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Today located in north-western Slovakia, Žilina was a concentration camp from which tens of thousands of Slovak Jews were deported to concentration camps in German-occupied Poland between March and October of 1942. Most of the transports from Zilina went to Auschwitz or Lublin. The camp was liquidated in October 1942 and the remaining prisoners were transferred to labor camps at Sered or Novaky. Oscar Sladek went with his mother to Žilina to seek the release of her sister's family, who had been taken there. The guards denied their request, but as Irene and Oscar were leaving the camp, they found Oscar’s father's parents, who had also been arrested, and were allowed to take them back to Prešov.

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Before Sobrance became a part of Czechoslovakia in 1918, it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Following the partition of Czechoslovakia in 1939 it belonged briefly to independent Slovakia before being annexed to Hungary. It was liberated by the Red Army in November 1944 and again became part of Czechoslovakia after WWII. Today it is located in eastern Slovakia, near the border with Ukraine. Irene Štaub, Oscar Sladek’s mother, was born in Sobrance, Hungary.

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In the 19th century, Prešov was a part of the Hungarian region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When Austria-Hungary was broken up after WWI, Prešov became a part of the newly-formed Czechoslovakia until it too was dissolved in 1939. After 1939, Prešov was within the borders of the Slovak Republic. The Jews of Prešov were the first in Slovakia to be required to wear a badge indicating their Jewish ethnicity, and were among the first Slovak Jews to be sent to labor camps and subsequently deported to concentration camps in German occupied Poland. In 1921, the Jewish population of Prešov numbered 3,477; by 1945 only 716 Jews remained in the city. Oscar Sladek is born in 1935 in Prešov to Irene and Frici Štaub and spent most of his childhood there. The Štaubs were able to avoid the deportations in 1942 and in the summer of 1944, they leave Prešov to go into hiding where they won’t be recognized in the Tatra mountains. After they are rescued by a group of partisans and liberated by the Russians, they return to Prešov in 1945. There is significant lingering antisemitism in the city however, and soon after their return they decide to move to Košice (formerly Kassa) Hungary.

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In the nineteenth-century, Košice [Hungarian: Kassa] was a part of the Hungarian region of the Austro-Hungarian empire. With the dissolution of Austria-Hungary following WWI, the city became a part of the new Czechoslovakia until it too was dissolved in 1939. Thereafter, Kassa [Košice] was a part of Hungary until 1945 when it became, once again, a part of Czechoslovakia and renamed Košice. In 1943, Oscar was smuggled to Kassa to live with Irene’s sister and her family. After the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, Oscar was smuggled back to Slovakia. In April 1944, approximately 12,000 Jews from Kassa and its surroundings were confined in a ghetto, most of them were subsequently deported to concentration camps in occupied Poland. Before Germany’s occupation, there were 10,000 Jews living in Kassa, in 1948 only 4,000 remained. Oscar's family move from Prešov to Košice [Kassa], again part of Czechoslovakia, after the war. From there they emigrate to Israel.