All posts by tara.orah@gmail.com

Ilse Weber and a Terezin Lullaby

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Ilse Weber was a Czech Jewish poet and songwriter best known for the children’s songs she composed, including some she wrote while imprisoned in Terezin. Born Ilse Herlinger in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia, she learned to play a variety of instruments as a child, including the guitar and mandolin though she did not study music formally.

In 1930, at the age of 27, she married Willi Weber and moved with him to Prague, where she became known for the articles she wrote for children’s magazines. She also wrote a children’s book Mendel Rosenbusch: Tales for Jewish Children and produced pieces for a Czech radio station. In 1939, after the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia, Ilse and her husband managed to secure a place on a Kindertransport for their older son, Hanus, who survived the war in Sweden. Unfortunately, Ilse, her husband, and their younger son Tommy were unable to escape and were sent to Terezin in February 1942.

At Terezin, Ilse worked as a nurse in the children’s infirmary, caring for the children as best she could despite the lack of medication and supplies. She also wrote more than 60 poems, some of which she set to music and performed for the children, accompanying herself on a guitar.

In October 1944, Ilse’s husband Willi was assigned to a transport to Auschwitz. Many of the children Ilse cared for were also on the transport. Worried about the children, and wanting her family to be together, Ilse decided to join the transport with her son Tommy. Ironically and tragically, Ilse and Tommy were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz upon arrival, while Willi survived the camps and outlived them by thirty years.

Many of Ilse’s poems survived the war, and were published in a 1991 book entitled Inside These Walls, Sorrow Lives. Some of her songs were later recorded by others singers, most notably her Terezin lullaby, “Wiegala”. Ilse’s surviving son Hanus Weber has also commemorated his mother and her work through his participation in various cultural programs honoring her work. Hanus also published a book called Ilse Weber: A Love Story Without a Happy Ending, a tribute to the gifted, compassionate mother who saved him from the Nazis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_CfMk53AEU

Rendition of Ilse Weber’s lullaby (Wiegala) set to a slideshow of pictures of Ilse.

Hans Krasa and Brundibar: A Children’s Opera

Children in Terezin, Terezin Musicians, Terezin prisoners, Terezin singers, ,

Hans Krasa was born in Prague on November 30, 1899 to a Czech father and a German Jewish mother. He began studying the piano and violin as a child and his musical gifts became evident at an early age. Hans later studied composition at the German Music Academy in Prague and after graduation he worked at the New German Theater as a pianist and vocal coach. While working there, he met an Austrian-Jewish conductor and composer named Alexander Zemlinsky, who became his mentor. In 1927 Krasa accompanied Zemlinsky to Berlin, where he continued his studies and was introduced to prestigious composers of the day. Krasa was terribly homesick for Prague, and returned to his former job at the New German Theater. However, Hans also made his debut as a composer during this time with his work Four Orchestral Songs. Several other works followed, the most successful being his opera Betrothal in a Dream, performed in 1933.

Composer Hans Krasa
Composer Hans Krasa

His most notable work, however, the one which would become his legacy, was a children’s opera called Brundibar, the final work he completed before being transported to Terezin on August 10, 1942. In Terezin, he produced an arrangement of the opera which became wildly successful, performed a total of 55 times. The premise was straightforward: two poor children, a brother and sister named Pepicek and Aninka, go to the market one morning, hoping that by singing they will be able to raise enough money to buy milk for their sick mother. A cruel organ grinder named Brundibar bullies the children and prevents them from singing. Pepicek and Aninka are joined by a dog, cat, and brave sparrow and the children of the town and together they prevail over the tyrannical organ grinder.

The message of triumphing over a tyrant resonated strongly with many people imprisoned in Terezin, which may have contributed to its popularity. It also provided a creative outlet for the children in Terezin, and those who survived remember how participating in the opera offered them a temporary relief from the horrors of their daily life in the camp.

Brundibar was involved in the Terezin deception, as it was performed for the Red Cross and featured in a propaganda film shot at the camp. This is by far the darkest aspect of the opera, the way in which it was exploited by the Nazis. At the same time, Brundibar should be remembered for the respite it provided for the children of Terezin.

Hans Krasa continued to compose in Terezin but Brundibar is by far his best remembered work. In October 1944, Krasa, along with other composers and many of the children who performed in the opera were put on a transport to Auschwitz where most were murdered upon arrival, including Krasa. He is memorialized by the opera Brundibar, which continues to be performed to this day.

Below: Clip of Brundibar performance at Terezin

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_Qcw5FMrG8

Below: This video tells the story of the children’s opera Brundibar, and follows a present-day staging of the opera.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN23q-Yrbrk

 

Picture of Hans Krasa from Krizkova, Marie R., Kotouc, Kurt J. & Ornest, Zdenek. We Are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine of the Boys of Terezin. The Jewish Publication Society, 1995. Print. Used with permission.

More on Hans Krasa and Brundibar:

We Are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine by the Boys of Terezin (by Marie Krizkova, Kurt Jiri Kotouc and Zdenek Ornest)

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/sep/06/classicalmusicandopera

Ilan Ramon and Petr Ginz: The Astronaut and the Prodigy

Children in Terezin, Terezin Artists, , , , , , ,

There is an incredible and tragic connection that exists between the young prodigy Petr Ginz and the astronaut Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli in space. He was born Ilan Wolferman in Ramat Gan, Israel. His father’s family fled Germany in 1935 and his mother and grandmother were Holocaust survivors who were imprisoned in Auschwitz. They left Poland after the war, and emigrated to Israel.

Ilan graduated from Tel Aviv University with a degree in computer engineering in 1987 and joined the Israeli Airforce, where he became a highly accomplished fighter pilot and earned the rank of Colonel. During his fighter pilot training he adopted the surname Ramon. In 1997, he was accepted by NASA and began training to be a Payload Specialist, a process which took five years. He participated in the 113th mission of the Space Shuttle Program, aboard the shuttle Columbia.

Though described as secular, as the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan saw himself as a representative of the Jewish people. He opted to eat kosher food on the mission, and consulted with a rabbi on how to keep Shabbat in space. Ilan also brought with him a variety of objects that held special significance. These objects included a small Torah scroll that was saved from the Holocaust, a dollar bill with the image of the Lubavitcher Rebbe – and a copy of a drawing by Petr Ginz.

Petr’s drawing depicted a lunar landscape, mountainous and desolate, with an image of the Earth shining in the distance, though Petr did not live long enough to see the first pictures of Earth taken from space. Ilan took the image to commemorate Petr, who died in Auschwitz, and all the others who were affected by the Holocaust.

**To view Petr’s drawing and NASA portrait of Ilan, please visit: http://www.science.co.il/Ilan-Ramon/

Ilan and his crew members completed their mission, but tragically, their Shuttle Columbia broke apart on re-entry, killing all on board. The disaster happened on February 1, 2003, which would have been Petr’s 75th birthday.

The copy of Petr’s drawing was destroyed, but part of the diary that Ilan kept on the mission survived the disaster. Though badly damaged, after 5 years forensic scientists were able to restore about 80% of its content. One of the pages was a handwritten copy of the Kiddush prayer, another way Ilan expressed his pride in being part of the Jewish people.

Petr also kept a diary during his time in Terezin and wrote many poems, stories, and which survive to this day. These writings give us greater insight into who this man and boy were, and ensure that some part of them lives on.

I greatly admire their many achievements and I am in awe of their capacity to look beyond their immediate surroundings, to imagine all that lies beyond the confines of Earth and to courageously strive for a better world for all people.

Further Reading

Memorial site for Ilan Ramon:    http://www.science.co.il/Ilan-Ramon/

Petr Ginz: A Prodigy Behind Walls

Children in Terezin, Terezin Artists, Terezin poets, Terezin Writers, , , , ,
Petr and Eva Ginz with their parents before the war.
Petr and Eva Ginz with their parents before the war.

The life of Petr Ginz, an artist, writer, Esperantist, magazine editor and scholar, dramatically
illustrates the creativity and talent of so many
children who died in the Holocaust.

Petr was born on February 1, 1928 in Prague to Otto and Miriam Ginz. His father was a manager in a
textile company, and both his parents were
passionate about Esperanto. In fact, his parents met at an Esperantist convention and taught the language to Petr and his younger sister, Eva. The children were from an interfaith background; Otto was Jewish and Miriam was Christian.

From a young age, Petr’s intelligence, curiosity and passion for knowledge was evident. He wrote his first novel at age 8 and wrote 5 novels in all before he was deported to Terezin. A skilled artist, Petr also illustrated the novels himself. He was interested in a wide variety of subjects, including literature, art, science, history and geography, was an avid reader and also recorded his experiences in a diary. Petr’s enthusiasm for the arts and learning did not diminish after he was transported to Terezin at age 14, in October 1942. He continued his studies and borrowed countless books from the makeshift Terezin library, and wrote short novels.

He also made a major contribution to the cultural life of Terezin when he
established a literary magazine called Vedem (We lead), which he published weekly.
Petr wrote many of the pieces himself, and other boys from his barrack contributed work as well. The magazine featured pieces on daily life in Terezin, satirical essays, short fiction, poetry and artwork.

A close bond developed between the boys of Petr’s barrack, L417. They called their barrack the Republic of Shkid, and created a flag and national anthem. Their creativity
and imagination in such circumstances were remarkable, as was the amount of work
they produced for Vedem, much of which survives today.

Petr often wrote very matter-of-factly about the events he experienced and life in Terezin, and even managed to insert some humor. He did write some poignant pieces as well, most notably a poem in which he described how he much he missed Prague, though he knew it did not miss him. He described how he could not return because he was living like a caged animal but would always long for Prague, his “fairy-tale in stone.”

Tragically, he would never see Prague again. Petr was assigned to one of the last transports to leave Terezin, in September 1944. His sister Eva, who adored him, wrote about the day Petr was taken away in her own diary. After Petr boarded the train, Eva spotted him at one of the windows and managed to hand some bread to him before the guards chased her away. In her diary Eva poignantly expressed her fears about what happened to her brother and how she hoped against hope that he was still alive.

It was only after the the war that Eva learned the terrible truth, that at age 16 Petr
was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, along with thousands of others. A
prodigy was lost that day, and we will never know how many other gifted, talented
young people were killed with him that same day. All that remains today are the writings and drawings Petr left behind, which his sister Eva preserved and shared with the
world after the war. These works are the legacy of an incredibly gifted, creative, and
sensitive young man who held onto his dreams and his humanity to the very end.

Picture of the Ginz Family from Krizkova, Marie R., Kotouc, Kurt J. & Ornest, Zdenek. We Are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine of the Boys of Terezin. The Jewish Publication Society, 1995. Print. Used with permission.

Further Reading

We Are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine by the Boys of Terezin (by Marie Krizkova, Kurt Jiri Kotouc and Zdenek Ornest)

The Diary of Petr Ginz (edited by Chava Pressburger)

Gavrilo Princip and the Butterfly Effect

Terezin prisoners, , ,

One of the most notorious Terezin prisoners was neither Jewish nor an artist. He was instead a Serbian teenage assassin whose actions lit a fuse that ignited the First World War and set the stage for the rise of the Nazis. His story is a sobering reminder of how the unintended consequence of a single action can affect the lives of others  in another time and place.

In 1914, Terezin was not yet a ghetto. The Large Fortress was a garrison town inhabited by a Czech-speaking population, and the Small Fortress was a military prison. It was to the Small Fortress that nineteen year old Gavrilo Princip was sent for assassinating Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Hungary.

Who was this teenage assassin? He was born in 1894 to a poor Serbian family living in Bosnia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Gavrilo first attended school at age nine, and was a very successful student. At thirteen, Gavrilo was sent to Sarajevo, Bosnia, to attend a merchant school. He came to admire a Bosnian Serb who tried and failed to assassinate an Austro-Hungarian governor. He also joined a group called Young Bosnia, which wanted to free Bosnia from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and join it with the neighboring Kingdom of Serbia. After being expelled from his school for demonstrating against Austria-Hungary, Princip was recruited and given military training by a Serbian guerilla organization.

In 1914 Princip became involved in a plot to assassinate the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. During a June 28th visit to Sarajevo, the Archduke and his wife were taken by car through the city. Princip and six other conspirators were among the spectators, armed with grenades and pistols. One of them threw a grenade, which missed the Archduke’s car and wounded the occupants of another vehicle. Chaos ensued, and the conspirators were unable to continue their plot.

Ferdinand later decided to visit the victims of the grenade at the hospital. On the way there, the driver of the car made a wrong turn into Franz Josef Street. Gavrilo Princip was also on Franz Josef Street at the moment, standing outside a café, when he spotted the car. The driver was turning the vehicle around when the engine stalled. Princip raced toward the car, pulled out his pistol, and fired twice at the vehicle, mortally wounding Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. They died within minutes of the shooting.

Princip then attempted suicide but his weapon was snatched from him and he was taken into custody. At 19, he was too young to receive the death penalty and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was sent to the Small Fortress in Terezin, where he died from tuberculosis four years later.

Princip’s action set off a chain of events that he himself could never have envisioned. A month after the assassination, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Russia, which had an alliance with Serbia, declared war on Austria-Hungary the following day. Russia then mobilized against Germany, which was allied with Austria-Hungary. In response, Germany declared war on Russia. After disputing with France and Belgium, Germany declared war on them as well. That same day Britain declared war on Germany. The Great War had begun.

By the end of the war, Imperial Germany ceased to exist, replaced by the Weimar Republic. Weimar signed the Treaty of Versailles, which forced Germany to disarm, surrender territory and colonies, and pay billions in war reparations. It also forced Germany to accept total responsibility for the war.  Many Germans denounced the Treaty and blamed it for the near collapse of their economy. Later, Nazi propaganda would take advantage of the widespread view that the Treaty was unfair, and Hitler would blame the Weimar for accepting the Treaty. It helped to create an atmosphere that allowed the Nazi party to thrive and set the stage for the rise of the Nazis and World War II.

Gavrilo Princip did not live to see the massive consequences that resulted from his assassination of the Archduke. He was dead long before the Nazis occupied Terezin and transformed it into a ghetto. He could never have imagined the long-ranging consequences of his action. And we can never know what would have happened had he not assassinated the Archduke. Would the world have just plunged into war anyway? Or would war have been avoided, and millions upon millions of lives saved? We can never know, but we can reflect on the story of Gavrilo Princip and how one act of violence can flare and blaze wildly, triggering destruction that spreads far and wide. But as the stories of people such as Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and Franta Maier show, one act of goodness can also radiate into the world, across vast distances of space and time. May we never forget.

Franta Maier and the Boys of Room 7, Part 2

Children in Terezin, Terezin Leaders, ,

A few days after arriving at Terezin, the children were assigned to various barracks based on their age and gender. Franta later spoke of the impact this trauma had on the children, saying that they were in shock at their world being torn apart once again. Franta remained in charge of these children, and he was able to access the barracks whenever necessary.

Under Franta’s influence, the children received extra rations and were kept on a schedule which included exercise, classes and recreation. He was assigned to be a madrich (leader) in Room 7, in which 40 boys aged twelve and thirteen lived.

Franta kept the boys on a disciplined schedule, and made sure they were clean and that the room was orderly. But what made the greatest impact on the boys was how Franta would speak to them at night and tell them that no matter what the Nazis did, they could not take away the boys’ dignity and humanity. He told them they had three duties: to survive, to respect their parents, and to be ready for a new life when the war was over. He encouraged them to love life, no matter what hardships they endured.

Still, Franta had fears and vulnerabilities that the boys did not know about. They did not know about the heartbreak he experienced when he proposed marriage to a woman named Lucy, hoping to save her from the transports. Lucy accepted his proposal, but Franta’s mother convinced Lucy to break off the engagement, believing this was the wrong time and place to marry. Lucy was later transported with her parents, and Franta was unable to forgive his mother for years. The boys also didn’t know how much Franta feared for them, how at night he would break down and cry silently as he wondered what would happen to them the next day.

A creative life developed in Room 7; they were the first home to produce plays, and two literary magazines, Rim Rim and Nesar were created and circulated. A sense of community developed among the boys of Room 7, and deep friendships were forged. When some of the boys had to leave on a transport, there was a profound sorrow when they had to say good-bye and the entire community felt the losses.

In September 1944, Franta was assigned to a transport. The night before he left, Franta said good-bye to the boys in Room 7; the scene was poignantly described by Pavel Weiner in his diary. Franta was sent to Auschwitz, where he learned that his family was dead, as were most of the children. He vowed he would live to see the Nazis defeated. In January, Franta was placed on a death march to a work camp called Blechhammer. As the Russians approached, the Nazis abandoned the camp, and Franta walked out of the camp to search for food. He was discovered by some Russian soldiers, who sent him to a repatriation center in Czestochowa. He later became a civilian assistant to an officer for the remainder of the war.

After the war, Franta worked hard to get properties back from the 24 relatives he lost during the war. He returned to his hometown of Brno and later married a woman who had lost her husband in the war. They immigrated to America in 1947, and Franta found work in a business that produced malt for breweries. Though he initially did not know anything about this industry, he learned quickly and became a successful businessman in the malt business and later the paper export business.

Franta died in 2013, and the surviving boys of Room 7 remember to this day how he profoundly touched their lives. Franta put forth tremendous effort to provide order, stability and compassion to these young boys, and their bond with him and with one another remained strong many decades later.

Further Reading
Nesarim: Child Survivors of Terezin by Thelma Gruenbaum

Franta Maier and the Boys of Room 7, Part 1

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One of the many extraordinary individuals dedicated to the children of Terezin was Franta Maier, the madrich or leader of the boys’ home in Room 7 in barrack L417. This was the same home where the young diarist Pavel Weiner was assigned, and he and the other boys who survived remembered the profound impact Franta had on their lives many years later.

nesarim

Determined, take-charge, passionate, generous and resourceful are some of the words used to describe Franta by those who know him. These traits were already evident when Franta was 18 years old. The year was 1940, and Franta was sent to Prague to complete a teacher training course. There was a severe shortage of teachers to educate the Jewish children who were being expelled from the public schools, so Franta had to complete the course in two months. He passed the state teacher’s exams and was assigned to teach a class of 60 third-graders. Some of the children came from a Jewish orphanage, and Franta noticed that these children were unkempt and anxious, and their lunch consisted only of cold boiled potatoes. Franta spoke with the leader of the Brno Jewish community, Otto Zucker, who listened to his concerns and later observed Franta’s classroom. Nothing changed, however, and in a few months, the Nazis closed the school.

Otto Zucker offered Franta a position as the teaching and education chair at the orphanage, where 200 boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 14 lived. The orphanage was poorly funded because it was dependent on donations. Due to the war, many people were reluctant to provide money. Franta was well-known and popular in the community for being a talented soccer player, and managed to arrange for better washrooms and accommodations.

Franta also managed to introduce many positive changes to the orphanage and organized singing and music groups, Shabbat services and classes. Children from the outside were invited to participate in these activities, and friendships developed. Women from the Jewish community helped with the laundry and taught the children about grooming and how to take care of their clothes. This was a valuable service, because the children at the orphanage regarded themselves as unattractive and inferior to other children.

Franta observed that the children needed someone to listen to them and care about them, someone who could take a leadership role and instill discipline while demonstrating concern. He tried his best to be that person, and encouraged the other orphanage workers to do the same. An especially poignant scene is a description of Franta, a skilled violinist, walking down the hallways when the children were in bed, playing folk songs and lullabies to soothe them to sleep. He did this to comfort them and because he knew this was an experience that these children never had before.

The positive changes that Franta introduced were tragically halted on March 15, 1942, when he and the entire orphanage were transported to Terezin. Franta would need to rely on his intuitive understanding and all he had learned in the past two years to meet the immense obstacles he would face in mentoring the children of Terezin.

Further Reading
Nesarim: Child Survivors of Terezin by Thelma Gruenbaum

Pavel Weiner: Boy Chronicler of Terezin, Part 2

Children in Terezin, Terezin Writers, ,

In spring of 1945, as the Allies made progress on their liberation of Europe, Pavel’s mood lifted and he could again hope that freedom would come at last. Pavel wrote that freedom was such a beautiful concept for him and that he would be willing to risk his life for it. By late April, air raids occurred daily as the Allies approached the Czech border. The prisoners in Terezin were distraught by the arrival of emaciated survivors from Nazi death camps. In a deeply moving scene, Pavel took his bread ration and handed it to his mother, Valy, saying, “Give it to my father when he arrives.”

Pavel’s last entry was April 22, 1945 and in it he described a chaotic day in Terezin. Hundreds of people ran away with as many stolen goods as they could carry, a quarantine was placed on part of the camp and many inmates were fighting with each other. Then the good news arrived that the Red Cross was now taking care of them. Hope arose that freedom was drawing near. Soon after, Terezin was liberated and Pavel returned to Prague with his mother. They searched for Ludvik and Handa, and Pavel learned that his father and brother did not survive. We do not learn his thoughts from this time, as Pavel no longer kept a diary after he left Terezin.

In 1948, Pavel and his mother moved to Canada, and Pavel later moved to New York City, where he married and had a successful career as a chemical engineer. He had one child, a daughter named Karen. In 1979, Pavel discovered that his mother had kept his diary for all those years and he made the decision to edit the diary and translate it into English. It took Karen a long time before she could bring herself to read the diary, afraid of what she would find. After reading his diary and accompanying her father to Terezin, Karen believed that her father’s story should be shared. She began assisting her father with editing the translations. Sadly, Pavel did not live to see his diary published, but Karen persevered and the diary was published in 2012, ensuring that her father’s experiences would be shared with others.

Further Reading
A Boy in Terezin: The Private Diary of Pavel Weiner, April 1944-April 1945
By Pavel and Karen Weiner

Pavel Weiner: Boy Chronicler of Terezin, Part 1

Children in Terezin, Terezin Writers, ,

As I mentioned in my earlier post about the young diarist Helga Pollak, there were many boy.in.terezinpeople who kept diaries in Terezin, including children. Many of these documents have been lost, which makes the ones we do have all the more valuable. One diary that has been translated and published in English belonged to a young boy named Pavel Weiner.

Pavel was born and raised in Prague and lived in a middle-class home with his parents Ludvik and Valy and his older brother Handa. The family was not particularly religious, but their social network consisted mainly of their Jewish friends and relatives. Everything changed when the Nazis came to power and began enforcing anti-Jewish laws. And then in May 1942, Pavel and his family was sent to Terezin, ending the life they had known. The family was separated and assigned to different barracks, and Pavel was sent to Room 7 in building L417, which was the designated Kinderheim (children’s home) for Czech boys. The Kinderheim was created by Jewish administrators of Terezin and was designed to create better living conditions for the children and to facilitate secret classes for them.

Much of Pavel’s diary takes place in the heim, and focuses on his relationships with the other boys and the youth leaders who ran his heim. He didn’t start writing his diary until April 1944, when he was twelve years old. Despite the situation he was in, many of the challenges Pavel faced were interpersonal. He argued with the boys, and was sometimes teased and excluded by them. This led to Pavel feeling alienated from them much of the time. He longed for affirmation from Franta, his youth leader, and often was hurt when Franta appeared to favor other boys over him. Pavel worried intensely about his father’s health and his mother’s well-being, and yet he often argued with them, in particular with his mother. Pavel also founded a literary magazine, Nesar, which was no easy task, as he struggled to recruit the other boys in his heim to contribute articles and drawings and worked hard to build a readership. Still, he managed to produce thirteen issues, and later contributed to another magazine called Rim Rim.

Many months later, in August 1944, Pavel reflected more deeply on his feelings and the situation he was in. He discussed his anger that two years of his life were stolen from him, that he had no opportunity and no freedom in Terezin. He vowed to write about his feelings so that he might learn from them, to study hard and to start a new life for himself, even within the ghetto walls. He tried hard to keep to his goals, though it was far from easy.

Then in late September 1944, the terrifying news arrived that another transport was scheduled, consisting of men aged sixteen to fifty-five. In a panic, Pavel raced to find his father and learned that his father and his brother Handa were on the transport. Terribly upset and anxious, Pavel returned to his barrack to find that his youth leader, Franta was also on the transport. The sight of Franta sitting around the table with the boys overwhelmed Pavel, and he couldn’t hold back his tears any longer.

In entries that follow, Pavel reflected on the sorrow he felt following the transport and continuously worried about his father and Handa. Most of the boys in his heim were gone, including the few he considered friends and he was terribly lonely, longing for a friend to confide in. He wrote about his loss of enthusiasm and motivation for everything, and no longer felt any comfort or pleasure in anything. Despite his depression and intense feelings of loss, Pavel continued with his studies, continued to write, and began to work in the ghetto bakery and warehouses. Rumors of the Allied advance drifted into Terezin as the winter dragged on, but the liberation still did not come. More and more, Pavel wondered if the liberation would ever arrive and if he would live to see it.

Ottla Kafka: Franz’s Lost Sister

Kafka's Family in Terezin, Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

Another fact that is seldom mentioned about Franz Kafka is that his closest sister ended up in Terezin. Franz’s three younger siblings, his sisters Ellie, Valli, and Ottilie all died in the Holocaust. Of the three sisters, most is known about Ottilie, known as Ottla, due to the many letters she and Franz exchanged, which were later published in a book titled Letters to Ottla and the Family. She and her brother were very close, and he considered her a confidant. She took him in during bouts of illness and provided space for him to work on his writing. Though few recognized Kafka’s talents during his lifetime, least of all his own parents, Ottla was supportive of his writing efforts.

Franz Kafka and his sister Ottla
Franz Kafka and his sister Ottla

Though described as quiet and reserved, Ottla also demonstrated an independent streak. As a young woman, Ottla entered an agriculture program in which she was the only woman. The program was challenging in a number of ways, and Ottla had moments where she felt discouraged and considered leaving the program. Franz was supportive of his sister’s pursuit, but was also sensitive to the difficulties she faced. He assured her that there was no shame in leaving the program if she felt that was the right decision. Ottla persevered and ended up managing her brother-in-law’s farming estate in the northern Bohemian town of Zurau. Despite her father’s objections, she later married a Czech Catholic named Joseph David in 1920. The couple had two daughters, Vera and Helene. Life in central Europe following World War I was far from easy, and the family had to contend with food shortages, poor housing and widespread illness. Franz’s illness worsened, but he and Ottla still managed to meet occasionally until he died in 1924.

It was during World War II that the depth of Ottla’s courage and compassion became fully revealed. In 1942, as the deportation of Jews accelerated, Ottla divorced her husband, hoping that by disassociating herself from the family she could protect them from the Nazis. Soon after, she was deported to Terezin. Her daughters went to the police and begged to be allowed to join their mother, but their request was refused. Ottla’s daughters were never deported, and were able to remain with their father during the war.

In Terezin, Ottla helped to care for children who had been orphaned or abandoned as a children’s counselor. In 1943 she was selected to help care for a group of Polish children who arrived in Terezin from the Bialystock ghetto. The children were emaciated, with shaved heads, frightened eyes and would scream and cry in terror when taken to the showers. They were placed in a barrack separate from the other prisoners. Other prisoners were forbidden to interact with them and Ottla was forced to remain silent about her interactions with them. In 1943 the children were put on a transport to Auschwitz, and Ottla volunteered to go with them. She gave them what comfort she could in the final hours of their lives, what were to be the final hours of her life as well. Ottla and the children were murdered at Auschwitz upon arrival.

For many years Ottla’s daughters carefully preserved Franz’s letters to their mother. It was many years before Czech authorities allowed them to be published. Since then, they have been translated and published in English. Unfortunately, Ottla’s letters to Franz have never been found and are regarded as lost, which robs us of greater insight into this remarkable woman. This means that aside from historical facts, the most we know about Ottla as a person is what we can glean from letters written by the brother who adored her.

Further Reading
Letters to Ottla and the Family, by Franz Kafka