M.D. Ján Hanák

“Together with my brother, I was looking for our mother, when suddenly we spotted one lady from Žilina. I asked her if she didn´t know our mom. She said she did, that she knew her very well, and so I told her we were looking for her. We didn´t see her from the fall and they told us in Sereď she was supposed to be in Theresienstadt. The lady told us she was there, but she was transported away and she didn´t know where they took her, whether to Auschwitz or elsewhere, but that she was no longer there. So, you can imagine how we felt about that. And, she added: ‘And you and your brother don´t show up here too much either, as they can take you away too, and you shall never come back!’ I didn´t understand why wouldn´t we come back, but she replied: ‘You know, the Jewish children never come back’. I said that we weren´t Jews, but she continued: ‘You maybe aren´t, but your parents are’.”

“In those cattle cars there were two buckets. One was filled with water and the other one was empty. The water was for those who were thirsty, although we didn´t have any glass or anything. And the empty bucket served as a toilet for the whole car – women, men, old or young, nothing mattered. We boarded, they helped old people to get on. The Germans and guards were running around and screaming. They closed the door hooked from the outside and the transport moved. I don´t remember how many days and nights we went. Of course, sometimes the train stopped, the door opened and all the dead people were taken out. Some were already ill when entering the transport. Fortunately, my brother and I stayed healthy, but the old people got sick and died. They offloaded them, filled up the water bucket, emptied the toilet bucket and we went on.”