Marianne Bergida

One day, when they took my tonsils and sent them all home, I didn't, because I could bleed. At four o'clock in the morning, a nurse came into the room and said, 'Get up, the Russians are here.' We laughed once more in the room that it was a joke. And she told us to look outside. And there one tank after another. They all left, and the two of us - they took our tonsils - stayed there. Ivan came to visit me and I saw a motorcycle ride between the tanks and I thought I hoped it wasn't Ivan. But it was Ivan. He said we could not wait for the move, but that he would try to get a passport to visit Vienna. He did it. I came home, we packed up, two suitcases. We received permission for three days in Vienna. The sister-in-law - my husband's sister - accompanied us to tell her parents that we had passed. It was still adventurous because there were a lot of people and we couldn't wait. We didn't sleep all night, waiting to see if the border would remain open at all. It was really ugly, but we passed. I couldn't believe it when we crossed the border. Basically, the whole train was full of people who wanted to stay outside. The Russians were there, but they didn't check. The Slovaks controlled, but the Russians stood behind every Slovak. For example, there was a young man in our compartment, and the guide asked him where he was going. And he replied that he wanted to work as a student in Sweden. She asked that for how long. 'Maybe two weeks,' and she said maybe longer. But he didn't say a word. We could see through the window - there was a bus of people outside, everyone was crying, saying goodbye, some had ten suitcases. We came to Vienna, only Slovak and Czech were spoken in Vienna. We were picked up by an acquaintance of the Bergida family. Of course, I immediately called my father, and he just cried, he wasn't able to talk because he was very worried. Of course he couldn't call me, he didn't know what was going on, he had the worst ideas. "

"In April 1944, the Jews from Košice were gathered in the brickyard, as well as my whole family, ie those who remained, without men. I don't know how long they've been there. It could have been more days, but I heard that for weeks, and that they had great difficulty because they had nothing to eat and drink, simply, no one cared about them. But Eržike brought them food, I don't know how they did it. Nobody ever explained it to me, and unfortunately I never asked. It was just that when I got a little closer to something, I saw my father cry. He was terribly proud and dignified and it would be terrible for him to show his daughter that he was weak, so I left it. Erzike didn't talk either. Eržike brought them food. One day, as she was leaving the brickyard, she put me in that basket. She told me she wanted to take Judith with her. I don't know how, apparently it wasn't so guarded, those people just didn't know where to go. So she wanted to take Judith with her, but Juditka cried a lot, and so did Mom. My mother claimed that they wandered a lot, did hiking and she knew a lot of walking, she was six years old at the time, that she could handle it, so she stayed. From there they came to Auschwitz, and my father and grandfathers went to Auschwitz from prison, so they no longer met. Apparently Eržike received from my mother the address of a family with whom they were friends in Budapest, a non-Jewish family. She went with them to Budapest, where we were to stay, but they did not want us. They were afraid to have us with them, and the girl did not show that she was a Jewish child, they could say that I was Erizik's daughter, but they did not want to, so she had to leave. "