʼ And she was gazing at us walking away.”