Ing. Zora Zemene

"We were in the dugout shelter, where they stored the potatoes. That's how potatoes used to be stored in Slovakia, in poor families who were small farmers. They stored potatoes and vegetables from the frost. And we hid there – everyone who could, and Malinovsky's army was waking above us, it was something terrible. Our father sacrificed himself, there's no other way to put it. He said: 'I'll stay out, because the women have to hide underground.' So there were about 20 of us from that village. So this was the situation during the liberation by Malinovsky's army."

"The Germans were coming. I didn't want to leave my mother, but there was nothing else to do, because they could possibly kill me. But my mother – as an elder woman – seemed to be safe. So all I took was a coat, a scarf and a knife. I kept that knife in my house until recently. And we ran far away so we wouldn't get caught. They were already shooting at us from behind. We were running and walking day and night. Then we had a rest somewhere on a meadow. But as we were walking and people in the villages saw us - because the villages were not so far away one from each other - so whoever wanted to, they took us in, so that we could at least sleep and eat there. We had nothing. Fortunately, I spoke German, so I knew where the Germans were. And I could interpret it. But I was scared. I wanted to get to Bratislava, I wanted to get home. Because my dad was there and I didn't know who else. My sister was in Martin with my grandmother, my mother was in the hospital. And this took, I don't understand, because the attack was on 24 August. And I came home to Bratislava on 4 December - exhausted, devastated and dirty. I can't explain to myself today where I was all that time, I was nowhere, I slept and ate. I don't understand how it could have lasted four months."

"I went to school with Jewish girls, and then I remember that when it came to Jews, they were not allowed to walk on the pavements. They were kicked out of school, they were not allowed to walk on the main paths. There was an asphalt path and a grass one next to it, so they were allowed to walk only on the grass, not on the asphalt path. Then I also witnessed one or two transports when there were such big crowds of Jews with suitcases. But I can't remember now when and where this happened. I can see it, but I don't know when and where it was. We knew some of the people, but nobody knew what was going to happen to them. They thought they were being taken somewhere, but they had no idea what was to come."