They were all baptized and thought that if they were baptized, there would be no more Jews
Lýdia Ferová, nee Farkašová, was born on July 8, 1938 in Nitra. Father Jakub Farkaš came from an Orthodox Jewish family from eastern Slovakia and worked in a wholesale store. Mother Lívia, nee Schwarzová, came from a Jewish family from Topoľčiany and worked as a women‘s tailor. In February 1942, Lydia‘s father was dragged to a concentration camp and heard no more about him. Four months later, Lydia and her mother also had to leave Nitra, and they were dragged to the labor camp for Jews in Nováky. Mother worked in a tailor‘s workshop in the camp, and Lýdia went to kindergarten. A year later, Uncle Teodor came for Lydia, took her to Banská Bystrica and never returned her to the camp. After the outbreak of the SNP, the labor camp in Nováky was dissolved and Lydia‘s mother went to Topoľčany to her parents. There they were detained there in September 1944, deported to camp in Sereď and from there to Auschwitz, where their grandparents perished. Lydia‘s mother worked again in a tailor‘s workshop, later she was deported to Ravensbruck and Terezín, where she met her sister Alžbeta after the war. During the SNP, Lydia‘s uncle hid her in the monastery, where she also attended the first class. After the war, Lydia‘s mother and sister returned to Nitra, her uncle brought Lydia to her mother and found an old family album on the ground in their old apartment. After the war, Lydia‘s mother married Antonín Fabián (born as Fleischer) and they moved to Leopoldov, where he worked in prison as a caretaker. Hes uncle also changed his name to Štastný after the war. Lydia‘s sister Vlasta was born, later she finished her middle class and went to study at Banská Štiavnica at the Mining Industrial School. After school, she was accepted to the university in Košice, but she moved to Ostrava, where she met her husband Ján Fer. They moved to Příbram, where he worked as an engineer in uranium mines. Later they moved to Tišnov, Lýdia was employed in the radio television service. After the husband‘s retirement, they moved to Banská Bystrica closer to their family and after 17 years to Tišnov, where they still live. Lydia began visiting the Jewish religious community in Brno and is returning to Judaism.