Zita Kurzová

* 1944

  • "Well, those boys cried a lot, because they didn't believe me that ours would save themselves, and that they would both come to the door and sew for the little girl. Well, he (Peter) was the first to say, well, we won't give her to you, she's our sister and we won't give her to you. And so mom started to cry, because you won't give, she says, but she was only supposed to be here for the agreement that after we save ourselves, we will marry her. Well, of course they agreed, as was necessary, and then I went home with ours."

  • "Well, she went there with me and knocked on all the doors to see if anyone would take the six-week-old baby. Well, everyone said that it must drown, and that, so mom said: "Don't be angry, but I won't drown my own child, what happens to me will happen to her too." But, well, you can't save yourself, that things like that and someone didn't even open the door, so it was like that, but I can't imagine how I would handle it when someone slams your door. Well, but then there was a lady and she says, you know, I have two boys, and if it was a girl, I would marry her right away. Well, my mom said it's a girl."

  • "That they were already loaded in those cattle trains, that they were going to Auschwitz, so, terribly, that it was overcrowded. I wasn't there, but there weren't children there, only adults. And then the father had a friend and because he was very famous, he played football for Trenčín, so the name was known, they knew him. And some gentleman came to that train, pushed his way there and came to that carriage, that where my parents were and told the guard what he was guarding them there or something, that's all I heard, of course, well, that he has a good friend here, and that he would beg him to remove these two people from that train."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Bratislava, 20.06.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:54:57
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

People think that the holocaust is made up, and that‘s how it was for a long time

Zita Kurzová during EYD recording.
Zita Kurzová during EYD recording.
zdroj: Photo by Dominik Janovský

Zita Kurzová was born on July 19, 1944 in Trenčín. Her parents experienced great luck during the war when they were recalled from a train heading to Auschwitz in 1942. It was thanks to the fact that Zita‘s father played football and his fans spoke up for him. When she was six weeks old, her parents hid her with the Rehák family and they themselves hid in the woods, since all exceptions for Jews ceased to apply at that time. No one betrayed the little girl, and even Zita‘s parents lived through the war and came to pick up their daughter, who was doing very well with an unknown family. The Löwenbeins then returned to Trenčín, where Zita graduated from primary school and later from medical school. She then worked as a nurse in a hospital in Trenčín. In 1966, she married Peter Kurz, also a Jew, who also hid from the Nazis as a child. Zita then did a two-year extension at school and worked on histology. She and her husband had two children together, and she retired in 2014 at the age of seventy. Then they persuaded her to return to work for a year. She never forgot the courage and kindness of the Rehák family. She found one of the Rehákov brothers – Petar and remained in intensive contact with him. In 2014, she arranged for the Rehák family to receive the Righteous Among the Nations award.