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Noemi was born in Bratislava, the capital of the Slovak Republic, in 1943. Noemi's extended family was nearly entirely wiped out before she was born. Her immediate family, including an older brother, two parents, and a younger brother, managed to survive the war. As an infant, Noemi went into hiding; her family rented a bunker from an old Hungarian man who was unaware of their Jewish identity.
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To avoid detection, her parents never bathed the boys where they could be seen, preventing anyone from noticing their circumcisions.
To maintain their cover, her father pretended to go to work every day, ensuring that their hiding place remained secret. The family was in hiding for seven months. During this time, her father once had his papers checked, but an anti-fascist police officer helped him with fake documents.
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He also managed to obtain matzah by traveling to a neighboring town. On one occasion, a Gypsy man discovered that her father was Jewish, though this information did not spread. In another incident, when police came knocking for coffee while the family was hiding, her father hid in the chimney, and her mother refused to let them in, claiming that the children were asleep.
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After the war, the family moved into a home in Bratislava that had previously been owned by Jews. In the Slovak Republic, around 100,000 Jews were deported. Her father became the president of the Jewish community, though he was not religious and primarily dealt with Soviet Union-related matters. The family was proud of their Jewish heritage.
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Noemi was the only Jewish girl who survived the war in the entire city, and her parents were among the few who managed to save their children.
As a child, Noemi faced daily humiliation at school from the principal, who would berate her for being Jewish. She only learned about her hidden past when she was 14, after a classmate questioned how she had survived.
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Post-war Czechoslovakia, which had become part of Czechoslovakia, saw widespread theft of Jewish property, and many people were nervous about Jews reclaiming their homes and businesses. Despite her father's legal expertise, he could not practice law because of his Jewish identity. Jewish weddings were banned, and the Holocaust could not be publicly commemorated or discussed.
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In 1968, Noemi and her husband, along with others, fled Czechoslovakia, escaping via an airplane that stopped in Canada en route to Cuba. They spent three months in jail in Canada due to lack of proper papers. In 1971, after an article about her father was published in Czechoslovakia, a member of the Jewish community in Canada alerted them that her father needed to be evacuated immediately.
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Noemi swiftly secured a visa from the Canadian minister, and her father was rescued the following day. After the war, Noemi had very few relatives left, and her father’s memoir is now housed in the Jewish Museum in Bratislava.
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Noemi Spitz interview at Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy - 2023-2024
Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy
