“My parents told me, one of their most drastic experiences they had on the day when I was born. The guardsmen came to our house and searched for money, radio; they even stubbed with bayonets in the bed, where my mom way lying, and so on. The second experience they mentioned was that on the eighth day after my birth, when my mom was taking me to the outpatient clinic for examination, it was on May 9, the head of the Hlinka Guard in my native town of Ilava seized her the bunting bag I was sleeping in. He took it, although I was half naked in it, so my mother carried me home on her chest, crying. Due to that I got pneumonia when being just such a little kid. This man even gave my mother a note, he had been confiscating the furry bunting bag from her. In 1968 as a doctor – neurologist – I examined this man, however, I didn’t manage to remind him of hid deeds, since I was so embarrassed, probably much more than him.”
“Once a man came to me for an examination, since my colleague asked me to examine one of his friends. Of course, why wouldn’t I examine his friend. As I started to examine him, his face reminded me someone familiar. That’s when a book about the tragedy of Slovak Jews crossed my mind, because there is Alexander Mach pictured how he salutes, ‘hails’. However, there can be six hundred of Alexander Machs, so I asked him, ‘Excuse me, please, aren’t you a former Interior Minister of the Slovak State?’ and he responded he was. So, I told him, ‘Well, Mr. Mach, I have examined you, written my findings, recommended the treatment, but you know, I am a Jew. I am sorry, you may check correctness of my recommendations with someone else, but I would not like to examine you anymore.’ He wondered why and claimed he had many Jewish co-prisoners in Leopoldov prison, who became his friends. ‘I respect that, but you have to admit, you belong among murderers of my community members.’ Afterwards I have examined him just once, when he was in coma, lying in Podunajské Biskupice hospital. There I used to go as a consultant and I think, it was the hospital where he later died. Of course, back then I impartially examined him, just as the Hippocratic Oath obliges me.”
“From the Holocaust era I only remember how my grandfather and my mother warmed me with their own bodies; how my grandpa taught me some prayers in Hebrew. That’s what I remember until today. And actually, one more funny story I do recall. When we were riding on a big wagon, my parents didn’t know how to solve a problem with a potty pot they took for me. It kept rattling quite intensively and they didn’t know how to make it stop. It was such an experience that I learned from my parents, although I could recall pieces of it as well.”
Pavel Traubner was born on May 2, 1941 in Ilava. He and his parents survived the Holocaust only thanks to his father, who as a dentist treated one policeman, that came to warn them to hide. Otherwise, the whole family would be transported abroad. They were hiding and in 1944 they even had to hide in the woods covered by spruce branches. After the war they returned to Ilava, where they were provided with a state flat, as they lost the one, they – as Jews – rented prior to war. Pavel studied medicine and after the graduation he worked at the department of pathological anatomy; since 1966 he transferred to neurology. In 1991 he was appointed professor and in the same year he also became the head of the First Department of Neurology of the University Hospital in Bratislava. He stayed there until 2008. From 2000 to 2007 he worked as a Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the Comenius University. At the time of the documentation, he was the honorary chairman of the Jewish religious communities and at the same time the honorary chairman of the international organization B´nai B´rith. Pavel Traubner died on November 14, 2024.
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