Oľga Balážová with her husband Anton Baláž.
Oľga Balážová and her husband Anton Baláž were awarded the Righteous Among the Nations award in September 2022.
Pavel David Sivor was born in July 1934 in Bratislava, Slovakia, as Pavel Suchostaver to Slovak-born parents.
In May 1942, his parents were forced to leave their apartment in Bratislava, as a Slovak Aryanizator took it over. The Suchostavers found a small apartment in a wooden house on Königlova cesta 184 (today Černicová street) in the neighborhood Patrónka. The house's owner was a Belarusian refugee Biryukoff, who fought in General Vlasov's Russian Liberation Army. David's grandmother Ružena also lived there. In July 1944, the family left the apartment for security reasons. They found a new shelter for the grandmother Ružena and David in the neighborhood Podunajské Biskupice at Ozvald family (who were awarded the title Righteous among the Nations in January 2018). Two of David's uncles - Janko and Ľudko, and his cousin Hermína were hiding there too. After their hiding place at the Ozvald family was revealed, the uncles and the cousin were arrested and sent to concentration camps. David's mother had managed to hide her mother Ružena in a hospital in Bratislava before, and David managed to hide from the guards in a sty. David's parents then found a new shelter for him thanks to the help of their friends Anton Baláž and Oľga Balážová. They took him to Veľké Leváre, to the house of Anna Balažová (Anton's mother), who had widowed that year. This happened in the summer of 1944.
David's mother worked under a false name in a hospital run by nuns at the church of St. Elisabeth in the center of Bratislava until one of the employees informed the police that she was a Jew. The police officers came shortly and took her to the central police headquarters in the city. She was sent to the Sereď concentration camp. Ružena was also arrested and transferred to Sereď, just like her daughter (David's mother) and son Janko (David's uncle). Later they were deported to Terezín.
David lived in a small room on the first floor at Mrs. Balážová's place. He spent most of the time digging a big hole in the yard, out of fear, thinking he could hide there if necessary.
After the breakout of the Slovak National Uprising, the family had to move to another place, knowing that the Germans who arrived in Slovakia would be looking for Jews. Anton Baláž found an alternative hiding place for David in Bratislava, where he hid together with the Kovačovský family. The hiding period at Ms. Balážová's home was over.
After the return of his mother from Terezín, David remained in touch with the Baláž family, but after immigration to Israel in February 1949, they lost contact. So when David came to visit Bratislava after many years, he looked for the members of the rescuers' family until he accidentally found Anton and Oľga Baláž's niece, Edita Gavorová, who is their next of kin.
