Emil Fish wants it to be known that he is the 89-year-old Holocaust survivor from Bardejov, Slovakia, and not Jacob Fiskus, as reported in last week’s QJL article, “Profiles in Courage during the Holocaust at Kristallnacht Remembrance in FH.” Jacob Fiskus is the Director of Marketing & Distribution for Fish’s film company and a Forest Hills resident.
Emil Fish was four years old when World War II broke out, living in Bardejov, where he was born. Fish described his early life, surviving the Holocaust, coming to America, and his film, Bardejov, with the Queens Jewish Link.
Queens Jewish Li
: What was life like before World War II started for the Jews in your town and country?
Emil Fish: My life was really very simple before the war. I went to cheder (Jewish primary school), which was a few kilometers from my village. It was a typical no-nonsense cheder, with a strict rebbi.
My father was at the time in the lumber business, and so he interacted with a lot of non-Jews, and so I did as well, which was unusual for a cheder boy growing up in a chareidi home.
You know, Bardejov was mostly what you would classify today as ultra-Orthodox. But you also had some non-observant Jews and a large non-Jewish population. And they were very hostile. I rarely walked to school without being called names or being beaten up.
QJL: When were you transported out of Bardejov, and to which camp?
EF: At first, I was lucky. By the time the Hlinka Guard (local Slovakian Fascist police and Nazi collaborators) were rounding up Jews to be transported to camps, my father had made a name for himself in business. He was successful. And the Hlinka knew that certain businesses couldn’t be run without certain Jews. So, we were initially on the exemption list from being transported. I was six years old at the time. And we lived with major restrictions. We couldn’t go to certain places; we couldn’t leave the house at certain times.
And then, in 1942, the Hlinka rounded up girls in Slovakia for the first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz – 1,000 girls, about 200 of whom were from Bardejov.
In 1944, when I was nine years old, we were forced to move to a town where the remaining Jews of Slovakia were to be concentrated. And shortly after that, there was an order that the remaining Jews were to be transported to camps. We had been in hiding, but we were caught by the Gestapo. My father was sent to Buchenwald, and my mother, my sister, and I were sent to Bergen-Belsen. Miraculously, baruch Hashem, we all survived, but being separated from my father, that was very difficult. Devastating. We didn’t know if we’d ever see him again. But, by the grace of G-d, we did.
QJL: When did you come to America? Please explain the work you did, when and how long you were married, and how many children you have.
EF: I immigrated to Los Angeles in 1955. And it was difficult. I didn’t know English. But I learned fairly quickly, and I got quite good at it. I went to USC and graduated with an engineering degree.
After a few years working as an engineer, I went into the construction and real estate business. I founded Emil Fish Enterprises and, later on, Regency Park Senior Living, Inc., but my goal was always to ensure that the memory of my hometown, Bardejov, remained alive. I believe that’s why G-d helped me do all right in business. I hadn’t gone back to Bardejov until my children nudged me enough, eager to see where their father grew up and what it was like.
In 2005, I traveled to Bardejov with my then-wife Jenny a”h and my three children. When I got there, I was shocked, even angry, to see that the shuls were being used as storage facilities for local businesses and residents. The shuls had been completely neglected. The mikvah was no longer kosher or active. I decided then and there to change that. I knew that those who were lost during the Holocaust wanted to be remembered. I wanted to not only ensure the survival of their memory, but to keep alive and restore that which still stood.
In 2006, I founded the Bardejov Jewish Preservation Committee. Its mission is to preserve and document the Jewish heritage in Bardejov and to memorialize and honor its Holocaust victims. With G-d’s help, we’ve done some great work that I am very proud of. In 2009, I was appointed by President Obama to the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. There’s more to be done in Bardejov, which people can learn more about on our website, www.bardejov.org. But there’s nothing I’m more proud of than my three children and 12 grandchildren, bli ayin ha’ra.
QJL: You run successful businesses, a very active nonprofit that is applying for grants for building projects, museums, and memorials, and you’ve raised a family. What prompted you to take on a new venture at this stage in your life?
EF: I’m 89 years old, which isn’t young, but every day of life that G-d gives you is a brachah, an opportunity. I love taking on new challenges. Speaking of taking on new challenges, I got remarried a few months ago, baruch Hashem (laughs).
QJL: Mazal tov!
EF: Thank you. And so, I always wanted to make a film. I lived in Los Angeles for many years. It’s a crazy business. There’s no business like the film business. Nobody really knows what works or what doesn’t. But I wanted to tell this story about Rafuel Lowy. He was a great man. We have a lot to learn from him about resilience. About fighting for life, for what you believe in, even when the odds seem insurmountable. And so, I want people to remember the little town called Bardejov as a place where people fought for each other.
Everyone chants now, after October 7, “B’yachad n’natzei’ach (together we will win).” The people of Bardejov really lived that. That’s the message I want people to take away from the film. Even a tiny little town of Orthodox Jews can fight off even the darkest and most powerful forces imaginable. And even an 89-year-old man can produce his first film!
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Emil Fish met the film’s director, Danny Abeckaser, on a plane ride to Israel that Fish calls hashgachah pratis. Fish expressed his mission to tell his town’s story, and Abeckaser was immediately taken by Emil’s charisma and go-getter demeanor. They conscripted a screenwriter-turned-rabbi, Shmuel Lynn, to pen the script.
Jacob Fiskus is a member of Congregation Machane Chodosh in Forest Hills who brought the film to be screened for the Kristallnacht Remembrance at the shul on November 7.
Fish recently hired Fiskus to market and distribute Bardejov because of his experience in the film industry. Fiskus co-produced a film called A Tree of Life, about the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, which premiered on HBO in 2022. “He is also a very talented screenwriter,” said Fish of Fiskus.
They are both starting a film company, Bardejov Films LLC, and plan on producing many more films, including one about October 7, which begins shooting in January. “So, we hope that you’ll all be seeing more of us very soon,” said Fish.
