Juraj Gross

"I was the system programmer in the DSM language. Those were large computers, we can even say they were the mammoths of all computers. The whole world is transferring to the NT line computers nowadays. It used to be that four computers filled the whole room completely; today we can fit three hundred small computers in there. Each one of them deals with a different kind of application. I don’t intend to learn all the new things anymore, because before I could do that I’d be retired. I don’t like the new programming so much anyway. When the old computers will be ready to retire, I will go too."

"I was born in Košice. During the years from 1964 to 1968, I studied in Prague. I have beautiful memories of Prague from this period of time. I and my wife decided to emigrate in 1980. At the time, we didn’t think we would be able to reunite with our parents again. We were very surprised, just like many others, when the iron curtain fell down nine years later and we could freely come back."

"The question is who left for what reason. I’m from the younger generation, I was married, and I had an apartment, job. I left for different reasons than the other people who emigrated shortly after the WWII. They lost their families, all of their property; they just didn’t have any trust in a state that wasn’t able to protect them from the Nazi enemy. Many of those people left to build the new Israel. Another wave of emigration came in 1968 and 1969. Only a few people from the second wave went to Israel. Most of them decided to go to the western countries. Young people from this emigration wave scattered all over the world. Now there is an intention to get together and meet again. At first these reunions were organized by the original place, where the people had come from. There were already meetings in Košice town and in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. There was also one Czech-Slovak meeting, where about 200 people gathered in Low Tatra Mountains. We organized several trips and lectures. Some of the people hadn’t seen each other for forty years...Our target was to remember the good old times when we were young and to remember our friendships. Today, thanks to the internet, we are able to arrange the meetings without any problems."

"Because we came originally from a bigger town - Košice - there was also a Jewish religious community, where mostly elderly people were meeting around the genuine Jewish kitchen where they could fulfill the kashrus meals. Only people for whom this was an important issue were going there; other people would visit the community only to socialize. There were years (around 1968) when the atmosphere was a little freer, when the younger people could join the community. Despite the fact that many of us came from families where Judaism was almost dead, we still were able to acknowledge the tradition, music, and what it is like to be a Jew. Only few families cultivated Jewish consciousness. In big cities with large assimilation, Judaism was often being forgotten. Other people were afraid of being prosecuted by the regime. I participated in the Prague meeting of the so called ´Children of Maislovka club´"