Juraj Stern

* 1940

  • “Mr. Zelenay dug out a hole in the middle of his yard and there we were supposed to hide if something happened. Once such a report came, I remember it quite lively, that we had to hide there. He covered the hole with planks and layered them with potatoes, so that it looked like a potato pit. However, somebody snitched on us. Fortunately, the guards that came were so drunk and lazy to move the potatoes away that they just fired shots onto that pit. Now imagine a mound, the hole and we were standing near the upper edge. They came from the top and all the shots were fired above our heads to the opposite wall. I know that my father held my mouth not to shout. My mom held my brother's. We survived it. None of us got shot down. Afterwards the guards left the place laughing, how well they had killed us. And the shooting was really dense. I used to hear it as a child – it was a nightmare that used to wake me up.”

  • “He hid us in the stable. I was there for two or maybe more weeks, hidden in a trough. Just imagine a four-year-old child that learned he couldn't scream or go out, could not cry or call onto anyone. Literally – who had to be completely quiet. Only when Mr. Zelenay or his wife Borka came to milk the cow I was allowed to talk to them a bit. The cow chewed next to my head. I was covered with straw and I used to drink water from the same bucket as the cow. I went to the toilet there and everything. The Zelenays always brought me some food, so I ate. I even washed myself in that bucket, if I needed. It was horrible. And it's very difficult to explain to you the emotions of such a child. Until today, I cannot understand or ever explain myself, how had I managed all of that. When it was over, I was unable to talk.”

  • “When the occupation of Slovakia began and the Slovak National Uprising broke out, he had to figure out something different, thus he hid us in a basement. There was anything – bottles, wine, cans, preserves, and such. He piled all the preserves into one shelf and behind it, there was some more space. There we were hidden and there we waited during the last period, the last months, until the liberation. Hlohovec was liberated by Romanians and I remember the moment we came out of that basement. It was a beautiful and sunny day and I remember that light. This way I came out of the dark and everything was sun-shaded. Ever since, the sun has been my freedom.”

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    Bratislava, 15.08.2017

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    duration: 02:45:58
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I just cannot explain what our rescuers have done

Graduation photo of Juraj Stern
Graduation photo of Juraj Stern
photo: Tomáš Stern

Juraj Stern was born in Bratislava in 1940 into a Jewish family. Shortly after his birth, the Sterns fled to Michalovce, where their relatives lived. Juraj’s father, Helmut Stern, managed to unnoticeably run away from the collecting ghettos, from where he was supposed to be transported to concentration camps. He was hiding in a secret room and right in the next room, there lived a former SS member. Later on, the family was hiding in Hlohovec, in Zelenay family. The father Michal Zelenay tried to come up with different hidings for the Sterns to save them. The Zelenay family was also honored by the Righteous Among the Nations Award. Juraj Stern, however, experienced hard times also during the communism. He couldn’t enroll at the university, nor could he find a proper job. In 1990s he actively opposed Vladimír Mečiar. Later on, he was a rector at the University of Economics as well as a Chair of the Slovak Rectors’ Conference. Nowadays, he is a rector of the Pan-European University in Bratislava.