Civaňová Anna ; Son: Civaň Ludovít ; Daughter: Pauerová Mária (Civaňová)

Civaňová, Anna Civaňová-Pauerová, Mariá Civaň, Ludovít Moricz Weiss/Martin Zapletal did not know the Civan family before they came to his rescue. Weiss/Zapletal was the son of the Jewish Johanna Weiss and the Catholic Štefan Zapletal. He was circumcised and until the persecution of the Jews began, he went by the name Moricz Weiss. During the war, he married a Jewish woman, Margita. During the deportations of 1942, when partners in mixed marriages were exempt, Štefan Zapletal arranged to get his son’s name changed to Martin Zapletal and papers that protected him and his wife. During the second wave of deportations, in 1944, after the outbreak of the uprising and the German invasion of Slovakia, Martin and Margita were caught and taken to Sered. Margita, who was pregnant, was sent on the last transport to Auschwitz on October 17, 1944, but Martin, thanks to being the product of a mixed marriage, was able to remain in Sered. His father, who worked in Germany, came home in December for Christmas. He turned to the head of the camp, Alois Brunner, and requested that his son be released for the festivities, and Martin was indeed allowed to leave on condition that he return afterward. However, Martin was not planning to return to the camp. He was given the address of Mária Civaňová who lived in a small village near Nitra and who had said that she would be willing to shelter someone. It was with her, on her farm, that Martin was afforded shelter until the end of the war. Many of the residents of the village knew that Mária was hiding a Jew but none of them divulged the secret out of respect for her. After the liberation, Martin learned that his wife had survived and was in hospital in Liegnitz, near Breslau, and she was due to give birth. With the combined efforts of Mária and her sons, they managed to get an ambulance to bring Margita, and baby Peter, the son she had delivered, back home. They even decorated the Zapletals’ home in Nitra, in anticipation of acelebratory homecoming by the mother and child. Thereafter, the bond between the two families was very strong. After the war, the Zapletals moved to the United States. On June 13, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Anna Civaňová, Mária Civaňová-Pauerová, and Ludovít Civaň as Righteous Among the Nations.