Documents

As part of this project we exhibit the personal documents of camp prisoners, drawn from unprocessed archival holdings at the Slovak National Archives. These documents were salvaged by Leopold Prepelica, the gravedigger of Petržalka, and kept in the (now-demolished) Rybné Square Synagogue by Eugen Bárkány during the 1960s. The documents have been researched by a team of professionals and, by presenting them, we want to acquaint visitors with the fate of some of the prisoners, and even to “give them a face”, through the photographs that form a part of the documents.

       Vocational certificate, Topoľčany, 1935
      © Slovak National Archives, Bratislava

Abraham Einhorn was one of those prisoners of the Engerau concentration camp about whom we know more than his name and the dates of his birth and death. The documents he left behind make it possible to reconstruct at least a few moments of his life. He was born during the First World War on January 23, 1916, in Uzhhorod. When Czechoslovakia was founded, Uzhhorod became part of the new republic. He completed his primary school education in Dej, Romania. Later he learnd to become a tailor and completed his apprenticeship with master tailor Šalamún Glück in Topoľčany, in Slovakia. There, the District Trade Community (OŽS) issued his apprenticeship certificate on July 1, 1935. Abraham Einhorn continued working as an assistant to his master (from July 15, 1935, to August 19, 1936), and was accepted as a member of the OŽS Topoľčany at that time.