Zuzana Sermer (1924-2021) grew up in Slovakia in Hummené, alongside her friend Edith, heroine of our first episode. But, unlike the latter, Zuzana miraculously managed to escape the roundup of March 25, 1942, and never boarded the DA 66 train, the first Jewish convoy to Auschwitz. An incredible story that she will keep for her for exactly seventy years.
« Luck? But luck was not enough in these situations. It needed a miracle. Luck is when you arrive in a store and that day they announce 50% off!, she joked a few years before her death, questioned by high school students. It was in fact an error in the accounts of the Hlinka guard, a militia of the Slovak People’s Party, which supervised the deportation of the Jewish population to the death camps.
“We wanted to believe the rumours: we were only leaving a two-hour drive from Hummené, to work in a shoe factory. But I knew that I should not leave: I was an only child and guessed that my parents would not survive it.
Summoned like all single women in the city over the age of 15, she complies. “However, unlike the others, I didn’t pack anything. I was ready to do anything to stay and continue to take care of my sick mother.” In the large courtyard of the police station, about 350 women are waiting, suitcases in hand. That of her friend Edith is as heavy as she is: she does not know what awaits her and prefers to leave nothing behind.
wear and tear
Zuzana, with all the energy of her 20s, tries everything. “I spent the day crying, begging and explaining, again and again, my family situation. I appealed to their hearts and consciences. A second woman did the same, begging the guards to show her some mercy. Annoyed by his flood of pleas, the police push him away. « I didn’t stop. she says, from morning to nightfall.
At the end of the day, the police add up: their quota has been filled. « To them, we were just numbers. » The sentence echoes the words of Rena Kornreich. The militia has already noted the names of 999 women, spread over several towns in Slovakia. Any woman could have been released, but Zuzana got them « worn out ». « Since they didn’t need us, she adds, they let me and the other young woman go again.”
Heather Dune Macadam studied at length the list in which were recorded the names, ages, places of origin of the first deportees. A confusing log, with an error that escaped the Hlinka Guards: “Mistakes became more frequent as the list grew and fatigue set in. The numbers 377 and 595 are completely missing, which means that there were really only 997 young women on the train, not 999.
“I’ve been through horrible times, but never the worst. Because the worst thing was to see your life fly away through the chimneys of Auschwitz.
Heinrich Himmler, who relied on numerology to order the roundup, would not have appreciated the error. She saved the life of Zuzana and that other woman (perhaps Debora Gross, friend and neighbor of Edith, already engaged).
Zuzana, spared for the moment, finds her parents. The relief is mixed with deep concern, the uncertainty felt watching her friends leave. « Three months later, most of them were dust. »
After the war, Zuzana will become an accountant. It would be difficult not to read a symbol there.
Alone in the world
In July 1942, four months after escaping the convoy, Zuzana learns that her father has been the victim of a raid. 300 Jewish men from Hummené are waiting to be sent to an extermination camp. The Slovak authorities pay Germany 500 Reichsmarks for each Jew deported. In total, the Nazis will receive from them more than 30 million Reichsmarks.
Zuzana reiterates the impossible miracle: she talks and negotiates, cries and shouts, begs, ends up winning her case. And goes home on her father’s arm. This soon engages with the nationalists, but will eventually be captured and sent to a forced labor camp. He died in 1944 during the Slovak national uprising. “I hope we shot him down, she will say. During this revolt, many of them were burned alive in a lime kiln.”
“I’ve been through horrible times, but never the worst. Because the worst thing was to see your life fly away through the chimneys of Auschwitz. The following year, his mother died of heart failure. Zuzana is devastated but, as soon as the funeral is over, she finds herself suffering from scarlet fever and hepatitis. In the hospital, she is close to death.
Armed with a false identity card, Zuzana pretends to be Polish.
“Did I still believe in God? The only thing that mattered to me was to manage to hide myself. Religion didn’t matter so much anymore, even though that was why they were trying to kill us. » Zuzana has lost everything.
It was then that she met her future husband, Arthur Sermer. He is 30 years old and has also escaped the worst. The Slovak forests provided him, his family and some neighbors with temporary shelter. Refugees in a makeshift tent “which unfortunately only extended their lives by six weeks”they are found by the Hlinka guard and deported.
Only Arthur and his younger brother Victor manage to escape, pursued by the Gestapo for helping partisans on the Polish border. They will survive another year in the forest. With their cousin Leah, they plan to flee to Hungary. Zuzana joins them. In Budapest, she will find her aunt, two uncles, a few cousins. The reunion will be short-lived; none will survive the war.
« Physically alive, that’s all »
Armed with a false identity card, Zuzana pretends to be Polish. “Hungarians couldn’t tell the difference. We were surrounded by Polish Jews: as they had been the first to be targeted [6 millions de Polonais furent tués sous l’occupation allemande, dont 3 millions de juifs], they had become experts in camouflage.”
The deception is discovered. Zuzana is sent to a labor camp on an island. The requisitioned industrial complex was founded by a Jewish businessman, Manfred Weiss. By handing over his thirty-two factories and his art collection to the Nazis, he was allowed to settle with his family in Portugal.
« I was just cleaning up there. But soon I was moved to another camp. In this brick factory, 30,000 people were waiting to be deported. There was nothing more to do but wait. » His fake papers get him in trouble. « I was interrogated again. I refused to admit that I was Jewish, knowing that it would be certain death. How could I have died now, having managed to get through so much?”
Salvation comes from Arthur. He passes the physical inspection with flying colors and is classified as « Aryan ». Released, he refuses to leave without his fiancée. New miracle, we accede to his request. Another intervenes again: the young Victor, deported, jumps from the moving train.
Liberation is near. The situation is not safe for them yet, but Arthur and Zuzana survive. With the exception of Victor, the members of their two families were totally exterminated. « We were alive, but with each deportation a part of us would die with them, our family, our friends, neighbors… We were physically alive, that’s all. »
The desillusion
On January 18, 1945, the Russian army liberated Budapest. Hiding, Zuzana and Arthur wait a few more days before going out. They want to take advantage of this freedom, but find themselves hanging arms in front of scenes that are beyond them: the Russian soldiers loot the shops of the city. One day when they can’t take their eyes off such a scene, soldiers throw themselves at them. They are terrified, since there is already a rumor that those who dare to get involved are sent to Siberia. “And it was true. They never came back, or ten years later.”
“We are Slovaks!”they plead. « And why aren’t you fighting the Germans? » They answer, candidly: “We wanted to see the heroic Russian troops, we came on purpose!”
One day, to escape the advances of a drunken soldier, she claims to have typhoid.
In reality, “we found it difficult to fully enjoy this freedomexplains Zuzana. Ours were in the camps. How long would they suffer? Who were we going to find?”
The Russian soldiers let them go, not without giving them advice: « Don’t take to the streets for at least three weeks. » They carry, recalls Zuzana, “watches from wrist to elbow! They loved watches. The Soviets plunder, kill and rape (millions of women would have been their victims). « We have witnessed terrible scenes. » One day, to escape the advances of a drunken soldier, she claims to have typhoid. « I didn’t know about the symptoms but started coughing with all my might! » The subterfuge works.
The couple finally married in Hummené before settling in Bratislava, capital of Czechoslovakia. They have four children. Then in 1968, the Prague Spring was stopped during the invasion by the Warsaw Pact. The Russian tanks land and the Sermer family flees to Vienna. « From there, we didn’t know where to go. »
Canada, promised land
The following sheds light on the reasons that earned the famous Auschwitz warehouse, where the seized goods were piled up, its nickname of “Kanada”. Deportees like Helena Citrónová and Linda Breder dreamed of working there, as the conditions were kinder and the chances of survival higher.
“Canada is a fantastic country. For what reasons? It’s a democracy, it’s multicultural, almost semi-European… And for us who had never known a capitalist country, Canada seemed less impressive than the United States.”
Zuzana and Arthur will spend the rest of their lives there.
He died there in 2003. Zuzana then decided: she was going to devote her time to recording her extraordinary story in a book, Survival kit (Survival Kit in original version). It appeared in 2012, and until her death in 2021, she never stopped sharing her memories.
“Those of us who survived will never forget. But time passes and our presence diminishes. In recounting the events of my youth, I relived this painful past. Many of us have tried to put these terrible memories in a corner of our minds, but it is important to pass them on.