There he got typhus. Apparently they left him lying there with the others in some pits, and then they loaded them onto open wagons and were taking them to the gas chambers. In the meantime the Allies bombed the train, so it remained standing somewhere on the track. My brother's friend from Prague died there by the morning and my brother was found by the Americans, who dressed him and sent him to a hospital, where spent a long time. Apparently they found him as a human skeleton, he weighed 28 kilograms.
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Displaying 7621 - 7650 of 50826 results
Helena Kovanicova
When my brother Viktor went to Auschwitz, he perhaps wasn't even 14 yet. Some SS soldier on the ramp apparently asked him how old he was, took his watch and advised him to say that he's a year older, and only thanks to this was my brother saved and didn't go directly into the gas. From Auschwitz he got into Kaufering, which was a branch of Dachau.
For sure our father went directly into the gas. Because back then he was 58 years old, and apparently they sent everyone from 55 up into the gas.
My mother remained in Terezin, because she was working for the German war industry, she peeled mica for German airplanes.
Our father went to Auschwitz on the very last transport, my brother went on the transport before him.
Once, another thing that happened to my husband was that he met the supreme commander of the ghetto, Karl Rahm, who out of the blue told him to take off his glasses, and gave him a couple of cuffs. Basically the Germans could do with us what they wanted.
My husband was my boss in the mechanized woodshop, and thanks to this we got to know each other. I remember that it was my birthday, and he somehow found out about it, because otherwise we didn't really talk much, and suddenly for my birthday he brought me some chocolate-covered orange peel, which I loved. I was completely in seventh heaven from that orange peel, I kept it under my pillow and didn't eat it at all, because I wanted to save it!
Because in Terezin everyone had the right to have their shoes resoled once a year, this is what I did, and I never saw them again. They sent me to some warehouse with men's shoes, so I could pick some different shoes as a replacement, so I picked some boys' shoes, and that's what I then walked around in, even for some time after the war. After the war I was even married in them, because I didn't have any others!
We left Brandys on the transport on 5th January 1943. It was a day later than the rest of the Jews from Brandys, due to the fact that my father was the head of the local Jewish community. That day we on our own left our house for the train station and took an ordinary train to Mlada Boleslav. We had sacks instead of luggage, because they didn't allow us to have suitcases. It was a strange feeling, to be leaving home with only a few bags and leave everything there.
Before we left for Terezin, my father would make various hiding places for money. He had several gold St. Wenceslaus ducats. My father would make for example little sewing kits with a double bottom, and would put one ducat into each one. He hid money in shoe polish, for example. Unfortunately I don't know where these items ended up.
People from Brandys weren't allowed to associate with us at all. They weren't allowed to say hello to us, and when we went shopping, we had to be served last of all. During the war even our neighbors from across the fence, before we were supposed to leave on the transport, came to our house by the back door and took duvets and curtains home, with the excuse that after all we can't leave them there. As I've already said, the thing that I most regret is that they also took the picture that my father had painted. Everyone then hoped that we wouldn't return, so that they wouldn't have to return anything to us.
When we were supposed to go to Terezin, the forest warden tried to save us, and asked to be allowed to keep us for forestry work, that we were terribly important there and that without us nothing was possible. Of course he didn't succeed.
In the beginning it was horrible, because we didn't know how to do anything. The forest warden for example told us to dig some holes for planting trees or sowing seeds, and then left, and we stood there, not knowing what to do, so we started to dig and dig until we had dug a huge pit, and the forest warden then came back, threw up his hands and said that it was supposed to be a shallow little trench. Most often we worked in the meadows, and because it was summer, it was usually terribly hot. My cousin always had horrible headaches from the sun. But gradually we somehow got used to it and in the end we got to like going and working in the forest.
During the war my father was the head of the Jewish religious community in Brandys nad Labem, to which also belonged Jews from villages around Brandys. Because progressively various orders, prohibitions and regulations came, and someone had to take care of administration, to keep track of the Jewish population and send out this information to them. My father was forced to take this position upon himself and set up an office in our former dining room, where he officiated. Often Germans would come to our house. Once the Gestapo rang the doorbell, and my brother Viktor went to open the door. They got horribly upset at him, because he wasn't wearing a Jewish star. For we had to wear the star at home, too.
The next day we got a notice in the mail that my father has to close his office. All doctors and lawyers had to immediately cease practicing. The Czech law and medical associations were glad that they had gotten rid of Jewish doctors and lawyers. They immediately confiscated all the money we had deposited in the bank. I managed to finish my fourth year of high school [Grade 9] but then I wasn't allowed to go to school any more, so I actually didn't graduate.
When the war began, I was 14 and a half. On 15th March 1939 the Germans arrived. That day there was a blizzard, it was snowing horribly. I was in school, in high school, and I remember that Helena Mareckova, Pepik Marecek and Zdenek David, my friends who I used to hang out with and who were about six years older than I, came to meet me at the school and walked home with me. In the main square in Brandys there were already Germans on motorcycles with sidecars. It was a horrible feeling, to see them there. I got home, I remember that we had garlic soup and cream of wheat for lunch.
I had this one friend who was named Lada Koliandr. I didn't meet him until wartime, at the post office. For a long time he used to come visit us, even during the time that it was already dangerous for him, because they could have thrown him in jail for it. He was very nice. He rounded up for us everything that we needed. He got us flannel shirts, warm socks, gloves. Once he even brought us a bow and arrow, so that we wouldn't be bored, because at that time we were almost never allowed to go out. He would usually come to our place in the evening, so that no one would see him.
After the high school games he would stand across from our house and look to see if I was there. Today there are 'panelak' apartment buildings there [colloquial name of blocks of high-rise panel buildings in the Czech Republic and Slovakia constructed of pre-fabricated, pre-stressed concrete], but back then there was an old linden tree across from our house, beneath it a pump and behind it a wall that surrounded a large garden. In that wall there was a little chapel. Before the war there used to be a procession from Prague to Stara Boleslav that used to walk through Brandys every Sunday. The pilgrims would always wake us up in the morning, when they would sing 'A thousand times we greet thee,' and because they had to walk a long ways, they would stop under the linden tree by the chapel, have a drink of water, wash their feet and rest.
Before the war, in the summer, besides going to Doubravice, we'd always also go with our parents on vacation to Spindleruv Mlyn, that was during the years 1932-1938. My father would order a taxi in Brandys, so we'd go from Brandys to Spindleruv Mlyn by car. When we were there for the first time, I was about eight years old. My mother was expecting my youngest brother, Jiri. I remember that back then we stayed in the Belveder hotel, but later we always lived in the Hotel Esplanade. The owners of that hotel, the Blechas, already knew us, and they'd call us in advance that our rooms are already reserved, and whether we were coming. We used to go there up to when I was 13 or 14.
My whole generation was of the Masaryk [8] - Benes [9] school. These were concepts that we all believed in, and that gave us a feeling of national pride. My mother's sister, Aunt Elsa, occasionally spoke German with her friends, and due to this I was sometimes a little obnoxious, it seemed to me that she should rather speak Czech. When I'd come to visit, my aunt would always in the company of her friends say about me: 'She's a big Czech!
We never observed Jewish holidays very much. We'd go to synagogue with our mother only for the Jewish New Year [Rosh Hashanah]. The next day the so- called Long Day [Yom Kippur] is observed, when prayers for the dead are held. That day Jews are supposed to fast and carry an apple spiked with cloves with them to synagogue, which you sniff when you feel weak. But we never fasted.
Before the Germans occupied us [6], our mother used to go with us to the swimming pool, where I learned to swim, but I was afraid to go into the open Labe river, because once I had almost started to drown in it.
Because there were six of us at home, my mother always had someone at home to help out. First Marenka from Chrast worked for us, who then got married, and in her place we had our maid Ema. Later, in 1938, when my mother didn't want anyone any more, we only had Mrs. Klouckova, who always came only to wash the dishes, do the major cleaning and at the same time took our laundry home to wash it. There was a Mrs. Krejcova who worked for my father, who would travel from Libise, near Neratovice. She had at one time worked for my mother's father. During the war we left some things with her, and as an honest person, she returned it all.
My father made a darkroom out of one of the smaller rooms in the back part of the house, where he developed his own photographs. Often he'd send me to buy special photo paper. Back then there weren't too many electrical appliances, but despite that we had a radio and an old-style gramophone with a horn.
Our house stood and still stands close to the town square in Brandys nad Labem. When you take the bus from Prague, it's the first house on the right with a front yard after you pass the railway crossing. I'm not completely sure who bought it way back when. It was either our father or my mother's father, who was also a lawyer. Our house was built on a slope, so facing the street it had two stories, but facing the garden it had one floor. Behind the house there was a courtyard and garden.
I think that it wasn't until from fifth year onwards that a student in our high school could gain some more coherent, deeper knowledge and at that age also had a little more sense. Unfortunately I had to end my studies in the fourth year [Grade 9], because the Germans came and I wasn't allowed to go to school any more. I remember that our Czech professor, Hlinovsky, was at first surprised and didn't at all understand why I was leaving. Finally he told me that it was a shame to lose me, and that was the end of it. I had only one year of Latin, and neither did I manage much more in other subjects.
I liked going to school. For the first two years we had Mrs. Magda Rezacova, after her Mrs. Simunkova. Both of them were very nice. When we finished 5th Grade, Mrs. Simunkova invited all of us students to her home and prepared refreshments for us. After I finished elementary school [4] I transferred to the state academic high school. Back then you didn't have to write an entrance exam, it was enough that I had good marks. Maybe Mrs. Rezacova was right when she told my parents to put me in family school. Back then people looked down on family school, they used to call it the 'dumpling house' or 'stocking house.' I think that it would have come in handy for me in life, because besides sewing, cooking and other practical things, girls also learned money management and some economics subjects.
Up until I was five or six years old, we lived in Prague in Smichov, on Fibichova Street [today Matousova] in an apartment that had belonged to my mother's parents. I don't remember much from this period. I think that we lived in a three-room apartment, and that it had a large dining room. The apartment was in an old multi-story building, on the ground floor was Mr. Sara's coffee store.
My mother told me that Grandma Eisenschimmelova had separate dishes for meat and dairy foods, so probably was the only one in our family to still maintain Jewish customs. She was also very strict.
rachel rivkina
In 1927 we moved to Gomel. Leaving Khotimsk, we sold our old house, and spent the money on the construction of a new one in Gomel. Even in comparison with modern houses, it was a large house, on Vetrenaya Street 77. In comparison with the neighboring houses, our house was very presentable: there were five rooms, and in front of the house there was a small courtyard. We had a cow, Ryabutka, a lot of hens and geese. The furniture was old: we brought it from the shtetl. As time went by, we bought new things: a cupboard, for example. My family members wore modest clothes, but they tried to dress me up, as I was the youngest, the best way. Gomel was a very clean and well-kept town.