us-005578-irn42319-irn43730
type: RecordSet
archival history: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
biographical history: Vera Meisels was born on June 11, 1936, in Presov, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), to Cecilia and Zoltan Gardosh Meisels. Cecilia was born on July 5, 1909, in Trebisov to Malvina Gardosh. Zoltan was born on December 30, 1904, to Josef Meisels. Zoltan was one of seven brothers and sisters. Vera had an older sister, Aliska (Alice), born on February 24, 1932. They were an assimilated Jewish family. Zoltan and his brother, Moritz, owned a factory that produced nails for horse shoes. Nazi Germany annexed the Sudeten border region of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, and by May, the country had ceased to exist. The Slovakia region where Vera lived was ruled by the fascist regime of Jozef Tiso which was dependent upon and closely allied with Germany. In March 1942, Slovakia began to deliver its Jews into German custody for disposal per the terms of the Final Solution. Hungarian guards rounded up the Jews for transport. On March 27, 1942, while Vera and Aliska were in Trebisov visiting their maternal grandmother, guards arrived to arrest them. They wanted to take Vera and Aliska as well, but the Christian house maid persuaded them to allow her to take the girls back to their parents in Presov. They waited two days in her apartment, and then she took the girls home. Deportations also were taking place in Presov. Vera and Aliska, along with their parents, paternal uncle and aunt, Moritz (Marci) and Ilonka, and paternal grandparents were put on a cattle car headed for Lublin, Poland. At the station, they were told to get out of the railcar. After they disembarked, they saw a man named Joseph Lichardus standing with two German SS men. Lichardus had acquired the family business following its confiscation by the government. He told the SS that Zoltan and Moritz were essential for running the factory. The Meisels' house had been boarded up, so they lodged in a hotel. Lichardus sent the plant machinery to another factory he owned in Ruzomberok in western Slovakia. He moved the family there …
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had subject: 701
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn43730
is or was included in: us-005578-irn42319
record resource extent: folder 1
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Contains photographs documenting the family of Cecilia and Zoltan Gardosh Meisels and their daughters Aliska (Alice) and Vera (donor), from Slovakia.
title: Vera Meisels photographs