Mgr. Tomáš Róth

* 1942

  • "I was in a basement room during the Second World War where a Christian married couple, and if you know how it was then, hid us there at the risk of their lives, and that's where I actually lived through the Second World War, or that period of the deportation of the Jews to the concentration camps."

  • "Nobody believed there would be any military intervention. Everyone believed that these transformations would become a reality. Everyone supported Dubček and Svoboda and Smrkovsky. I remember these people. Everybody believed that they would then, as they say, bring it to a victorious end. I was in Tekovské Lužany, that's where my wife is from. We lived in Nové Zámky and we were visiting my in-laws. They still lived there in Tekovské Lužany. And one day the local village women came rushed to the place. I was asleep and they woke me up: Tomi, wake up, something has happened, something is on TV. I jumped up and it was the 21st of August."

  • "Here in Nové Zámky there was quite a large Jewish community. My father, I can't say that he was very religious, but we simply observed the basic laws of Judaism. We went to the synagogue, that Shabbat dinner was every time and, of course, we celebrated the Jewish holidays intensely every time, especially the autumn ones, which are the most important ones."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Nové Zámky, 06.07.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:46:57
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

To devote oneself to family, to live in peace, to spend the rest of one‘s life without disturbance

Tomáš Róth, current photography
Tomáš Róth, current photography
zdroj: Post Bellum SK

Tomáš Róth was born on 11 August 1942 in Nitra in the family of his father Karol Róth and his mother Margita Róth, nee. Schlesinger. His mother came from Trnava, from a very poor family of the painter Jakub Schlesinger and his mother Rozalia. She had 4 siblings who lived in Israel after the war. After getting married, his mother moved to Nitra to join his father Karol. During the Second World War, Tomáš and his mother hid in the cellar, where a Christian couple in the neighborhood protected them at the risk of their own lives. They were hiding in Nitra, in the Párovce district, since 1942. Father Karol Róth was deported to a concentration camp. Despite Tomas‘s mother‘s great efforts, no information about his father‘s fate could be obtained. After the war, Tomáš‘s mother married Eduard Deutch, who became Tomáš‘s „real father“ and Tomáš addressed him as such. They moved from Nitra to Nové Zámky. Tomáš was brought up at home in the spirit of the Jewish religion, his father Eduard observed all the principles of religious life. When Tomáš was 6 years old, he began to attend the elementary school „Flengerka“. He graduated from the 11-year high school in Nové Zámky. He occasionally heard insulting remarks about his Jewish ancestry from his classmates. At home, his parents explained to him what was going on. After high school, he entered the Faculty of Education in Nitra. He graduated in Slovak, Russian and civic education. After his military service he started teaching in 1965 in the village of Semerovo near Nové Zámky. In 1977, he was offered to go to work at the trade union - then at the district trade union council within the ROH (Revolutionary Trade Union Movement). He worked there for 14 years. After 1989, Tomas started visiting relatives in Israel. After graduating from high school, his daughter immigrated to Israel, completed her university studies in teaching and raised two children there. The ROH was dissolved in 1990, and Tomáš returned to education and began teaching at the elementary school. In 1998, he was appointed principal of the Kolt Elementary School. Tomas has been retired since 2002. In retirement, he spends time at home and visits his daughter in Israel in the summer.