Dominik Ruzicka and Mr. Stolpyansky

This photo is from the Turiec region, near the village of Motycky, where we were in hiding. It was taken in December 1944, and shows from left Mr. Stolpyansky and Dominik Ruzicka. Our group wasn't composed only of Jews. One of the non-Jews was a former employee of the Ministry of Defense of the Slovak State, then a Czech engineer, Domin [Dominik] Ruzicka. There was one Russian, too – Stolpyansky, whose parents left Russia in 1917. The rest of us were Jews.

On 20th November 1944, the first snow fell and stayed. At that time we already had a roof above our heads, and even those parachutes had finally dried. After that we were no longer freezing. After 20th November we didn’t take anything off, but put on all the clothes we had. It was so cold that our hair would freeze to the tent sections. What’s interesting is that none of us even sneezed. Our situation was gradually improving. One road worker lived nearby. Because the Kürti brothers built roads and bridges, everyone knew them. He told us that he had a Meteor brand stove for us. It was really heavy. The Kürti brothers and Ruzicka went for it. They had to take turns carrying it, because the path was uphill. That was the first night we didn’t put everything on. We felt as if we were in paradise.

After the snow fell, we had to set up guards. While there wasn’t snow, no one would find our tracks, but afterwards it was dangerous. There were paths to the cabin from each side. He who knew the surrounding terrain could find his way there. We were erasing our tracks. I was the youngest and also the lightest, so on the way down I went first. And on the way up, I went last. We made two brooms with which we erased our tracks in the snow.

Photos from this interviewee