After World War II he didn't return to Hodonin, because his entire family died in the Holocaust. He settled in Brno and continued his studies, ending up as a cook.
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Displaying 7891 - 7920 of 50826 results
Bedriska Felixova
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I was relatively glad that my chosen one was Jewish. I didn't want that one day someone would hold it against me that I was a Jew. We were married at the Brno city hall in 1960. Since we were both older, we didn't want a big wedding. We invited only my mother, a colleague and her mother, and the Ulmers, close friends of my husband.
We had an excellent collective at medical school. I made many friends there, most of which weren't Jewish.
I never felt any signs of anti-Semitism in school. I don't know what may have been said behind my back, but no malice because of my Jewish roots was ever shown in front of me. In the 1950s I used to take English lessons. I thought command of this worldwide language would be useful. Under Communism, though, this lost all perspective, because they saw it as the language of the hostile West.
After World War II I resumed my unfinished schooling at the state elementary school in Brno. After that I went to a town school for four years and finally studied for three years at medical school.
Even though she had grown up in relatively poor conditions, in a working class neighborhood, she didn't agree with Communism.
My mother may have thought of emigrating, but her feelings for her native land were evidently stronger than the desire to settle in a new place. What's more, she didn't have the strength anymore to start over.
After World War II my mother got some financial reparations from the state and had a widow's pension. She stayed at home and never worked again. In reality she didn't even want to work in a collective and have people around her. I remember that she never even went out before the afternoon. She always waited for me to get home from school. Up to her death in 1973 we lived together in the three-bedroom apartment at 16 Erbenova Street.
I have no idea what happened with our pre-war apartment, and with the furniture that we had left there. Mother wasn't interested in it at all; she didn't want to return there because of all the memories. We met selfless people that helped us, but there were also those that hurt us.
Mrs. Matouskova let us stay with her because Mother couldn't find us a place to live.
In June of 1945 my Mom and I got a ride on a truck to Prague. We spent the night with a friend, Petr Bondy, who had also survived the Holocaust in Terezin. Then we took a train and returned to Brno.
While I was running back and forth between the wagons hopelessly searching for my father, a family friend saw me, and immediately berated my mother that I could catch some disease there. The thing is that typhus had begun spreading. Shortly thereafter I fell ill. A doctor came to see me, and said that it didn't look like typhus, but more like tonsillitis. I got a poultice, and tea with lemon for the first time in five years, and that doctor said to me: 'Little girl, show me what you're capable of.' Well, I guess I was capable, because I'm still alive.
Trains with prisoners from the liberated concentration camps began arriving at Terezin train station full of wretches that had been forced to take part in the death march. Being a little girl, I ran about between those wagons searching for my dear father. He wasn't to be found, however.
On 7th May 1945 at around 9:30 in the evening the Russians arrived in Terezin. The Germans had run away about three days before their arrival. All of a sudden we were in no man's land, we had no idea what was or wasn't happening. Shots and explosions which at that time carried to us all the way from Prague all of a sudden ceased and a strange quiet came over the camp.
Then he supposedly left for work from which he never returned. In those days we had no inkling that in Poland there were other concentration camps where Jews were dying in horrible conditions. Father likely died in Auschwitz in 1944.
As a child I couldn't understand that I could move about only in Terezin and couldn't cross its boundary. They left me with my mother, but older children lived in a so-called 'Kinderheim' [German for children's home], where they received an albeit secret, but more regular education. Our diet was terrible. We got unchanging soups and sauces, beet broth, barley stew and so on. To this day I can't stand to even look at barley.
In 1942 I, along with my parents, my grandmother [Jana Burgmann] and her siblings were put on a transport to Terezin. At first they gathered us in the elementary school on Merhautova Street, the next day they transported us to the main train station. We were transported to the concentration camp in passenger trains.
My grandmother had problems with her gall bladder already before World War II. In those days a gall bladder operation was unthinkable, doctors prescribed a special diet. Of course, in Terezin that was impossible. Her health gradually got worse and she ended up in hospital. I also became ill at that time, so I was unfortunately a witness to her dying. Just before her dying breath, the nurse threw me out and said that I should wait outside for my mother, who sat by my grandmother's death bed up to the end.
Smaller children in the ghetto had no schooling at all. Despite this my grandmother tried to give me at least some elementary education. Usually we sat on a bench in the park, Grandma taught me how to count and we would read from Babicka [Grandma] by Bozena Nemcova [1820-1862, Czech writer]. I have that book to this day as a remembrance.
I was too young [in 1939, when World War II broke out], I was only four and my parents didn't want to confuse me. Mother explained the situation by saying that bad people had come, who wanted to harm us. I was mainly affected by the fact that I had more things forbidden than allowed. I felt quite limited. I wasn't allowed to go to a normal state elementary school.
After the occupation the Germans expropriated all Jewish property, including Uncle Kohn's wholesale business. Because my father was a very capable clerk, they let him work a few months more in his job.
In the Jewish community [in Brno] on Legionarska Street, as it was called then [today's Avenue of Kapitan Jaros], an interim Jewish school was opened. I spent only the first grade there, because in 1942 my parents and I were transported to Terezin. I got to spend only nine years in all with my father, because he died in Auschwitz in 1944. But already as a young girl I felt that we were very close.
The breaking of one law was fateful for Bedrich. He went to one cafe for a coffee, but the SS were doing a sweep there and they immediately dragged him off to a transport. He likely died in 1941 in Mauthausen.
My parents were liberal Jews. They didn't keep the kashrut and went to the synagogue only on the major Jewish holidays. Dad really just stood there, but Mom always brought her prayer book. I don't remember whether we observed Sabbath before the war, but I do remember that on Saturday afternoons my mother's friends, who were very conscious of their Judaism, would come to visit.
My parents were never politically active. They were members of the Jewish Maccabi sports club.
After the occupation the Germans moved us together with other Jews into an apartment at 26 Legionarska Street [today Kapitana Jarose Avenue]. From there, on 31st March 1942 we went directly onto a transport, which was on its way to Terezin.
Our neighbors weren't Jewish, but we never experienced any anti-Semitism from them. We moved from Akademicka Street to an apartment on Malsova Street, where we had central heating.
Right after they married my parents moved out and bought a three-bedroom apartment at 32 Akademicka Street. There was a bedroom, living room, dining room, children's room, kitchen and bathroom. We heated with an American stove that had the logo 'hitling' on it. The apartment was tastefully furnished; in the dining room we had beautiful furniture made of walnut.
My parents spoke German to each other, but only Czech with me.
They were married in Brno in the Big Synagogue behind today's main train station on 19th February 1927. They had a proper Jewish wedding. I don't know who led the bride under the chuppah, but it was customarily either her mother or future mother-in-law.