When World's Collide

When World’s Collide

One man’s journey from the ravages of war

by Florence Yaeger

Today’s rolling Pennsylvania hills remind Emmerich Kizmann of his war-torn homeland of Czechoslovakia, the concentration camp in Nováky a not-so-distant memory where bodies were laughingly plowed over to become fertilizer.

That’s one of the memories that sticks most in his mind.

Unable to continue, he chokes up. His voice trails off as his gaze fixes on a distant neighbor’s trees. His gnarled hands wipe tears away in unison. Even with a slightly hunched back, Emmerich, now 81, has to duck down to make his way back through his Pennsylvania country home's doorframe. His grey hair newly shaven underneath a tweed cap, he squares his shoulders as the beige sweater tries to hide the lankiness underneath. Emmerich’s signature twinkle in his blue-grey eyes returns as he peers through the tortoise shell glasses that are almost too big for his face.

“I’m ok; a lot of people have had it harder than me,” he humbly asserts as he pushes his hands deep into his pants pockets. Even after decades in America, his thick Czech accent is hard to understand.

But Emmerich’s mantra has helped him through some dark days.

Emmerich's journey before arriving in the U.S.

Lost Childhood

The eastern Slovakia town of Spiśské Vlachy was a great place for a boy to grow up. After lots of hard work on the farm, there were balls to play with, brothers to rough and tumble with and sisters to annoy. The middle child of seven siblings, Emmerich was a stoic but lively boy.

That stoicism would serve him well.

While most 12-year-old boys today worry about whether they have the latest iGadget or the coolest shoes, 12-year-old Emmerich wondered if he’d live to see another day. Or what he did to warrant a hellish life in a concentration camp.

The family had already escaped to Sudetenland twice—once to hide from terrorists and another from the approaching Red Army. It was 1945, after World War II. The Russians had left and the family made their way by train back to their homeland in Slovakia. They got as far as Žilina, a small town in northwestern Slovakia near the Polish and Czech border. Suddenly, the train stopped and they were told to disembark.


“The bridge is out,” a guard yelled. “You can’t go any further.”

Confused, the nine family members, including mother and grandmother, soon realized they had been captured. Their sin? They were Carpathian Germans, of German descent, on Emmerich’s father’s side.

During the war, the Western Allies determined the reconstruction of Czechoslovakia. The Benes Decrees, named after exiled Czech president Edvard Benesch, laid the foundation for the deportation of millions of ethnic Hungarians and Germans from Czechoslovakia.

Individual Slovaks and Czechs guilty of Nazi support were condemned and ethnic Germans as a group were guilty by association.

Benesch issued 143 decrees, 15 of which were bent on dehumanizing Germans.  

Benes Decree No. 33 assured that fugitive Germans trying to return home to Slovakia were stripped of their citizenship, their property and—for many of them—their lives as they were forced into three primary internment camps.

Benes Decree No. 115 endorsed any “justified act of retribution” as fair game, including the rape and murder of children. Even today the perpetrators of these heinous acts do not require amnesty because the Benes decree is still valid and these acts are not considered crimes.

Train station in Spisske Vlachy

After getting off the train, the Kizmann’s were herded like cattle to nearby vacant air force base barracks where they spent the next two weeks getting “processed.” Then they were marched for days to a hard labor concentration camp in Nováky, a small town in the Prievidza district in western Slovakia. The children carried their grandmother, too sick and weak to walk on her own, on a mattress above their heads.

She died before they made it to Nováky, her withered body tossed by guards to the side of the dirt road like yesterdays garbage in front of her grandchildren.

Tears stream down Emmerich’s face again.

His older sister, Eva, pats his arm and says, “He was Oma’s favorite. They went everywhere together and she taught him to cook bean soup.” Brother and sister exchange glances and a sacred moment of silence.

Novaky labor camp

They endured 18 months of hell and the first year was the worst. Under terrorist rule, the camp originally housed mine workers then persecuted Jews and then Carpathian Germans. Sleeping quarters included straw to lie on and the clothes they had on for cover, along with fleas, lice and ticks. With no running water, the toilet facilities consisted of a 7’x20’ hole in the ground with a piece of wood across it out in the open for all to see. The thin pea water that passed for soup twice a day was barely enough to live on. Many didn’t.

Able women were forced to do hard labor in the nearby forest. Disease ran rampant because they were forced into sexual acts with corpses.

A Type of Freedom

For a long time, Emmerich’s family did not know what happened to his father, Albert. Armed with pickaxes and pitchforks, Albert had stayed behind in Slovakia when the family escaped to Sudetenland to help guard their home and small community.

At one point, a high-ranking German army officer bribed Albert and several others with seeing their families in Sudetenland if they would serve in the German army. Legally, German armies could not draft ethnic Germans but they could take “volunteers.” The German army forced them to volunteer by bribing them with family time.

All over Europe, railroad tracks needed to be guarded. Terrorists would often put explosives under tracks to blow up bridges and trains. Protecting these tracks was Albert's job. Eventually, Albert became a prisoner in Croatia, in former Yugoslavia, where he was sent to guard warehouses and railroad tracks since he was considered too old to be part of the war effort.

Because the Croatian language is close to Slovakian, one night Albert overheard the guards’ plans for the prisoners to be executed the next morning. He spread the word in the prison camp, telling everyone they were going to be shot at daylight and to run in different directions to confuse the guards.

Even though the Croatian guards had machine guns, the prisoners figured some of them could make it. Albert and a few of the men ran north, over the border into Austria where they became prisoners of the British and were put to work as loggers. They knew that at least the British were not terrorists.

In mid-1946, the Swiss Red Cross arrived at Nováky’s concentration camp and, after seeing the deplorable conditions, the guards changed overnight. Conditions then improved slightly. Twice a day, they were given a ration of black coffee and a piece of dark bread. The pea soup thickened slightly and a few beans were added.

Emmerich was rented out to a farmer during the summer of 1946 for slave labor. His younger brother, Joe, had some typing ability from first-year high school typing class. This landed him a job (unpaid) as a typist in the camp where he tracked the names, ages and details of incoming prisoners.

That fall, the remaining family members were sent to Germany on a freight train, in boxcars. They were eventually reunited with Albert. Ironically, Joe’s meager typing skills and a secretly helpful captor led the family to the American bloc, where passage to America was easier than if they were in the Soviet bloc.

Coming to America

Germany was divided into four zones—Russian, French, English and American. Joe’s concentration camp boss told him about an upcoming freight train passage that would be going to the American zone. He encouraged Joe to round up his family and friends and hide on the freight train.

Once in the American zone, the family began paperwork with the American consulate to get to the United States. Emmerich had an aunt who left Slovakia in the 1920s to live in New York and the family made preparations to get to the U.S. in small groups to live with her.

Dreams of a new life in the land of the free were coming true.

In May 1950, siblings Emmerich, Joe and Eva found themselves on a boat bound for New York City. Emmerich’s older brother, Alois, had a spot discovered on his lung and was refused transport. In 1954, Albert arrived in New York and two years later, in 1956, Emmerich’s mother Vilma and youngest sister Theresia completed the family’s arrival in the United States.

But peaceful times were brief.

Emmerich was drafted into the Korean War where he served as a cook. For two years, he again experienced wartime.

But back in New York, December 31, 1956 was a memorable date. Emmerich enjoyed his first New Year’s Eve party and met a sultry French Moulin Rouge-esque dancer named Lola. Emmerich’s shyness was equaled by his best friend’s determination to find him a wife, even if that included his famous sister dancer.

They dated for a while. Emmerich saved up all his money to buy a three-year old convertible that looked brand new. He wanted to impress Lola and proudly surprised her one evening by rolling up to her dance studio.

“Why didn’t you get a brand new convertible?” she asked, puzzled.

When he explained he couldn’t afford a brand new car, she dropped him “like a hot potato.” Emmerich may have had his body and spirit broken before, but this was his first experience with a broken heart.

Can’t Remember Where or When

Two weeks after arriving in America in 1950, Emmerich met a New York socialite named Helen at a party with mutual family friends. Emmerich did not speak a word of English and could only nod at her.

Suddenly, he had a flashing thought that passed through his mind: “I’m going to marry a woman like that someday.”

It was an odd thought to have about a stranger, he mused. Yet she would drift into his awareness from time to time during the Korean War and he wondered how she was. Eventually, though, he forgot about her.

Nine years later, in 1959, they met at a New Year’s Eve party. They married. They had a son and a daughter and lived the American dream for 53 years.

And it wasn’t until a warm summer night in 1976, as they both reminisced about old times, did he realize she was the one he said he would marry someday.

Emmerich and Helen buried their son in 2011. A few months ago, Emmerich’s beloved Helen took her last breath in his arms as she whispered of angels bringing her flowers.

Same as it Ever Was

Historian Tomislav Sunic sums it up. “Altogether, 12-15 million Germans fled or were driven from their homes in what is perhaps the greatest ‘ethnic cleansing’ in history.” Both the West German government and the German Red Cross put the death toll at over 2.5 million people.

The genocide of ethnic Germans is one of the many “forgotten holocausts.” Yet, despite a life filled with death, devastation and heartache, Emmerich’s mantra remains “I’m ok; a lot of people have had it harder than me.”

And for that, and so many more reasons, my dad is my hero.

Emmerich enjoys a laugh with his family.

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