''A Story of Three Friends''
by Peter Kubicek
NOTE:Peter Kubicek lives in New York City, but he was born in Czechoslovakia, a country that no longer exists. The country was dismembered in 1939 by Hitler and Kubicek found himself living in Slovakia, a small quasi-independent country firmly allied to Hitler’s Germany, now run by an indigent Slovak Fascist party. Its virulent anti-Semitism echoed that of Nazi Germany.
In 1940 this government promulgated a series of anti-Semitic laws, designed to gradually choke off all Jewish life. In 1942, the government embarked with great zeal and enthusiasm on the task of annihilating Slovak Jewry, a community close to 90,00 people. By the end of that year, close to 60,000 Jews were deported, mainly to Auschwitz. Of these 60,000 about 240 survived. This is not a misprint -- read again: 240 survivors out of 60,000.
In 2006, Kubicek published a memoir of his life during that period, under the title, “1000:1 ODDS.” In it he described his experiences of how he and his family survived 1942, and the Slovak concentration camp in which they were detained and their actual release from same. The next wave of deportations commenced in September, 1944, and this time Kubicek and his family were deported, but to Germany, rather than to Auschwitz. Kubicek survived six German concentration camps in the last eight months of WWII.
In the last four camps he became close to two Slovak boys of his age named Artur and Miki. The three shared the same fate right through the end of the infamous twelve-day “Sachsenhausen Hunger March” and were liberated together near the town of Schwerin in northern Germany. The date of this long-yearned-for event was May 2, 1945.
In November, 2012, Kubicek published an expanded version of his memoir under the title, “MEMORIES OF EVIL.” This is how he describes his arrival in Schwerin.
“Schwerin was a beehive of activity: ex-prisoners and American soldiers
were swarming about. The Americans directed us to a former German
army compound for food and lodging. As we passed the town park we
came across some adult ex-prisoners I knew. They busied themselves
setting up a campsite and cooking sausages. They invited me and my
friends Miki and Artur to stay with them. Artur declined and decided to
go on, but to Miki and me an army compound had the odor of a
concentration camp about it and so we gladly accepted the invitation.
So, how did Artur and I part? We had been together through so much: in
Heinkel, sleeping on the concrete floor, we used our breath and bodies to
warm each other; we were together in all the Jugendliche (juveniles)
groups of the camps that followed; we shared our first Red Cross food
package; we shared our “bed” on the forest ground of the last night of
the Hunger March; and we had recently shared our first meal of freedom
– a surfeit of delicious boiled new potatoes.
So, here is the question: what did we say to each other? And here is the
answer: nothing. He left, I stayed.
We were not insensitive. We were simply emotionally dead. My entire
concentration camp ordeal had felt surreal to me and thus Artur and Miki
were equally unreal. Artur and I parted and we never saw each other
again.
Fast forward67 years. In early July of 2012, Peter Kubicek picks up a ringing telephone. There is a woman on the line speaking with a strong Israeli accent and the conversation unfolds like this.
“This is Ruthi Paz, I am calling from Israel and my father (she
pronounced it fazzer) thinks he knew you a long time ago in Germany.”
“Well, I don’t come from Germany, I come from Slovakia, but I was in
Germany in concentration camps during the Second World War.”
“Well, so was my fazzer. His name is Yitzchak Ringwald, but his
original name in Slovakia was Artur.”
So, now Yitzchak/Artur gets on the phone line. His language is Hebrew, which I don’t speak, and my language obviously is English, which he does not speak. So, we have an emotional conversation in Slovak, our native language which neither of us had much occasion to use over the past decades. Speaking it is a struggle for both of us. It turns out that it was his grandson who discovered me on the Internet. The grandson also discovered a reference to my 2006 memoir “1000:1 ODDS.” I promise Artur to mail him a copy. The other problem is that Artur does not use a computer or the Internet. So, I exchange several e-mails with his daughter, Ruthi. We communicate our mutual feelings of excitement over the recent turn of events; she gives me their exact address in Haifa. I airmail Artur a copy of my book. He phones me again some ten days later to thank me for it. He, of course, is unable to read it and his children are attempting to translate it via Google Translator.
There is more to the story. In our second phone conversation Artur tells me that our mutual friend Miki also lives in Haifa. It takes till September before I receive a phone call from Miki. He had kept his original name; his last name is Brand. Miki and I had stayed together until our repatriation to Prague and he got to meet my mother after I ran into her on a Prague street. He, too, neither speaks English, nor is he capable of using the Internet. He finally mails me a letter in Slovak, with copies of some old post-War photos of himself, one of me from my home town of Trencin after the War, and a couple of recent photos of me which his grandson discovered on the Internet. We exchange further correspondence by mail, in Slovak. I find this language easier to write than to speak since I can do so with a dictionary next to my computer. My last letter is dated November, by which time my new memoir, “Memories of Evil” has been published; I mail him a copy of same. I trust his grandson will be able to attempt a translation.
And here is the final chapter of the story. In early January of this year, I received an e-mail notification from Facebook that Miki Brand wishes to communicate with me. There I found a current photo of him and of his wife which had been posted by his grandson. I have now exchanged several messages with Miki on Facebook – in Slovak. Our Slovak is improving.
(PS: I just wish to add that if anyone is interested in my full account, details of my recent book, “Memories of Evil,” can be viewed on my Amazon.com book page.)