Resources for educators - Butterflies in the Ghetto

It is December 1941, and in her barrack, a twelve-year-old girl paints a cheerful picture of two children building a snowman. She hopes the lighthearted scene will lift her father’s spirits. For weeks they have been confined to this ghetto. Worst of all, this girl has been separated from her father. She misses him terribly, but the most she can do is smuggle the drawing to the men’s barracks. She is surprised by her father’s reaction. He doesn’t want her to paint pictures of happier times. Instead, he urges her, “Draw what you see!”

From that day on, this young girl draws what she observes around her, scenes of daily life in the Terezin ghetto. By doing so, she chronicles the truth of Terezin.

Early Life

The girl’s name is Helga Weiss, and she was born in Prague on November 10, 1929. Until recently, she lived in Prague with her parents Irena, a seamstress, and Otto, who worked at the state bank of Prague. After the Nazis came to power, Otto lost his job and the family struggled to make ends meet. Helga had to leave school and continue her studies privately with other Jewish children. The Jews of Prague lost more and more rights and then were deported from their homes.

Helga and her parents arrived in Terezin in December 1941. For most of the time, Helga lived apart from her parents, in a building designated the Girls’ Home. Helga kept a diary of life in the camp and created countless drawings and paintings of what she saw around her.

Life in Terezin

Helga’s paintings show remarkable artistic talent and are rich in detail. She painted her parents in their apartment in Prague taking an inventory of their possessions, which they had to hand over to the Nazis. She depicted the rows of bunks in the Girls’ Home, an opera performance in the ghetto, and a haunting image of a girl receiving her summons to join a transport. People often received a summons at night, and the girl sits in her bunk in the dark, awakened by a flashlight shining on her.

In her diary, she wrote about a performance organized by some of the girls in her barrack. Helga and the other girls sang together, performed a short play, and experienced a rare moment of beauty in the ghetto. With tears in her eyes and her mind filled with images of her home, Helga realized that for a fleeting moment they were free.

The Hardest Good-Bye

Helga witnessed the exponential growth of the camp population, the endless transports, and the Red Cross visit in the summer of 1944. After the visit, the terrifying transports east started again. Her friends were sent away and then in October 1944, Helga’s father was assigned to a transport.

One of the most tragic and haunting moments in the diary is when Helga and her father said good-bye. She hugged her father close, resting her head on his chest so she could hear his heart beating. Then as he walked away, Helga’s father turned and waved at her with a strange expression on his face. He tried to smile, but his mouth was trembling and all he could manage was a kind of grimace. Helga called out to him, but then she lost sight of him in the crowd.

Helga and her mother barely had time to grieve before they were assigned to a transport. Before they left, Helga gave her diary and her drawings to her uncle, who hid them behind a wall in one of the Terezin barracks.

The Transport East

Helga and her mother’s transport arrived in Auschwitz a few days later. At fifteen, Helga realized she should lie about her age during the selection. She insisted she was eighteen and survived the selection. After ten days in Auschwitz, Helga and her mother were sent to Freiberg, Germany to work in an airplane factory. They worked in the unheated factory for twelve-hour shifts, with very little to eat or drink, and had to endure endless roll calls and the abuse of the guards.

As the Allies drew near, Helga and her mother were sent by rail to the camp Mauthausen, which took sixteen days. They were crammed into the train cars and endured days without food or water. As the train inched forward, they heard ear-shattering explosions from air raids and saw trainloads of wounded soldiers. By the time they arrived at Mauthausen, Helga and the other women had become emaciated, almost beyond recognition.

The conditions at Mauthausen were terrible, with food shortages, filthy, overcrowded bunks, and diseases like typhus were rampant. Incredibly, Helga and her mother survived, and were liberated by the Allies on May 5th, 1945.

Helga’s Life After the War

The two women made their way back to Prague, and ultimately managed to get their apartment back. Tragically, Helga’s father Otto never came home. But Helga and her mother Irena were never able to find out the truth about what happened to him. Most of their other relatives and friends never returned from the camps either. Helga’s uncle survived, and after the war, he was able to recover her diary and paintings.

Despite their grief, Helga and her mother knew they had to go on and build a new life for themselves. Helga enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and began a long, successful career as a professional artist. She married a musician with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra named Jírí Hošek. They had two children, and later, grandchildren. The artistic tradition continued into the next generations. Helga’s son and one of her granddaughters are professional cellists and another granddaughter is an artist.

The family remained in Prague, where Helga and her husband struggled as artists during the Communist era. For many years, Helga was unable to share her story. After the war, she found that no one wanted to know what had happened to the Jews of Prague.

Helga’s Diary

In the 1960s Helga published excerpts from her diary for the first time in a book about Terezin. Helga reflected that when she returned to her diary, she had so much more to express, more truths that she needed to share with the world. She ultimately began to expand on it and edit it for publication. Helga’s diary was published in English in 2013, under the title Helga’s Diary: A Young Girl’s Account of Life in a Concentration Camp.

Through her paintings and recently published diary, Helga has revealed the truth of Terezin to the world.

All But My Life

Gerda Weissman Klein’s book All But My Life: A Memoir and the accompanying HBO documentary One Survivor Remembers are essential resources for Holocaust education. Both the book and the documentary are appropriate for older middle school and high school students. They share Gerda’s story in her own words, which makes them all the more poignant.

Gerda was born in 1924 in Bielitz, Poland and lived a comfortable life with her parents and brother, Arthur. After the Nazi invasion in 1939, Gerda and her family had to move to the basement of their home and were later separated and sent to labor camps. During the war, Gerda loses everything: her home, her family, possessions, and her friends.

She is eventually forced on a death march in the winter of 1945, and incredibly she survives the horrible journey. Gerda later married an American soldier named Kurt Klein, relocated to the United States, and had a family. She is the author of five books, has shared her story with audiences for forty-five years, and has earned many awards and accolades.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum Survivor Testimonies

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum Survivor Testimonies page houses an extensive collection of survivor stories. The Personal Histories section features videotaped survivor testimonies, while the Behind Every Name a Story web project has essays written by survivors. There are also diaries, podcasts featuring Holocaust survivors, and much more.

The fact that these testimonies are in the survivors’ own words makes them that much more powerful. If your students can’t meet a survivor, these resources are the next best thing for bringing the Holocaust to life. With all the testimonies available, you should certainly be able to find some to use in your classroom.

Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend

The poignant book Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend by Alison Leslie Gold tells the story of Hannah Goslar, a friend of Anne Frank’s. The two girls bonded as young children when they were new immigrants in the Netherlands. Anne mentions Hannah several times in her diary, though she calls her by the pseudonym Lies Goosen.

Some of the most heartbreaking passages in the diary took place after Anne dreamt of her friend in the winter of 1943. In her dream, Hannah appeared, emaciated, dressed in rags and in despair. She asks why Anne has abandoned her, and the question haunts Anne. She feels guilty that she wasn’t a better friend to Hannah, and wonders why she was chosen to live and Hannah to die.

The terrible irony is that Anne died, while Hannah survived the war in Bergen-Belsen, along with her little sister, Gaby. Hannah and Anne had a brief, emotional reunion in Bergen-Belsen. Sadly, they were unable to see each other over the tall fence that divided them. Anne told Hannah of the desperate conditions she was living in. Later, Hannah managed to toss a package of food over the fence for Anne. Soon after, Hannah lost track of Anne, and only after the war did she learn from Otto Frank of Anne’s death.

She and her sister Gaby later emigrated to Israel, where they began a new life. Hannah married, had three children and many grandchildren, and still lives in Israel today.

Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor and Classmate of Anne Frank

In Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor & Classmate of Anne Frank, Nanette Blitz Konig shares her harrowing story of how she survived the Holocaust. Nanette grew up in Amsterdam and was a classmate of Anne Frank at the Jewish Lyceum. She attended Anne’s thirteenth birthday party and witnessed Anne receiving her famous diary.

Nanette, her parents, and her brother were deported from Amsterdam and sent to the transit camp Westerbork. From there, they were sent to Bergen-Belsen in February 1944. A year later, Nanette was left orphaned and alone in the camp. Around this time she had a remarkable, emotional reunion with Anne Frank.

During their encounters, the girls shared their sorrows and suffering. Incredibly, they also managed to speak about their dreams for the future. Anne told Nanette about her diary and said she still hoped to publish it after the war. Tragically, Anne died in the typhus epidemic at Bergen-Belsen soon after their reunion. Nanette found herself alone again.

Nanette managed to survive the war in Bergen-Belsen. After liberation, she stayed in hospitals and sanatoriums for three years while she recovered from starvation, typhus, and tuberculosis. She then moved to England where her mother’s family lived and gradually began a new life for herself. She married and moved to Brazil with her new husband and had three children. Nanette lives in São Paulo, Brazil, and she wrote her story to help us and future generations remember the Holocaust.

Children of Terror

Children of Terror by Inge Auerbacher and Bozenna Urbanowicz shares the harrowing experiences of two young girls during World War II. Inge is a young Jewish girl from Kippenheim, Germany, and Bozenna is a Roman Catholic from the small Polish village of Leonowka.

During the Holocaust, Inge and her parents were sent to Terezin. There they endured horrific conditions and the constant threat of deportation. Bozenna’s family fled their home when their village was burned and later ended up in a German labor camp. Both girls survived unimaginable terror, constant hunger, unspeakable living conditions, and the loss of family members. Both also contracted serious illnesses, including tuberculosis, during their time in the camps.

Incredibly, these young girls survived, and after the war, they emigrated to the United States with their families. They thrived in America and ultimately collaborated on this book to share their incredible stories with the world.

Butterflies in the Ghetto

Stories of the artists of Terezin concentration camp

Category Archives: Resources for educators

Helga Weiss: The Terezin Diary of a Young Girl