Ily took me to the doctor’s office to attend to my chest pain and my swollen body, both of which were making me increasingly uncomfortable. The doctor gave me a thorough examination and concluded that I had a serious case of wet pleurisy. He said it was life-threatening and had to be treated immediately. I had to get myself to the hospital in Košice, approximately fifty kilometres away. Ily went to a farmer she knew well and asked him to take me to the hospital. He agreed, but his horses had just finished a full day’s work, and they needed food and rest. He said that I would have to wait until 11 p.m., at which time he would come and pick me up at Ily’s home. Ily asked him to have lots of straw in the wagon so that I would be more comfortable.
While we were waiting together for the farmer’s arrival, Ily asked me what had happened to my family. She had heard of terrible things. I was not prepared to speak about past events, so I told her only that everyone in the family was dead. At that time, I could not yet fully comprehend the magnitude of the destruction of Jewish culture and people in continental Europe, nor could I articulate the depth of my trauma or put my losses into words.
She described how people had fought over our possessions once we were gone. The livestock were captured and removed, but she didn’t know what had happened to my dogs. She also told me that the synagogue was desecrated and the Torah scrolls were taken out of the arc and cut into pieces, or worse. The prayer books and Talmudic books were burned. Ily and I tried to reminisce about the good times. I told her how I remembered her playing the piano during summer evenings when the windows were open, and how much the music had meant to me. She spontaneously offered to play her favourite Chopin piece, Nocturne in E-flat major. I felt the music in every fibre of my body. I closed my eyes and felt as if I were floating. I was at peace, and I will forever remember Ily’s kindness to me in that crucial moment. Then she brought out an envelope with two pictures that she had been able to save after our home was ransacked. I felt that I had been given the biggest treasure, but unfortunately I had nowhere to keep them. We decided that for safekeeping, she would either keep the pictures until I came out of the hospital or would take them to her mother in Košice.
At 11 p.m., the farmer arrived with his wagon and helped me get onto a thick layer of straw, facing forward, with a lot of straw behind my back. I thanked Ily profusely for all she had done, and she promised to come and visit me in the hospital. She was the only bright light I had encountered upon my return. Her kindness and caring were genuine, and I knew it was how my mother would have reacted in the same situation.
The town was very quiet, with only a few streetlights lit along the main street. The buggy had a carbide lamp rigged on each side to provide light and to signal to others that we were there. It was a beautiful, starry night and I was ready to be attended to. I knew that my body needed help. The driver and I did not converse. He may have nodded off, but the horses kept trotting at a steady pace. The sound of their hoofs seemed like a fairy tale. The journey took six or seven hours.
The sun came up from the east, and it was a beautiful morning. About an hour later, we arrived at the St. Elizabeth Hospital in Košice. The driver got down from the wagon and helped me get off. I thanked him for his time and walked into the reception area of the hospital for processing. A nun took me to a public ward, where I was assigned to a bed; she gave me a gown and took away my clothes and shoes. I got into a bed with clean sheets and a raised back that allowed me to sit up. Being in such clean surroundings felt like a luxury, and my thoughts returned to barrack 21 in Auschwitz, where there were no comforts and the outlook for recovery was so bleak.
A short time later, two doctors came into the ward to make their rounds. They examined me and confirmed that I had wet pleurisy. Then they advised me that a nurse would soon arrive to perform the procedure to remove the water. I was ready to receive whatever treatment was needed. A very kind nurse came in with a bucket and a big syringe with a large needle attached. I had never seen a syringe and needle that large in the Auschwitz operating room. She told me that the procedure would be painful, but it was the only way to gradually remove the water from my lungs and my chest cavity. She told me to raise my arms over my head, and then she positioned herself behind me, inserted the needle between my ribs, and began siphoning the water into the bucket. It was very painful,particularly when I took a breath, and the needle felt as if it were piercing my lungs.
This procedure took some time, and when she was done, the nurse marked the water level with iodine on my chest. She repeated the procedure daily for about a week, until the water was completely removed from my lungs. The doctors put me on a liquid and salt-free diet, and by the end of the second week, I looked almost skeletal. I was weak and had no muscle strength at all. I felt that my body had to be rebuilt from scratch to function normally. After the second week, I was allowed to eat solid foods and I began walking outside in the park in the warm summer air. Gradually, my body strengthened, and I felt more alive and healthier than I had in a very long time.
During my recovery, some volunteers from the local Jewish community came to visit. They took my particulars, kept me company, brought me fruit, and asked me if I had any relatives. I explained that I had seen the name of my cousin Chaim Lazarovits on a list on my way back from Ebensee, but that I didn’t know his whereabouts. They said they would post my name in the small synagogue in town, and a few days later, I received a visit from a Mr. Joseph Gottlieb. He told me that his late wife’s mother and my grandfather were brother and sister. He said that when I was released from the hospital, he wanted me to come and stay with them. I was relieved to know that I would have a roof over my head.
Joseph’s son, Itzhak, soon came to visit me as well. Itzhak was my age, and we developed a good rapport and became fast friends. He was apprenticing to become a tool-and-die maker, and he was occupied with learning his trade. He also belonged to a survivors’ group of Jewish teenagers run by the Mizrachi Organization. With Itzhak’s encouragement, I also joined this group, and to my great surprise found that my cousin Chaim was already a member. Here I got to know other teenagers as well and participated in their activities. The leaders of the group channelled our behaviour in a professional manner, understanding that we all needed help to adjust to life postwar. I struggled, in particular, with learning to trust again, and engaging and cooperating with others.
The Gottlieb family consisted of Joseph and his second wife, Malvinka; their three daughters, Ilonka, Clari, and Shari; and their son, Itzhak. There was also a cousin named Ruty and a friend named Magda residing in the home. It was a very lively and busy household. Malvinka was a wonderful cook with a heart of gold, and I managed to put on weight during the months I lived there. Feeling accepted as part of a family contributed greatly to my recovery from the pleurisy, and I began to feel like a normal teenager for the first time in more than a year.