Peter Lipa

“I think that when I was about ten – twelve years old, it became obvious that our father was a Jew, we were named Löwy after him, and he never returned from Auschwitz. So, I had realized it back then, but about 3 years later, when I was fifteen, I went to Auschwitz with a school excursion to learn about the history. That’s how I came to know the whole truth. Even though, long time after the war as a small boy I still lived in belief, that one day our father might be back. The people didn’t return, though, and in reality, we never actually knew if father had died. He was just declared dead. One of his colleagues, dr. Herberger, I guess his name was, witnessed at the court that our father was dead, so that my mom could receive some documents confirming these facts to live on without her husband. We stayed alone. Our mom never had any other partner or husband, so she raised us – my sister and me – by herself.”

“Of course, my father had problems with that. We came from the so-called mixed marriage and my father was convinced that since he married a Christian and had a daughter from this marriage, who was older than I, born in 1937, that he would be immune against what was happening back then. For sure he was aware of it, but he thought he could not be endangered. Unfortunately, he only thought so. The truth was that when I was only one year old, suddenly, one nice day my father was taken to the Gestapo Headquarters. It was on the opposite side of the crossroad in one house, where they imprisoned him for two months. There he was waiting for further transport, which took him away sometime in the fall of 1944. He had to get on and was deported to Auschwitz.”