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In Search of History
Jacob Ritzler, an international studies major, recently traveled to Slovakia and the Czech Republic to piece together the tapestry of his family history. While he discovered the roots of the Stiefel family, he also found a disturbing continuation of anti-Semitism and the disappearance of Jewish identity among the new generation of Slovakia.
 Forty-seven members of my grandfather's family were killed in the Holocaust; my grandfather, Frantisek Stiefel, and his two brothers, Mikalaus and Tibor, were the only survivors from the immediate family. When my grandfather died in 1999 and his brother Mikalaus died in 2000, I decided to chronicle as much of the Stiefel family history as possible. It was then that I conceived of the Junior Fellows research project that would take me to Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland in search of the stories of my family. With a video camera and a few words of Czech (pivo means beer and zachot means bathroom), I boarded a plane for Prague on December 18, 2000.
 I spent my first night in Eastern Europe on an overnight train in a cabin the size of closet, with two Slovaks who did not understand English. The next morning, I arrived in the town of Kosice in the eastern area of Slovakia. There a distant relative met me and brought me to her family's house. Strangely, I experienced no sense of culture shock. With my Slovakian relatives, I felt as though I was back in my grandparents' home. By far the happiest person to see me was my grandfather's Aunt Truda. She cried when I came, she cried when I left, she even cried while I was there. A survivor of Auschwitz, Aunt Truda was so happy to realize that she still had more family somewhere in the world.
I realized later that there was another reason why Truda cried. She saw in me a future generation of Jews who are proud of being Jewish. One of my cousins told me a story that explains what Truda felt. One day, Truda was walking with one of her granddaughters in the town center. As they passed the small remnants of the local Jewish community center, her granddaughter turned to her and said, "I'm glad that I'm not Jewish." Truda, a survivor of the concentration camps, was surely devastated by the fact that some of her grandchildren did not even understand that they are Jewish. All of Truda's grandchildren knew that she was Jewish and that she had escaped from Auschwitz, but Truda's daughter had raised her children without any knowledge of their background or identity. So whenever Truda saw me, she cried.
It was nice to meet my family, but I was there with a purpose. With the help of my grandmother, I had put together a list of possible contacts. Fortunately, Truda knew many of the people on my list; unfortunately, many of them were dead. Starting with Truda, I began my interviews. I traveled to the neighboring town of Vranov, where my family had lived for 200 years. There I found the house where my grandfather was born and raised. I also found a 96-year-old neighbor, who drank like a fish but still remembered the family. As I was introduced to some more people, the picture of what happened to my family slowly came together.
In Eastern Slovakia, I learned that my great-grandfather, Dezidor, was a best friend of the first President of Czechoslovakia and was the President of the Slovakian Social Democrats Party. He was one of the first people to be taken into custody by the Germans. He was imprisoned not for his religious beliefs, but because he was a socialist. After Dezidor's capture, four of the eight children fled. Uncle Mike stayed to watch his mother and three younger siblings. My grandfather, Alexander, Tibor, and Ludvig scattered to different areas of Slovakia.
 Only three years later, Tibor was in Israel, Alexander had died fighting in the 1943 Slovak uprising, Ludvig had disappeared, and Dezidor had been released from the political prison, only to be taken to Auschwitz. There, he was shot trying to carry a fellow prisoner who could no longer walk. My great-grandmother and her two daughters were taken to Auschwitz in 1942 and immediately killed. At 17, the youngest brother, Tomas, was killed during the uprising. He had been taken prisoner and forced to dig a mass grave where he and his friends were burned and then buried.
Uncle Mike and my grandfather were lucky they both joined the Slovak army, but they were immediately transferred to labor camps. The brothers were in two different camps, but during the Slovak uprising they were able to organize revolts in their camps and escape to fight in the northern mountains of Slovakia. Neither saw each other during the war; they only heard of one another's exploits. Uncle Mike became a spy, while my grandfather rose to the rank of captain, independently commanding a small group of partisans. It was a position that led to his becoming a high member in the Czechoslovakian Communist Party, and then to his running from the disapproval of the party to take refuge in the United States (where, ironically enough, he became a Republican).
 These were the stories I heard from my family's old friends, who also led me to the cemetery in Vranov where many of my ancestors are buried. Today, it is still being ransacked by anti-Semites and grave robbers who come to vandalize, steal from corpses that are buried with no worldly possessions, or take the headstones to resell them. Luckily, I was able to provide the groundskeeper with the names of a few organizations in the United States that may be able to help preserve this Jewish cemetery that is over 250 years old.
I left Slovakia with a greater understanding of the history of my family, but my next stop-Auschwitz-left me with no understanding of humanity. What happened in that concentration camp defies comprehension. I walked its paths and buildings and crematoriums, and I videotaped it all. The only thought that kept coming to me was that this could have been me. I could have been one of those children, producing drawings of dragons breathing fire in representation of the crematoriums. I could have been in my great-grandfather's place, and I am not sure I could have been as brave as he was, brave enough to try to help another prisoner, knowing it would mean possible death. I am not sure I would have had the strength my grandfather had not only to escape, but also to fight for his homeland. I could hope that I would be that brave, but it might not have mattered, because had I been alive at that time, they would have killed me because I am Jewish.
As I traveled from Poland to Prague and then around the rest of the Czech Republic, I gathered information about the later half of my grandfather's life in the Czechoslovakian government and his escape to the United States. I visited more friends of my grandfather's family, and I learned of some distant relatives who had moved to the United States. The story came together, and today it is nearly all written down. It is not much, but it is more than existed about my family a few months ago.
 My grandfather only told small parts of his story, but I remember them vividly. Sometimes his voice trembled. Sometimes his eyes watered as he described his little sisters. Sometimes he looked fierce. Sometimes he looked at me and did not say a word, but he always told his tales with pride. Now I am the storyteller. I have put myself in his place, taken up his voice, and pass his stories, my stories, along. w
Jacob Ritzler's video project was supported with a grant from the Society of Junior Fellows.
The Uprising
by Jacob Ritzler
Stories began to circulate about death camps. We heard that those Jews who had been "relocated" were sent to labor camps if they were lucky, and to death camps if they were not. We all considered ourselves prisoners now; we were still alive only because there were some generals in the Slovak government who were not anti-Semites. Up until that point we were protected. That knowledge did not make life in the camps any more bearable. We worked 18 hours a day-sometimes roadwork, sometimes work on the canals. Once we were taken to a munitions factory, but we were immediately sent away, because we could not be trusted to work with arms that would be carried by German soldiers. So, we resumed our labor in the winter cold.
As months past and summer came, rumors were rampant. The name "Auschwitz" was on everybody's lips. Some talked late into the night about a resistance that was forming in the forest and mountain areas of the High Tartras in the north. I was one of those who dreamed of resistance, and in the early weeks of July, I made contact with a friend. He had managed to buy false papers and was living under an assumed name. In contact with the resistance in the north, he brought information to the camp every week. An attack was being planned.
One day in August, that day came. Sounds of rifle fire were coming from town. A German soldier drove into camp and spoke with the commandant, who immediately dispatched guards to the town. It was already evening and our unit was in the barracks.
Earlier, my friend had managed to sneak a pistol into the camp, which we concealed under a loose floorboard in the barrack. Realizing this might be my only chance to escape, I gathered 22 men who I knew would follow me and we snuck from our barrack, left unguarded because so many guards had been sent to quell the disturbance in the town. We were unarmed, weak and underfed, but we were desperate. We had played out the scenario of this possibility over and over again. We knew that our only hope lay in taking the guards' barracks and commandeering as many weapons as possible.
It worked perfectly. We made our way to the Commandant's office. There were no soldiers nearby, and before he realized it we had him tied up and my gun was pointed at his head. We marched him into the barracks and made him tell the four guards still there to hand over their weapons. Unarmed, the guards ran before any of the prisoners could think of revenge. I locked the Commandant in a storage room and took my men back out into the camp. We were still 22 men, but with only nine guns. After a sweep of the camp, we managed to free all 100 prisoners and subdue the other six guards who had been left behind.
In town, we came upon the guards from camp. Again, we were able to overcome them and take their guns. Of the 100 prisoners, 40 were still following me. The others had scattered. That night we ran for the woods. We agreed to find the partisan forces to the north and join them in their fight against the Nazis.
After a few days, we came upon a unit. It was motley mix of men from all of Europe. There were Russians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians, and even a few French men who had escaped concentration camps. Nearly half of them were Jewish. We joined them, for we were not fighting for our country, but for our lives.
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