Peter Lipa

“My mom got really scared and she feared that they might want to deport us, the children, as well, since we were born in the mixed marriage. Simply, she just closed the shop and we disappeared from Prešov. There was she, her mother, my sister and I. We had to be separated for some time, too. She and my sister went somewhere to Tatry, but my sister Katka immediately found new friends there, so mom was afraid, someone could recognize them. She returned home and finally she and her mother decided, we would go to Kláštor pod Znievom, where we could hide. The religious sisters accepted us there as orphans. Actually, this place was like an orphanage house. Mom and grandmother stayed somewhere in the village and that’s how we lived through the last months until Kláštor pod Znievom was liberated and the war was over.”

“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.”