Mathwar/Schwarz Stefan
Stefan Schwarz
Stefan Schwarz (* May 18th 1914 in Nové Mesto, † December 6th 1996 in Bratislava)
Life
In September 1937 Hitler began his program of eastward expansion. In November 1937 he informed his military chiefs of his intention to invade Austria and Czechoslovakia. After the annexation of Austria in March 1938 the Czechoslovaks knew that they were next in line. Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain, and Daladier met at Munich on September 29-30. They agreed the Munich treaty requiring the Prague government to cede to Germany all of Bohemia and Moravia with populations that were more than half German. On 15 March 1939 Bohemia and Moravia were occupied by Hitler's armies and proclaimed a protectorate of the Third Reich. Schwarz knew that as a Jew his life would be in danger if he remained in Prague until the Nazis arrived so, immediately after Bohemia and Moravia were occupied, Schwarz left Prague and returned to Slovakia where he felt more safe.
Many were sent to concentration camps and, in November 1944, Schwarz was betrayed to the SS by some local informers. He was arrested and sent him to the Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen concentration camp north-west of Berlin. Schwarz was transferred to Buchenwald, a camp which complemented the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. There were no gas chambers at Buchenwald but hundreds still died there through disease, starvation, assaults and executions. In April 1945, when Schwarz was near death, Buchenwald camp was liberated and his life was saved. Schwarz's two sisters did not survive the war however, one dying in the concentration camp at Auschwitz and the other in Bergen-Belsen camp.