PhDr. Marcela Maftoul

“Dad was very lucky because Eichmann chose him. I’m not sure if the story is known. Eichmann decided to test the final solution of the Jewish question in a dedicated area in September or October 1939. He chose northern Moravia, around Ostrava, and deported all the local men aged between 18 and 30 or maybe 35; I don’t know exactly. Since concentration camps as such were not in existence yet or completed at the time… well, I’m no historian, so this information is not guaranteed, as there must have been some concentration camps already. Anyway, this group of young men were deported to the [future] Nisko concentration camp, a well-known location in the east of Poland. There was nothing at all at the time; they took them to a green field and told them to build a concentration camp. They worked, building the site, carrying bricks and so on. It was possible to escape from there, even though it was guarded by dogs and so on. At the time, it was not the typical concentration camp surrounded by electrical wires. He managed to escape one night. It was close to the Soviet Union border.”