“The Germans occupied Slovakia after 1st September 1944, after the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising. Tiso got afraid that he might be swept over by it, and he thus turned to Hitler who sent in the army. That was when all the hell broke loose for us. The transports which carried away my other relatives, my mother’s sister, her husband and daughter, who was eighteen, had been dispatched already in 1942 and 1943. We were told that they were going to dig trenches somewhere, but they were actually – as we learnt much later, in 2008 – sent to Auschwitz straight to the gas chambers. I do not know why my eighteen-year-old cousin was gassed, because usually they retained the families who were able to work. We were immensely lucky. Although we were little children, I was seven and my sister was two years old when we came to Vyhne, we were not included in these transports. That was a miracle. One of the first miracles. Then we were on the run for four months after our arrival to Slovakia. We had to keep hiding. By various means we were trying to reach the east of Slovakia, as far as possible from the advancing German army, and we eventually found ourselves in the southern Slovakian town Rimavská Sobota, where Mr. Ďulovec, for whom I later arranged the recognition and the medal Righteous Among the Nations, took care of us. He took us to his home, which was in the Slovak Ore Mountains in the village Drahová. We stayed with them for ten days while Mr. Ďulovec and my father were going to the mountains and digging that bunker there. It was behind the village and the villagers lent us wooden planks for its construction. We lived in this bunker for seven weeks in January and February 1945. The whole village knew about us and there was not a single person who betrayed us.”
“One day, the partisans discovered our bunker. All of a sudden they appeared in the window, pointing a submachine gun at us. They came inside and asked us what we were doing there. We said that we were Jews hiding from the Germans. They cautioned us to be more careful. Dad had been cooking and using the stove in the bunker for all those seven weeks, and my mom and me – I was eleven – were knitting in exchange for food so that we could earn some living. One day, as dad was putting firewood in the stove, he slammed the iron door a bit stronger and the partisans heard it and thus they discovered us. There was one Slovak man and one Russian. By the end of February, the east of Slovakia was already liberated and we could thus leave the bunker, but we still stayed in Drahová until we could return home.”
“Hlinka’s supporters managed to escape, and partisans came in and told us: ´We are dissolving the camp. You are free to go wherever you want.´ We thus found a family in the village with which we stayed. But the Nazis came there soon after, and that was the end. We had to run away. On top of that, Dad contracted dysentery while we were fleeing. It all became very complicated. We partly walked and sometimes somebody gave us a ride on a wagon. I remember that we boarded the last train which left Banská Štiavnica. That was twelve kilometers from Vyhne. The track was then destroyed by bombing. We arrived to Zvolen, where the repatriation office was, and they advised us to go to southern Slovakia where it would be safer for us. We therefore continued southward.”
Zuzana Skácelová, née Alexanderová, was born in 1933 in Vítkovice. She came from a Jewish family. Her father was arrested and interned in 1939 due to his Jewish origin, at first in Prague and then in Sosnowec in Poland. In 1940 the whole family was interned in a labour camp in the village Vyhne in Slovakia. They stayed there until the outbreak of the Slovak National Uprising, when the camp was dissolved. After the uprising had been put down, the Alexander family fled to the Slovak Ore Mountains (Slovenské rudohorie), where they were helped by the husband and wife Ján and Katarína Ďulovec in the village Drahová. The Alexander family was hiding in a makeshift bunker in a forest until the end of the war. Zuzana has not forgotten their saviors and her effort later led to Israel recognizing the Ďulovec family as Righteous Among the Nations. Zuzana had to undergo medical treatment for several months after the war. She studied at the university in Prague and she received a degree in philology. After marrying her husband she moved to Havířov where she was teaching foreign languages at grammar schools. She is now retired and she still lives in Havířov.
Zuzana Skácelová (Alexanderová) with the daughter of the Ďulovec family, who provided shelter for the Alexander family at the end of the war for which they received the Righteous Among the Nations award
Zuzana Skácelová (Alexanderová) with the daughter of the Ďulovec family, who provided shelter for the Alexander family at the end of the war for which they received the Righteous Among the Nations award
