Judita Stavrovská

* 1942

  • “As I said before, my father was very smart and he was promoted from one office to another; however, only until the 1952, when the trial with Slánský took place. My father was dismissed from his job and accused he was a Zionist. I remember my parents were horrified the father would be arrested too, since my mom already knew that within the Slánský trial, her cousin Edo Goldstücker was imprisoned. Back then it was labeled that the person was sent to ‘a production’, what simply described the fact, he was found a new job – without a choice – and thus he was sent to work as a roofer. My father was nearly 50 years old, he had never worked manually before; he was only a travelling salesman, so this was something terrible for him.”

  • “The second transport from Liptovský Mikuláš took place on June 2, 1942. My mom and I were still in the Ružomberok hospital, when the Hlinka Guard came holding a list of people, including the names of my parents, who should have been deported away. It was only few days after I was born. At the time, there was one man, a doctor in the hospital, who refused to let us go. He said he couldn’t release a woman from the hospital, who was only two – three days after the delivery and had a newborn baby. So this way my parents avoided the transport. My grandparents were supposed to be in that transport too, but they had a so-called dispensation. My mother’s brother was a pharmacist and since during the Slovak State rule, this profession was considered as economically important, he and also his parents were granted the dispensation. However, it didn’t apply to my parents.”

  • “Together with other two families, the village people who saved us took us to the mountains, where we stayed in an underground bunker. There we lasted out the winter and spring of 1944/1945, until the Soviet Army came and liberated us. I still can’t explain myself how we were able to survive that. My sister was so weak because of the lack of food, that she was even unable to cry. However, it was quite fortunate, on the other hand, because the Germans used to walk above our bunker and if she started to cry, we would surely be revealed. Those people from Baláže saved us. They brought us food even though they themselves didn’t have much. My mom used to say they counted the beans, how many can eat each person in the bunker. My father always went to wash my diapers down to the stream, where at first he had to break the ice and only then rinse them. Simply, I still cannot imagine how could we survive that, but we did.”

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    Bratislava, Slovensko, 24.04.2018

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    duration: 02:28:58
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th century
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Even as a newborn she saved lives of her parents

High School Graduation-1959
High School Graduation-1959
photo: album pamätníčky

Judita Stavrovská was born on May 27, 1942, on the day of assassination of Heydrich. Her parents, Elena and Ladislav Feledi were of a Jewish descent and that’s why only few days after Judita’s birth, when the second transport from Liptovský Mikuláš took place, the Hlinka Guard came to take her mother away. A doctor saved Judita and her mother from the guards, but later, both parents were deported to the Nováky labor camp. Later on, their little girl was also sent to Nováky, where they stayed until liberation by the partisans during the Slovak National Uprising. The family fled to the village of Baláže near Banská Bystrica, which was nearly at the end of the war, on March 19, 1945, burnt-out by the Nazis. The parents and little Judita ran to hide into the mountains above the village, where they waited until the Romanian Army liberated them. After the war, the Feledi family regained their prior-owned house and in early 1950 they moved to Bratislava. In 1952 during the trial with Rudolf Slánský, Judita’s father was dismissed from his job and her uncle, Eduard Goldstücker was persecuted by the communist regime. In 1964 Judita met her future husband and after the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968, they emigrated to the USA.