"Hope Keeps You Going" – The Story of Marta Weiss

[Music] you [Music] I'm not sure how much I understood I was a kid after all but it was it was a different world that was you kind it was wasn't from this world how it it never occurred to us that there's a possibility that we will my parents will not be there which is interesting because with amongst all these deaths in horror and in torture and murder it never occurred to us that my parents will not be there when we come back and that's not only us but that's how people survive by believing that they will find our families when that's when it's all over and that kept you going hope keeps you going [Music] [Music] my name is Martin vice they're wise I was born in Bratislava Czechoslovakia in 1934 also dogs Jewish family my father's name was I being vice he was a Slovak born in Czechoslovakia donaga and lived all his life in Slovakia and my mother's maiden name was catechol from matters book in Austria my parents have nine children one son and the others were all girls five of them were born before the war three during the world and one after them [Music] we're living in a beautiful house in Palace Saudis street in Bratislava opposite the president's palace there was a three-story building which my father brought and he brought his parents who were Slovak I think tenth generation Slovak Jews from a place where they lived a small place and I lived in the mezzanine we lived on of the first floor and the force of nine children and my uncle David and his wife Frieda and their four children lived on the second floor and we had a very happy childhood my mother was very well dressed very very enough like her high society but very religious and I used to currently the habit there was that you when she Pat's earring that you got we went for a walk on the there was a special area where you went for a walk and they met when you dressed up to do now to kill [Music] my father had two businesses he had a factory which was spinning and weaving Mills and he also had a retail shop a double front retail shop and that was a my parents Baronessa remember going to shoot with my father and my father had a beautiful voice I remember that when we sit at the dinner table and we bring sangs Murat with my parents when on Shabbos only and I remember he had an operatic voice my father hell of a Shaolin was strict we were brought up strictly as many of the families here in those days they were brought up strict not not you know just let the kids go and we had certain things that we had to go to bed at a certain time we had to eat at a certain time and it wasn't strict he never hit her so smacked us or anything but he threatened us but he used to say now you're going to get into trouble and then he started playing with his sly kiss and it took him an hour and he pretended he couldn't get them off but we were already we already knew that we have to behave and my mother she was softer I mean she was a bit more of an Walker over I think also because she was more busy she didn't have time to argue with us she had lots of children I went to Jewish school we all went to Jewish school before the war I remember learning the Yiddish songs and my father rang sang-hee dish songs often prophetic have you ever heard of it from prepaid check Prentice fire own inch tube is highs on the rebel armed meat clinic in there laughs then all laugh bait the leg repellent meat clinic in there laughs then all laugh bathe Merliah volge leg was the name of the nemi and she was a Catholic a Slavic ethnic and she loved us she was there from before we were born and she was treated very well and she loved the jet hot job and and we were happy with her and we played with her really with her and with with my siblings and my cousins I don't recall friends coming in to play with us because when you have your cousins there and all the facilities for playing you didn't need to play bringing anybody else [Music] we were eating with the nanny and then we came into the dining room where my parents were I think the adults were eating and we used to say kiss T hunt you know and and go to bed Shabbat was we were allowed to come into the dining room and eat with my parents that was there and that was the big thing of Shabbat but that privilege and it sounds terrible as parents didn't have the children eating with them but Shabbat was Shabbat and hugging was the only time we were allowed to eat with my parents kids when parents were sort of separated in those days [Music] design ISM in our family was really after post more probably my father was oh and my parents were always / but that didn't before the world I didn't intend to come to Arizona that there was no discussion about it to the best of my knowledge I don't think many people did but they know knew about it because obviously he sent all his people here and in his his wife's family here so we knew what already soil was and we would have come if we had had a chance but he wouldn't live because of this is his parents then it was too late [Music] the Nazi occupation of Slovakia in 1939 I was five years old and we went as usual to the park next to the president's palace and there was a big sign Jews and dogs not allowed Jewish businesses were taken away immediately and given to non-jews and then Jew was like kept in the business only as such until such time that the new owner could run the business and my father had a very big business not only the spinning and weaving Mills but also a retail shop and I Slavic non Jew I was put into the business and the Jews were kept in the business the Jewish owner were kept in the business and I had a piece of paper which said that this is to certify that the Jew organ vise is an essential Jew meaning he's essential to the economy and therefore he he can is allowed to walk in the street and can shouldn't be arrested and so is his wife Margaret rice and his children and all our names were on this cart at some stage my father was arrested like monsters I wanted a big ransom and to get that ransom paid my mother managed to sell this business retail business a shop the bratty advice the breed advice and by this stage my uncle had already been deported and probably murdered now when my father found out about this that's when he decided to send his children out of the country because it's no longer safe [Music] now in 1942 the potations to her out shoots were taking place and a few people young people young men and women who were in Auschwitz when it was being built they have managed to escape came to Czechoslovakia my parents hid them and then organized for them to get out and they told them what was happening in Auschwitz Birkenau and that's how my parents found out that Auschwitz Birkenau was an exterminator an extermination camp where everybody is meant to be the murdered on arrival men women and children so in 42 my parents decided that it is no longer safe to be in hiding even in Czechoslovakia and so my father and mother started to send the children to Hungary to be adopted to family and the relatives who on arrival will adopt them but the law was you can send Jewish children to Hungary from the Hungarian point of view but you couldn't send Jewish children out of Czechoslovakia legally and officially so to get imagine what could it consisted of even at the the jury in my parents and others like them they had to find a non Jew who had a child or children similar to your own child on their passport and who for a lot of money would take your child across the border and deliver them in Hungary to the family as their child but it wasn't only the money that you had to find somebody first who it was with such a situation and that you had to pay a lot of money for them you were getting your child into the hands of a total stranger they could do anything to your child once they were on in their hands and I was sent to an uncle a young couple the didn't have children yet in Hungary in a place called Shalimar and they adopted me legally as their child [Music] I was happy there I was happy there as happy as a child can be away from parents and and that word very good to me and they're very nice to me and I they're nice people and the nice the place was nice I didn't hear from my parents there was no communication because they were scared that I will not be caught the communication will be caught somehow so there was no communication with me at all in for two years [Music] then 44 when the Nazis invaded Hungary the Jews were instantaneously put into a ghetto and when my father heard my parents heard that all the children between different parts of Hungary they had been sent to Hungary for safety we're in ghettos and they had no control over them they I had to then find somebody who they could send to bring aspect from the ghetto to to the safety but but we're a control of a practice lever and they sent a woman to pick me up and her job was only to take me to Budapest not to not to take me to my parents not all the way that it was somebody else so she delivered me to Budapest and in Budapest handed me over to a man who was taking 30 people including small children on foot so they've wheat fields in the corn fields and then they delivered as someone brought he delivered the same way in Bratislava I don't know that I don't remember they they arrival even in Bratislava when my parents then I met Eva I hadn't seen her all the more and my centers with the nanny to Mathura Mitra and the story was that we had evacuated Catholic children whose parents were killed in an air raid and the only survivors are all the sister and she's sending us to place calls more like Nitra because it's safer and that was our cover [Music] we went to school six days a week with all the other children we went on Sunday to church with them but when we got into trouble not only didn't they help us but they actually denounced us you know but we made we were too little religious children from a religious home our only connection with our parents were through letters with the nanny we wrote to them and then they wrote back and what sent it to the nanny my sister she happened to be exposed to have been 13 and she was in class with the daughter of the top SS in Mitra so what does a Jewish child in hiding she makes cuts but she makes friends with this girl because that would be able good cover so she became very good friends with the girl she used to go to her place the girl used to come to our apartment and we thought we were safe and somehow this SS found out that she he was positive that we had Aryans we are Catholics because we didn't look Jewish we both who had blond hair and gray eye green eyes so we didn't look too easy at all and he was he found out that Eva plays a very good game of chess so he used to come from whenever he was free he used to come and play chess with her and while he played chess he gave us you know very interesting information he gave us information he's once he said to Eva around Rosh Hashana time he said it's the Jewish New Year which is followed ten days later that's how much they knew by the holiest day their day of atonement and all the Jews in had the bratislava day the petition had stopped and most of them were in hiding that was still alive he said and for the new day a new year and this day of atonement that will come out of hiding like rats out of their holes and that's when we are going to make Bratislava you denied right and my sister sent a coded message to my parents about it my parents were by this stage in hiding in Bratislava and my father went out of hiding and went everywhere where he knew that somebody's a Jew even if people who leave it outside to warn us the the congregation not to go to shul and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and true to his word the last old age home in Bratislava the last orphanage in Bratislava that was still going and anybody that would I could catch were arrested center she's broken and murdered on arrival [Music] we were in church on Sunday 8th of October 1944 we were coming home from church with all the other people we stopped our hours and outside our house and we saw a truckload of 22 fully armed soldiers coming past and everybody who was on their way home from church stopped wish them good luck because they assumed that they were going to the front to fight and unfortunately for us they stopped outside our apartment building now even it's the only time that Eva didn't obey my father's instructions we were told that if we're in trouble in any way we just go to the telephone send that code that tell the telephone message to the nanny which meant that that we were caught and then go straight to the station separately and may God make our way back to Bratislava to the nanny however Eva was positive that the SS who was her friend's father was going to cover for us she went back to the apartment she sent me to send a message to the nanny and then go to the station to go back to write Islamic she went back to try and brazen it out because she was she knew that without the in this apartment there was a fake room which was full of very expensive small pieces of materials which does mainly my parents didn't have any more money at this stage they in which the nanny used to come for attention visiting her little sisters but in fact she sold it when to sell it because my father started a boat of an apartment and started a textile business with her name and when she sold these materials with that money she went to all the places where some of our children are hidden and a Eva was positive that it's a good good enough cover and that we will vouch trial for our Christianity because he thought that Eva was a perfect 16 year old who would make a perfect match for his 19 year old taught scoff son who was in Auschwitz and he intended to take us December 44 to Berlin to meet this good she defer for Eva and so we thought that he will vouch for us but unfortunately when we needed him he was out of town and he couldn't vouch for us and so we were arrested by the time I brought me back from where I had gone to the other side of the pack all our properties was on the top of the track everything had been sewn out all the materials all the textiles and that just that beaten Eva had beaten her up and she was thrown on the top of the truck and so was I when I can't I was brought back and then we were arrested we were taken from then we were arrested and were taken to in Anitra to a to a place where they had still the last few Jews that I could catch and we were beaten everyone awoken up every night to do to be interrogated Eva was taken out and beaten and then she was interrogated to admit that she's Jewish and she didn't and while she was interrogated a woman and inmate who was Jewish we were told she was Jewish and which is a a prisoner like we are I was put taken to me and she tried to get me to give myself away to a Jewish and she kept on saying you can tell me you can tell me I'm a prisoner like you and she showed me Jewish articles and the idea was they promised her that if she gets me to admit were Jewish she will be released and the first night that she showed me to fill in and I said it was a toy and there was a young boy I can't remember his name it was about 17 18 I think he he when he saw that I was hesitating he would stop me from giving myself away the second night she showed me at a late and said look it's what you think it is and I said it's a blanket only because he egged me on not to give myself away and the third night I wasn't that much more tired because I've been woken up three nights in a row and she showed me a menorah which is what we call now Raya and I was more tired as than the nights before and she kept on on and on that I can tell her she's Jewish in a prisoner and I started giving myself away I was about to say menorah and the boy said don't tell her don't tell her she's a spy she reported him he was taken out he was beaten I think to help all I know is that he was brought back as or a bloody mess to teach us that this is what happens to him if you disobey and that's how we were arrested and from then there we were taken to separate some time later and from surrett when they were he did enough people we were sent to Auschwitz Birkenau [Music] the condition in the train was dreadful it was we were bumper-to-bumper here with body to body some people who died in the Train couldn't even fall down because there was not enough green on they've granted to for them to fall down I remember vividly yeah a young woman with a baby who didn't stop crying and she tried to feed the baby but obviously she had no meal and left or whatever and then the child was crying and screaming and I suddenly it stopped and we looked down and the baby was dead they picked me up and asked me to see to tell them what I can see from the window of the of the rear compartment and I said if I read I think it was out sheets there canal and like what else can you see and I said I can see a lot of smoke in the air and then and I gave the explanation that is where the gas chambers [Music] my sister Eva and I arrived in Auschwitz Birkenau on the 3rd of November 1944 we finally arrived in Auschwitz and we've stopped and then we were pushed out of the Train it was very high up you were pushed out some people fell were trampled it didn't matter and we were met by a German the Alsatian dogs going completely berserk and trying to get get to the people to attack them and finally and I made a bit of ordered I ordered us to to line up and if I remember correctly they died we lined up it we were told too much behind to start walking behind towards the gentlemen at the end and then we were told by a young man my sister was told when you walk past the gentleman at the other end who is Mengele telling us how old are you and she said 13 and he told her tell them that you are sixteen so Eva was central to one side and I was whistled or pushed with her with this baton to the other side and of course I started crying because I was scared to be alone and somebody told us to go to each other at one stage we were finally sent together into the same barrack reverse first sent to the what used to be the original women's camp on the left of the entrance from the Grampa and their men and women who were still together for a little while and we were as soon as we arrived word called out and we were given a pep talk one cough you death one lousy or death and this was in a place where all the clothes we hadn't got yet the clothes yet but all the clothes that we were given subsequently could stand up by themselves because there was so full of lies and how could you not get a cough in a place where it's so cold and you're working with rags if you were lucky with legs on your feet in snow and that was extra curriculars Edison to tell to frightened to put it mildly the hell out of you and I had long plates and I got worried that have of course that I'm going to have lice in them very quickly and so even found some from somebody is something to cut my plate off she managed to cut my first plate off and then we were called on say LaBelle so I had to go out like that and then she managed to find whatever somebody gave her some scissors or something to cut the second plate off this was just an introduction someday see later we don't know how long it took we were told to go to the other side of the camp of course on the other side of course the sewer that was running open sewer was burning school they came to the whole time and it had a bridge across it oh god another bridge it had just planks of wood on it and two guards were were guarding it suffice it to say that for they were laughing and I said one of them said let's make have a bit of fun I was rather push the small one to into the sewer and we'll have a bet how long it takes her to sink and even though we understood what I said we weren't we couldn't we weren't in a position to go because once you were told to do something you had to do it so and true to them were to their threat as we got onto the bridge one of them pushed me into the sewers I didn't drown only because if the solvers excuse me too thick to actually sinking and a young boy inmate from on the other side of the camp against the rules jumped into the sewer and pulled me out and that took me how back to the left side and they gave up their morning coffee which is all that I got to wash me off because we didn't have any water to wash me off with after that at some stage we were told again to go to the other side it's one stage we were tattooed once you were there it's very difficult to keep track of what was happening we were - - at one stage I remember starting to cry because it's a very deep - - it's not a superficial one and somebody was holding my and me my hand to make it taut and I was crying and the person who was a Jewish she was tattooing me I remember distinctly said to me don't cry because if you're getting attitude that means they'll keep you alive at least one week so don't cry [Music] food was twice a day the morning you got slop which was supposed to be coffee and a slice of bread which became sinner every day because they the person who was cutting it the local testa was cutting the bread stole more so that she can reach she can then exchange for whatever she wanted cigarettes or something else and in the evening you got slop and another piece of bread and the slop was if you were very lucky something floated on top of it but most of the time it was just slow literally slope with nothing in it we had to be out about the barracks all day hail the rain or shine and what was the disadvantage first of all that you were outside and secondly this is everything that you did that was in the camp was deliberately made to make your life a misery and to kill you but to be honest with you I don't know how anybody survived you [Music] when when that we're ready to take the children on the track and take him us to mingle eh I didn't want to go because I knew Mengele was danger but apart from that I didn't want to be separated from either so hang on back till and but at that time it happened by the time that we're ready to take us to mingle as experimental barracks it was already dark and so I because I knew that I'm going to be separated from Eva hung back and I managed to go into the snow and when the truck was ready to be take the children to mangle a I I managed to jump on it on the truck and waiting till they goes and that safe before going to being taken to Mengele the first time and eventually even our boss taken to rankle and did experiment experiments on us we never found out what he gave us he injected us first it took me actually I was sent they were was terribly upset tried to stop them from taking me but she couldn't and when I came back a few days later he asked me what happened what did I do to me and I told him that I gave me injections which were very painful and they gave me stomachaches and I was in agony and when they sent me back to to Eva's and then Eva was taken a few days later or week later and she got the same treatment and they took our blood [Music] I was very very scared I was a very very scared when Deva wasn't right next to me because I was scared we will be separated and for instance when she was taken to to get injections well she was taken we didn't go I didn't take he didn't take us together Mangala didn't take us together he took us separately and of course I was every minute that she was away from me I was scared and she was scared when I was away from her but here I was I was lucky under the circumstances it was I was lucky that he made meant allowed me to be near my sister the whole time in the Revere because it wasn't the usual thing but I don't remember the details I just remember the pain and I remember the injections and there I remember him coming and then he wanted to die anyway but as soon as you saw him I remember praying and that's what kept me calmed me down in Auschwitz and it's the only thing prayer I knew was minimal Cana and I pray that it is religiously every day we need sometimes more than once because that count me down [Music] I'm not sure how much I understood there was a kid after all I don't understand the Nitty Gritty of dehumanization you just were in this this nightmare I'm sure Eva would have felt more because she was that much older but I don't recall this these feelings I just recalled fright being terribly frightened and and being hungry and being cold you learned that you can can do things which are legitimate for you to survive and you learnt that they were things that you couldn't do it wasn't legitimate even if it meant your survival and that was with the food and that was with clothing and it was with with lose everything in camp but it was a it was a different world that was you can it was wasn't from this world we assumed the whole time we were in Auschwitz that my parents have we didn't think that there were anyway we thought that I were safe the whole time and so we didn't even think about that we assumed that we will the whole time that we were in Auschwitz Birkenau and we were not the only ones other people to assume that we are going to the war will end the truck will come to pick us up or we will be put on a train and we will go back to our parents and we'll go back to police a day 60 and we will find everything as it was before the war well occurred to us that it will do anything else and we thought we'll find all our family and that's what kept us going if not for this hope of finding people for the they hope that everything will be the same [Music] I was killing boss literally skin and bones and to tell you all the truth I don't think miss will survive well I never we did we would assume that we had to believe we will survive but when when we were liberated that's when I thought we will die [Music] we came back to my practice level and I thought he looked good or maybe after the war my mother when they I don't think she recognized us really well from what I remember my mother when we walked in I mean she was flabbergasted but she was I remember seeing her and she had this new baby in her arms my little sister and we just couldn't believe it we actually made it and that we found each other it's it's beyond words to describe what you felt like when you got back but as I said I I but we couldn't go in we went a lot to stay home because we had TB so we went that was the the the extra troller and even I came and my sister Eva and I came back to Bratislava finally from Auschwitz and after Auschwitz you know when we waited there and there hitchhiking and we couldn't could not go and stay with our parents because there was that because had both we both had TB and it was terribly infectious so we just saw my parents but we didn't actually go and live with them we were immediately sent to the Tatra mountains to recuperate because that was the only thing that you could do for TB my father never stopped crying for his family and for his children we never mentioned the word pouch which to my parents ever my father died in 84 my mother died in 94 the word our chutes never passed our lips to them not a word about what happened then we never told them anything nothing because we didn't have the heart to tell themselves such a thing that I should be with [Music] you [Music] Harold and I met in Sydney we got married in December 1957 we have three beautiful children I'm allowed to say daughters fourteen beautiful grandchildren twelve of them live in Israel thank God and we have behind her are many great grandchildren [Music] my husband told me that when we got married the beginning when we got married there wasn't at night that I didn't cry in my sleep it's affect you and it affected me and it affected my children there's no question that every person who was went through the war was affected by it adult child woman man and not only them but also their family and a second generation my children are what they were brought up with this the poor kids never had anything else so it affected it affects all the families I have no doubt about it that it's the whole family is affected ladies and gentlemen on behalf of the state of evil and in the name of the Jewish people with Malta wise as a ten year old in Auschwitz I never dreamed I would survive let alone have the privilege and joy of living in our ancient land in our country in the State of Israel without children grandchildren and great-grandchildren 71 years ago there was no United Nations today ask you the United Nations to put an end to anti-semitism and baseless hatred and the persecution of innocent people around all around the world thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Yad Vashem

Views: 152,828

Rating: 4.7967725 out of 5

Keywords: Yad Vashem, Holocaust, Shoah, Jewish life, Marta Wise, Czecheslovakia, Slovakia under Nazi occupation, Bratislava, Sered, Nitra, Sarvar, Auschwitz, Israel, Transit Camps, Extermination Camps, Second World War, World War II, WW2, Deportation, Hungary under Nazi occupation, Dr. Mengele, yt:cc=on

Id: HNC1JQxAB18

Length: 49min 8sec (2948 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 02 2020