After my father’s death, Mum had a small pension, but it wasn’t enough for us to live on. Mum went back to work to support us. Grandmother Louise, Mum’s mother, moved in with us to help out and we became very close.
On March 15, 1939, Hitler and his army invaded Prague and the remaining parts of the republic. That was the end of my childhood. I was 12. In the coming days, Jewish assets would be confiscated and bank accounts frozen. We had to hand in any jewellery, shares, insurance policies and portable musical instruments. We were not allowed to go to parks, sit on public benches or use public transport. We had an 8pm curfew and could only shop after 3.30pm, by which time most goods had disappeared. We were barred from having professions, going to entertainment venues and from mixing with non-Jews.
Then, in November 1941, the unthinkable happened. The “transports” began, and Jews in Prague were systematically rounded up. Someone would come at night with a piece of paper saying you had to present yourself at the Trade Fair pavilion two or three days later with your transport number around your neck.
They took Grandmother Louise first. We felt so helpless when they threw her onto a lorry to take her away. We had no idea what would happen to her. A month later, it was our turn. When we left, the worst part was locking our front door behind us. It really was the end of our life as we knew it, and the uncertainty about the future was terrifying. On arrival at the Trade Fair we had to hand in any money, our keys, papers, the inventory of our flat and anything of value. For Mum, the reality of leaving her treasured possessions behind impacted her sense of self. It was the start of a process of dehumanisation that the Nazis used, stripping us of everything.
Before daybreak on August 3, 1942, the guards marched us to a little railway station in nearby Bubny. The train was grossly overcrowded. People stood, or sat on luggage racks or on the floor – wherever they could.
The train left and my relief was great when I saw the familiar landmarks: we were going to Theresienstadt. We knew it well because both sides of my family had lived there when it was a garrison town and we had often visited them before the war. Now it was different. The small town had been transformed into a transit camp to “concentrate” Jews before their transport to death camps.
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We arrived at about midday at Bohušovice station and were made to form a column and walk, carrying our luggage, four kilometres to the ghetto. We were under escort of gendarmes with their bayonets drawn.
The weather was boiling hot, and we all wore several layers of clothing, so as to have more clothing available for winter. I had on a summer frock, then a blouse and a heavy grey skirt (into the hem of which I had secretly sewn some banknotes), a cardigan, a jacket and a light coat, and three pairs of panties and stockings.
Upon arrival at the ghetto, a man suddenly darted across the road and grabbed Mum’s fresstasche – a large bag with her food in it. The man was Mr Steindler, an old friend of the family. At that moment, I was truly shocked that he would steal our food. What I didn’t realise was that he actually took a great risk for us.
We trudged on, bewildered, tired and thirsty, into a barracks called the Schleusse. This was the place where new prisoners were assessed and their fates decided. Our luggage was searched, and they stole whatever took their fancy. Later that day, Mr Steindler reappeared with Mum’s bag, and we learnt later that the SS had confiscated all the suitcases belonging to the whole transport.
Eventually, we were allowed to leave the barracks and made our way to lodgings near the town square. There, we were allocated floor space in a shop already full of women. Meanwhile, I found out that Grandmother Louise was still alive. I went to look for her, while Mum guarded the remains of our luggage. Grandma, bless her soul, had saved most of the food we had given her a month earlier, and she wanted us to have it.
The next day a relation called Mr Taussig found us and gave us some good advice as to how to avoid the dreaded transports to Poland. He said that Mum should apply for work as a siechenschwester, a nurse for old people. The work involved carrying cold water in buckets up several storeys to the wards several times per day.
Mum was exhausted and contracted a bad hernia from all the heavy lifting. But it was a protected job at that time. At the end of the war, Mum looked 70 years old even though she was only 48.
When I told Mr Taussig that I had learnt drawing and painting, he suggested I apply for a job in the painting atelier. The SS had established it to make themselves extra money and this, too, was a protected job.
It required colouring in bookmarks and little pictures which the SS then sold. If you could not finish 100 pictures per day, or were not good enough, you lost your job and your protection. At times I lifted my head for a second to look at the nearby hills, wishing I were a bird.
We soon realised that transports to the east were leaving Theresienstadt every three days. We thought they were deporting ghetto inmates to some godforsaken labour camp in Poland. We didn’t know about the extermination camps or about Auschwitz.
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I was moved to the so-called “Girls’ Home” and was happy to escape the cramped conditions in the shop. Each floor housed around 200 girls who shared just two toilets. There was a large, military-style washroom on the ground floor, with cold water only, which we all used. Soap was in short supply, as were paper and toiletries.
For a while, we used prayer-book pages to clean ourselves, but even those ran out. I was gradually getting weaker and came down with a bad case of chickenpox, then infectious jaundice. My grandma died a miserable death on March 25, 1943, having contracted pneumonia after a delousing procedure. I didn’t know she had died. I was sick in the hospital, and Mum couldn’t talk to me as she was ill in a different hospital.
When I got out, I learnt what had happened to Grandma. They chased her outdoors in winter for delousing and shaved her head. However, I was also relieved she had died and was spared from being sent to Poland.
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Our lives there were ruled by constant hunger and fear of being transported to Poland. But we were lucky. Incredibly, there were also moments of sheer joy in the camp. Friendships and little things like getting extra morsels to eat, a flower blooming in the grass or a warm ray of sunshine in winter were all amplified.
It was in music that the real magic happened. The Germans had imprisoned a great number of outstanding artists, writers and scientists in the ghetto. Many of them tried to improve the lives of their fellow inmates by organising choirs, giving recitals or lectures.
When rumours spread, in May 1945, that the Russians were coming, we all ran onto the dark street, excited and jubilant. At first, I was euphoric, but it soon wore away. When the Red Army liberated Theresienstadt, many survivors were desperately ill and died soon after.
My years in Theresienstadt influenced my life, my outlook, my attitudes and my moral compass. I learnt to live, work and get along with people with different ideas or values from mine. To treasure family and friends. To count my blessings. Not to worry about material possessions.
My motto became: is it a question of life and death? When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I was of course considered vulnerable. But it hasn’t made me anxious. I will have to go sooner or later.
Edited extract from Untold Resilience (Penguin Life), edited by Helen McCabe and Jamila Rizvi, on sale now.
This article appears in Sunday Life magazine within the Sun-Herald and the Sunday Age on sale January 31. To read more from Sunday Life, visit The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
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