Shlomo P. Neuman: a Brief Autobiography by Shlomo P
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Historical Note/ David Deming, History Editor Shlomo P. Neuman: A Brief Autobiography by Shlomo P. Neuman Prologue political parties except the Social Democrats, decided I thank Ground Water and its editor for the privilege to form an ‘‘autonomous’’ Slovak government under of sharing some highlights of my personal and pro- Monsignor Jozef Tiso. Their decision led to the formal fessional lives with colleagues. The story of my child- establishment on March 14, 1939, of a Slovak Republic hood, which is a key to understanding who I am, might beholden to Nazi Germany with Tiso as president; a fasci- otherwise have never been told: I owe it to our younger nating description of the previous events is given by Shirer colleagues, my children, and my grandchildren. I urge (1960). Thus, it happened that I was born into a nascent the reader to explore further the historical events and cir- fascist state that, like other Nazi-allied or dominated gov- cumstances that I describe by turning to readily accessi- ernments with the shining exceptions of Denmark and ble sources starting, most conveniently, with Wikipedia Finland (Dawidowicz 1975), would soon take active part on the Internet. in Germany’s murderous designs against their Jewish citizens. Before reaching my first birthday, the Slovak govern- Lost Childhood in Europe ment had enacted (on September 4, 1939) discriminatory laws requiring Jewish businesses and medical clinics to I was born and named Peter on October 26, 1938, to exhibit signs identifying them as Jewish and doctors’ pre- Klara and Alexander Neumann in Zˇ ilina, an industrial scriptions to bear the Star of David (e.g., Dawidowicz town in northwestern Slovakia. Between the two world 1975; Gordon 2003). Prior to reaching my second birth- wars, Zˇ ilina and much of Slovakia were part of a thriving day, a law was enacted (on April 25, 1940) requiring all democracy under the Czechoslovak republic. By a stroke of Jews to itemize their property and assets in preparation bad fortune (or lack of spine and foresight), Czechoslovakia for their confiscation and transfer to ‘‘Aryan’’ hands. In was handed over to Nazi Germany in the infamous Munich 2006, a Slovak government document came to my atten- Agreement signed a month earlier (on September 29) tion that had been filled by hand, signed and dated between Hitler, Mussolini, and the prime ministers of September 14, 1940, by my late father (pictured with me England and France, Chamberlain and Daladier. Consid- in Figure 1). The document is stamped November 16, ering that Chamberlain was hailed at home as the deliv- 1940, by the Zˇ ilina district archives. It includes a detailed erer of (in his own words) peace for our time, it took a warning to Jews of their asset reporting duties and a com- giant of Winston Churchill’s caliber to denounce this plete financial statement detailing (to the Slovak equiva- shameful act in the House of Commons as ‘‘a total and lent of a penny) the worth of my father’s photography unmitigated defeat ... an awful milestone in our history, business, debts owed to the business by various clients when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and their names, value of my father’s insurance policy, and ... the terrible words have ... been pronounced against family debts and savings, and annual taxes paid by us the Western democracies: ‘Thou art weighed in the bal- from 1938 to 1940. ance and found wanting’’’ (http://www.churchill-society- As of June 24, 1941, when I was 2.5 years old, Jews london.org.uk/Munich.html, accessed October 11, 2007). were prohibited from living, walking, or strolling on I find it disheartening that Churchill’s admonition rings main streets; entering public parks; or leaving their as true and relevant today as it did 70 years ago. homes after dark; our family had to relocate twice from On October 5, 1938, the executive committee of the the center to the outskirts of town. On September 9, the nationalist Slovak People’s Party met in Zˇ ilina and, on Jewish Codex was enacted prohibiting Jews from owning behest of Hitler with the acquiescence of all Slovak real estate or luxury goods, excluding them from public employment and the professions, banning their participa- tion in sport or cultural events, excluding them from sec- Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of ondary schools and universities, banning them from Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721; [email protected] marrying non-Jews, annulling debts owed to Jews, and Copyright 2007 The Author(s) ª requiring all Jews (including children of my age) to wear Journal compilation ª 2007 National Ground Water Association. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-6584.2007.00387.x a large yellow Star of David in public. 164 Vol. 46, No. 1—GROUND WATER—January–February 2008 (pages 164–169) locked freight cars and transported under extremely diffi- cult conditions by rail to Terez´n (Terezienstadt), a con- centration camp north of Prague that had previously served as a way station to Auschwitz. Luck was with us again: By the time we arrived, transports to Auschwitz had been halted under the pressure of advancing Soviet and Czech troops that, in May 1945, liberated Terez´n. The camp is today a museum, which I strongly urge my readers to visit. (Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife, thereby triggering World War I, was imprisoned there until his death from tuberculosis in 1918.) During the course of the war, German and Slovak authorities deported about 70,000 Jews from Slovakia, of whom about 65,000 were murdered or died in concentra- Figure 1. 1940 in Zˇ ilina with my late father. tion camps; according to Klein-Pejsˇova´ (2006), the total number of Slovak Jews who perished during the Holo- caust was 105,000, or 77% of their prewar population. With the active or tacit support of many others across Between March 25 and October 10, 1942, the Slo- Europe, the Germans succeeded in carrying out the sys- vaks deported around 58,000 Jews to the death camp of tematic murder of 6 million Jewish children, women, Auschwitz on Polish soil and other centers of mass exe- men, and the elderly (http://www.yadvashem.org/, ac- cution. My parents and I were extremely fortunate to cessed October 11, 2007). Of 3500 Jews living in Zˇ ilina have succeeded, prior to being rounded up, in crossing and its surroundings at the start of the war, 2668 are the border illegally into Hungary where attitudes to Jews known to have perished, including almost the entire Neu- were, at the time, more lax. I remember distinctly riding mann clan (my father, his three sisters, their families on my father’s shoulders as we crossed on foot a path including several of my young cousins, my grandmother, heavily guarded with searchlights and barking dogs, of and many others) and my maternal grandmother (Gordon which I became mortally afraid well into my adolescent 2003). Only 214 returned from concentration camps, years. In Budapest, I was held indoors for 2 weeks until most widowed and orphaned; that my mother and I were my Hungarian became passable enough to ensure that I among them is to me nothing less than a miracle (among would not reveal our identity by talking Slovak. With the 15,000 children that have passed through Terez´n, fewer aid of relatives, we managed to avoid discovery till early than 100, of whom I was one, survived; e.g., Weil 1978). 1944 at which time German troops were approaching In 1947, my mother remarried, we adopted a Slovak Hungary to eventually seal the fate of its Jews. Once sounding family name (Lesny´), and soon she gave birth again, with extraordinary luck, we managed to sneak to a boy named after my stepfather’s baby son, who, like back into Slovakia and, pretending to be Hungarian his mother, failed to return. Christians, lived the year out in a small village (Cˇ ekl´s) The war and postwar attitudes I have encountered in near Bratislava under an assumed name (Modos). While and out of school have made it clear to me that Slovakia my parents commuted to town daily for work, I chased and Europe could never again be called home. To my pigs marked for slaughter with village urchins and at- everlasting horror, similar attitudes have resurfaced tempted to solve my first ground water puzzle: How did across Europe in recent years. Through a miraculous con- the water get into the well in our yard, and why would vergence of circumstances, we were able in 1949 to our ornate hand-operated pump exhaust so much of my restart our lives in the newly established State of Israel, energy? just weeks before the gates of postwar Czechoslovakia Deportations of Jews from Slovakia resumed on were slammed shut by its new communist masters. Hav- September 30, 1944, as the Soviet Army reached the Slovak ing thus emerged from darkness to light at age 10, I felt border, inspiring the Slovak National Uprising in which reborn, adopted my Hebrew name Shlomo (Salomon, my uncle, a lieutenant with the partisans, lost his life after my paternal grandfather), relegated my given Euro- fighting. As a result, the Germans occupied Slovakia and pean name to second place initial, and later in college, re- deportations continued till March 31, 1945, at which time turned to a shortened version of my original family name. the Soviets completed their conquest of Slovakia. Our Jewish identity was revealed by an informer on Christmas day of 1944, and we were promptly jailed by the Slovak secret police (whose menacing leather trenchcoats would Rebuilding My Life in Israel forever remain engraved in my memory as the embodi- While my parents and baby brother settled in the ment of evil).