Our slogan was not to get to Germany under any conditions; in the worst case, we would start shooting
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Šmuel Givoni was born as Tibor Salamon on June 30, 1923 in Pressburg family of a tradesman with clothing and brides’ trousseau. He attended the elementary school in Bratislava, where he had many Slovak friends. He was also a swimmer in Jewish swim club Bar Kochba located in Grössling Spa. After the establishment of Slovak State, Šmuel had to stop attending the club as well as school and his father signed him up for vocational study to become a plumber. When his father died, the family business was aryanized and Šmuel and his mom lost their housing. Within the forced labor, Šmuel found out about the plan to build a labor camp in Sereď and he voluntarily joined the works. During the first wave of deportations he worked at the camp as the head of plumbing and became a member of the underground movement Collectiva. Later, together with other members of the movement he took part in battles within the Slovak National Uprising and after its crushing, he returned back to Bratislava, to be able to work in the underground movement. Unfortunately, his activity was revealed, he was arrested and repeatedly deported to Sereď. After the camp’s liquidation, during the transport to Theresienstadt he jumped out of the train. Shortly after the war, in 1947 he illegally emigrated to Israel, where he helped to found kibbutz Shomrat, where he also lived at the time of the documentation.
