Irenka and Ladislav Gottlieb correspondence

The donor’s mother, Irenka Lowy, was  born  in Stvrtok, a small village near Trencin in Slovakia, into an educated family. The parents had a shop and big farm employing many of the villagers. She and her brother had a good life. Her grandparents were very much part of the family. She and her brother  were sent to school in Trencin and boarded at first with a family, then went home every day by train. She received a very good education, learning Latin and the humanities. Both she and her brother studied law at Bratislava University and went on to become lawyers.

Here she met Ladislav Gottlieb, later changed to Godar (1947). He came from Presov, many of his family lived there. His father was a trained tax official. His mother was Julia Klein from Hungary. He had 3 sisters and one brother. Ladislav went to Bratislava University and became a lawyer.

In March, 1939, his brother, already living in London since 1933, said things were getting worse in Europe and he should come to London to see how things were and consider leaving Slovakia. He took a small overnight bag and went to Prague airport accompanied by Irenka. She stayed overnight in a Prague hotel and saw the Germans marching into Czechoslovakia the next morning. She hurried home to discuss what to do with her family. Ladislav decided to stay on in London, communicating with Irenka in code. It was decided that Irenka should travel to London, make arrangements for all the family to leave Czechoslovakia as soon as they could get visas. The idea was they should all go and live in Canada, as farmers were needed there. Irenka got her visa in September 1939. She just escaped in time but the rest of the family didn't, possibly because the need to leave wasn’t so pressing. They seemed to be OK at first, hence the letters, then the villagers made them slowly give up their nice house and farm until they all lived in one small room in their own house- 4 grandparents and Irenka’s brother and his wife. They eventually hid in the forests but were betrayed and died in Auschwitz.

Irenka and Ladislav worked on a farm preparing to go to Canada, then Irenka worked as a domestic until the house owner intercepted a letter to Irenka addressed to Dr Gottlieb, whereupon she accused her of lying about her credentials and sacked her. She became the secretary of the Czech ambassador in London and attended many interesting meetings.

The donor was born at the end of 1944. After the war the family returned to Czechoslovakia to find family and try and begin a new life. They hardly found anyone and used to help to smuggle Jews out of the country to Israel- often baking cakes and putting jewellery in the middle of the cakes, or being used as a halfway house. 

In 1948 after the Russians marched in, Ladislav, as an important town clerk in Bratislava by then, was put under house arrest, and they were advised to get out by friends before things got worse. They managed to escape by getting British visas for the whole family, which they got with great difficulty by visiting the British embassy clandestinely at night by the back entrance, and which they only got because the donor had been born in England. By then she had a one year old brother born in Czechoslovakia.

They said they were going to Israel, which was the only way to leave the country. The donor can remember her parents telling her not to say they were leaving. The queue of people who had heard they were leaving were trying to grab their flat. 

When the train arrived in Vienna, the donor’s parents jumped the train and got out, and somehow, with 2 small children made their way to the British zone in Vienna, where they had to stay for 3 months before they could get into England. Eventually they arrived in Nottingham where Ladislav’s brother lived and lived a poverty stricken life until Irenka got a job as a teacher. Ladislav  eeked out a living as an antique dealer- when no one had money to buy antiques, this was 1950. Eventually he had a small light fitting and china shop but he never settled down in England and found it much harder than my mother; he also had health problems and died of cancer in 1967.