My father found himself on the black list, he was interrogated a few times, but they didn't put him in jail, but instead put him on the very first transport that went to Terezin in October of 1941, that was transport number AK1, which stood for 'Arbeitskommando' [German for 'labor battalion']. This group was to take part in reconstruction of the town of Terezin into a Jewish ghetto.
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Tomas Kraus
Dad was a journalist and writer. He wrote the records of the Kraus family in the form of books in which he reminisces about his family and childhood, though he did also write other people's stories, there are a lot of autobiographical elements in his works.
As he himself once wrote, he lived a relatively idyllic childhood, on the slum-clearance and demolition lots of the Jewish Town, in those days Prague's fifth quarter. As was common back then in so-called better Jewish families, he came by his elementary education at the Piarist convent school on Panska Street, then continued at the private high school on Jindrisska Street, and then did his graduation exams at the classical high school in the Kinski Palace on the Old Town Square.
My father managed to protect his mother, my grandmother, from the transports until 1944.
Grandpa then remarried, he married some Maria, I don't know her whole name, but I do know that she wasn't Jewish. That saved his life during the war, because she didn't divorce him, on the contrary, she tried to keep their marriage together. Marie kept him in Prague for the whole war, up to January of 1945, when he had to leave for Terezin, but he was actually only there for four and a half months and then came right back to Prague.
She told me a story, that when they were returning from the camp in Kudowa Zdroj, the Russians were transporting them on a truck. One time, when the Russians had caught some Germans, a Russian soldier came up to my mother and her friend, handed them a rifle, and said, 'Now do with those Germans the same as what they had done with you,' and all they said was, 'If you want to punish them, shave their heads.' Because my mother never talked about her imprisonment, this is the only anecdote I know from that time.
In Kudowa Zdroj she lived to see the liberation - in May of 1945 the Russians arrived there and transported the prisoners away.
In Auschwitz my parents were separated. Both of them were lucky, in quotation marks, that they were assigned to work.
It was very hard for them to get used to Prague and make it there, because they couldn't speak Czech. People in Prague looked upon them as Germans.
He had a shop across from the Hotel Ditrich, which when I tell this to Teplice natives today, they say that that's as good a place as you could get.
jiri munk
We recently returned from a small town in Italy near Bologna, where on Holocaust Day we were telling local children about our experiences. My wife is one of the last living children that wrote poems in Terezin, which were preserved, and are contained together with drawings in the book 'Butterflies Don't Live Here,' which was translated into all major world languages. Many of these poems were set to music all over the world, made into dramas, or are part of Holocaust memorials.
After the revolution in 1989 my wife and I both began to actively participate in the Jewish community in Prague, and helped renew its activities. To make use of my profession, shortly after the revolution I became a member of the construction committee. Besides this I'm also a board member of the Matana joint-stock company, which administers Jewish property that was returned to the community in the restitutions.
Besides this, after the revolution I had to deal with the restitution of our property for the entire family. It was terrible torture, which ruffled my nerves and ruined ten years of my life. I found it especially hard to take because I despise property and have never wanted to own anything, but I felt a responsibility towards my family, mainly towards my daughter, to ensure that justice be done.
After she finished school she wanted to make a living as a fine and graphic artist. She designed book covers, business cards, and finally also made it into the film industry.
Due to her political profile, our daughter had a problem getting into any university, so in the end she had to settle for the Faculty of Education, though she claimed that she'd never teach. On top of that she had to pick a field that people were the least interested in, which was understandably enough Russian, which she began studying in combination with art education. After the revolution she switched Russian for educational psychology, and this she then studied along with art education until the end of her studies.
During the Normalization period we were personal friends with some of the leading figures of the dissident movement, but to be honest, the dissident movement repelled me, because 90% of them were former Communists.
During the entire time of the Normalization, my wife worked as a dramaturgist for animated films. It was pleasant work, given the possibilities in those days. Animated films kept up their good level of quality, because the Communists couldn't pervert them as much as normal movies. This field became home to some well-known artists who couldn't work anywhere else, because they were uncomfortable for the regime.
Of course we too were considering emigration. Every day we debated whether we should or shouldn't stay in England, in the end we decided that we'd return. Most of our friends emigrated. We said to ourselves that we can't let ourselves be pushed out just like that. I'd never been a member of the Communist Party, and said to myself that no one can force me to do something that I don't want to do.
About three times I was stopped by Russians with machine guns. At the time we were all wearing a tricolor [ribbon] on our shirts, which they tore off me along with my shirt the first time, as soon as I stepped out of the car. They then began to search the car, they were probably looking for valuables or some propaganda materials.
When we were driving along Chotkova Street, we passed machine gun emplacements. Chotkova Street is a serpentine that leads downhill, and as I was driving by the machine guns, their muzzles aimed at me and followed my position the entire way. They followed me constantly. Luckily in the end they didn't stop me. When I got to work, everyone was amazed, and told me that I was crazy to have come by car.
Right on the day of the occupation, 21st August, I was alone in our apartment in Vokovice, because my wife was with our daughter, who was three at the time, on a recreational trip organized by the journalists' union at the Roztez chateau by Kutna Hora. During the night I heard planes flying overhead, I heard tanks driving in from the airport, those small ones that can fit into airplanes. I said to myself, those have got to be some sort of maneuvers again, it didn't at all occur to me what was really going on.
These clubs weren't isolated, and in 1968 communicated with each other about political matters, and basically to a certain extent co-created politics. For example, our club invited to its founding meeting the philosopher, poet and politician Ivan Svitak, who was a very noted person back then, as he was very active, wrote newspaper articles, participated in various similar meetings. [Svitak, Ivan (1925-1994): Czech philosopher and political scientist] At the same time we also had delegates from other unions as guests. This founding meeting took place in July 1968. To this day I remember his speech about the direction of reforms back then, which ended with him saying that either the situation will stay the same for some time more, or that the Russians will occupy us. Back then all of my architect colleagues laughed at him, but in a few weeks, or perhaps even days, his prediction came true [35].
My wife was always very socially active. I don't know how she met so many important people, but most likely they had studied together, and later she met many people through her work in film.
Luckily she started working in film animation for the group 'Bratri v triku,' and she stayed there until retirement. For a long time there was a shortage of scripts for animated films and thanks to this in 1965 we began to write scripts for animated films together. My wife began with it, but I soon joined her, because I found it fun. Cartoons about two doggies - Staflik and Spageta [Stepladder and Spaghetti], became widely popular.
My wife graduated from journalism. At first she worked as a journalist in some magazine, later she worked in Barrandov [a well-known film studio in Prague] as a dramaturgist.
My wife then had many troubles due to him, they used to take her in to the StB, because her brother occasionally broadcast on Radio Free Europe [33], which in the 1950s was no joke. It was all carefully noted in their cadre files. Because from the regime's point of view, a Communist who emigrated was much worse than a non-Communist. My wife's brother devoted himself mainly to literature, he's a well-known poet, writer and playwright.
He was the only Communist in our family, but a Communist of a different type than were those that during the Communist era bowed down before the regime. Before the putsch in 1948, my wife's brother had gone to France on a business trip, where he then published some political magazine. When after the putsch the Communists summoned him back to Czechoslovakia, he refused to return and stayed abroad.
First he worked as a proofreader in a graphic factory in Hradistek near Stechovice, where they manufactured various decals. This work at least had something to do with art, my brother was even in charge of an art course for the other workers. Before retirement, though, he was working in the Amati Kraslice factory, where he only packaged trumpets and other musical instruments, though he still did art as an amateur.
Besides work in Cheb, during this period I in some fashion got to some interesting work for the architect Zazvorka [Zazvorka, Jan Sr. (1884-1963): Czech architect], who was a very prominent architect, who'd designed for example the Vitkov Memorial and Smichov Railway Station in Prague.
So I stumbled around like this for about two years, and was always with one foot in jail. I was constantly answering various ads with work offers, but they refused me everywhere as soon as they saw my cadre profile. I was in danger of having to serve time, because I had a suspended sentence and wasn't working, which was an offence. So rather than that I went to work in Cheb [a town in western Bohemia], as a manual laborer on the renovations of the historical center of town, but there was still a question mark hanging over my head.