“When the Anti-Jewish legislation was adopted, the shop was aryanized by Ľudo Ondrejov. Simply, the one who wanted and had acquaintances somewhere in Hlinka Guard or at the Slovak State authorities, he could aryanize. However, he didn´t aryanize only the Steiner Books, but also one textile store at the corner of Klobučnícka Street. He was a writer, his proper name was Mistrík. He was one slim, tall and not very handsome man. Allegedly he used to drink a lot. Before he settled a little, he let my father and his brother work in the shop, but when he got displeased, he wrote a letter to the Slovak government, the copy of which is in the Steiners´ family book, and he asked the Slovak State to take care of deporting the shop´s owners. “We don´t need these Jews: Max Steiner, Jozef Steiner, Zigmund Steiner, Viliam Steiner. By detaining and transporting these Jews, the store won´t suffer at all, and it will neither do any harm within the economic side. June 12, 1942.”
“We had an antiquarian bookshop; it was called the Steiner Books. My ancestors come from Kojetín from Moravia, where they had a hardware store at the square. It is a typical square-shaped ancient square and there is a cemetery with the graves of my ancestors. My great grandmother had eight children; one of them was my grandfather. There were two girls and the rest were boys. When the boys grew up, she told them that Kojetín was only a small town and they would have no future and work there. ʻGo to Bratislava, that is a center of Austria-Hungary, there you find your success.ʼ she told them. And so my grandpa left to Bratislava and founded some kind of libraries, from which later on became the antiquarian bookshop. It lasted here for decades. It was internationally known and much respected. There was a Budapest magazine back then, which wrote about my father as about an expert, and even university professors used to purchase study literature from him. He and his brother received this shop after my grandfather. My father and his brother later on followed the tradition of antiquarian bookshops.”
Lýdia Piovarcsyová, nee Steinerová, was born in Bratislava townsman’s Jewish family. The Steiners in Bratislava owned a notable antiquarian bookshop since its opening in 1847. After establishment of the Slovak State and passing the Anti-Jewish legislation, their property was aryanized, both parents, similarly like the majority of their family, died in concentration camps. Lýdia as a little child stayed at her grandparents᾽ who took care of her in Kežmarok until 1944, under somebody else’s birth certificate. However, in 1944 she was unable to return there from holidays spent in Bratislava because of the Slovak National Uprising. She hid in Bratislava until someone reported her. Before the end of the war she was deported to Terezín, but fortunately she survived the end of the war. Afterwards she returned to Kežmarok, later studied in Prague. Yet during the studies she got married and together with her husband she came back to eastern Slovakia. She worked at the regional school inspection until her retirement. Since 1970s she lives in Bratislava and is a member of the Jewish community.
