Josef Holcman

“My father was of a considerably sensitive disposition. That means, he was very sensitive to the circumstances that concerned me, for example at sschool, when the teacher took revenge on me for the arguments he had had with my father, and that showed on my school reports as well. My grandfather was a tough one but my dad was very sensitive and he was very emotional about it. He cursed the communist swine and in the morning, or, actually, at night, he lay on mom’s shoulder and cried, they will lock me up, what will you do here without me, and mom would reply, no, what would yo do without me. At the end, he did not go to jail. He was interrogated at the State Security, that secret cop shook his hand and broke his little finger, that’s what they could do well, this sort of tricks. He [dad] had, I think, two court hearings, but the reasons were pathetic. So, yes, he did not get sentenced. But grandpa, he went through that as well. I do not want to talk about it, he did not want to talk about it, but they’d run electricity through a bathtub he was in, this could be enough.”

“He came to school, he had me called out of the class and took me to Furin whom they could not load on a lorry. There was a sort of bank, a lorry with the sideboard down, one could walk there and the horse did not want to go there [original unclear]. So they had to call dad and dad seated me on the horse for the last time, to say my goodbyes. So I patted him. But, I used to ride him since I was a small boy. I was used to him. And he was used to me. I dismounted, dad took him by the halter and led him to the execution. He walked him to the lorry, they closed it and took him to the slaughterhouse. I bawled like a baby, I was around ten at that time.”