Jolana Blau

"My mother started working as a laundress... she did laundry... luckily we were there, so it was our luck, hers and mine too, that we came there, to Terezín, when the last transport to Auschwitz was already there. So I knew... then my mother always told me that's why we're here... that's why we live! And my mom, she was smart in everything. She knew nothing, so she started working... because there were a lot of young women who lived there. They were there like a lot... a lot of people who didn't go to Auschwitz. I don't know why, but there was a group of people who worked there and still had suitcases there, and my mom was there like... working, doing laundry. And then she saw the suitcases there, which are still closed, so she opened them and took some things. Which… which were good for her and for me, because we didn't change anything about ourselves. And then some woman...whose mother opened the suitcase, then she ate, then she recognized those things. Then they called her, the one who knows it there, and she had a full trial there. And what did they do... they took her from that bakery... no bakery, that was at the end. So they took her from inside, where she could do laundry and it was okay... so they made her work outside picking potatoes and that was much worse. And… In the winter. In the winter. Well, that was already... January 45 and there she was. She was there... and I remember that I was in that room... in that place... and that there were several of us there, and that my mother's acquaintance from Bánoviece was also there... I don't remember anymore... but still with three children... so with them .”

"And she even met a man there who... who composed songs and... and... in the meantime, my mother learned that my father had died in Majdanek. After all, there was some correspondence with people, so she was practically alone. So they decided to get married after the war. And even mom... he gave her some tiny ring and when I was... I remember another thing... when I was, when I was... if I met him, saw him... I knew him, but I remember that when he took me knees he said to me: "Tell me... three hundred and thirty-three silver quails flew over three hundred and thirty-three..." I can't see the end anymore. Three hundred... It was something similar. And I always remember that... three hundred and thirty three, I don't know anymore. You missed it. Three hundred and thirty three…. it will still happen somewhere, I told someone. Anyway. Well, and now, as I said, in the forty-fourth... Otherwise, there was even a theater in Nováky... for example, Dalma Špitzerová, who was also there with Juraj Špitzer... Yes, I knew that one. Did you know Dalma? Yes, we met. After the war. She used to visit Prague... well... yes. That's the grandmother of our very good friend already, actually Mišo Szatmary is her grandson and he also works with us with Post Bellum... so.... I knew Dalma quite well, as well as her daughter Zuzana. Is Dalma still alive? She died. She died… Two years ago. Two years ago... There was a certain Cipa Kalošová in Bratislava... you didn't know her either? Cipa... Not. She died. All right. The Forty-Fourth... and the outbreak of the uprising actually... Novaky... No, Nováky no. The rookies let everyone go wherever they wanted. And where did you go? We just... we went... I went with my mother and grandmother, together. Her boyfriend, who would be her fiancé, said that we would go together... he had two more sisters there... that we would hide in some caves, or somewhere that could be underground. Sometimes we also went, we went… we ran up a big hill to the partisans who were at the top. We were also sometimes in various... we knocked... we went to a small town, to a village. And my mom and I always went to see if there were any Germans. And when there were no Germans there, my grandmother and one other couple who were there also went with us. And this one, when we came to that one village... somehow we, or mom didn't see that there were Germans there, or some danger... so we went to one house and there were already Germans there. This means that the grandmother stayed with that couple at the beginning of the village and my mother said that tribute... that we were running away from someone, and that we only came for lunch or dinner. I mean, neither of us... I didn't look Jewish and neither did my mom. They seemed to believe her, but then they told the lady from that house in German that they would come... they would come again, yes. Because it didn't suit them that... that we're probably not there, okay, yeah. And we said that it is not true. However, the mother understood and told the lady that we will get some food and we will go. She knew what it was about, so she gave us food and we left. "

„I remember only few events from Terezin. I know we had lived in some house near a railway station. I remember how I was impressed when a train arrived and carriages were opened. Inside were people incoming from Auschwitz. Just begs of bones, living corpses. Half of them had been already dead. I was only seven years old. I was staring at the scene unable to comprehend it. In Terezin I had played with other children of course. My mother had worked in a bakery. Our family owned a big bakery before the war. In Terezin she met my stepfather too.”

"So, you applied for eviction already in sixty-seven, when grandma died? We did it... we did it before and grandma was still okay. They said that… mom said that we will all go to America, okay. But what happened... We applied, but it took a while... Getting a visa was impossible. Hey... in the sixties it was... four fifths, something like that. And it would be terrible, we just had to wait, yeah. That uncle, uncle was there to help us and so on, but then mom got the cancer back. She even had a boyfriend, and that boyfriend went to America with his whole family, and that he would be waiting there... that we would all be there. Hold, she then wrote to him that she had to go to the hospital again. She had the metastases and was there for sixteen months... under that, Under Petřín. And then finally, finally… finally she died. Before that, my grandmother died... she was already in some old house, we had to put her there. She also has a tomb there, near Vinohrady jó. I don't know if you knew the name František Goldsteiner. She didn't know him... he was famous on TV, in the theater, in the movies. She lives next to him... And my life, I was divorced, but my grandmother, my mother-in-law took care of her... she always took her for the weekend, so it was okay. But every day I went to the bank early in the morning. After work, I then went on foot, under that Petřín, right. Then home, well... I didn't have an easy life. Well, everyone seemed to believe that we would go and so on... and then we decided that I wouldn't go, because my mother is sick and I don't want her to die here... what would I do, yes. So she was still in the hospital, everything was okay, but suddenly... It was the twenty-first that it happened. Suddenly a friend calls me at four in the morning and says: "The Russians are here!" I said please, you are drunk, go home, he was a manager of a restaurant. No, no... The Russians are here... those Russians! Really? And he says, yeah. So I started calling everyone at four in the morning because it was terrible. What happens now? We didn't know what would happen. I lived in Bubeneč and I walked to Příkopy to the bank. Everyone has been there. No one knew what would happen when they closed the borders! So... those Russians. And I'm you, I'm... well, my mom died on the sixth of August and the Russians came on the twenty-first of August, yeah. So I didn't know what I was going to do in my life. I still remember lying in bed and telling you that now I only have Simona, what will happen to us, where will we go. The first husband did not want to go back, and wanted to go with me to America afterwards. And I wonder what I'm going to do. And so it happened that the Russians came on the twenty-first, and I thought to myself, "I'm not going to live here, I'm going to America!"

„I was born in Banovice nad Bebravou near the town Trenčín. My father was a Hungarian. He originated from a very poor family living in Carpathian Ruthenia. When he was looking for work before the Second World War, he arrived to Bánovice where he fell in love with my mother. They got married and I was born in 1938. Then the war erupted. In 1941 my father, my aunt and uncle were sent to Auschwitz. My father perished in Majdanek. We found it out one year later. My mother, me and my grandma were sent to Novaky in a labor camp for Slovaks. We spent there two years.”

„You know the name Andy Warhol for sure. He painted a picture of my husband and daughter. He had visited our store to buy carpets. We gave him carpets and tapestries and he made painting in return for us. Once I asked him if he spoke Slovak – he originated in Slovakia like me – but his answer was: no. But it was not true; he just didn’t want to speak Slovak. His hair was red. He visited our store very often. (Q.: ‘What kind of man he was?’) A little bit strange as any other artist. He painted the most famous actors and actresses. Warhol painted my daughter Andrea when she was five years old. It happened 30 years ago. He had used the oldest type of Polaroid. He made approximately 24 pictures of her from different angels, then we choose one we liked and he painted it. My husband wanted to get the photo too but Warhol had insisted on the photo, so we got it too. The same happened later with my husband. When he went to Warhol’s atelier to pick up the painting, Warhol’s assistant pointed out that Warhol hadn’t signed it yet. My husband answered it didn’t matter that Andy would sign it when he would visit our gallery. But in the meantime Warhol went to hospital and died.”

„We were sent to Novaky instead of Auschwitz. My mother had been making hats there from 1942 till 1944. The Slovakian uprising erupted in the same year. We were let to go free. We were hiding in woods and caves. We acquired even false papers. Then we lost our grandmother. Finally we were caught and transported to Terezin. There I experienced the liberation in May 1945. I was seven years old. We had been caught in the woods. They had sent us to Sered first, then to Terezin. My mother had not believed we were not going to Auschwitz, but a decent German, who had given me sweets, had told her not to be afraid. It had happened in October or in November in 1944. The last transport to Auschwitz had departed previously. So I am still here. (Q.: ‘Who had helped you in the woods? Partisans?’) Yes, we had lived among partisans, later at some farm. It had been complicated. It had taken several months before we had been caught.”

„It is very interesting story how my husband had started in the carpet business. Once he got a phone call. Some friend had a large carpet to sell. My husband was neither experienced nor educated in selling of carpets. So he tried to offer it to other friend. But the carpet was too large to fit in friend’s living room. He stood on the street helpless. Someone advised him to go to a store of Mr. Zajíček, an experienced carpet dealer. Vojtěch went there. I have heard this story hundreds of times during our marriage. Everybody wanted to know how he had started because my husband really represented a success story. He arrived in USA in 1962, he didn’t speak English, he had no money and in 1976 he was selling carpets to White House. People usually guessed his parents had worked in carpet business, but the family had got only a general store. So my husband entered the store of Mr. Zajíček. They talked for a while about carpets; Zajíček explained him the differences between several kinds, where carpets came from etc. After my husband left the store he knew this is the business he wanted to perform. But Mr. Zajíček hadn’t behaved in a very friendly way. So Vojtěch called his mother living in Slovakia and asked her to bring a goose, duck and goose liver next time she would come to Prague. She brought a big bag. He took it and returned to the store of Zajíček: ‘I would be really pleased if you would train me in the carpet business.’ When Zajíček saw the bag he was not able to refuse. My husband visited Mr. Zajíček regularly for three months several times a week. After three months Zajíček told him it was all he could teach him: ‘Do you know something about carpets now?’ My husband answered no and asked: ‘Are you displeased with me?’ Zajíček told him: ‘Now you have to try on your own and learn from experience. If you will need some advice, visit me.’ My husband became a business associate of Mr. Zajíček within six months.”